- Jan 2, 2022
- 557
- 3,160
Ren'Py -u4ia- [Ep3.01p] [DriftyGames]
- Sep 12, 2020
- 186
- 51
- Jan 2, 2022
- 557
- 3,160
- Dec 4, 2017
- 3,781
- 9,787
I really want to like the game, but this sandbox/freeroam experience makes it very, very hard to do so...the game would be so much better without it.
- Oct 24, 2018
- 3,502
- 25,377
Girls are supposed to wet their panties to this
So... first episode was not that good. Kinda lacked everything. You met many characters briefly but dont get to know anything, not even about the MC that is worth mentioning. It didnt even worked as a introduction... And compared to the first episode of leap of faith it was WAY behind that.
So now we have episode 2. Which improved a lot. To be frank, maybe Drifty should have released episode 1 and 2 in one go. It works way better like this for the start of the game if you play both episodes together the first time, cause in episode 2 you get to know the mc and others more and even something about the overall plot. Episode 1 left you with nothing, episode 2 now get things started. So yeah, the first episode wasnt really good (compared to leap of faith), the second one is better. At least in most ways...
Overall i like u4ia, but i dont think it can keep up with leap of faith (for now). The MC is just not that good, at least for now... cant really relate to him, and thats because he just doesnt have much to say at this point and we dont know enough about his background to relate. Drifty made the MC from leap of faith better, wrote early on what is his deal, so it was way easier to relate... another thing, the leap of faith MC was a "ordinary" guy. Its clear the MC of u4ia is not that ordinary. And that makes it more difficult to relate too.
The girls are really good though, a big varity, maybe even too many girls, but that needs to be seen if every girl will be a real LI later on or many are just side girls... so far it feels like every girl got a story arch and can be a potential relationship down the road, and i think thats just too many to get every girl enough attention. Huge potential to grow over Driftys head. in leap of faith there werent that many girls, but even there Drifty couldnt really handle every girl the "right" way. Some were falling behind in attention and deciding to make Holly a real LI near the end didnt helped the cause at all (even if i liked her a lot). So hopefully Drifty has planned everything out expecially all the girl paths so they work out evenly.
Drifty improved a lot in animations too, but sometimes they feel weird, cause most of them are kinda too slow, like watching everything in slow motion when its clear it should not be slow motion at all. He needs to work on that i think, but nontheless, the naimations are nice and add something good to the game...
Now some negatives, the music... sorry, dont like it. Its kinda the same "vibe" all the time, no matter the scene, the music is nearly the same, even if its always a different track, but the music doesnt really change with the scenery or does really fit to it all the time... sometimes it is fitting, most of the times not really... and the biggest issue i have, its not really "background" music to set the mood, they a songs with a lot of singing in it... i dont now if iam a special case here, but when i read something, i dont like to listen to actual songs it sets me off. Instrumental music is way better to set the mood. Its not a problem if most of the music would be instrumental and some not, with a good balance it would be ok, but its more or less 90% of the times that a song is playing. Dont like that... of course i could turn the music off, but in some scenes Drifty decided to add some good mood setting tunes, didnt want to miss those.
Next one on the negative list.. why no text box? Should have learned that from leap of faith.
Another negative, the perk system... just... WHY? I can add a perk to have more time in the free roams, why limit it in the first place? The most other perks are out of place too.... i can get it if you want to kinda "shape" the mc one way or the other... like being more romantik or more forward or kinda a asshole. But than make it just like that. Dont add shitty things like "you get double the money and can see more scenes in the free roam" that is just... not good.
And last to the most annoying part that pretty much ruined every desire to play it more than once for now... the free roams. Most people will know being a dik here, and there the free roams can be a bit annoying too. But what Drifty did with the free roams here is on a whole other level of annoying. And there is just NO reason for it. Why is there a time limit, no reason for that, it only leaves the player behind with the feeling he missed content. It doesnt have any real purpose. Navigating through the free roams is a pain too. Settle for ONE mechanic through the game please so you can get used to it, changing it from scene to scene is so annoying... the beach party was a REAL pain to get by cause of the shitty navigating thing (and movement sickness too... ugh, what was that?) Just to klick 5 times to get from one girl to the other with the constanly moving camera... ugh. And of course no way to look up tasks cause the phone is in a basket. So i should get sun lotion, a key and beer for the girls, but couldnt get any because... i had to end the free roam first to start the second phase but it wasnt clear that there will be a second phase, i actually didnt give a shit about anymore at some point searching around and just said to myself "yeah scree this free roam i end it just here" and just like that i got to the second part. That should have been made way better, and of course with way less navigating through it... fuck the whole beach is about a mile long for about 10 people... that was really not necessary, could have be moved into... maybe 2 scenes instead of 7 (?) too.
Well...
Overall u4ia is a good game, with really good writing (no surprise, Drifty can write and make really good dialogues) but has some real heavy flaws too, more than leap of faith had. But, leap of faith was really strong in the first 6 episodes, the last 2 including the finale wasnt that strong anymore... u41a very first episode wasnt that good, the second was way better (could have been way better without the gameplay issues regarding the free roams and with a better background music choice)
Drifty can improve a lot about the free roams, especially how you navigate through them should be improved and the same mechanic in every free roam and please... no time limit, that is just... not a good decision. Make a time limit if there is a real reason for it, like... getting something done in a specific time table. But there is a little simple minigame a better choice i think.
The bar was set very high with leap of faith and Drifty cant reach it yet. But he is getting closer. And as i mentioned... leap of faith lost a little the "drive" in the last two episodes and especially the last one was kinda disappointing. The ending with the girls felt kinda rushed and there were so many loose ends too (the guy in the park, the Dad-story, Sea and so on...). Maybe some of those loose ends will be picked up in u4ia. But we will see. I mean... Sea is a main girl in u4ia already... so yeah it could be that things will be tied to leap of faith. But so far it doesnt look like it. Its seems to be more like a thing to make it clear that the games are playing in the same "world" and at the same time or better said some months apart...
Enough though. Overall i like it, the writing and the characters are the huge plus and the most important things. And here Drifty delivers top notch work again. Some other things are really annoying, but could be fixed easily... There is a lot room to improve, for a already good game that is a really good thing. Besides, all the "bad" things or "not so good" ones should be considered soley compared to the best games around here and leap of faith. So its kinda whining at a very high level. But some guys set a very high bar, and Drifty himself did that too... so i thinks its reasonable to "complain" about things that could have been way better. Cause we are not talking about the average F95 game here. And u4ia is way ahead of that average level of course already.
So now we have episode 2. Which improved a lot. To be frank, maybe Drifty should have released episode 1 and 2 in one go. It works way better like this for the start of the game if you play both episodes together the first time, cause in episode 2 you get to know the mc and others more and even something about the overall plot. Episode 1 left you with nothing, episode 2 now get things started. So yeah, the first episode wasnt really good (compared to leap of faith), the second one is better. At least in most ways...
Overall i like u4ia, but i dont think it can keep up with leap of faith (for now). The MC is just not that good, at least for now... cant really relate to him, and thats because he just doesnt have much to say at this point and we dont know enough about his background to relate. Drifty made the MC from leap of faith better, wrote early on what is his deal, so it was way easier to relate... another thing, the leap of faith MC was a "ordinary" guy. Its clear the MC of u4ia is not that ordinary. And that makes it more difficult to relate too.
The girls are really good though, a big varity, maybe even too many girls, but that needs to be seen if every girl will be a real LI later on or many are just side girls... so far it feels like every girl got a story arch and can be a potential relationship down the road, and i think thats just too many to get every girl enough attention. Huge potential to grow over Driftys head. in leap of faith there werent that many girls, but even there Drifty couldnt really handle every girl the "right" way. Some were falling behind in attention and deciding to make Holly a real LI near the end didnt helped the cause at all (even if i liked her a lot). So hopefully Drifty has planned everything out expecially all the girl paths so they work out evenly.
Drifty improved a lot in animations too, but sometimes they feel weird, cause most of them are kinda too slow, like watching everything in slow motion when its clear it should not be slow motion at all. He needs to work on that i think, but nontheless, the naimations are nice and add something good to the game...
Now some negatives, the music... sorry, dont like it. Its kinda the same "vibe" all the time, no matter the scene, the music is nearly the same, even if its always a different track, but the music doesnt really change with the scenery or does really fit to it all the time... sometimes it is fitting, most of the times not really... and the biggest issue i have, its not really "background" music to set the mood, they a songs with a lot of singing in it... i dont now if iam a special case here, but when i read something, i dont like to listen to actual songs it sets me off. Instrumental music is way better to set the mood. Its not a problem if most of the music would be instrumental and some not, with a good balance it would be ok, but its more or less 90% of the times that a song is playing. Dont like that... of course i could turn the music off, but in some scenes Drifty decided to add some good mood setting tunes, didnt want to miss those.
Next one on the negative list.. why no text box? Should have learned that from leap of faith.
Another negative, the perk system... just... WHY? I can add a perk to have more time in the free roams, why limit it in the first place? The most other perks are out of place too.... i can get it if you want to kinda "shape" the mc one way or the other... like being more romantik or more forward or kinda a asshole. But than make it just like that. Dont add shitty things like "you get double the money and can see more scenes in the free roam" that is just... not good.
And last to the most annoying part that pretty much ruined every desire to play it more than once for now... the free roams. Most people will know being a dik here, and there the free roams can be a bit annoying too. But what Drifty did with the free roams here is on a whole other level of annoying. And there is just NO reason for it. Why is there a time limit, no reason for that, it only leaves the player behind with the feeling he missed content. It doesnt have any real purpose. Navigating through the free roams is a pain too. Settle for ONE mechanic through the game please so you can get used to it, changing it from scene to scene is so annoying... the beach party was a REAL pain to get by cause of the shitty navigating thing (and movement sickness too... ugh, what was that?) Just to klick 5 times to get from one girl to the other with the constanly moving camera... ugh. And of course no way to look up tasks cause the phone is in a basket. So i should get sun lotion, a key and beer for the girls, but couldnt get any because... i had to end the free roam first to start the second phase but it wasnt clear that there will be a second phase, i actually didnt give a shit about anymore at some point searching around and just said to myself "yeah scree this free roam i end it just here" and just like that i got to the second part. That should have been made way better, and of course with way less navigating through it... fuck the whole beach is about a mile long for about 10 people... that was really not necessary, could have be moved into... maybe 2 scenes instead of 7 (?) too.
Well...
Overall u4ia is a good game, with really good writing (no surprise, Drifty can write and make really good dialogues) but has some real heavy flaws too, more than leap of faith had. But, leap of faith was really strong in the first 6 episodes, the last 2 including the finale wasnt that strong anymore... u41a very first episode wasnt that good, the second was way better (could have been way better without the gameplay issues regarding the free roams and with a better background music choice)
Drifty can improve a lot about the free roams, especially how you navigate through them should be improved and the same mechanic in every free roam and please... no time limit, that is just... not a good decision. Make a time limit if there is a real reason for it, like... getting something done in a specific time table. But there is a little simple minigame a better choice i think.
The bar was set very high with leap of faith and Drifty cant reach it yet. But he is getting closer. And as i mentioned... leap of faith lost a little the "drive" in the last two episodes and especially the last one was kinda disappointing. The ending with the girls felt kinda rushed and there were so many loose ends too (the guy in the park, the Dad-story, Sea and so on...). Maybe some of those loose ends will be picked up in u4ia. But we will see. I mean... Sea is a main girl in u4ia already... so yeah it could be that things will be tied to leap of faith. But so far it doesnt look like it. Its seems to be more like a thing to make it clear that the games are playing in the same "world" and at the same time or better said some months apart...
Enough though. Overall i like it, the writing and the characters are the huge plus and the most important things. And here Drifty delivers top notch work again. Some other things are really annoying, but could be fixed easily... There is a lot room to improve, for a already good game that is a really good thing. Besides, all the "bad" things or "not so good" ones should be considered soley compared to the best games around here and leap of faith. So its kinda whining at a very high level. But some guys set a very high bar, and Drifty himself did that too... so i thinks its reasonable to "complain" about things that could have been way better. Cause we are not talking about the average F95 game here. And u4ia is way ahead of that average level of course already.
I'm enjoying this game more than Leap of Faith already. Better girls and adding milfs to the mix is a big bonus.
- Aug 3, 2019
- 576
- 1,107
the beach party is bugged for me. the free roam part where you have to talk to everybody. i can't click any of the arrows to move the screen
- Mar 21, 2017
- 584
- 1,781
Has anyone found Celeste during the second free roam beach section? The MC mentions that he should look for her, but for the life of me I can't find her.
edit: It's weird because the end game recaps say the MC saw her in the shower when he was retrieving the jet ski key. I got the key, but Celeste definitely wasn't in the shower. I guess I must've messed something up somewhere.
edit: It's weird because the end game recaps say the MC saw her in the shower when he was retrieving the jet ski key. I got the key, but Celeste definitely wasn't in the shower. I guess I must've messed something up somewhere.
Last edited:
In the second free roam at the beach talk to some other girls until the towel hangs out the shower
- Mar 21, 2017
- 584
- 1,781
- Aug 5, 2016
- 5,008
- 13,771
Ah, yes, obnoxious free roams the salt of the western vns
- Dec 10, 2023
- 68
- 220
It will depend on if Drifty wants to take the feedback from the free roam and gameplay route issues and improve upon them, because right now it will turn alot of people off. The timer for free roam is a big deal breaker...
- Jun 25, 2022
- 714
- 1,675
Really on the fence about that free roam timer stuff. If you wanna force multiple playthrough of your game the way to do it is with choices, not "oops I ran outta time". As someone else said, the ability to increase roam time just makes you wonder why a timer is there in the first place. I mean, why would you not take that ability.
yeah the free roam and time limit is really annoying. i don't feel like playing more than 2 times for the game.
- Jun 14, 2020
- 2,687
- 8,382
I don't know. "Leap Of Faith" is IMHO the best AVN that has ever come out. Now Drifty kind of destroys everything. I didn't expect a new LoF to come out and I didn't expect it to be as deep a story. Drifty has already made it very clear that it's going to go a completely different direction. That's okay with me. I just didn't expect him to make the game so annoying. First this thing with the talents and perks. Well, he's corrected that in a way with this update. But the free roams are such an interrupter. Whenever I'm just in the flow of the story, a free roam knocks me out again.
I have nothing against free roams. Used in good measure, they can liven up a game. Sometimes they are also good for bringing together several storylines in a big event of their own and then bringing them to one level via several events in a free roam. Bringing all the threads together, so to speak, so that things can continue in a structured way. But here in u4ia I have the feeling that the game is a single free roam. That's annoying. I want to play an AVN, not an adventure game like Monkey Island.
I don't understand this hype about free roams among developers these days. It's pure point & click. If you could at least really move freely instead of having to stupidly press on arrows and objects. You have to realize: Ren'Py is not suitable for this type of game. That's why such mechanics should be used sparingly and carefully.
It would still be something I could somehow manage if it wasn't absolutely necessary to play the free roams over and over again in every game run for every additional LI. The worst part is that it's not fun at all because you feel like the game doesn't help you realize what to look for when you want to go certain ways. You run haphazardly through the game and miss all sorts of things along the way, only to realize in another playthrough that you've missed something very important to the goal of the other playthrough. In other words: without a walkthrough, the game is frustrating. But that can't be the case.
Somehow that makes me sad. "Leap Of Faith" is a 10/10 and u4ia only makes it to a 5/10 for me because of the fantastic graphics and some funny dialog. That can't be it. I have no idea how Drifty is going to fix this. I understand that it's much more fun for a developer to build more or less complex mechanics like talent systems and free roams. But ultimately the game is meant for the players, isn't it? As a developer, shouldn't you develop a game in such a way that the player finds his way through the game without frustration and also has motivation? All that's missing now are mini-games to take the fun out of the game completely.
I find the story that is told interesting. The game could be the banger. If it's true, which I suspect it is, that MC was a spare parts store for a twin (Samantha's almost-husband) he didn't know, girl, what a story! But the way AVN is presenting itself I just have so little desire for it.
I wish Drifty would sit down for a week or two and think about how he can design the game without this mass of free roams and then do a rework. The game is still at an early stage. Sure, it would take time, but it can still be saved. I don't want to know how many players dropped out during the second episode and didn't even finish a single playthrough. Let alone started more playthroughs. If this continues in episode 3, no one will want to play episode 4. Let alone any more.
I have nothing against free roams. Used in good measure, they can liven up a game. Sometimes they are also good for bringing together several storylines in a big event of their own and then bringing them to one level via several events in a free roam. Bringing all the threads together, so to speak, so that things can continue in a structured way. But here in u4ia I have the feeling that the game is a single free roam. That's annoying. I want to play an AVN, not an adventure game like Monkey Island.
I don't understand this hype about free roams among developers these days. It's pure point & click. If you could at least really move freely instead of having to stupidly press on arrows and objects. You have to realize: Ren'Py is not suitable for this type of game. That's why such mechanics should be used sparingly and carefully.
It would still be something I could somehow manage if it wasn't absolutely necessary to play the free roams over and over again in every game run for every additional LI. The worst part is that it's not fun at all because you feel like the game doesn't help you realize what to look for when you want to go certain ways. You run haphazardly through the game and miss all sorts of things along the way, only to realize in another playthrough that you've missed something very important to the goal of the other playthrough. In other words: without a walkthrough, the game is frustrating. But that can't be the case.
Somehow that makes me sad. "Leap Of Faith" is a 10/10 and u4ia only makes it to a 5/10 for me because of the fantastic graphics and some funny dialog. That can't be it. I have no idea how Drifty is going to fix this. I understand that it's much more fun for a developer to build more or less complex mechanics like talent systems and free roams. But ultimately the game is meant for the players, isn't it? As a developer, shouldn't you develop a game in such a way that the player finds his way through the game without frustration and also has motivation? All that's missing now are mini-games to take the fun out of the game completely.
I find the story that is told interesting. The game could be the banger. If it's true, which I suspect it is, that MC was a spare parts store for a twin (Samantha's almost-husband) he didn't know, girl, what a story! But the way AVN is presenting itself I just have so little desire for it.
I wish Drifty would sit down for a week or two and think about how he can design the game without this mass of free roams and then do a rework. The game is still at an early stage. Sure, it would take time, but it can still be saved. I don't want to know how many players dropped out during the second episode and didn't even finish a single playthrough. Let alone started more playthroughs. If this continues in episode 3, no one will want to play episode 4. Let alone any more.
- Jun 25, 2022
- 714
- 1,675
I have my filter for Ren'py games + male protag. I feel like lately that if i added an exclusion for Sandbox I'd lose 15 pages of games and only ever see 2 or 3 recently updated ones. The rest would say completed/abandoned or not updated in 8 months.