VN - Ren'Py - Abandoned - Tides of Succession [Ch.3 v0.3] [TakMycket]

Outstanding game, excellent branching, excellent characterization (although Glade is by far the strongest LI), and very good renders. The biggest knock is apart from the spice, the setting feels a bit generic. Bonus points for an intrigue plot that is actually competently written thus far.

Currently the story isn't holding this one back surprisingly, so far it's a little above average. Now what really is holding it back is the current choices/paths, I always make sure to do a second playthrough of not choosing any of the main female characters for romance and this is where the AVN fails. Sadly there's no remain single option, not choosing forces you on Glade's path even if you select every choice that goes against her.

I think the main problem with this AVN is that the main female characters aren't that interesting romance wise. Glade is too possessive and rushes everything, Lorelei can't get over her constant need to belittle the MC because he's a pirate, and Kasula could be great if she actually had personality since so far her background is the most intriguing one.

Maybe in the future (hopefully not 3+ years from now) it'll have more substance and choices that actually lead to a different outcome, but I can see the flaw with Glade being forced this AVN will be in need of a rework and it's probably best for the dev to do that now before it's too far along.

TL;DR - You play as a pirate turned noble who mastered the art of mutually nodding his head so much that he nods his way into a relationship with a woman he has no interest in.

These kind of romance stories aren't really something I'm looking for in adult games, so take that into account when reading this review but I will try to rate the game fairly without depending too much on my personal taste.

Like I said, it's a romance game with very lackluster adult content, so if this is what you're looking for, you can stay away.

Where the game shines or tries to shine are the three LIs. I only played the Princess part so far and quite liked it. The writing is ok to good, it's not boring or too verbose and feels natural most of the time, so that's good and also mandatory for this kind of game.
However, when there's next to none adult content to keep you occupied, you tend to look a little closer and and some problems both in the writing and the visual presentation come to the surface.

First, there's way too much nodding. I know it's a weird complaint, but it's kind of surreal how often the characters nod in a small animation only to say it again with words after that.
Look, I absolutely love games that use expressions to show us what's going on, and the game does it quite well in other situations, it's much more immersive than the endless monologues you see in many games, but the constant nodding here is so overdone it's exremely distracting.
Some characters or parts of them (like the MC's haircut) and some clothes also don't really go well with the setting.
Now my biggest problem. Glade. One of only 3 Lis. Her whole introduction and reason to be part of the story are absolutely unbelievable. There's absolutely no way she should be part of this crew. Yeah sure, she was mind controlled or something, but none of crew have any reason to like her, let alone trust her with anything. They have no history together that would justify this behaviour, yet she's welcomed with open arms by all of them. They should hate her instead. It's so fucking weird. Enemies to lovers is a popular romance trope and can be quite entertaining, but there's zero development here to make this even remotely believable or intriguing. There's even another pirate girl who could have made a great LI, but she gets abducted instead.
There's also a cook who tries to convince the MC to get together with her (Glade, not the cook). That same cook also has another bizarre encounter where she has nothing better to do than ask the princess (or at least who she thinks is the princess) if she can cook and clean. WTF?

I guess I also expected the game to be a bit more mature in general, with the setting and all, but everyone is so nice and friendly, I don't know, it's just weird at times. These are supposed to be battle hardened pirates for fucks sake. There's again a scene with Glade that I'll use as an example. The only reasonable action after landing in the capital would be to throw her in a dungeon to interrogate her until they're certain that she poses no threat, instead she's asked some friendly questions by the MC and the Princess and that's it.

Again, maybe I'm just not the target audience and maybe I had wrong expectations after I read the summary and thought I would read a mature and gritty story. Nevertheless, if you're looking for a non-harem romance story with nice graphics and attractive and distinct LIs and can ignore some small and big plotholes, you can probably have a lot of fun with the game. I can't help but feel though that the game doesn't do enough with the setting and premise.

Version played: v0.3

the mission is clear.fall in love with the princess. Jump into a world of pirates,romance, intrigues, royalty and romance... I said romance twice because tht's what thig game is all about.
every render matters, evert angle is used to convey something especially feelings. no render is just there to look cool.
choices matter even those labeled as flavor.
thanks the heavens that a monk run is not supported.

there are 2 other li, but only Lorelei matters. if you only play a game once stick with the best girl in all AVNs

While i did like the story and its very well written its just not enough for a AVN where it really is a fail, but if your here to read a story and story only then you will proberly like ths one, there are some flaws like to little background info for stuff that has a huge part in the game (the spice) it would be nice to know wtf it is and why its there and so on....its a huge part of the story and apprently its a rare item that can be stored in chests but also some magic thing that are part of the people? yeah i dunno.....

Theres alot more plot/story fails like MCs haircut, jacket that dident wasent invented yet in their time period, i wont get into everything but it does make the story lack immersion when nothing really fits the time period.

I do love this type of game where you have solo routes, the pure harem games gets very boring in the long run so its refreshing to see games like this one.

So why the low rating, well the sex part is very very poor, you can barely call this an adult novel since you see absolutly nothing other then some tits and ass, every render covers the MCs dick by putting a leg or arm in to block the view and ofc same goes for females, its so bad that you can barely even call it softcore.

Then theres the so called virgin scene and yeah thats a weird one as well, girl has no pain and just ask MC to go harder.....

As for the animations, they are very low quality, compared to what you see in games now a days its just way below average.

The girls look ok, i personaly dident find them all that hot but they are ok, they do lack in diversity in builds as they are all average and same size tits and so on.

Will the game become better later i dunno, it would proberly take a full remake to fix everything, but if they keep going with the softcore sex then they should just make it a none sexual game instend.

Dunno how rating got so high on this one, i expected alot more.

Wow, I’m really enjoying the story so far! You’ve definitely got to give this a try. It has slow-burn pacing, but in my opinion, the story is what matters most in a VN with good writing. As for constructive criticism and feedback go let's get into that.

The good:

• The LIs are attractive.
• The story is awesome.
• The pacing feels just right not too slow, not too fast.
• The grammar is solid, with very few mistakes.
• The renders look really good.
• Updates bring a decent amount of content and not too much wait in my opinion.

The cons (hard to think of many):

• There doesn’t seem to be a gallery (unless I missed it).
• The sex scenes don’t show any genitals and there's not much dialogue, which makes them a bit less exciting and more like, ‘Oh, a sex scene I’ll just fast forward because there’s not much to see and I’m not missing much’.​

I think that’s it for right now. My main want is genitals in the sex scenes. So that takes a star off for me.

I'm definitely enjoying this VN tho and look forward to more potentially with *whisper* genitals *wink*

+ no lesbo stuff, finding game without that crap is a miracle. Kudos for dev
+ many combinations, routes and exclusive scenes. I have 10 saves and it's not enough
+ only 3 girls
+ good looking MC, unique male model
+ cute jealousy scenes/moments
+ nicely done lovey-dovey stuff. You can see a real connection between characters. Dev definitely has romantic soul
+ mature writing - story/characters, all of them behave like adults. No pervs and other weirdos

- lewd scenes are bit disappointing
- sometimes is hard to track every path and combination even with walkthrough

Romantic vanilla avn, if you are into that give it a try. 4 stars

This game is absolutely GOD Tier.

1] All the 3 love interests are beautiful, although my favorite is Glade.
2] It also has a poly throuple path, without the lesbian stuff which is soo rare to find in AVNs these days. I'm really looking forward to seeing how it unfolds.
3] Choices are very impactful and the behavioral changes in people which appear through choices is brilliantly portrayed and very fun to look at.
4] Dialogues are brilliant as well, I never felt they were unrealistic or boring to read. Dialogues match with the character's expressions as well, which is really good to see. Story is well paced and the dialogue flow helps keep it that way.
5] The game already has over 10000 renders, so it has a ton of content to go through.
6] I'm always in search of AVNs which gives a lot of importance to pregnancy and family building, which makes this AVN have one of the best potential for the future.

The only negative for this game which i learned recently is, the lewd scenes in the game would not show any genitals at all. It's that level of vanilla. Its a negative for me, may not be for you.

I wish the developer the best for the future development, and i hope you manage to finish this first part of the trilogy as soon as possible. Coz its really a torture to wait!

Edit: has since been abandoned, adjusting to 1* as a result, the character routes and story are not far enough along to make this worthwhile if this is the final product.

More like a 4 to 4.5* but good enough to round up. Story focused, with a unique plotline that is genuinely interesting. Not a lot of adult scenes, so wont be a game for everyone. The newer content has quite a bit of spelling mistakes, and the occasional wrong character identifier. Writing is overall very good, as are the character models

Would play

I would rank this a just above avg. Writing quality in general is fine. Solid models and backgrounds. LI are interesting. And appreciate focus is on the story rather than adult content. But plot holes, lack of character depth, and locking the player on a romance path early makes it less compelling.

Firstly, have to agree with the whole "spice" Dune rip-off. Gets mentioned constantly but never explained what it is. Apparently is something everyone has inside them, but can also be stockpiled? Spice is a major plot point yet the concept too vague to be interesting.

MC stowed away on a pirate ship at age 5, and has been there until present as a young adult. Th crew of which far too nice and moral for that to make any sense. And MC is made out to be some golden boy; attractive, smart, caring, etc.. But the reader is never given any story context to back this up.

Supposedly the plan to betroth him to the princess has been years in the making. Yet in all that time never had a clue to his patron's motivations in doing so? You'd have to be a complete imbecile not to investigate and question this, and this being the major plot point of the story.

MC is plastered with scars (that look completely unnatural). Can assume he's had some combat training but clearly lacking any natural aptitude for it. And for some reason given a modern short haircut, only possible with electric clippers.

LI are all likable enough, but only the princess has any character depth. The others swooning over him far too easily. Next to nil courting for buildup. Then dev is locking you into a romance path far too early. Player never given chance to explore his options.

Story itself is fine, but the storytelling needs significant improvement to keep my interest. Not a pass necessarily but may only come back to this if extremely bored.

I was very pleasantly surprised by this one.
Great game, awesome characters, and original story.
The dialogues are light, meaningful, and can be easily followed.
Dev is very active and has a plan.
I'll be following this one closely

Very good renders and good Li's, you can see why this game gets its inflated ratings, but a lot of annoyances too, especially in the UI

The character name plates are outright awful, barely readable and enormous compared to the tiny font so that you basically never read them, you get blind to them, like ads.

The text box constantly blinks on and off as you go between lines with a stupid transition which will make you not want to read anything already by the first conversation.

It goes on and on and on about spice, trying to rip off dune. Literally every other thing has spice in the name spice blessings and spice lights and spice essences and spical loss and spice pledge... you get it, it's a really poor writing choice.

It's very hard to get into the convoluted story both because of the ui and because all the characters are absolutely horrible

The only thing even close to adult here are two long kissing animations

Pretty early on but so far flawless visuals, engaging and unique story, and good writing. The LIs are interesting and varied in their personalities. There isn't a whole lot of content, but I'm excited to see where this leads

A wonderfully written game that is focused on romance over lewd scenes. The three main love interests are hard to choose from and each have unique qualities. The story itself is interesting and while not every choice has a huge impact there are definitely some that will significantly change how the story progresses. Can't wait to see what the dev has in store for us in the future.

VERSION: CH.2 v0.2
SUMMARY: Fairly decent VN with interesting story, focused on romance more than adult content.
RATINGS: (out of 5):

1. Models: 4
2. Animations: 4
3. General Visuals: 4
4. Characters: 4
5. Story: 4
6. Writing: 4
7. UI & Gameplay: 3
8. Content (amount): 3
9. Sound & Music: 3
10. Fetish & kinks: 2

Average: 35 of 50 possible points giving a 70% rating i.e. 3-4 stars.

PROS:

1. Good looking models, realistic, at least with regards to complexion, none of these flawless clear skin characters often seen today.
2. Writing is decent not terribly sophisticated but reads well and grammatically structured fine.
3. Story seems interesting enough and characters have some background that make them at least somewhat intriguing.
4. Dialogue is also not a long winded as many games of the same genre are, while dialogue is important to provide context, setting and clarity to the reader, often too much is spouted, in this case it seems like a good balance.
5. Amount of content is decent but not in terms of any lewd content.

CONS:

1. MC also looks good, bit of a boy toy though which I do not particularly like. Also sailors tend to look a bit rougher, more tanned from sunburn on the water and more scruff from hardly shaving, the MC's looks don't fit.
2. No ambient or lewd scene sounds
3. Aesthetically incorrect, at least if the 1600s are what the developer was going for.
4. Nothing out of the ordinary with the interface, there is no tracking on progress or status. The opacity bar is good and well, but the font colour is bad and often too light, being able to adjust this would be nice.
5. Limitations on choices (based on walkthrough). See comments below
6. Transitions from one render to another often feel like teleportation, the character will stand there and the next moment the scene is left but character gone, this is to simulate movement, but its stupid, just go to the next render/frame or put another frame in that suggests movement.
7. Bit on the boring side in terms of adult content, much more focused on the story and romance side of things, which has its own appeal but I believe is a bit niche and while I enjoy a good story, an AVN with tidbits of adult content is what I am here for.
8. Unable to skip cinematic or speed them up, annoying especially when you reload to change a choice and want to get to the relevant section.

FINAL THOUGHTS & SUGGESTIONS:

• Leather jackets that look like modern time jackets? Ok...can let that slide, shave hair on MC that lets him look like a frat boy? Could they really shave hair like that in the 1600s? Ok...
• The king looks no older than his daughter, are people long lived in this world? Sorry but a king with a daughter that old should look older, like some older, wizened and mature man. Not to mention the king looks like a modern day frat boy too? WTF developer, you'd actually have done better giving the guys no hair or woman's hair more than these hairstyles...
• Zelene and the Princess share the exact same model, face anyway this is just laziness in terms of making unique characters, unless I have stumbled upon her being the twin of the princess? Key characters should always have their own assets, looks and personality, use generic for the rabble and "filler" characters that you see in the background.
• Just my own little comment/gripe on the choosing of "spice" in this game. To me its a little too close to spice that is the focal point of Dune, which is a ongoing movie with its latest interaction, but the Frank Herbert books have been around for ages. I would thus have picked another word to describe this part/essence that resides in characters from this world, maybe anima, ruach. All words that mean soul really, or even something like glimmer/shimmer? Just my 2c
• Another gripe, mentioned before but just emphasizing again, is the age discrepancies, while I know marriages were early in those days, the "Lord Cromwell" and his wife...i mean she looks like a mature if not granny and he, he looks like a young man, practically the MC's age. Whats with this?
• While I do appreciate replay value, I do find it odd that all paths don't have for e.g., pregnancy, at least if the walkthrough is any indicator. Furthermore, I would have liked it, if the player could "court" and thus screw around up until it boils down to he has to make a choice between LIs. This game severely limits you and thus you need to replay most of it to see the other options.
• Based also on the nature, setting and style the developer has opted for in this game, pregnancy, as a fetish/kink is the only kink you most likely can expect, the VN has a serious tone to it, which is emphasized by the monogamous relationships enforced as the norm. That is also again why its unfortunate that pregnancy is not set for all the LI's (based on walkthrough)
• While the whole "spice pledge" gives a unique perspective, how does a pledge "know" you lying or not, I mean you could believe what you saying even if its not true, you could also technically term something one way but mean another, you could also possible feel that you technically did or didn't commit to the pledge and accidentally die...not sure if im getting it or how it would really practically work. I get the idea of it, but wonder as to the implementation.
• This game seems like a decent VN with romance being its core theme, while the game feels relatively good, there are items as mentioned above that make it more of a "filler" game for me when my favourites are outdated. Still good work overall.
• Here is a fair amount of content, but again, nothing much on the adult side of things and it does get a little boring a ways in. What the walkthrough does not show or say (unless I missed that) is that you are not immediately locked out on a particular path, so maybe there will be a little "Action" until you come to a critical juncture. That said, the elf does get locked out from her love path within current content. In my opinion, this game would be best played once its done, as right now you will need to play all paths to get the most content, which is really not ideal.

Excellent game! I like that everything is going slowly but surely. That it's not just a meeting and you get down to "things". The romances are starting nicely, and the possibility of several paths is satisfying. I like the beautiful wordplay between the characters and the work with facial expressions. I like it so much that I had to start supporting it And that doesn't happen very often So I wish the creator good luck and the players a pleasant time

4.8 rating by 18 reviews? Must be awesome.
People here having such a low standard wow. The game is not bad but it is way to overrated. You have some really good pictures but also weird looking ones. But all of them are a bit to dark. The writing is fine but in general the game feels so slow and dragged on. It's a good game but not even close to that 4.8 rating. For me it's 3.5 stars but since the lack of adult content just 3 stars.
But I am still curious how the game will turn out in the future. So I will check it again at the end of this year.

I find this game pretty extremely overrated for what it is. A cocktease with slightly better than average writing, but good renders.

I'll get this out of the way, the renders are great. The models for LIs are great. The game gets most of its pros from that alone.

But the vast praise this game gets for its storytelling is undeserved. People on F95 are so starved for decent stories that even the slightest effort makes people go crazy here. It has competent dialogue (for a porn VN) but the worldbuilding is overhanded, the characters are often introduced and take pivot of the story instantly, yet some supposedly very important characters fuck off in an instant. People in general are just rather underdeveloped depsite the fact that 95 percent of the effort for this game is going into storytelling.

You have only 2 kiss scenes despite a rather long playtime as the game stands. There is a ton of lines, and yet things develop at a snailpace, often playing this idiotic game of 1 step forward, 2 steps back. Sometimes the game needs to move things forward so everyone becomes a robot and super cynical to get emotionally difficult topics done in an instant. It's so dumb. It's just so inconsistent.

I'm not impressed. The promised branching of the story as it stands seems rather minimal, all designed to converge or have minimal scene/line differences, but it is only version 0.2 as it stands so maybe that one particular thing will get better.

I'd say there are better ways to spend your time. If you don't want porn there are MUCH better stories out there. If you want porn, there isn't any and the dev isn't interested in making it.

Beyond the great renders and story, this deserves a 5 for the dev making the great choice of limiting the LI's to a manageable 3, which means that you don't get a bunch of updates without your favorite while 20 other LIs get epic tales. This game really shows what good planning and can get you.