VN - Ren'Py - To Be a King [Ch.11] [ITRoy]

Very good, although takes a few episodes to get going. A lot of choices that matter, interesting and attractive female characters (Aelinia is probably one of the best bisexual/closet gay characters in any adult visual novel, Lydia is wife material but can you really trust her?, Valentina is completely devoted but capable of causing chaos and drama at a moment's notice, etc etc), and you end up binge playing to see what will happen next.

⠀ Nice VN set in a fictional Roman Empire in a historical period somewhere before its divide into Western and Eastern states and "the fall of Rome".
⠀ Generally speaking visuals are fine (e.g. good looking characters, their gesticulation, facial expressions, detailed background etc.), BUT there are no animations, and under some camera angles human faces become appalling, like you see a beautiful girl and the very next frame she somehow becomes a hideous creature.
⠀ Dialogue is authentic and immersive given the setting (mostly), but there is a lot of it and it does often bore you out. Characters are really not as bad as some reviews portray them to be. Yes, some women have questionable motivation to be infatuated with MC, but there is also a lore-frienly explanation for why that might be (Anna's blessing). And no, not all relationships are sex/cum inside on the first date.
⠀ What I don't understand is why this "Codex" thing in the game? Other than the characters section to remind you of who these people are and what they do, everything else seems superfluous. Faction loyalty does not affect anything, your char skills are meaningless, and harem status is always "perfect bliss" even if it includes every romanceable character in it. All these features would suggest that this is a dating sim, but no, this a classic choice-based VN so it doesn't make sense.
⠀ Now to the bad part. This VN is 4 YEARS in development and all the content so far feels like a......... prologue?? With all systems in place that yet to have any functionality and foreshadowing of massive events and possible story arcs, I highly doubt that author will have time and passion necessary and will not just abandon project in the near future.
⠀ I do like the setting and appreciate the effort, but I do not trust development going forward.

The art style of this visual novel in the early part and the later part is almost like two different games, with realized models in the early part but turning into fake dolls in the later part, and a very big change in the drawing style, which I think is a big step backward, but overall it's still worth trying out as a harem story

I love this game, I love the setting, I love all the girls, I love the story and the betrayals and twists and turns, I love the writing (for the most part) there's not much i don't like about this game, one of my favs that i don't hear being praised enough

I just played the VN , i loved it
Very good story , good visuals/beautiful LI
very good story flow , and great dialogues...
The only thing i didn't like is the 2 forced threesome/with lesbian content scenes , thankfully dev gave us the choice to refuse any more Lesbian staff after those 2 scenes (it should have been like this from the start though)
Nonetheless i think its one the best VN and i enjoyed it a lot.

To Be a King has long enough dialogues to put you back to sleep even after a 12 hours of deep sleep. I had high expectations and I liked the renders, but the main character talks so much to every NPC he encounters that I really couldn't tolerate it. Another problem is that the game starts out as a kinetic novel. It doesn't even allow you to choose dialog in any way. There is already a section called Codex in the game and you can access all the information about the NPCs you meet and more from there. So there's no need for each character we meet to have such long dialogs to introduce themselves. There are certainly fun aspects of the game that I can't reveal, but all the good aspects are hidden behind walls of text too long for me to have the patience to read. I don't know if this is the intro of the game and the story will probably speed up later, but I think it would be much better if the developer made this part skippable by the players. Because this part felt really slow and too long for an immersive start. So I couldn't continue and I lost interest in the rest of the game.

Review for Ch.11:
The game presents itself with a promising premise and decent graphics, albeit lacking animations which could really take the game to the next level. However, despite its potential, it falls short in several critical areas.

Graphically, the game delivers adequately, with detailed environments and character designs. However, the absence of animations detracts from the overall immersion, making interactions feel static and lifeless.

While the game has all the elements to be great, it fails to capitalize on them effectively. The dialogue, for instance, feels out of place in a medieval setting, lacking the authenticity that would have enriched the experience.

Moreover, the storyline suffers from pacing issues, meandering without clear direction for prolonged periods. I find myself disengaged as I struggle to discern the overarching narrative amidst the aimless plot progression.

One particularly jarring aspect is the portrayal of the harem, which feels unrealistic and shallow. The relationships between the protagonist and his romantic interests lack depth, relying mainly on superficial reasons such as fame and prestige. This undermines the believability of the romance, leaving me questioning the authenticity of the characters' feelings.

Furthermore, the lack of convincing motivations for the love interests' devotion to the protagonist exacerbates this issue. Without substantial reasons for their affection beyond the protagonist's status as a renowned general, the relationships feel hollow and contrived.

In conclusion, "To Be a King" struggles to live up to its potential, hampered by its inconsistent dialogue, aimless storyline, and superficial portrayal of romance. While it boasts decent graphics, these alone are not enough to salvage the overall experience. With some refinement and a greater focus on narrative depth and authenticity, the game could fulfill its promise and deliver a more satisfying gaming experience.

It starts off very weird, MC is in service to the king and hes familie and the princess wants to talk to you in privat, MC acts like hes supposed to calling her princess, your highness and so on, very polite which is to expected but it shows nothing even remotely personal or friendly between them, so when the princess tells MC shes fallen for him nothing really makes any kind of sense and comes out of nowhere, atleast MC feels the same way as i do which is kinda funny.

I could have understod if MC and the princess had some history and you where told some backstory about them flirting and then MC wanting to save her before shes forced into a marrige but thats just not the case in this one.

It also feels a bit idiotic that all the princesses is in-love with MC, i mean come on MC is an old pervert why the fuck would they all want him, MC tries to not push anything and keep saying no to every princess, but first chance get gets with any other girl he starts flirting like crazy....feels very stupid, but not quite as stupid as the random girl he has just met and known for 2 mins offers to go the MCs room and fuck.....atleast you can say no but its starting to feel like all females are trowning them selfs at MCs feet without knowing anything about him other then hes an ugly 40-50 year old dude so proberly 20-30 years older then them...and yet the fall for him at first sight....

This also means you can forget about relationship build-ups or ever get any feelings or even care about 99% of the girls, its just "add to harem yes/no" and thats about it, so its all just meh.

As for the virgin/deflower fans theres nothing to come for, even with only being stil pictures its shows 0 blood and girl has 0 pain, so its just a simple normal scene like any other, so a big fail on that as well.

At the end of the game you will either have a shitload of girls in your harem that you cant remember the name of half of them, the good thing is you can say no to anyone and that includes princesses, the choices are perfectly made in this game and it proberly one of the best things.


Girls 2/5
I just dident find them all that hot and the diversity in builds are shitty as well, its big tits and big tits and not having that fetish makes game even less playable, with a million LIs and none smols other then maybe a goddess Anna but dont recall anyone else with small tits and since Anna isent really part of the harem she dosent really count.

Animations 0/5
Well its not an animated game, but it would have helped if it was, the sex scenes are also boring

Music 3/5
Standard background music nothing special.

Choices 5/5
100% freedom to pick who you want in your harem, it dosent get more perfect then that.

Game with potential that's and that's the exhausting part. Typical harem game and by that I mean too LIs most without significant development. In fact the author can't develop most of the LIs because that would slow down an already slow game. This might have worked in a less serious game, but this game is not a parody and seems to take itself seriously. Even worse the codex seems to imply more girls coming instead of development of the current ones. In fact I can't help, but think that 1 (or maybe 2 girls i.e. 1 princess and her mom) per faction would have made this story so much better. This would have made this story better and allowed it to progress with better pacing and made them more impactful as you choose them.

4 years of development and attribute points are still meaningless... and somehow the antagonist(s) has still not even been revealed. Despite the overview, actions do not in fact have any consequences for anything that is actually in the game... after 4 years.

Updates used to be fairly frequent and of solid enough content to quality ratio (probably a 3.5 star game), and the story was (finally) advancing after having been drawn out. Then the most unexpected (/s) thing happens. The developer collects thousands a month (to this day) and does not release game updates for over a year. Choosing instead to redo the most minute aspects of the game instead of actually *finishing* the game. I have zero confidence that this will ever be completed.

Will start off with is that I do enjoy the length the game does take to play (not a one-hour then game is completed) this is my third day playing it. I am finally at chapter 10 and seems likes there is a little more before I reach then end of this version.

Pros:

• Decent length game.
• Most LI are semi beautiful and difference ones for all taste.
• Decent story when it merges / connects together.

Cons:

• Inconsistency in the story (will touch on this at the bottom)
• Re-renders of characters not looking the same later in chapters.
• Everyone wants you & the fighting (will touch on this at bottom)
• Seems like the point system doesn't do anything (loyal east & west etc.)

So I will be giving it a 3/5 star. It is a decent game, I do enjoy that it is taking me more than just one day to play the entire game.

Writing is bad, Sex scenes are meh and models range from okay to ghoulish. This is a total bare bones wish fulfillment harem. With no sense of agency or competance. There is zero character development either with the LI or the protag and women will throw themselves at you one after another after your character promises them that they are .. in fact the most important person to them.

Very nice girls, interesting plot, but poor development of a relationship. So, i give it 3-4 runs, than smell no update for year, and now, just delete it
I hope, creator still love this game too. Anyway good luck and thank you!

The amount of content can be tiresome, but I'm not complaining. I kid you not I had to play it for 4-5 days with long breaks in between (thank god I didn't play all this in one sitting). But good potential.

Pros: Interesting story, good renders and some great dialogue that fits the personality of the characters.

Cons: The story seems to be on rails with little consequence for choices made. Sometimes too much dialogue with little plot advancement. Lack of choices. inconsistency with renders.

I really wanted this to be good, but to this point, it feels like a draft of the main storyline that needs the choice branches fleshed out.

Worth keeping an eye on though.

I have to say that in the first three chapters the game was boring me but if you want my opinion you should keep playing and you will find it enjoyable. I would have really liked our protagonist to be much younger and/or handsome, that would have made a big difference, it only remains to focus clearly on the girls :V

A game that has excellent production values but is nearly ruined by terrible pacing and consistency issues; not only that, it's almost three years into releases and despite having around eight hours of content almost nothing happens.

The good:

1. High quality renders. Some of the women, especially Flora, are very attractive. Unfortunately a good number of faces are hideously deformed (notably the Danish princess) and after a Chapter 7 rework many of the characters are significantly uglier (Lydia for example).
2. I love alternate history. Even though I've read and experienced plenty of alt-Rome, I have never seen it portrayed quite like this. Very enjoyable and mostly realistic.
3. A massive harem and by Chapter 10 you've fucked and came in almost all of them.
4. Lots of systems and mechanics.

The bad:

1. Even after three years literally none of these systems actually do anything. You get favor for the East or the West, or alliances, there are treaties and army loyalty and that sort of thing, but they do literally nothing at all. You'd think after all this dev time there would be even minor implementation, but no.
2. Almost nothing happens, and that lack of anything happening is paced in the worst possible way imaginable. For the first three or four hours everything is focused on the festival. "The festival will be in six days!" ...except like 198 days pass between that statement and the actual festival. During this there's also growing talks about "going east" with every single character. Almost every single conversation involves the MC saying he's going east and all the women crying about him going east. Is it annoying that I keep saying he's going east? Because that isn't nearly as annoying as how many times this game says he's going east. "I can't bear you being away in the east that long! I will come with you to the east. We will go east together." I FUCKING GET IT JESUS FUCKING CHRIST.
3. He never goes east, and the way things are developing he won't ever go east. Someone else is going east, and he's not going east. The east will not be gone to.
4. This entire thing with the east is then repeated with a new thing after the festival, and it doesn't fucking stop, ever. All the women are whining about it, the MC meets four thousand people about it, it's so important but instead of doing anything the MC just bangs the harem of one trillion women, all while talking about doing something.
5. The harem is massive, probably one of the largest in this genre, but it's gotten so big that I don't care anymore. I've reloaded a few saves in order to tell some of them to fuck off because it's just too much to give a shit about. And there is hardly any teasing because you fuck and cum in most of them almost immediately.
6. Inconsistencies everywhere, and very bad "nuance" if it can be called that. I mentioned the six day thing earlier, but the worst is in how characters are written. It feels a lot like the dev wanted desperately to write in depth, which is always a good idea, but instead of it being interesting it makes most people seem schizophrenic at best. For an example (MODERATE SPOILERS), the eldest princess is shown to be a very intelligent woman, and prudent, wise, etc. Then twenty minutes later she's a complete alcoholic, drunk all the time, and behaving like a fucking moron. But then she's wise again! Oh but now I'm drunk.
7. Extremely limited backdrops. You will see the exact same rooms repeatedly, rarely from different angles, because 95% of these eight hours are spent inside the palace.
8. MC does not act like a general, he acts like an errand boy. This game is literally an "I need a moment of your time" simulator.
9. The MC also has about seventeen cock models. Even within the same chapters his dick changes appearances, sometimes within THE SAME SEX SCENE.

The bottom line is that I do not trust this to be a good game at all. There are so many systems that exist for no reason and I get the overwhelming feeling the dev is going to burn out and start patreon baiting because nothing fucking happens. All eight hours so far are just prologue, and if this pace continues and the dev doesn't burn out, it will be another five years before the MC leaves the fucking palace, another ten until he leaves the city, and maybe thirty years before he GOES EAST. JUST JOKING HE'S NOT GOING TO GO EAST.

review for version: chapter 10.


pros:
I like the theme, the story and the scenes and that there are plenty of choices to customize the game however you like it.

cons:
the only thing that kind of bothered me is that the characters arent always consistent. one example of this is when queen helena asks which daughter you want to marry, and then some time later seems to have completely forgotten about that conversation and acts like she knows nothing.

Pros:
Story Template: The general plot is actually a good setup for how someone could become king.

Renders: The renders themselves are generally good.

Neutral:
LIs: There are some really great LIs (like the red head slave), but other LIs you will despise.

Bad:
Fake Choices: One of the major problems with this game is fake choices. For example, you may reject a LI but they keep coming back and back. In one case, you still get a swinging/sharing scene with a LI you rejected.

MC: The MC is a general and the greatest of them all, so he should have confidence, be commanding, and not be a pushover. That is what I would expect from a general who is well-known, but this MC is the complete opposite. The LIs walk all over him (even the slaves push him around), and he does nothing about it. Furthermore, his job was supposed to be protecting the king and kingdom, but he, so far, has not arrested 3 LIs who have openly admitted to him of committing treason (stealing from the treasure, plotting against the throne), so what is the point of him if he will not even do his job if the enemy has a pussy?

Character Models: The character models started out great in the early version, but recently with the model change, they look like lifeless dolls (and are a bit scary at times).

Overall, a game that had potential, but it suffers from a MC that acts like a modern day teenager and fake choices.

This is probably the first time ever I want less sex in an ero game. At this point, I really just want the plot to proceed. I feel like I was promised a political epic but all I get are scenes of the protagonist sleeping around. Yes the girls are beautiful and the renders are great, but this really is not good fap game with how dry it is, and the plot is dragging along. -- Reviewed as of Chapter 10.