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

Review of v0.6.1...

I like the medieval setting and it started with promise, but it kind of plateaued early and never really recovered.

The MC (you) is a famous general pulled from the eastern front and put in charge of the king's personal safety because of two failed assassination attempts. Unfortunately, all of the MC's duties in this regard happen off screen as 95% of the game time is spent with the MC roaming the palace spending time with the different girls.

The writing quality is average with little if no errors in the script. Although, I don't think I've ever seen the word "lovely" used so much.

The character models for the girls aren't bad. They could be better. Most of them have either some degree of tank ass, or weirdly shaped breasts in some form or another.

The girls have differing personalities. The youngest princess is 19, but acts like she's 12. The middle Princess is a spoiled diva. The oldest is the mature one. All of the side LIs also have their own personalities.

The model for the MC is kind of bland.

All of the characters have their own Bio page except for the MC, which he really needs. The youngest princess who is madly in love with the MC from the start is 19. The queen is 44. The MC makes a comment to the queen about how he is older than she is, but there is no Bio page with his age or history. Everything you learn about the MC you learn from the other characters.

At the risk of my review being reported I’d like to comment on something which is not unique to this game. I wish people would stop using the word “problematic”. It's such a fucking stupid word. When you write a sentence such as…”I hope this won’t be problematic.”…it should really be…”I hope this won’t be an issue.” It sounds so much better.

The story piqued my interest enough to want to come back to see how it plays out, but I won't necessarily recommend it or say to stay away. This one will be a mixed bag for people.

The character models and scenes of this game are extremely beautiful. There is a lot of variety in the girls you can romance – the princesses, the queen, daughters of other ministers, princesses of other kingdoms and lot more. And all of them look and feel unique. All the characters in the game have rich backstories and unique traits, making the world feel lived in.

The plot is actually really intriguing without being completely overwhelming. The creator tried to make the make the plot interesting by adding political intrigue, but it makes the game feel a bit convoluted. Another knock against the game is the protagonist design – he isn’t headless as in most other games and his face looks generic. It wouldn’t be so bad in other games, but when compared to the gorgeous women of this game, he feels off.

UPDATE: 0.7.1
I love the political intrigue of the plot. The author does a great job of balancing the palace politics with the sex and women. The VN keeps getting better with updates and it has a way better plot now that I expected when I started playing it.

An 'ancient Rome/medieval' themed, generic Visual Novel with 'click to see next slide or line of text' gameplay, almost no dialogue options or choices that explores interesting concept but sadly fails to reach its full potential. Story is rather weak and centered around which girl you would like to add to your harem. The female characters are there for your pleasure only with non-existing choices and sex scenes that leave something to be desired (mudane clicking back and forth from missionary, doggy and anal.) There are some stats and fear/respect/charisma points system that does absolutely nothing as there are almost no in-game choices (other than do you want to put this female in your harem.) This title would greatly benefit from adding some in-game choices, dialogue options and different paths or at least some side quests to make you feel that you are actually doing something in this game other than being a bland and uninteresting MC.

High quality writing throughout. The buildup with the characters is good, the roman (empire) story is actually pretty good and interesting. The interactions with the characters are very good. The political dialogue is good, the realism in the story is good. The romantic dialogue is good. The sex scenes are static, but alright. There is a lot of content here that you will be playing for many many hours. I am very interested to see where the story goes and what choices we will have to make.

How this game isn't the top 10 surprises me. It's got a genuinely great story, an amazing set of characters, and the choices we make matter. The renders are really good too. Highly recommend you play this game

Props to you, ITroy.
Great game:
Amazing renders that go with different personalities. Especially the oldest daughter!
Great writing and plot.
Excellent locations.

This definitely needs more exposure, folks!
Another great point: Superb lenght! compared to other novels and their development time, this is amazing. Even more considering you've clearly put a lot of effort in the game's visauls, locations, plot, twists and characters!

5 stars!
You should play this game because:

• SHITLOAD of content! Literally more content than 90% of games in here, and that in V6.
• Attached to that, tons of lewd content as well .
• Story is actually cool and keeps you curious about what will happen next. Couple of typos but barely noticeable.
• Models are attractive, mostly they seem young but there is one for all colors and flavors.
• Pace is quite fun and feels smooth, a bit of obsessed fans can' t hurt anyone...
• Choices actually matter and will only have more and more impact throughout the game.

The only downside there was, is that there are few (if any?) animations in the game. Don't let that, and the quite bland rendered MC (or some of the lame reviews) deter you away from this game.
For the amount of playtime, lewd scenes and branches you have in this game, it deserves better than a 4-star review. I feel like a 4.5 is in place and deserved.

IN THE TOP 10 VANILLA HAREM games on the site. WITH TONS of content

I am going to be Honest, this is EASILY one of the BEST Straight Harem games on this site, and it is not even close. The characters are beautiful and have depth, the story actually makes sense, and the is A METRIC FUCK TON of good high quality rendered sexual content. There is Literally ONLY ONE downside to this, there are no animations, but personally I do not even like most games with animations since they bloat the downloads and do not look good, or are a lower quality than the pictures.

To Be A King [v0.6.1]
is a linear VN within the scope of an ill-conceived pseudo-historical setting which average plot is evidently more there to build an harem than to build up a good story.

Except for the decent graphic renders and beautiful female models almost everything else is utterly subpar:

The story could be intoxicative (like some kind of GoT) if it wasn't delivered poorly...

• majorly written without drive, suspense, interaction
• the few choices only drive sex scenes, not the plot
• Too many (side) LI encounters and trivial chattiness interfer the progress plot-wise
• Dialogues are mostly just for luring LI's , often ridiculously excessive and trivial, even sometimes stupid. They aren't engaging at all and highly skipable.
• World-Building is either weird or non-existent

Characters lack depth, they are mostly likeable, but very simple structured and can't be taken serious...

• LI's are blank beings, they exist to love the socalled "handsome" MC - not really more (porn-tropes alarm! )
• MC is blank as well, instead of the "handsome", strong, well-educated and highly-decorated general he's rather an ugly, unimpressive joke... a huge issue!
• the whole male "cast" except maybe the King and one side character don't add serious interest, but is obviously more attractive than the MC (wtf?!)

Graphics/Renders while decent up to good...

• lack animations of the lewd scenes (there are none so far!)
• show medieval settings in a time and place only centuries after the Roman Age (?!)
• sometimes reveal poor quality on human skin, in particular for the booty

Sound as of music and fx is implemented, but...

• Music is quite corny or/and not really adding some atmosphere
• FX sounds are ridiculous emotional reactions (laughter, indignation, weeping etc...) and therefore rather disturbing than immersive
• Do I need "lewd sounds" in any VN? Nope!

Additionally, a few minor issues dimish the "pleasure" of clicking through the plenty scenes and dialogues:
may it the mediocre writing and grammar, the not-so-funny humor attempts or the very uncreative way to introduce sex scenes/acts.

But the main issue this "game" has for me is its gameplay:

• MC's main task should be the investigation of the assasination attempts, securing the King.
  BUT there are no choices to investigate for the player, no free roam, no action... only reaction without having a choice and many LI encounters to build the harem (or not)
• Countless times I wished to skip all the useless dialogues including the many plain socalled "lewd" encounters which were neither great at all nor particularly interesting or engaging.
• As the few choices don't really matter or lead to certain paths, this results in boring clickfest without meaning and progress plot-wise!

Summed up that's a total of 2.6 stars, rounded up to 3 due to at least some appreciation of the renders, no bugs and an overall not purely stupid or awful plot with many beautiful female models.
But I wouldn't recommend this one to anyone who likes a good story over the lewd content!

[Review based on v0.6.1]
The story of this game is all about politics: from marragie alliances to backstabbing plots to coup d'état to overtrow the current king (it reminds me somehow of game of thrones). If you're not a fan of politics, military tactics and so on then probably this game is not for you.

PROS:
1) I really likes the models, the renders are good and polished enough.
2) The story is good, it got my attention, i really want to know who is behind all the nasty plots.

CONS:
1) The MC has a very bland design, i don't like his model at all. We're told he's a general who has win countless battles against the barbarians but his expressions are dull and awkward, c'mon idon't believe it couldn't be done better expecially since other generals and male characters are way more appealing.

2) Forget everything about animations, there's not even a 1 or 2 frames scene, everything is static; for this reason the sex scenes are a lot less engaging.

This game shows excellent potential in it's current version (0.6.1).

There are no shortage of characters for you to interact with. While most have very rich backstories, some are a little more modest in that regard than others. There are two issues here, both stemming from the game being in early dev.

The first is being spoiled for choice. The game has so many things to introduce that you can get lost quickly on who's who. The other is that some of the interesting characters just don't really get their time in the spotlight yet. Early dev though, so this could change.

The plot is actually really intriguing without being completely overwhelming. The timeline, however, is a little convoluted. This isn't enough to ruin the game, but as a history buff they mix up just enough to make it a nagging itch.

Finally the renders. Absolutely gorgeous for the females over all. The biggest weakness is the males, in particular the protagonist who is....while not completely hideous just decidedly at odds with the amount of rendering detail of the others.

Definitely worth playing several times over just to catch all the different possibilities.

I liked much more than I expected, the graphics are good, animations are also excellent, the story is decent, each character has different personality, the choices of the game has a minimal impact, each choice made can reveal future events or change the way the character in question thinks about the protagonist, the whole plot revolves around the king and the princesses, the protagonist is just an honorable soldier who has become a general and serves the king.

Below are my grades from 0 to 10 for each category:

Graphics: 10;
History: 9;
Plot: 9;
Character development: 9;
Animations: 9;

Verdict: It's worth playing.

To be a King is a great visual novel and if you like medieval themes like me, you're in for a treat.

WARNING : May contain spoilers

PROS
Well written characters - LIs with believable personalities are very important to me and this game delivers when it comes to that. You have your typical mix of spoiled / mature princesses (I don't mean this as a bad thing) and they're all really likable and believable.

Great renders - The scenes are very well lit with very very minor noticeable clipping in RARE occasions. The dev clearly has an eye for these things and i'm happy you don't see his renders declining in quality. If anything, they got better with the updates.

Music - Always been an important aspect in VNs for me. Even if there's a game that revolves around fucking your way through a list of people, I like relevant mood music to really get me into the game. This guy does it well.

Plot - Happy with this too. I didn't feel like skipping through text at all. I like the way things are going and I hope the dev continues this flow of progression.

Sexytime - There's no animation which is a bummer but not a deal breaker. I happen to watch the devs YT channel so i KNOW he has a really good setup and i'm waiting for him to include some animations (ITRoy i hope you see this )The renders are done well though and do what they're supposed to.


CONS
There aren't any real problems with this game but I just want to add a few things I PERSONALLY am not a huge fan of.

- Only with regards to this update, the plot seemed to get overshadowed by the LIs. They just kept coming and coming (unintentional pun). Don't get me wrong, the girls are attractive and likable but at some point I just wanted to see where the plot was going so I ended up skipping through text and scenes for the side LIs (like the massage chick).

- The sex scenes could use some more text. They're nice the way they are, but i'd like to see some more descriptive text. Not from a narrator pov but from the mc or li. Maybe this is just a 'me' thing.

Can't really think of anything major right now but i'll edit if something comes up. I want to give this game 5 stars because of the quality of the game and the writing but since there were a few things I wanted to bring up, I decided to 4* it.

Definitely try this game out if you're into good plots and don't mind games that aren't a mindless fuckfest.

Best thing about the game is graphics, with all the good and the bad that this point means.

In terms of story, well, world building is probably the weakest point of the game, with refereness to real world countries only making things even more confusing.

Think - at first there are clear mentions and allusions to late Rome, perhaps the kingdom happened right after its fall even, considering soldier's armor and advisors togas, meaning this is happening somewhere around 500-700 But then - allyence with Danes comes up. Danes, who effectively went from tribes to an actual county only at the end of viking age. And then there are also Trolls, but little to no references to magic.
Either leave out real world referencess, or do a proper world building intro, othervise it just seems that you trow random bullshit at your reader as the story progresses.

Roleplay vise - MC is just bland.
Instead of something along the lines of Game of Thrones vibe that you would expect, this seems more like a modern day office drama, where man is fucking his bosse's family after getting a promotion an moving in in a house next door.
You can be a nice guy and date one girl, or you can go full harem route, even going as far as cucking the man by fucking his wife. But there is never a feeling of power imbalance, both when dealing with Queen and princesses that can fuck you up with just one word to a king, and when you deal with
girls that have status way lower than yours.

Finally, you are essentially given a Job of a part time spymaster, while head guard's head is still in place after three major fuckup in a row, but at the same time, you have no ability to use, or even abuse your position as the keeper of state's secrets:
Catch a queen with a lover, and then either give her up to king, take a bribe, or join the fun.
Get evidence that prince molests little boys, and then either tell his father in private, use said info as a leverage against him, or get that info in the open when the time is right to ruin him compleatly.
Realize that one of the princesses loves her pet animals way too much, and either support her in her degeneracy, position yourself as one and only "beast in her life" without any courtship, or give her away to the church, so that king would be forced to send her into monastary to save her soul.

You know, do something worth being called an actual scheme.

holy shit what a game so far, and the potential is insane. the setting is super popular, however gets little attention in terms of ren'py and visual novel games in general. the renders are 10/10 and unique. multiple love interests and enemies/rivals/bros. and the writing is great, whilst the world-building is the best I have ever read in a visual novel game.

the only criticism I have, and it cant really be categorized as such to be fair. is that the girls are waaaaaay to easy to bed. everybody swoons at the sight of you and you get to fuck all three female daughters of the king after next to no character building. but then again its a porn game lmao.

legit 10/10 one of the better visual novels I've read. very eager to see the finished product, and i might actually pay after seeing it come to fruition.

A game with potential, but at this moment it sadly fails to reach it.

The renders are very good, although the sex scenes could use some work, to become more arousing.
But the story, although it appears very rich at the beginning, it proves sallow and has you dragging through to see the next scene.

Story - 2/5 - The setting is fantasy medieval with many European influences, especially from Rome. But the story is extremely weak, with few choices of importance or interest. You have to go through the story, with weak dialogues and transparent or childish characters. The game tries to provide an atmosphere of mystery and intrigue, but if fails….

Graphics - 4/5 - The dev has talent, the art is good, but, at least for me, the sex scenes leave something to be desired.

Characters - 2/5 - The female characters are there for your pleasure, with non-existing choices. The only choice you have if you will add a person to your harem or not... Most of the male characters are transparent and weak, again with linear paths and choices that do not impact the gameplay.

Overall - 3/5 – There is potential here, but it needs a lot of work, perhaps a total rewrite. The story needs paths, or at least some side quests to make you feel that your choices lead to something, and the character attributes should be visible and explained, as well as have an impact on the story.

Honestly it is one of the best game in F95zone.

The game mixes well the story and the erotic scenes, there are not only long passages of dialogue (however it is important not to skip the dialogues) and the erotic scenes are there to add a little freshness to the game (which is normal somewhere).

The characters (of high quality) are numerous with each one their differences and their tastes moreover we learn in the course of the history their stories, their desires.

Finally know that each act/conquest has its consequences and that you must know how to handle and not forget what you said and did.

This is a very high production value game. I'm not sure if that's the correct expression, but anyway. The attention to detail is quite impressive and one of the things that pleased me the most in it is to that there's interesting male and female characters, with each defined characteristics and not a copy-paste kind of render. Their personalities are also unique and with their own motivations.
I also really enjoyed the points system but I do hope that it's put more to use, because at the moment you just gain fear/respect/etc points but you don't see what their effect is. I'm sure that this will become clear with time though, given how much care was put into this game.
There's a Game-of-thrones-ish feeling at first. You're friends with the king, go into the capitol to help him but there's a lot of different agendas at play. Really nice. The scenes are also good and the renders are wonderful. It's a must-play for anyone that enjoys a good story.

I like it. Decent story, nice looking art, and the girls are awesome with variety of traits too.. I think this game has a lot of potential. Hopefully the dev will get enough support to be able to work this game to a full potential..

0.51
I go for fantasy games and am enjoying this one. And at last we have an MC dressed differently to the MC in Esteria, Call of the Void and A Knights Tale! He is dressed way too casually to be a general (not a royal minister), but we can live with it.

This is a visual novel with choices, lots of characters and a plot developing slowly within the expected intrigues of a decent soldier moved to a royal court that is well-populated with hot women and cold deceit.

Different style to many other games. It is presented like a TV show rather than a book with pictures. The descriptive text is almost non-existent and the jumping from scene to scene is just like on TV. Takes some getting used to, and doesn’t work all the time. The dialogue works well, but for me the sex scenes don’t engage and are largely filler, in part because of this approach.

Fortunately the slowly building intrigue is also of interest. I am still playing but am looking forward to seeing how several characters develop, none of them being Valentina, who really needs a puppy.

Overall a well thought out and engaging game. If I could have the dev do one thing differently it would be to put more effort into the mouths on some characters. The king’s expressions make me think of either Ronald McDonald or the pouting, pressed lips characters that Mr Dots does, and Mr Dots does that pouting look a lot better. And while Kaylan the character is great, her mouth makes her look like a child or a doll.

Still, definitely looking forward to updates.