VN - Ren'Py - Trouble in Paradise [v1.10] [Syko134]

So I did really give it a try due to the awesome reviews that this game has. It was a big mistake. I had finished part 1 and was half through part 2 when I finally decide to face reality and stop playing. The one that says that took him 4 days to finish, is my new hero. I could not stand to play for more than 1 hour or 1,5 hours a time due to the boredom and constant blueballing (I doubt this last part was intentional).

I must admit that for me the worst part is the erotic scenes. Man they are bad, even when you don’t take into account the inexplicable magnetism of the doofus MC. At the beginning there is not even much dialogue during them just a collection of animations. After some time, some dialogue is added and I must admit, this gave me hope and pushed me to keep playing. However, the progression stops right there were all, and I mean all, the Lis keep repeating the same sentences, "yes", "harder", "please don’t stop", over and over until they come. Given the repeating quality of the animations the sex scenes would really improve if some kind of dialogue describing them to the VN reader or inner character monologue was added.

Why did I give it 3 stars if I am clearly not recommending it? Because the game shows that the developers put a lot of work and though into it and It clearly has an audience according to the high ratings. So give it a try, but if you found it uninteresting and lacking in the erotic department give you a solid and stop, don’t overthink it, just stop.



Best of luck to the developing team.

This might just be the longest game I have played. Took me 4 Days to complete till v 1.8

Part 1 is mix of drama and pretty funny moments, the usual harem building stuff

Part 2 as of right now is a great thriller and I loved every part of it.

Finally Holy Guacamolis, this is definitely on my top 10 games!

Holyshit it's boring. I went to work. I went to school. I made food. I talked to all my friends. Everybody likes me. I dream about boobs. Then I went to work, school, food, friends, likes. Christ. I'm 6000 lines in (part 1), and I'm zoning out. The mediocre graphics and decent writing and bland characters aren't even relevant for the review. IT'S SO BORING!

English:............8/10
User Interface:.....3/10
User Experience:....7/10
Art:................8/10
Dialogue:...........6/10
Story:..............8/10
Opinion:............6/10................
Avg:.............6.57/10 [3.29/5]

Currently, at the time of writing, I'm still at a 3. I have played through all of part one before, and am going through it again before playing the second part. The usual suspects of untouched UI, standard KK art, and a stagnating story are here, sure. But the BIGGEST issue this story has, is EVERY CHARACTER ACTS THE SAME. (Up until the writer does their job and writes near the end of part one) Every single character is this quirky college(even though they're in high school because there's only 4 buildings in the KK catalogue) student that's just so friendly and whatever. All of them talk the exact same. It's not great. Does the story get sorta interesting? Yeah. It's more weird and disjointed. But all of them talk the same, and that's not normal. On top of that, the beginning of the game is littered with annoying 4th wall breaks. It's harder to fault this game for it because it's been being made for so long, and probably inspired most of the games that bug me. But this still does it. It's not funny, nor does it move the story. The characters just "poke fun" at the dev for not writing something happening every minute of every day. Which, if you've lived longer than 2 days, you know things aren't always happening. So it's not even a valid self-criticism to make me laugh. And I know that part one is never going to be touched again so there's no "going back to improve it" unless part two finishes, and since ideas are hard, they "remake" part one. Really looking forward to that day... But one of the bigger issues is the overarching plot as a whole just seems to happen out of nowhere. Sure, the Nicole dream sequences hint at something. But suddenly there's some terminal demon disease that gives people super powers and makes them hunted by shady organizations. No person even looks like they could possibly think about this weird plot twist before the doctor visit. Why is it like this? And I feel I can actually critique this game more than most because IT ACTUALLY HAS A STORY. Imagine that, a story in your visual NOVEL. Take notes, other devs. And if "4th wall breaks and existential horror" are in those notes, please throw them out and rethink your life.

Fair warning, this is my LONGEST review to date. And I've already made some long ones. The TLDR is I like it, but time skips are inconsistent and the characters like/love MC too fast. The entire plot is a mysterybox within a mysterybox. And a lot of the characters don't feel like individuals, just parts of the plot. Again, if you haven't looked already, this is LONG, and obviously spoiler heavy so you have been warned.


I want to make one thing ABUNDANTLY clear. If this had a UI that was't stock, this would be 4 stars. I'm a little sad I CAN'T give it 4 stars. I like the story. I like the dialogue. Are the choices made in HOW the dialogue is presented dumb as fuck? Yes. Sadly. The art and posing obviously improve throughout the game. And I'm a sucker for would building, as always. But the constant missing/misspelled words, no custom UI, dialogue that is in place of story beats, and characters just waving away everything MC does just because the writer wants it to be that way are what drag it down. Obviously I don't expect them to go back and correct all the strange decisions I point out. But a proofreader to edit simple mistakes and a UI makeover would instantly bring this up to at least 4. If this story somehow rounds out to address a lot of my story issues, or is satisfying enough, maybe even higher. But I've gone on long enough about this whole thing. If, by some sad miracle, you did read my entire long-winded review, thanks, lol. I have a lot to say about things I like. If not, and just agree with my number scores, fair enough.

As for the synopsis, The English is Good. Written or edited by someone that speaks the language, or just can't tell they don't. The ISSUE is so many sentences and words are missing or misspelled I brought it down. The UI/UX is STOCK RENPY. Four years and you couldn't come up with some images to replace the standard ones? And What QoL in the new version? It's still not even renpy 8 to use python 3. But whatever, not my circus. The Art is probably some ofthe best KK has to offer. I have seen it done a little better, and the early chapters could use a SILENT touch-up, but it looks good. The Dialogue... Everyone talking and acting the same, as well as forgiving MC for every evil deed he does is weird. ESPECIALLY when its normal people that aren't X-Men. "Oh haha, he just killed those guys. No big deal!" Together with the story issues of Part 1 going through every moment of every day, then Part 2 skips SIX MONTHS with a black screen saying "Lol fuck you we'll reveal this later." That's what really brings my opinion down. I REALLY like this, dev. Keep doing what you're doing. I know I'm one of the harsher, or more annoying critics on this site. But I enjoy what you have here and can't wait to see how it all comes together. Even though you've already spoiled that it works out so well they even tell their child about it.

So i played almost to the end of Chapter 1 and im dropping this..

At first i really liked the writing style, the dialogs where fun to read and doesnt feel forced to me. The Concept of the Story was good and almost all characters where likeable. What put me of was the "changes" inside the story.
Let me explain:


After writing this, im noticing more changes and plot holes, but i dont want to make this into some kind of slandering.
I know, changing the Story as ist goes is part of the proces but in this case its to significant and not just noticable, at least for me.

That said if you can look over it than play it. The renders are not bad and as said the characters are likeable and the dialogs are easy to read.

Finally, an apology about the spelling and grammar. As you can imagine, English is not my first language. Sorry!

The author clearly had a direction they wanted to take their story, and while the direction wasn't innately flawed, they ended up missing the mark.

Chapter 1 is mostly a mix of slice-of-life drama and comedy, and consists of meeting all the characters, and typical harem building. It's a slow start, possibly too slow for some readers, but I didn't mind it personally - getting plenty of time to know the characters and slowly learning about the seedier elements of their situation was enjoyable enough to me. While maybe some events or meandering could be consolidated, I ultimately enjoyed the pacing and ramp-up towards the big climax of Chapter 1.

The characters (especially Iris) are all very likeable. That said, the writing quality in terms of their differentiation and depth is a bit inconsistent, and I do feel like some could have been cut to make the game more focused.

Chapter 2 kind of falls off the rails, at least initially. The author clearly wanted to make the story much darker at this point, but I feel they over-shot into making it excessively edgy, and losing most of the charm the first chapter had (including any of the "likeable characters"). The protagonist undergoes a substantial personality shift and acts like a total ass to people he cares about for seemingly no reason whatsoever, and makes a variety of inscrutable decisions without any clear logic behind them.

I feel like the author ultimately realized this misstep, and is trying to dial it back as of v1.7. Unfortunately, due to the initial overshoot in "darkness/edginess", it makes the writing and tonal shift back to normal feel kind of awkward, with some ham-fisted excuses as to why the protagonist was being such a tool. That said, ultimately I think this tonal shift will be for the better ones things settle back into a more consistent groove.

I think the scenes with Cole, Lucas, Mrs. Wilson, and Dr. Hadley in v1.7 are excellent examples of the author doing a much better job of writing a darker story, than their writing earlier in Chapter 2. Their scenes allowed the core personalities of the protagonist and cast established in Chapter 1 to shine through, while seeing how they now have to act and react to the darker/shittier situations they find themselves in, and even manage to throw in some dark humor.

The Koikatsu models are on the above-average side, no major aliasing or resolution issues, but nothing to make them stand out much either. Character designs are cute and mostly unique across the board. Backgrounds are typical stock ones found in asset packs, but they're used reasonably well. H-scenes use stock Koikatsu animations - the situations and camera are mostly fine, but I wouldn't bother with this VN if I was just after H content.

Music is a bit on the weak side for Chapter 1, with the same generic chill guitar song playing the vast majority of the time, and not much tonal matching of songs to scenes. This improves somewhat as more dramatic moments happen later in Chapter 1, and especially in Chapter 2 where the music choices are more interesting/unique as well.

Ultimately, I like this VN and its characters. Despite the awkwardness of the tonal shift back, I have overall positive impressions of v1.7, and see it as somewhat of a return to form, with it having some of my favorite scenes in the entire VN so far. Hopefully this trend continues, with a better mix of action, drama, and comedy, instead of the non-stop depressing vibe the author began Chapter 2 with.

EDIT: Upon re-reading from the beginning of Chapter 2, it looks like some things were also adjusted earlier than the 1.7 content to add a bit more levity, humor, and clarity on the leadup to 1.7 - another positive change overall.

Story 1/5
I just couldent get into this one, not only is it a real slowburn but it just became worse and worse to the point of nothing making any sense, then theres single choices...and fake choices, forced LIs and the music dident help its the same short tune over and over again and it will drive you nuts after just 10 mins of listening to it.
Then theres the idiotic dreams where your forced to see MC fuck the most ugly bitches in game, why?.....

Next the the fake choices.....peek or dont peek, click dont peek and MC goes into peek.....how this game got high rating i will never understand.

First game will force a LI on you without having any reason to do so since you can drop her next time you see her? so why force it on the player to start with.......its just to weird and stupid and its only to get him fired later which could have been done in a million other ways then forcing a LI.
Then you can refuse alot of LIs untill the sister is forced on you, then it goes back to being able to refuse.

As for the main story its a real slowburn and MC feels like a complete idiot being submissive all the time, even accepting to talk to hes ex-girlfriend who hes supposed to hate and have absolutly no trust in.....but he starts trusting her and accepting her help again, its the one person in the world he knows he cant trust whos working for the bad guys that can fuck up hes and hes sister life it really makes no sense what so ever and it feels idiotic, so much so that it really ruins the story, he even starts spiling hes guts to her about him almost killing 2 guys its absolutly insane how bad this story has gotten and MC then goes on to say "i know i cant trust her" ?????????? just no.

It gets even worse when Em tries to kill him, she drugs him, break both hes legs, break hes neck...you would think that should be more then enough to make MC pissed, but no why would he seek revenge why not just let it go so they can get a few more chances? .....it truely is this awfull.....

Another small thing but still idiotic is how MC and hes sister is worried about their eyes changing colors, i guess its due to them being brainless or maybe never heard about contact lenses or even sunglasses....

Just dont waste your time on this one, from chapter 2 MC gets soooo much worse so i better stop my review here since talking anymore about the shitty story parts or things that makes no sense would take up 10 pages.
But like alot of others belive including my self, you wont ever get any form for revenge with Em or the Ex girfriend, which makes it for an even more pointless and boring story.

Girls 4/5
Good diversity in builds and they look nice enough for this type of characters.

Animations 3/5
Its about what you can expect from this character style.

Choices 2/5
Some choices work but it also has fake choices and forced LIs

Short review:
Story is a mess, starts out as a good guy and ends with an evil killer as MC.
Submissive and brainless MC.
Forced forgivness of an ex-girlfriend who blackmailed MC, to get fucked over again by said Ex, to then work with them....it just killed the story.
Forced LIs.
Girls and Animations are good.
Music is pretty damn bad.

Blows my mind so many rate story so good with this many flaws in it.

Stick with this one. It was pretty average at first. Then it gets much better, real quick. Only other gripe.. almost too many LI's.
I laughed quite a bit during this. But there is 1 moment.. I'll never forget. All I say is.. the desk. I laughed so hard.

Ok.. Part 2 is.. meh. Feels rushed. Also the I don't want to see flashbacks that spoil anything.. why is that there? its so disjointed.. Again, just feels sooo rushed.

Part 1 -5 stars
Part 2 - 2 stars.

Got the makings of a long story. I enjoy the writing quite a bit. Some Comedy, some serious stuff, some inconsequential stuff.

If I could only offer one bit of constructive criticism, I'd only add that the way everyone interacts with the MC with that casual-but-friendly rudeness diminishes the effect when everyone does it.
I suppose that it could be argued that it's just a stylized way the writer likes. But personally, I think I would save it for only a few characters.

Honestly, can't wait for more.

Holy Shit, This was one long ass game, Took me 3 days lol
I loved this a game alot, like literally my top 10 fosho (7th to be precise)
The Dialogues were the best elements for me in this game
They were really so unique and got me laughing hard sometimes.
Probably the best game I ever played in terms of dialogue writing, I loved the first half of the game when the plot wasn't that serious.
I extremely love the mc for his charisma (Bro is the Rizzler fr) and his sick sense of humour and his main love interest for her personality which is just so perfect that everytime she appears on screen, i get really intrigued.
She looks too adorable as well. She really is in my top 5 F95Waifus lol
The Plot is also Great and I liked it Moreover...

Some characters were really well-written. Some were not that much
No comments on the Sex scenes, I am only here for da plot lol

Aight thats all. I wish the Dev the best for more upcoming updates on this Masterpiece

Review as of 1.0 (the end of the first part). The VN is split into two there, so it feels as good a time as any.

I've always been somewhat fond of porn-with-plot, so I went into this based on the reviews which alluded to that. The game roughly divides into three sections—no spoilers, the "spoilers" are just to save screen space—and I'll review each one separately before getting to conclusions.





Conclusions
This one is a pass unfortunately. Too much plot to be a dating sim or porn romp, too much dating sim to have a plot. Writing needs a ton of work.

Finished part 1 a week ago, and have been mulling what to write since then. The writing is honestly a bit flat at times, and the protagonist has moments of reaching tope levels of hero complex and I'd appreciate some more depth to his character building. So I was going to give it a solid four, becuase the story is actually pretty good, and the writing does improve as the game progresses.

...however, HOWEVER, I'm just fucking in love with the main love interest (your sister, this game is really written to be played with the incest patch, and it deals with that in a great way tbh). I couldn't bring myself to rating Iris' game a 4. So here's a 5! Iris is such a great character, and her interactions with MC are organic, cute and genuinly funny.

This review is for version 1.1.
This game is a roller coaster of emotions. I first played the first 1/3 of part 1 a while back and couldn't get into the game, as it felt like a generic, light-hearted hentai with a dumb MC and no plot other than fucking everything in sight. After not playing for a couple years, I returned to try the full release of part 1, and was surprised to find that this game has so much more to offer than I expected. Bit by bit the story creeps in, as the story slowly shifts into a more serious tone; the second half of part 1 feels almost like a different game. Personally, I couldn't have been more hooked as the story progressed, and then the cliffhanger at the end of part 1 immediately turned this into one of my favorite VNs ever. Perhaps the only major complaint about this game I have is the overabundance of sex, which sometimes overshadows the actual story. This is particularly true of the the middle portion of part 1, which seemed afraid at times to stand on its own story merits and hid behind endless sex. It would seem this more resolved going into part 2, and the significant increase in story compared to sex definitely sets the second act apart (so i can perhaps see why the author chose so much sex early on, to draw such a juxtaposition), so I eagerly await to see where the author takes the story. The characters are generally all written well, in particular the later characters. The super early ones are the only I feel lack enough characterization, in particular Alyssa and Violet. The addition of the MC's mother was a wonderful idea on the author's part, as she provided an outlet for the MC (and thus the story) to begin to be more serious. While I'm unsure what direction the game will take going forward, I would encourage people who are turned off by the vapid early game to try pushing forward longer, as you'll find a real jewell of a game.

*Most of the following is subjective*

My initial thoughts were that the game was fairly average. As I spent more time playing it and the banter between the characters evolved, I was strangely drawn into it- despite acknowledging that at times, the dialogue was cheesier than a deep dish pizza. As it turns out, I am definitely not lactose intolerant. But honestly, I felt that the pacing was all over the place in the beginning, with an abrupt increase near the end. Not to mention the fact that the soundtrack was remarkably average, to my surprise. (For part 1 at least)

I say this because even if the writing is as I described above, there is not a single thing I would change about it. The humor has almost never failed to make me laugh. I absolutely adore the characters in this world even if their motivations & actions are cliche and straight out of an anime. Which reminds me, this is more of an anime than a game and not for a single second have I disliked that. I don't know how else to put this, and can't objectively review the game because I am hopelessly attached to the characters. The one genuine feedback I want to reiterate is that the end of the first, and beginning (that's all it is right now) of the second part felt quite faster in pace as compared to the rest of the game.




I want to write so much more, but this is all I can get out right now. All in all, I'll say this: I hate this game. I hate you more. Please take your time and don't stop until you've achieved your vision.

POV after catching up with the current update:
https://imgur.com/a/60nCPHq

But more accurately:
https://attachments.f95zone.to/2021/12/1563594_w4d1-982.jpg

Art 4/5
Sound 3/5 (only music)
Animation 4/5
Story 1/5 or 4/5 (depending on your likes)

Story is ONLY good if you enjoy stories where one of the main characters die! The developer does not even have the courtesy to warn you that he will include death in the game! I hate depressing games there is enough depressing things in real life so I play games for a light enjoying fun and possibly a good fap.

So I must WARN others if you get emotionally involved in the main characters and play the game for a good time THIS IS NOT FOR YOU! It was not for me that is for sure and what upsets me is the Developer could of had the common decency to declare this before I wasted so much time on this game!

Not providing critical warnings like this in a game that is meant to be fappable to is like raping my emotions. I went from let's play a fun game to I'm depressed let me try to find some good manga or manhwa to try to get my mind over it.

Anyone else you should enjoy the story a lot as this was one twist I did not see or I would not have played this game at all.

[v1.0]

Trouble in Paradise is a pure fantasy fulfilment game that sets the tone early on what you can expect throughout the rest of the meaty 7Gb game has in store.
The dialogue and banter between the MCs (recommend you play with the incest patch) pulls you right in and has you invested, then it delves deeper as the story goes on-- as our big-dicked, easy-going PC fucks his way into the hearts of every character... No really, that dick is magical

H-scenes
While the animations and statics are simple, due to it being a Koikatsu title. I've always found a certain charm to them.

The "worst" complaint you will find is the fact it is it's a hefty download of 7Gbs, but that does come with the upside of high-quality in everything throughout.

Mostly vanilla in terms of kink variety (outside the obvious incest); though a few light moments of variety sprinkled throughout to not be completely monotonous:
mainly threesomes, a hint of lesbian action, implied voyeurism, deflowering, and anal.
(There is 4 or so scenes of forced/coerced if you pick a dark/revenge path on certain characters)

In conclusion: if you want to enjoy a compelling fantasy fulfilment story, with some fun clichés, witty dialogue, and a genuinely interesting cast of LIs/Harem/Side Characters, then enjoy some Trouble in Paradise

The game becomes so much greater in the second half!
Music, direction, dialogues, MC becoming not his whinning self - all improved since the first part of the game.
Can't wait till the next update! Keep up!

In a sea of similar games which don't quite live up to expectations, this game is an absolute gem

From the get-go, the humour was brilliant and all the characters were rather likeable, except for those who were quite obviously not, but they all served their purpose and worked well for what they were

As the story progressed and you got to know the characters better, a further layer of likeability was added on. And to top it all off, you actually start to FEEL the emotional impact of many of the scenes

Obviously, the key storyline is the love story between the MC and Iris, his childhood friend-slash-sister (depending on whether you patched your game and are into incest), which isn't just about the sex scenes. Don't get me wrong, there ARE sex scenes aplenty, but there are loads of great moments in between which are just pure gold and truly sell the player on how great their relationship truly is

H-scenes are animated, and, again, plentiful, this is one of those games where the storyline trumps the h-scenes, and it does so amazingly. Saying that, fans of harem games will definitely not be disappointed either, as our MC gets to set up his very own harem!

This is one of those rare gems which I can't recommend enough, and it's earned every one of its five stars, always leaving the player eagerly awaiting the next installment

After a long game, I made my decision. This game is great. It has a great story and it doesn't get boring. There are great characters, the scenes are good too. Every female character is beautiful and has different personalities. It's a game you can sit back and play. No sandbox, no minigames. The only minus of the game for me was the simplicity of the scenes. I'd love to see more "things" because I'm a bit of a pervert. Like a footjob and maybe a femboy character. Ah, it's still a great game. Play for the story even if you don't like the scenes or the art.

This is a review of version 1.0

Pros:
+ Lots of girls to date
+ You've got a choice if you want to see their events or not
+ Girls stories and personalities are interesting and varied
+ From my point of view all girls are pretty - that rarely happens for this games
+ Really good overall story arc - that is a rare among this games. I never felt the urge to skip any of the dialogues or exposition
+ Lots of nice h scenes
+ Game is quite big but with no filler (no pointless free roam sections)

Cons:
- Graphics is average
- If playing without incest patch (as I did) you can kind of feel that its not how the story was created. You can get some weird dialogues here and there that make no sense

Overall:
I would rate this 9/10. For me it's almost the ideal game. Great interesting story, lots of nice girls with personal stories, great h scenes, lots of it, regular big updates - what do you need more? Play it and you most likely will not regret it.