VN - Ren'Py - Unleashed [v0.6.5b] [CarbonBlue]

Absolutely one of the best VN in Hindsight of Story Character Depth and Animation. But I must say that the Updates are far away every time. Yes, I think it's the Reason it works so well and is that addictive. Addiction and waiting doesn't work that well with each other. But it's an absolute Must have

English:............10/10
User Interface:.....3/10
User Experience:....7/10
Art:................6/10
Dialogue:...........9/10
Story:..............5/10
Opinion:............7/10................
Avg:.............6.71/10 [3.35/5]

As it stands, reviewing this game is gonna be an unfortunate experience for me. Not because I hate the game, far from it. I actually like this game a lot, it's one of the only AVNs to actually make me laugh. The real pain is going to be dissecting the non-existent story, bad coding, at best poorly executed and at worst just false gameplay promises, and my general distaste for anything DDLC-like. "Subversion of expectations" is getting so old, my expectations will be subverted if you don't try to do it. Add all that to the slower than glacial pace that this is developed at, and ultimately you have a disappointing game. To recap what little I remember about this, as it's been a long while, "MC moves into his NOTfamily's house after X years and suddenly, he's attracted to all of them. Then the slutty goth girl next door instantly wants to bang him." The end. Sure, the dialogue in this is better than most, but having the same shitty plot as every other game that exists is inexcusable. Shannon is the disgruntled younger sister-type. She's smart and has most of the comedic dialogue. Maeve is the older sister type that is literally just there to be a 4th wall boundary break. The mere idea of her character is the most annoying thing on the planet to me, and ultimately everything to do with her led nowhere. Olivia is the cougar, no further traits. And Angel is the aforementioned goth type with the trailer-trash sob story. Boo hoo. On top of all that, the art is dated and completely inconsistent. And again, I REALLY want to emphasize I love the dialogue in this. It's what made this whole this stick in my mind since I played it 5 years ago. But that's another thing.. FIVE years and the last few updates they can't advance the version number because they keep wanting to test BASIC renpy functionality. It's absurd. I went through the infinitely long script file, LIKE THEY WANT, because they don't seem to know you can split it up into any number of files, and it's all just basic stuff minus a glitch effect at the end that jumps you back so you can make the "right" decisions.

Really, I can't go on my usual long-winded tirade hitting every story beat. NOTHING happens. Like I said, MC moves in with his dads old friend with her two adult daughters. Shannon's friend Angel visits all the time because she can't stand her trailer trash mom. MC, uncharacteristically, has very little lines. The only person that lets him talk is Maeve. Her entire character is "CAN YOU TELL THIS IS AN AVN?!?!" All but one scene with her is a 4th wall break. Shannon is a typical tsundere type. And Olivia is the mother that wants to let loose. The story is nothing but I can happily say, characters don't do dumb shit for the sake of porn plot to happen. It all feels well written enough to work. Outside of Maeve, obviously. She has one decent scene when she feels regret about getting MC roofied on his first night. The rest is "You're so interesting because you're the player of an AVN." It's not cute. It doesn't entice me. And it gets old. It really is a shame that MC is mostly non-existent through this story. Shannon, Angel, and Maeve have good banter. Sure, it goes on a little too long and tries a little too hard, but it's not awful. I honestly believe that if this dev decided to actually write a story, I'd be a huge fan. But no, we're gonna get v6.6 because they've been frequenting the dokidoki discord to make another fake error screen.

This is probably one of my shorter actual reviews in recent memory. Mostly because this game is so short with no notable story. This is the second game ever, for me, to get a 10 in English. Not only do I not remember any typos, but it all reads like an actual English speaking human. I'm happy about that. The UI/UX is completely default. Not only that, but the music is mapped to the wrong slider somehow? How do you not touch the UI and still break it? It boggles the mind. The art, like I said, is dated. The lighting is inconsistent at best, Maeve changing hair color looks more like an accident than anything, and the male character models look cheap. The dialogue is still great. I'm very happy to admit it. They all feel personable, there's not a lot of forced references, outside Maeve, and the only complaint is that it's ridiculously short. The story, is nothing. It's not bad because there's nothing here, but it's not good because it's just not good. As for the opinion, I'm such a sucker for good dialogue that I bumped it up a lil higher than it needs to be probably.

If by some miracle the dev reads this. Write more. Screw all this ddlc fake error garbage. There's nothing in the forums. There's no external ARG thing, it's crap, frankly. You've made a couple good characters, now round out the other two that need more than horny mother and 4th wall. You need to fix a lot of code as well. Organize it and initialize variables better. I'll continue to be morbidly curious as this goes on.

Unleashed 0.62b

I'm not quite sure how to review this one since it seems like there's some sort of meta aspect to this game that's interesting but not really supposed to make sense until the end (so anything I said about it would be mostly speculation). I guess I'll just mostly talk about what works and doesn't as for me in it so far as a normal avn.

The writing is solid and dialogue is full of great banter. The most enjoyable part of this avn thus far has easily been the dynamic between the girls that live in the house. The way they interact with each other reminded me of my friends when I was that age... as much as we cared about each other and would have each other's backs, we would constantly give each other shit and try to get one over on each other. That's what it feels like with all the girls in the house, though especially between Shannon and Angel. There were a good number of moments that either made me laugh or smile (mostly to do with Shannon's antics and quips) and even a few tiny heart wrenching moments. The only possible nitpick with the writing is that a lot of pop-culture references are made that I mostly get as a slightly past middle-aged man but I'm not so sure people of the characters age would actually know that well (guess it's hard to say these days with streaming everything and meme culture). The characters aren't super deep but we learn more about them over time in what's been a slow satisfying manner so far. Maeve seems like she's been kept a bit more mysterious than the others intentionally.

There are plenty of choices but few are actually meaningful so far and there's no big branching narratives or anything like that. The most meaningful decisions thus far seem to be around whether the MC accepts or refuses advances. The effects of those choices at this point are generally short term consequences of how another girl feels as a result. Though there are very few of these sorts of choices so far, I like how the results play out in both pretty subtle and not so subtle ways depending on who's involved.

Despite some choices, that MC largely feels like a passenger along for the ride in this game. He's so passive and blank that I'm not sure if it's being done intentionally or not. He rarely initiates anything or says anything that isn't a response. When you do choose a response there will occasionally be render and line of text of him saying it, but a good portion of the time clicking a response leads right to a direct response from the character(s) he's talking to. It's all feels a bit uncanny.

Visually, the game looks a tad dated. The character models and renders could both be better frankly but I adjusted to the look pretty quickly once I got into it. Posing is generally well done aside from a few minor issues here and there but in earlier parts of the game there's a tendency to transition between different poses in a way that can feel jarring and unnatural. Facial expressions and overall visual expressiveness is great. Animations aren't used much which is for the best given how bad the one for the only sex scene was. My biggest complaint is that the nipples on the girls look too similar in size/shape and aren't terribly appealing (they look as you might expect in an older game). Why are the nipples such an issue? That's because that's really the most we see of the girls in terms of any female nudity in the game thus far, which seems like a good part to discuss next.

When it comes to lewd content (and progression in general), and I think this is where most will take issue, there's not much there at all and it's not great. There's one short sex scene which is done in an interesting way but marred by using really bad animation instead of just static renders. There's also one short BJ (fully clothed) and one instance of helping a random girl get off in public (on the subway). Otherwise, everything else is just occasional flashing boobs or other brief nudity. Personally, I find the girls are still sexy without much explicit content and teasing/exhibitionism appealing but I fully understand people not being pleased with either the lack of lewd content or just the really slow progression overall in character/story progress if they've been following the game for years. The author's been clear that lewd content is to service the story and not the other way around but people should be aware of both this aspect and that it seems progress of the releases tends to be extremely slow at this point.

Audio is decent where it's used and Music I can't really comment on since I used KoGa's music mod (which I definitely would recommend).

Overall, I enjoyed playing what's available and hope I'm playing these games long enough to see where it ends up. Visually it could be a lot better but the writing and humor made it worthwhile. The dynamic with the girls and my possibly misplaced interest around what the heck the author will do with the more meta part of the game (hopefully not drop it) will keep me curious about returning to this once finished.

Note that the review score is solely reflective of what I played and does not take into account how slowly the game is released or story progression - the game is at this point fairly short and kinda feels like it's still just getting going despite being in development for 4 years for the release I played (5 years total but there hasn't been another release yet). That should be taken into account as far as your expectations though.

Yeah, I'll keep it simple. This is by far the best written and directed SoL AVN out there. The level of character definition, dialogue crafting and scenes direction being maintained consistently throughout the novel is a couple of times higher than anything I've seen in top 200 AVNs (by user ratings and by views and downloads) so far. 5 minutes in you already understand that you're reading something written and directed by a highly skilled professional writer (with superb scene directing skills as well), who uses this medium as an exercise in merely retouching everything that's bad and cringe in SoL AVNs and making it acceptable, believable, fun and engaging. The absence of "the plot" and "the story" that some people here pointed out completely misses the purpose and the goal of this exercise, that is clearly stated and explained by the author on his Patreon. This one should serve as a craftmanship benchmark for roughly 99% of AVN authors, no matter the genre and the style they work in. Personally, I even think this guy should be outsourced as a co-writer and co-director by almost every author of any of the top 20-30 AVNs, at least at a chapter script brainstorming and first draft stages, as it would give them even more edge in the cluttered and trashy adult games space when they hit the Steam for big bucks.

Story might be a bit vanilla but i enjoyed it and its pretty well written and has some fun stuff as well.

I am not the biggest fan of the girls, it leans towards big tit fetish which is one thing i hate, only one LI as normal tits so that dosent really leave much to be desired for the normal/smaller tit lovers.

Story 4/5
Like i said vanilla but i liked it, its a pretty simple story with a dude moving into a house with an all girl familie, and he goes to college where he will proberly meet more LIs like the teacher, if the game ever gets there.

Girls 3/5
Most wasent really in my taste due to big tit stuff, so i only really cared about the redhead, wish there where more diversity in the girls build so there would be something for everyone.

Animations 2/5
There just arent enough animations to really make a decent review of them, the one with the punk girl was pretty poor and lighting way to dark.

Music/effects 4/5
It has some decent music and sound effects.

Choices 3/5
There is alot of choices that dosent really do or change anything and results in the same text no matter what you pick, but i do belive you can turn down a LI like i did with the mother, but she still keeps on trying to get with MC.

Updates 1/5
Its simply just way to slow, game is over 4 years old and there is still barely any content and almost no sex scenes, its not like the story feels drawn out but due to small and rare updates it really just makes it pointless to play or support the game since it might never be finished, i would buy it on steam if it ever got finished but i expect that to take 5-10 years more at this speed.

I waited 4 years to review this, the time has come.
The writing is witty and intuitive which will undoubtably bring people into this vn thinking something may eventually happen.
I can assure you nothing ever will happen in this "slice of life" vn. It has no narrative, no plot, no direction or identity.
What is presented as a possible supernatural tale is quickly sidelined into sterotypical oops woman i don't know saw something they shouldn't.
I'm really let down by the fact he didn't keep the supernatural vibe going. That is what made this stand out to begin with. And now.......... now its just some dude living with a few beauties that all want his dick. About as standard as it gets for f95.
I really waited till the "big update" to post this, till I realised it was never going to happen, and that the apparent writing direction was one that would never be completed nor could it ever be.
The writing has diminished since the first update going from something that had all of our attention to something we periododically check every year or so for updates. To be clear in 4 years the story hasn't advanced at all nor do I think it ever will. In the 4 years of updates we had covid lockdowns, government overreach, restriction of rights, ufos, and plethora of others. Yet in this game the only thing that has happened thus far is angel coming home from a strip club and everyone watching movies together? Like how have you not been inspired dude? Real life seems more interesting than whatever this is. And that is a shame, because it could have been so much more.
R.I.P.

Of my five favorite novels of the hundreds and hundreds that I follow or have read. The girls are great, perhaps too self-confident but they are forgiven, the graphic quality is good and you don't get bored throughout the story, waiting for how the relationship with each one of them progresses. The problem is that if I had to choose one, I wouldn't know which one to choose, I have fallen in love with Maeve, Angel and Shannon; Even her mother, Olivia would not rule her out. I hope the creator continues to delight us with this marvelous novel.

Unleashed has a very unique sense of humor that I appreciate very much. Subtle and smart. The characters are very likable and the plot is fun and doesn't exploit its protagonists sexually, which is my clear preference.

A year ago it would have been a five star experience. But the lack of updates and the tiny size when they appear makes it very difficult to stay in the mood and by the time this game is completed, the graphics will probably be outdated as well. It's not a big deal for a 3-4 star VN but for a five star review it's kind of a game breaker.

Unleashed is really well done, has a unique sitcom vibe, meaningful relationships and lots of teasing. But so far it's not even indicating any kind of endgame and that combined with the horrible update speed make me question a thing or two.
Is it just a dating simulator and we have to choose our LI at the end? Is there an actual overarching plot in the making? Will the plot see a quick wrap up at some point because the developer moves on with his life? It's difficult to tell at this point.

My rating went down one star because the update speed is getting even slower. (09/2024)

Review of Unleashed v0.6.5b:

Overall: 3/5 - It's a great visual novel and has some real entertainment value. Unfortunately, players are never going to see how it ends, because there's no chance it will ever be completed.

Story: 3/5 - It's not much more than a cookie-cutter adult game story. I appreciate that there's no incest, but the game pretty much follows the stereotype "landlady and roommates" storyline, which works for a porn game, but players certainly won't get hooked on the story. At least the characters are fun to help make up for it.

Writing: 5/5 - The writing is top-tier for adult VNs. It's got style, it's got humor, and it has the right mix of dialogue/narration and visuals.

Renders: 4/5 - The visuals are mostly good, but even the good renders are starting to look dated due to how long the game has been in development. The female models are beautiful but they're hardly unique as they've all appeared in other VNs. There are some fairly bad renders, though, such as the subway scenes where all of the people just look like sprites.

Animations: 3/5 - Animations are infrequent and they range from jerky 2-frame to fairly smooth medium-framerate animations. Unfortunately, the better animations are only used for minor stuff like idle actions during conversations, instead of lewd scenes where it matters most.

Sound: 4/5 - Music is decent and isn't just used for background noise, it changes at specific times within a scene. Sound effects are infrequent, but good.

Content: 3/5 - The quality of content that's in the game is very good. However, there's hardly any lewd content at all, and there's far too little content overall for both the number of major releases and the amount of development time.

Other: I just replayed the entire game because it's been over 15 months since the last update and I had forgotten the entire story. It came back to me as I played, but I didn't even notice any of the new content in 0.6.5b that was supposedly added in the middle of Episode 6. I really like this game, and I think most players that try it for the first time will also like it. However, I can't recommend it because there's just no hope for players to see it through. This game is, conservatively, around 30% complete after 5 years and progress is only slowing.

The game shows good promise, but that's about it. The models look great, the story havn't really grabbed me yet. It's pretty short and there is almost no sex in the game. Can't recommend in it's current state. I'm a bit puzzled about the current 4.5 star rating.

This review based on v0.5v3.

To say it right at the beginning: the graphics are great. But that's all we can say at the moment. A story is not yet recognizable. This AVN is obviously in the early stages. I was expecting the game to be quite a while based on the version number, but after two hours I was through with everything. I didn't use the skip function though. Very disappointing.

The content is roughly the same amount as version 0.1, or Chapter 1 in most of the other AVN I've played so far. If I understand correctly, the first release was in July 2019. This version is from March 2022. It's now April 2023. Even for a hobby project, that's it surprisingly little content. It doesn't look like anything else is coming either.

From my side there is no recommendation to play this AVN. A disappointment across the board. 2 stars for the graphics.

The characters and dialogue are really well written in this game. It's refreshing to have characters feel like they're actually people. For that reason alone I would recommend it. The character models are very well made as well.

It's not perfect though, the sex scenes themselves are pretty average in terms of eroticism, and the story is pretty formulaic as well, but the characters being funny make up for a lot of it.

Writing is the most important element for me in AVN's. Used to be visuals when I was a new to the genre but now more is needed to keep me engaged. Great renders/animations alone equal a hollow product, pretty on the outside but offering nothing of substance.

This game does not fall into that category. It has some of the best writing I've come across, there isn't much of a story yet but each character feels so alive and engaging. Just hanging around them is plenty of fun. Such natural dialogue takes considerable skill so the dev deserves serious praise.

The wit is next-level. Honestly it's one of the few games that had me laughing out loud multiple times.

As for the visuals, the renders are pretty good, the animations pretty average. Each character design is really attractive though and that's far more important. Crystal clear renders don't mean shit if the heroines are ugly as sin.

Overall I had a blast and eagerly anticipate playing more in the future.

As of 0.5v3, the short answer is no. Go away.

I remember playing this game years ago. I remember liking what I saw, but also shelving it because of the lack of content -but of course, it was still new then, so no complaints.

But today, on the 30th of June, 2022, I found it again! Cool huh?
No.
I started from scratch and finished the game in 20 minutes at most. If I knew it'd be relevant, I'd have timed it. And no, I wasn't in a hurry, nor am I a fast reader.

Again, it's been developed for 3 years, and there's at most a grand total of 20 minutes of content to show for it, and 2 (yes, two) sex scenes, neither particularly long or hot. That's it.
That's like, what? 7 seconds of content per week on average? 1 sex scene per 1.5 years?
At this rate, both the developer and the players will die of old age before the game could be finished.

Story follows you, some college freshman dude who moves in with your father's friend (a mother with 2 daughters +1 friend who hangs around) because your dorm burned down or something. That's the extent of the story so far. I can't even bring myself to call it generic because of how little story there still is.

Visuals are decent: Renders are good and quite numerous, models look great, though the animations are fairly poor, not that animations (or even renders) are necessary for a good game, but nor does it serve as a substitute for the lack of content. Scenes (those two we have) are also disappointingly short and not particularly hot.

Characters aren't developed, but of course, you cannot develop 4 or more characters in ~20 minutes. First impressions are good, they seem to be an interesting bunch, but introductions and small snippets of their lives/personalities are the extent of what we have.

Sounds, that is music and sound effects aren't common, but adequate.


Overall, it could be a pretty good game if it was developed in a timely fashion, but it isn't.
If you want to play it anyway, then go for it, sure.
But even if you enjoy it...no, ESPECIALLY if you enjoy it and get hooked, you'll be craving more. But there won't be but scraps over many months that won't satisfy.
I'd suggest you not to do that to yourself.

The Good:
- The girls looks sexy, really hard to decide
- for me one of the funniest games out there
- even it's a parody of AVNs the story is nice, also the backgroud of some characters
(Angel sitting alone at night at the end of 0.5v3 nearly broke my heart)

Neutral:
- Some ok animations, seems to getting better
- not that much lewd scenes so far
- the music is ok, some sound effects

The Bad:
- well, the game amount after 3 years, also update cycles are getting worse.
(don't need to be a monthly update of course, but lately almost only one per year with rather small content)



Conclusion:
I love the game. It's funny, the girls are hot and the story is not bad
Really hope it gets more often updated in the future


[rated v0.5v3]

v.0.5v3
This game is, sadly, not enjoyable to play. It's essentially a slideshow with a mute MC and it feels so disjointed because of it. I really dig what's going on here, but the way the story progresses is weird and the way the renders are presented is awkward and sometimes actually disorienting. For instance, most VN's have a couple different renders of the same angle of one person talking so it feels like the conversation is actually happening (hand movements, facial expressions, etc.) It adds to the realism.
However, in this VN, some conversations have multiple different shots that change with almost every click and the conversations do not last long. This makes all dialogue lead immediately into the next scene with no transitions in between. There is no thinking about what just happened because you snapped through a scene and now you've snapped into the next scene with a different character in a different location and then you've snapped into a different place with two characters and now you've snapped to bed.
See how this can be disorienting?

It's really a shame because there is something genuinely really good here. The characters are lovable, the renders are passable, the humor is good, and there is clearly either a great story building in the background or the illusion of choice itself is one ongoing joke. There just needs to be more dialogue from the MC and improvements need to be made in both scene writing and transitions. I hope Unleashed can reach its full potential and get the praise it deserves.

The renders are great, the story interesting, good sense of humor, almost non-existent sex scenes, just one sex scene and a blowjob, some tease moments trying to compensate the lack of sexual interaction.
You would say "the game has a few sex scenes because is more focused in the story, in build up the characters and more." But you are wrong.
The last time I played this was a couple of years ago and the story almost didn't progressed since then.
Looks like the MC is mute, a lot of scenes he don't talk, the girls ask him or tell something to him and they keep talking like if the MC responded when he didn't.
Other "problem" would be (like in any other VN) that every girl is in love with the MC when they meet him, even the mom, and it doesn't matter if he is mute and only talks to say that they are pretty.
Maybe in a couple of years we could see more of the story and more sex.

this game before pandemic ? i just click click 35minute 1sex 1 bj? or i miss main game?

Story was ok, got funny a typical mc moved to female dominate household and mc goes to college got big dick... vn without no repeat sex... or night sex explorer... NEXT

Graphic model look GOOD i like it goth and girl next door vibe and hungry cougar.. model look QUALITY i give this game a Credit why is not 1 star!.

I've been downloading several releases now, and my feeling is that this game doesn't deliver
The story seems intersting at first but doesn't go anywhere.
Renders are quite boring... You don't even feel blue balled by the lack of sex scenes...
May be i'll come back in a year or two to see if to went better

There's a lot to love about this game, very few things that bother me. Firstly, as a rarity in the genre lately, the dialogue is of a high quality. I love the weight of what characters say, the humor excellent as well. Truly enjoyable, making me chuckle as much as it turns me on. The choices feel real, like they have impact and consequence.

The models are nice to look at, few things that seem out of place. They are quite similar (they're related after all), but the personality differences feel real enough.

Only gripe? I wish there were faster updates. Truely enjoying this so far (v.0.5v3), looking forward for more.