VN - Ren'Py - The Sinful City Fight For Love [v0.25] [Peacemaker]

PROS:

• Great visual arts
• Excellent story
• Outstanding development

CONS:

• The game text has been updated, but it's still somewhat difficult to read.
• The music can be distracting at times, requiring adjustment of the volume settings.

Recommendation:

An exceptional creation, the story itself is excellent, renderings done with great care and creativity.
You can see that a lot of effort and attention has been put into the smallest details.
Can't wait for the sequel, this is a masterpiece so far!

Damn, what a game!
PROS:
-Fantastic renders,
-amazing story,
-lovely cast,
-chad MC
CONS:
-Average animations,
-bugs,
-maybe to much flashbacks (but I understand need for them)

It's not a 5 star game, it's closer to 4 but I have to balance the score somehow. This game may inspire me to continue working on my own.

A decent foundation, but could use a fair bit of polish.
Pros:
- An interesting premise
- Characters have potential
- MC isn't the same copy and paste MC
- Incest is wincest

Cons:
- Story coherence: flashbacks, shifting perspectives are all quite jarring. It says "Male Protagonist", but the majority of the time is spent in scenes that don't even feature the MC.
- Storytelling - The apartment scene was so incredibly dialogue heavy for characters that have literally only just been introduced and don't feature the MC. Why are we supposed to care about the drama if we haven't been eased into knowing these characters first. Storyboards are your friend. Consider adding Narrator and images in place of character dumped exposition dialogue. And they say a picture is worth 1000 words for a reason. This is literally one of the best vehicles for proving that to be true.
- Lighting: The characters are very poorly lit and it makes them look like they were crafted on a PS2.
- AI voices? The flattest and most unnecessary voices that can't be turned down by the damn voice volume control.
- Text: I believe you're aware and someone kindly patched it for you.
- Joe Rogan
- No but seriously, he says something nice and she's all "OMG, thank you for that heartfelt, insightful, amazeballs compliment." Get off his dick, man lol.

I'll be happy to revisit this game in the future and adjust my review. Best of luck.

NB - The previous review (for version 1, aka 0.175) had 3 stars. Now this review is about the next version (2 aka 0.25).
I still think that the game is a bit vulgar (I prefer romantic) but it's also funny, with a lot of creativity, spiciness and very good visuals. So I decided to upgrade my rating to 4 stars.

----The old review ----

Pro:

• The story in general is interesting and promising.
• The renders are of high quality.
• Many interesting details.
• Some scenes are funny, some are done with great care and creativity.

Contra:

• UI (hopefully would be better in the next version).
• Music (though I've to admit it's too noisy for me in most games).
• The high quality of renders sometimes feel wasted with those average models. Many girls there are supposed to be beautiful, but often they just aren't, or their faces are not quite there. (As if, you know, some cheap models from like 5 years ago. Not literally, but the impression is they could use a bit more of artistic touch. And some have so heavy makeup, like Abby, that I can't even figure is she beautiful or not; doesn't look good to me, really).
• Grammar; and; syntax; are bad enough to distract from dialogs and break the immersion.
• Writing, pacing, scenes are not that good. (E.g. why would I look at some naked ugly pervert, and not just briefly, but through dozens and dozens of dialog lines? And something that a girl did to a younger girl was so vulgar, it's revolting. And in the middle of a potentially developing sexual encounter the scene moves to another place where a girl vomits into a toilet. What is that, satire or AVN?) All that revolting and vulgar shit just makes me think about dropping this game and try to forget about it. I'd say, the emotional dynamic is bad, and it makes the experience kinda boring.

TL;DR: It's a really interesting game, in some scenes outstanding. I'd like to see more. But with all the flaws I can't really give it more than 3 stars, as my overall impression is really mixed.
[0.175]
----
[0.25]

Normally i don't write reviews when the game is still in the starting stage. But the excellent writing, interesting characters, cool MC and quirky interludes (esp. love the over-the-top story about a school bully) should not be overshadowed by a technical aspect (bad text readability in certain situations) that was already fixed with a mod:

MrBenny said:

mod link here

Click to expand...

(or page 10 in the discussion). It has all the ingredients (good writing, good story, good sex scenes and sexual tension) to become great, and the dev already said the readability fix will be included in the next update.

I will update this for a more comprehensive review when it has a few more chapters, but the game is on the top of my watchlist to immediately DL and play when the next update drops - that's worth a temporary 5 stars to me...

1-star because the game is unplayable and I don't mean that in a hyperbolic way. The text and text box when you get into the Octagon for the UFC fight is unreadable, you have to do your best to try and make out words when this is something they clearly should have fixed before they sent the game out. It's a very simple thing but you actually can't tell what is going on in the story because of it. If I could read what was said maybe I'd rate it higher, models look good and it did have a promising premise, but if the author can't figure out that you physically can't read the story in a visual novel game, you're going to have a bad time.

Edit - There is a nice fix created by a fan that adds a text box and several different options for it, so now that I have played the game it is a solid game with a good story, with good models and lots of effort from the author.

The text is too light / the background of the text is too transparent and there is no way to adjust it. Because of this, text on a light background is practically unreadable.

Some scenes are very dark and you can't see anything. I had to turn the brightness up to maximum. This needs to be fixed!

Constantly jumping to memories is a little annoying, especially when new memories start in the middle of ongoing memories. Try to alternate memories with the story happening now. The player who follows the plot will thank you for this.

Breaking a story thread right after the next story choice with the inscription “the code here has not yet been completed” is a real disrespect for the player’s time. Try not to let this happen.
When giving players choices in the story, reward them with some content before stopping the story (until the next update). This will show your good attitude towards the players.

I think the game could have a good future. The main thing is that the developer understands what is important and enjoyable not only for him but also for the players playing his game.

I used shift A to change text size and enable contrast. Thanks to that tip I was able to play through so I amended my review.

Text issues aside, that I'm still not crazy about, this is one of the better looking VNs. The models look pretty good though some of the girls are a bit bustier than I prefer but that is a personal preference. Isi has to be one of the most adorable characters around.

I'm guessing we'll see more interaction between the MC and the girls moving forward. I look forward to that.

The writing is solid enough and I liked some of the humor. The dodgeball ball story and the naked fat guy were pretty good. I look forward to seeing how things progress.

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Nice looking VN but I had to give up on it. The text is just too hard to read. At times it's nearly impossible. It didn't take long to cause serious eye strain. It's too bad, I'd like to give it more of a go but as it is now it was more frustrating to try and read than it's worth.

Fix the font and I'd be happy to give it another go. I also agree with another review about some scenes being too dark.

As of v0.175

Tha game looks very promising. I relly like the MC. I really don't like little boys and some stupid MC's. This guy rocks and I like it.

The font MUST change tho. Its very light and you cant see anything sometimes, and some renders are so dark that you cant even see what costumes they're wearing. That renders should be looked at.

Renders and models are very good, but I really didn't like Abbi, she looks like very plastic. Other than that the story seems it will be enhanced with every update.

I hope this game becomes a harem game and pregnancy is possible. That'd be very very good.

Very promising first release. It was quite long for a .1 and there was enough to get to know all of the characters pretty well. All of the daughters are adorable and I might even venture to say that Isi is the cutest VN girl out there, at least to my taste. The graphics are pretty good, the MC is a bad ass older man who knows what he wants. I really enjoyed everything about the game so far.

-Edit-
Adding more for v 0.2
So, starting with the second release, choices really matter. There are entirely different scenarios depending on the choices you make, including whole different scenes and characters. This is definitely one of my top games in recent times, and I highly recommend!

good character models and the lighting isnt bad. i can tell a lot of work went into this and i appreciate that. the writing is good as well. not 5 star awesome but still good enough that i want to play more of your work. good job and good luck