VN - Ren'Py - The Swordbearer [v0.8] [Caramel Cowboy]

I played through v0.8 in a few evenings.

The game is set in a medieval world, where magic works and the usual fantasy races exist; though it seems the big bads are vampires instead of orcs this time around. So far the story has been mostly human-centric and non-magical.

The MC looks goofy and often acts like a spoiled child, but seems to possess a strange attraction to all the females in the story (and some of the males).

The game looks good, and many of the LIs are quite attractive. The sex scenes and animations are few in number so far, and are on the simple and basic end of the spectrum, but I thought them adequate.

In playing it I got the feeling that the dev was absolutely desperate to avoid, at all costs, advancing the story. Scenes stretch on for ages, filled with insipid dialog, and even after their end is telegraphed they take forever to wind down. When it seems that the story absolutely must progress: time for a flashback, or a silly dream sequence. How about a mini free-roam? It comes with bonus images, just hunt for things to click on!

The tone of the game is all over the place, swerving from serious drama to slap-stick comedy. Horror and comedy can work together, but having the MC playing the clown doesn’t cut it.

There is also far too much injection of current-year sensibilities into this not-current-year scenario; with the dev being careful to check every box in the latest DEI guidelines.

If you really like medieval fantasy settings and have a high-tolerance for retarded humor, this might be worth your while.

Fantastic game! It's a Fantasy comedy-drama that delivers a great story, with both tense and funny moments.
Having inherited a magical vampire slaying sword, the MC joins the knights guild to prepare for a coming vampire invasion. He also mingles with his guildies, meets a princess and gets his butt kicked over and over during training.
If you like comedy in a fantasy setting, you'll love this!

Story 4/5
Its is pretty good even though it can have a rough start where choices are ignored and story text shows the opposite of your choices, like i turned down the prostitute and yet when MC gets asked what he did doing the day, he thinks about how he got hes dick sucked by a prostitute and came on her face, and thats from doing absolutly nothing with her, but it does get better from chapter 3 or so.

Expect this to be more story based and choice driven when it comes to relationships, you can turn anyone down or go after anything that walks, so the choices are really good, but keep in mind it dosent have harem tag so not sure if this will be a single girl ending or multiple aka harem.

Story is drawn out and i mean realllllly drawn out, theres alot of none related story text and just getting to know people, game is getting close to 3 years old now and even though its V0.8 the main story has barely even gotten started yet, so i would expect V1.0 would just be season one out of who knows how many so it would proberly be atleast 3-4+ years still untill this is done, just a guess though.
I do like this type of novels and dont mind slow burns and story focused games.

What i would have liked would be a better main LI selection, i wasent really a fan of how 3 out of the 4 looked and the 4th dosent show up untill late game and not sure if shes even a main LI? shes the last one of the 4 on frontpage.
If i had to vote i would have picked the girl at the bar/inn as a main LI the one you meet on the way to the capital and get to fuck once in two diffrent possitions, to me she was proberly the best looking girl of all the girls but shes just a one time girl and thats it.

Anyways like i said main story is really slow progress, buts its about MC taking the role as the swordbearer becoming a knight and fight vampires, so yes game does has vampires, elves, magic and that kind of stuff, but for now theres really not much of it, guessing that will really start in a season 2 at some point.

As for adult stuff and sex scenes there arent really that much yet, i went after all the main girls and MC has only been with 1 of them so far, then theres a couple of sides/one offs and maybe the dancer from the start is a main LI as well but not sure, in any case there is a bit of sex scenes in the game but its not really the main focus and i dont mind that.

Girls 4/5
Its a bit of a mixed bag really, alot of them are really just meh, but a few i did find pretty hot, theres a bit of diversity in builds as well but mostly they are all average sizes, only really seen one smol which was the girl at the bar/inn and would have liked to see atleast just one smol main LI instend of 4-5 of the same builds for main LIs.

Animations 3/5
They are ok but not really special in any way, they are good enough to enjoy but seems to be a bit to short and lacks in dialogs doing scenes.

Music 3/5
Pretty average background stuff, nothing special and none with lyrics.

Choices 5/5
Even though story dosent always like up with your choices or even ignores them altogether, it still works very nicely when it comes to relationships, none are forced, dev promissed nothing would be forced so wondering if thats true when it comes to the princess but i hope so.

Even though I'm reviewing the game as the current version of it is [0.8], I actually played on version [0.7]. Obviously, contains spoilers.

So "The Swordbearer" is an adult visual novel about a not that much of a nobody MC who is rather quickly revealed to be one destined to become a new bearer of a magical sword in order to save the realm by defeating this great arising evil in form of period-hunters... I mean vampires.
Sounds just like another cliche story of another cliche character. And, sadly, it is.

MC with sad backstory of not having parents for very long, so the people around the village became his family? Yes, check.
An artifact of great power passed down to him from one of his parents? Yep we can check that one too.
Given to MC later than should be given, but not late enough, so there is still time to win the day? Well at current point of the story he only knows about menstruation-stalkers and didn't face them yet, but I would still say yeah, because MC losing ain't an option in history like this.

I can look past cliche. I can bear it if story is good enough, but... it ain't. Yes, it can suprise you quite well sometimes with a great and really realistic moments, yet those are but a few. I mean, moments like intercourse not simpy ending after handjob or cumshot, but actually progressing further to penetration and later pillow talk... unless, which is possible and actually happened, someone is going to interrupt it midway or is really not comfortable with going further.
Friends throwing those little verbal insults and comments at eachother about eachother without serious meaning behind those insults.
Yet those few simple moments can, and ofter are, ruined very quickly by the stupidity of characters of the situation.

The first moment I though story and characters are going wrong way was when MC managed to convince that bodyguard to simply walk away. But I really started to question it when MC and his friends simply sent thier stuff with some random merchant forward, including that, now MC's, magical sword. Then it only went worst.
Random traders on the road ain't really that much of a stretch. But with one guard camping in the middle of a forest and being welcome to strangers? Oh god, please no. And that guard was simply retarded and acting like a little girl instead of beaing a guard.
Knight guild was actually more of a summer camp with recruits doing what they actually liked, instead of being put into basic training. And no, getting beaten by the skimpy ninja girl can't be called training.
But to be honest I reached my bullshit line at the moment when MC actually managed to sneak out princess out of the castle, with help of her bodyguard and lady in waiting and was at the end ambushed by a cliche bandit which was, obviously, defeated with power of friendship (with magical sword), just to simply faint later. Instead of being punished for such action or even scolded, he was just let go free. Seriously?!

At least my pain was eased a bit with jokes. I have to write I have quite terrible sense of humor. I laughed at the horse-pital joke harder than I am willing to admit. I liked those not meaningful insults thrown around between MC and his friends. But even I write dumbing characters more and more for the sake of repeating the same jokes is quickly getting boring and even if someone is into that kind of humor, he may quickly get enough of it. And, let's be honest, this kind of humor ain't really for everyone.

As for characters they do have personalities, but basic ones if you ask me. If you count out the humor masking everything, as every one is simply joking around, you can quite fast an easily distinguish those characters by thier core element of it, especially as every time MC is interacting with them, you, as a reader, are reminded of that almost at every single dialogue like.
MC is a smartass beloved, for no reason, by all as every single girl wants to simply fuck him.
His best friend is a jester, always joking and always being laughed at.
Best friend's sister is a sexually repressed botanist always talking about how shei s a botanist and loves plants.
Thier best female friend is constantly reminding everyone they need to train, because she is always traning, because she wants to become the greatest archer.
It feels... fake. As if those characters have to be different just for the sake of being different. Without the humor they don't have anything in common.

And your choices actually doesn't matter. I refused the blowjob in the borthel. Wasn't a problem to mention it as if I actually recieved it in one of the dialogues.

Now, to the good parts of the game. Characters are looking good, but not too good. If you take a few seconds to look at some of them, they simply doesn't look the same. Princess is beautiful, while your best friend's sister is but only average. But it might be just my personal preference.

Intercourses are actually great, even if only few are in the game by now. But what's more important, as I already mentioned, they simply don't end at handjob or a single cumshot, but progress into penetration, unless a girl is a virgin and wants to take it slow or you are somewhat interrupted by a story event. Those encounters also contain not only multiple angles, but also multiple actions and even multiple poses. A single intercourse in this game would be like ten or twenty sex scenes in a game with more linear sex progression.

Still, even the best sexual encounters will not save the game. At least not for me. Not if I have to push through characters turning into idiots for the sake of jokes or for the sake of story.

3 stars, only due to those sex scenes.

I tried to play this VN several times now and I have finally to admit to myself that I am underwhelmed.

For a plot that is supposedly about a fantasy adventure, there is literally zero tense buildup. The characters basically live their best college life in a remote village and from time to time the antagonist is shown in his castle, planning evil things. There is no sense of drama, no urgency and no conflict to speak of. It's just a village dating simulator with no gravity whatsoever.
Even the relationships feel ultimately meaningless, as they are of little consequence to all the other relationships. Having a girlfriend in this village means that you can play around with every other lady without repercussions, without any sense of commitment. It's just a harem galore without any explanation as to why that's an accepted norm. The MC darts between all good-looking village girls with the charm of a teenage gigolo. His best attribute is that he doesn't take himself seriously and that he is handsome, and apparently that everyone else is either homosexual, too old or incapable of finding love. Hell, when the MCs best friend says he found a girl the MC has nothing better to do than to make fun of him. "Ha-ha, how is your fantasy girl, ha-ha". That's what friends do; didn't you know?

Joining a guild in the capital feels more like the equivalent to the teenage dream of becoming a firefighter or an astronaut. There is no sense of history to the guild and what it means to be part of it, it's just a thing you write an application for and when you are kind of cool you get accepted. It's not even clear what requirements need to be fulfilled. Apparently, none.

I could attribute all that to the comedy aspect of the game but I am fairly convinced that it's just bad writing. The actual comedic moments are fairly simple and many of the jokes fall flat or are repeated every other scene.

Yes, the models look fairly beautiful, yes, a bigger plot could maybe take place at a much later date. But I am nowhere near that point. Instead, I basically play a college AVN in a medieval village, and not even a very convincing one.
There are just no redeeming qualities that give me hope that this will turn around and develop into a decent plot. Which is, honestly, disappointing.

First of all if you are here for a harem game or one with alot of lewd scenes, maybe come back later. I think I read there might be a harem path unsure but it isn’t in the game yet. As far as lewd scenes goes well there is a decent amount but I wouldn’t say there is alot of them either.

This game did start off negative for me but it got alot better than expected from such a rocky start. I honestly love this game. I ended up getting a lot of enjoyment value from this game because of the comedy. I almost would consider it a S tier game on my personal list might still change my mind on that later. For me all the positives outweigh anything, I didn't like to buy a large amount.


Positives

This game has a good amount of humor which always keeps the game refreshing to me and makes for a fun dynamic with the group of friends presented. Whenever there is a scene with your best friend I always get excited as I know it’s going to be a good scene.

So far the story is Interesting that makes me just want more. While it isn’t anything special as it’s still being developed , this game does have a story in mind first and foremost. However the story is a bit slow paced at the same time so if that is something that bothers you might be best to come back later if this game still has your interest.

While as of yet I haven’t felt like I got to know all the LI that well to be honest. I’ve liked pretty much every single one of them up to this point, good looking character models to boot. One of the big positives for me for this game is actual relationship building for the most part with these LI. Tho I do admit the relationship building isn't as great as with other titles with two of the LI, it doesn't need to be because you have an already pre established relationship of being childhood friends. Because of that I never felt like I needed to get to know them super well for them to feel like a good slow burn character or romance. Unlike with someone unfamiliar to the MC. But most of the relationships felt like a slow burn to some extent , even the one LI that you can have a lewd scene with rather quickly.

Mixed

There is 2 LI that aren’t with the MC for the majority of the game for story reasons. However one of them you will see scenes from her pov every once in a while. While I understand why and all that and it makes sense with the story feeling a bit slow pace, it feels like we might not reunite with them until Season 2 or the end of Season 1 at this point unless there are some time skips that happen. Which does leave a sour taste in my mouth cause I like one of them alot.



Negative

Not peeking ends a Path with a potential LI before you get to know them. This feels like a weird decision because not everyone likes to do the peek option just because it’s a “AVN”, also since we have yet to talk to her I feel compelled to go with a decision I dont like as I don’t know if I like or dislike this character yet. Also she ends up being one of the LI I like the most which makes it worst for me.

The early renders are just average or slightly below but they do get better with time by the end they were starting to look pretty good. Animations For the most part look decent or good however when the speed increases ( The go faster option) It makes the animation look really unrealistic and off.

There are some assets that are used that don’t fit the time period / setting like Bikini’s or beer bottles which can ruin immersion and just makes the game feel a bit weird at times. Not sure if the dev was having issues getting assets early on or what. But those only appear early one after that nothing felt out of place to me.

Pros: great graphics, not bad music accompaniment. An attempt at creating interesting characters. Alas, I have to stop here.
Cons: the story. It is simply boring and from here does not allow you to immerse yourself in this world, empathize with the characters. In addition, the impression that we are watching a drama played out by cosplayers at some festival. Lacy panties in medieval times? Perfect teeth on the characters? There was probably a dentist in every village back then. These little things are annoying, distracting from the main plot.
Nevertheless, if you want to enjoy quality renders and do not expect a story on the level of the best examples of fantasy, then pay attention to this game.
The developers have the possibility to fix some flaws, perhaps then the game will well deserve a score of 4 out of 5.
But at this stage - alas, 2.5 out of 5. For quality graphics, I round up the score upwards, let it be 3 out of 5 (as an advance for the future).
UPD: February 11, 2024: Upon reflection, I came to the conclusion that all this lingerie and other anachronisms can be written off by the assumption that we are talking about some alternate reality in which technological civilization was not destined to be born. Even with that in mind, though, the characters look very glamorous. So those 0.5 points can be added without any tension. 3/5.
But this does not remove the problems with immersion, extremely boring text, through which you have to tear through, forcing yourself with all your might. No, the story can't be boring, otherwise it will lose its readers.
Everything else in my personal assessment of this VN stands.

first, for the story, I love it a lot, Dev can balance between the humorous parts and the serious parts, and the render are absolutely good in my opinion, also the transition between each scene and each dialogue seems natural, not really rushed, and I love that each characters has its own unique characteristics, personality, it adds the feel of the game

Bought the game on steam as it looked promising and reviews were good on both here and there which is a rare thing but hype died rather quickly. This has to be an medieval fantasy AVN right, afaik? But the models and assets don't feel like medieval at all. They are 21st century girls having a halloween party or something. So the game fails to set the correct atmosphere to reel me in and keep me engaged in reading, but I carried on nevertheless since I paid for it. Introducing girls and plot with a bit of lewd content sprinkled in between then still a bland average experience. Dialogues don't feel that medieval also if you strip that knighthood conflict and put the characters in college then it wouldn't seem odd at all. That is my beef with this game. I didn't persevere in finishing to the end of the current content. Hot casanova MC seducing and forming his harem volume 549392543295, On top of that lewd content is vanilla after vanilla (as this game tastes like vanilla ice cream, it is ok to consume but you would rather have some spice or flavor am i right?) Hope the plot becomes original that I can increase the score.

Unique-ish story line and light hearted writing, potential to be a 5 star game. If you don't care for plots etc, this won't be a game for you (handful of sexual scenes, all with side characters)

Right now the game is not that polished (spelling mistakes, particularly in the earlier episodes), and it seems to be too ambitious to ever be completed at its current development pace (little over 2 years in), there is about ~3 hours of content presently. It also doesn't really seem like choices matter much, as the only real choices seem to be if you want to see content with a character or not (and if you choose yes, guaranteed to get it)

Some of the (presumably) main characters were just introduced in the last update. There is not much content with the other primary characters who have been introduced since the beginning. The game would be better off reducing the number of LI, as there are too many right now for any of them to be reasonably flushed out/completed as story lines.


This game has a lot of potential, but its hard (for me at least) to get invested in a game that is unlikely to be completed

I know these games take a lot of work and time and passion, so I will try to be nice here.

This is a great-looking game. The scenes are well done, the characters are pretty, the animations are good... but it is all so boring.

The story is as basic as they come, the writing tries to be funny (and mostly fails) and there's absolutely no tension. You know from the start that the MC will get all the girls. Nothing bad will happen. It is a basic adult fantasy and I am sure that's enough for the majority of you.

But if you expect good storytelling or even the hint of conflict or struggle or anything that isn't bland male vanilla porn fantasy, this isn't worth your time.

The game looks very good and the premise is fine at the beginning of the game. But the actual story is not good. It's pacing is so slow that it took me three days to finish this borefest.

The biggest problem with this game is... that nothing interesting happens! Two years in development and the story is still at the beginning of the heroes' journey. Nothing happened to move the story forward.
It feels like I'm playing one giant filler that doesn't want to end.

Pros:
+ Good visual and good looking girls
+ Music

Meh:
The jokes fell flat most of the time. The humor is kind of childish like fart jokes etc.

Cons:
- The story in essence drags
- I hate all of those pointless choices

Definitely 6 stars ... if you are someone like me who loves story in an erotic game then this is the game for you. The game definitely belongs in the top 20 of the best games in development at the moment. Definitely worth supporting financially.

I like most of the things about this game and honestly believe it has a lot of potential if the writer decides to change some things.

1. Let's first talk about the writing, I like the general story. It's one of those MC is a "chosen one" type of stories and I'm not complaining, I love those sort of stories. What I dislike is the MC is written like a literal child, he acts like a toddler, dreams about riding horses in rainbows and clouds, and overall extremely immature. When he is not acting like a 9 year old he is written like an extremely generic valiant nice guy. Basically if someone turned a golden retriever into a human and added a bit of perversion into him, that would be MC. He has no emotional depth to him, even though his parents died there isn't a single moment in the game in which it seems like that incident carries any weight for MC.

2. The pacing of the story is extremely slow, like it feels like the dev purposefully drags out stuff in an attempt to build suspense or something like one of those soap operas but it falls flat on its face. For example somewhere around ch4 there is a fight between one of the significant characters and an insignificant character and that fight is dragged on for the entire chapter and it doesn't even end there, it is carried onto the next chapter for it's conclusion and that fight itself doesn't have much significance either other than revealing some information about the character. Granted the fight takes place in parts between shots of MC's story but it still feels extremely dragged out. The same can be said for the overarching plot, it's also very dragged out, the game currently has 6 chapters and we still don't know anything that we didn't already know in ch3.

Other than these points I think the game has a good foundation, the LIs can be a bit generic but that's not always a bad thing, the visuals are very good, the animations have also improved a lot, the characters are good looking. I'll be keeping an eye on this one.

This one is really good, honestly right now it's on my top 10 favorite vn's.

The renderes are really nice, the story for now seems rather simple but honestly i love simple stories if they are enterteining, and this one is awesome, the characters are so well written and captivating, the models are all unique and gorgeous, and the humor is top notch too, i caught my self laughing some times which isn't a easy task for a vn game to do that.

I'm just worried with how slow the story is progressing, because i feel like the first 3 chapters are like an epilogue, and the fourth one is just them travelling to get to the knights guide, the
fifth one is their first day there and the sixth one is their second day there, then the banquet with the king and that's it for now, and this game is what? in 2 years into development? so if we take in consideration that the vampires will atack in 30 days in game for now, and that every chapter has 2 days of content, we will have to wait 15 more updates to get into the battle, that's at least more 3 years into development, and honestly 30 days in game feels short asf, we have to believe that in 30 days this raw guy with no technique will be the oh almighty swordbearer? in my opinion this could be fixed quite easily just put some black screen with a text like " a week later " or something like that.

But other than that, this game is fantastic and i can't wait to play more and see how the story will develop.

I'm sure I would replay the shit out of this!!
Man this is good!

I love the comedy and humor!

Downside is this is supposed to have more porn. because. you know. . . .porn game?

But yeah,
Nice visuals, superb story and humor.
I'm coming back. I'd support if my job hunt went the way I was hoping it would.

HUGE POTENTIAL. Characters have unique personalities and all of them are super beautiful (even the guys are hot ngl ). Story progresses slowly but seems to have strong potential to deliver well. Renders are fantastic and animations are well done as well. I hope to return once we get more chapters done. Best of luck to dev

This review is for v0.5
Please keep in mind that it's bias toward my taste of game.

Art & Renders, Animation: 5/5
Beautiful, nice character design, very good animation too. Background, proportion, shades, etc... It's very nice indeed. No complain about that.

Writing: 1/5
Now this part i may had to despite, the pacing of story is TOO SLOW.
Too much small talks in this game, it's overwhelmingly unecessary. it feels like i'm playing Japanese game where a scene have 1000 lines of words. It would be nice if all the effort into small talks instead put it into more adventure/action scene.
This game name "Swordbearer" should've named "Mouthbearer" because everyone talk so much.

When i look at the name of this game, i thought it's an action/adventure game. But turn out it's more like a slice of life game.
The story writing here is like these classic "hero journey" troupe. Boring and repeative.
MC is a little bit mature but Naive. Only thing he good at is using his mouth.
>MC discover power, panic, scare, runaway. The classic type of all the stories. Preferable for teenager audience.
I would rather prefer MC that cunning, adaptive, determined. If he discover power, he get use to it immediately. Make uses of whatever he can to develop himself. Who wouldn't pass on an oppotunity?
It would be more nice if MC discover power > reflect on it > train himself to master it and be stronger. Rather than had to have someone hold his hand like a baby.

Anyway, it's the version 0.5 already but i think it will need to be at version 5 till we get to see some action/adventure. Yes, that's right, 10 more updates.
So far only 1 serious action scene in this game and it's from side characters.
At this point i'm afaird that this is not an action/adventure story anymore.

Overall: 3/5
Story is at it worst, renders is at it best. Very conflicting.
Let give the dev 7 more years till 2030. I'm sure we will have some good character developments till then.

Wow what a great game. The story is great and intriguing, not the same old mom and sister content you see everywhere. The characters are all unique with their own personalities and quirks. Has a good level of humor and seriousness. They also do a really good job of having the characters feelings on point. Great game

Perfect quality AVN, the renders and the quality is very recommendable. The comedic type of visual novel is what makes this game far superior. Medieval touch with a sprinkle of wittiness.

Characters are superb and how they are presented to each scene.
Romance very nice and quality as well.