VN - Ren'Py - Waifu Academy [v0.12.5] [Irphaeus]

At first glance this title didn't appeal to me at all.. HOWEVER.. i've never been happier to be so wrong.. I'll get this outta the way 1st and say Maki-chan has claimed my avn heart despite steep competition from a few others in the title..
I have previously only played two other japanimation (i dunno what the correct term is for the more animated looking types aside from just putting it into anime type casting) Mur Mur and Once in a Lifetime.. actually make that 3 with Eternum being a recent addition.. I'd loved those titles and unfairly my taste for comparison and things not being as good as led me away from what i saw on first glance at WA.. Again i'm glad i took the chance and was proven so wrong about this title.. The Humour is GRADE A.. I love the small in game fourth wall breaches including the hilarious Metal Gear Solid V references about acquiring various things and being sent back to mother base.. add to that howling with laughter at the voice overed script screens after awakening Rachel and hounding her with ridiculous questions instead of the plot driven ones.. It showed PURE BRILLIANCE by the writer and something that has been there throughout keeping me entertained as well as a huge fan of this project..
I dont know how long this title has left and despite the waifu hunter on the horizon but its a title i will genuinely be sorry to see end when the time comes..
The characters are amazing, the writing witty and very clever, the story had a slow start but grew into something that had a great amount of twists and turns, back stabbings and glorious vengeance moments and the lewd was well done as well..
Having played a near full run on the Positive Kharma path I recently restarted the game to try a Bad Kharma route as well and it only adds to the various diverging paths and scenes of the game.. Although i'm still not sure if the train scene with MINAMI being assaulted ended right.. given that i was doing a EVIL only route i let the scenes play out to their fullest yet on the mc leaving the train after ignoring Minami's assault I received a +5 Evil Khama choice that wasn't available, forcing you back to the choice screen where the only other available resulted in a Game Over.. For others who did this route i'd be interested to know if this was intended to force a 'save minami' choice prior to that moment or if it WILL indeed be made available.. I ask this now as i know the dev likes to troll its readers too with choices being reversed (the RIKUNA KAITO shower scene) so i wasn't sure if this was something similar.. leaving that save on hold till i could find out if it was going to be fixed in a later update (as said on the game screen) - If anyone knows about this please drop us a reply..
All in all if your looking to try this game but browsing the feedback to make a informed choice then like the many other fans here i'm happy to give this a worthy HELL YES! recommendation

Review of v0.9.4a...

I’m not a fan of using Honey Select to make these games, but I don’t let that stop me from at least trying games like this out. I’m glad I did because the story has pretty much hooked me.

I really like the writing. The humor and clever wit make me smile. I love how much of a shit lord the MC is. There are a lot of cultural references that are used well, although I didn’t understand a few of them.

The story does a good job if imitating every day random life. The comical back and forth wit really helps.

The text of the writing itself could use some work. There are spelling and grammar errors peppered throughout. It’s not bad, but it should have gone through a couple of proofreads.

Most of my issues with the game are probably just personal nitpicks. Let’s start with the characters. I like most of them except…

• Otaku – I couldn’t stand this guy. The stereotypical incel slobbering over panty shots. I was so glad when the MC told him to fuck off.
• Minami – I don’t hate Minami, but when she starts fucking, she puts on a cat girl outfit and acts like a fully submissive cat girl. I don’t find that particularly appealing, so it was kind of a turn off. Which is a shame since Minami is really cute.
• Yoko turns into a cunt because she misunderstands a situation with her friend and feels betrayed. She’s also a camgirl and I found it amusing when you see her as a camgirl she turns into an insufferable SJW baiting those thirsty allies. Muh patriarchy, mansplaining, toxic masculinity.
• Sheila is supposed to be the MC’s stepsister which I guess means she came with MC’s mom’s new husband. It’s never specifically stated unless I glossed right over it. All I remember is MC said his mom remarried. At first I thought Sheila was a daughter she had with her new husband, until she started being called the MC’s stepsister.
• Way too many of the girls have those ridiculously large fantasy tits. One is fine, but not half of them.
• The MC makes several witty quips intimating he knows they are all in a game. I hate fourth wall breaks in these games. For me they are like slamming into a brick wall. They take me out of the game for a little bit.
• There is a store where you can buy items like wine for $40, or a computer for $600. But you start the game with no money and throughout the whole game there was only two instances where you earned money. There is no real reason to buy any of the items, but it doesn’t really matter anyway since there is no place to see how much money you have. This aspect of the game must not be implemented yet.

The MC keeps having flashbacks to when his life was horrible as a kid at 13. His mother having run out on them after his father became a vegetable, and his neglectful grandmother. The only solace he finds is with their neighbor Roxy who just so happens to be a prostitute. He considered her his best friend since she was nice to him and hung out with him when he was lonely. It would be interesting if now that the MC is older and crushing puss if he coincidentally ran into her again after all the years and they started something between them.

I would have given this game a full 5 stars if it wasn’t for the numerous script errors. I really look forward to seeing how the rest of the game turns out.

Just finished the game not long ago, man it was a blast, and glad to come across this. Although the story is quite long I think it's alright. Well, some of the times I really hope we could have more choices to make but I'm still satisfied with it.

It's easily my top 5. I don't give a damn about the updates or the scamming - I didn't put a single penny in it, there's plenty of story and content so far, and if this one's completed in a year or so I'll continue playing.
I'm not going to repeat other reviews so I'll cut to the chase.

One thing that those who rate it 1-3 here MISERABLY fail to get ahold of is that you don't need to look at this game as some Slice Of Life type shit, a'ight - it's just bad for your health, guys. Just stop. I see this as a parody on some ongoing fanserv type anime and guess what? It works perfectly fine that way! The plot, the harem, the silly situations, the characters and their behavioral patterns - everything falls into place! Not everything has to be "War and Peace", there are other games for that, goddamit!

10/10 Can't wait to play the complete edition.

It's time to turn the page on this game, not because of the updates taking a long time but because the content is fucking awful.

The MC has a grudge against a bunch of people so he uses that to do all kinds of garbage to people. Even when he doesn't have a grudge against people he still uses them and never cares about putting them in danger. Frankly the MC is the worst character in the game.

The game also doesn't really give you a choice in big things-like Sheila becoming a whore for instance. You are just supposed to go "oh okay" and act like it's all great. If you won't give choices to the player then the "game" is largely a movie you watch while hitting prompts to move the story forward.

That's really the biggest problem with Waifu is that you have to be a sick fuck to like it most of the time. 0/10 for story. 7/10 for the art. 0/10 because of the sick shit in the game.

I request that they get a donation so they are able to develop like 4 hours of content daily cause holy fuck I love this game. The porn part is cool and all but the story is better. I honestly simply want more

Very good game
Good story, good animation, lots of girls and there are a lot of moments that I found very funny
10/10
It has a good soundtrack too. I would say the only problem is that it takes time to have updates, but even that has gotten faster

Hi the game is very cool and super liked it very much I want to wish you more health and success to you and your loved ones and that there were many fans of this wonderful game and you had a lot of bearings it is clear that the game is made with a soul and very high quality and beautiful

It is all you can ask from this kind of a game really. Its not a VN. If you are really looking for a meaningful story , this is the wrong place. If you want a non-monotonous and unpredictable story (more than enough to support the "plot" ) . And good animation , along with smooth enough UI. IMO It might be the best game of "corruption" with "school setting" genre .

the diversity of girls is also refreshing , they have their own motivations for their action (however illogical they might seem).

Cons (possibly , If I have to say so, I am not paying though)
- Also , morality should not be a judgment criteria in a game like this. Obviously you are a bad guy.
- The updates are not frequent recently. But the existing content is more than enough as compared to many finished games.
- Recently , people are saying it has NTR scenes. ( I have not encountered one in my entire playthrough . But I am not repulsed at mere sight of another guy naked in the scene. )

Truly one of the worst games I've played, and I've played a lot.
The MC's father was apparently framed as being a rapist and pervert years ago, so the MC makes up a plan for his having revenge and his now late father's redemption. How? Mainly by raping girls in his school. How can you clear your father's name by doing exactly what he was accused of?!
This 'cunning' plan also includes the MC drugging his little sister for days in a row and raping her in her sleep. But she wasn't even born when his father was accused!
I tried to soldier on because the girls look pretty, but I just couldn't play for more than about an hour and a half. I simply don't understand how this game has the rating that it does.
Edit: forgot to say you also get to see other guy's dicks while they fuck the girls in your supposed waifu academy. Enjoy!

Good Points
+ Sex scenes have different positions and angles with animations.
+ We had an interesting plot that started with some vengeance purposes.

Bad Points
- The story had good potential, but for 6 years we didn't see good enough progress for the story, and the things we saw weren't well-written either. I mean seriously what's up with this new weird details like Rikuna holding George captive, drugged him for this whole time and he was imagining he was in a office, meanwhile he wasn't, telling him things about MC, like she has give him tasks and they are working together, George wanting kill Rikuna & MC, she literally creating arch enemy for the MC, we seeing her death parents, she is being murderer, or how she made George pay mortgage money to someone she knows, and now MC & girls are at verge to lose their homes, or how George had some parts with the downfall of the MC's father, etc.
- Visually the game looks very old, considering 6 years passed since the first release this game should have finished already, or there should be a graphical remake/upgrade to keep the game's visual quality up to date.
- The otaku-kun existence is a big negative point for this game... He is disgusting... He having all girls panty shots, including MC's love interests, and MC knowing this yet doing nothing (or the player having no option to do anything at all) makes no sense at all, and he constantly being in scenes with his pathetic existence, and stalking MC & girls constantly not helps at all either.
- Stupitidity of some characters is nerve wrecking at this point... Seriously who writing their dialogues? A 10 years old? Nearly all of them are annoying AF, like Sheila's constant naughty acts, Minami's stupitidy, how bitchy Yoko is, I don't even need to talk about Kenichi, or Harada, etc, and how unbearable they are? Especially what's up with Harada, getting bonner to students, and while all of them seeing him touching his bonner in front of them? And literally no one is saying this to Helen? In any normal situation dude should have been fired from his job. And like this is not enough girls weirdly flirting with him for bullsh*t reasons aint helping either.
- The game doesn't live up the its own name, in fact, it almost feels like it's a clickbait name considering most of the content is the opposite of it...
- In the end, your choices don't matter, whatever your choice some scenes/things are still unavoidable, like Minami's or Tomoe's train scene, Tomoe's scene with boys, Kayane's TJ-BJ scene, Asuka's FJ scene, Sheila's job at Honeybee & things she is doing there or contest content, Takamura's photoshoot, nearly every girl seen naked by a bunch of men, etc.
- This is a 6-year-old game, and it's still not even close to getting finished, even the game only with the latest update 0.11.0 got the so-called ''karma'' system update we have been waiting for years, and surprise, even now it's not fully added, it's still doesn't affect the outcomes, that's just wow... And before I forget let me tell you, most karma choices and positive or negative numbers you do get for your choices make no sense either.
- Even after 6 years we still don't have sex scenes with some girls like Kayane, Motoko, etc... And considering how little content every update brings with it we might never get it either.
- For saving you have to press ESC or the right mouse button, which will lead you to a menu, then from there you will go to the save section, then save and leave by pressing ''return'' with the mouse, because after saving you can't just leave with pressing esc or right mouse button again... Nearly every Renpy game has ESC to save screen feature, it's essential, and not having is a terrible design choice, nothing more than wasting players time, simple as that.
- Helen's content is evolving backwards at this point, her first contents were far better than terrible content she has now, which is nonsense AF. Especially MC getting insulted and ridiculed by her, getting treated as a dog and players having no choice over it is quite annoying.
- Supernatural parts keeps getting more confusing, and writers don't explain things like they should and how those things are even possible, like shared dream thing, etc.

For The End
Honestly, this game had great potential 6 years ago, but the development of the game was handled so poor that today all I can see is 1-2 stars rate poor game is only good for fap if you don't care about visual quality being kind of meh since the game is 6 years old...

This USED to be one of my favorite games; in which I would eagerly await for new updates. Sadly this is no longer the case.

1) The amount of time between updates has progressively gotten longer, with substandard and ridiculous or nearly nonexistent content in each update.

2) While the amount of characters are interesting, with different personalities, the lack of progression with them is - in me own opinion - just a joke "(and a bad joke at that).

3) The choices within the game are another bad joke, since most of them are either forced, do not really lead anywhere in content advancement, or are fake choices leading to an abrupt and pointless game ending.

There are many other things wrong with this game, but I don't want this review to become so long winded that no one will want - or bother - to read it. Suffice to say, the above 3 points are the basics of what is really wrong with this game - and why I no longer care to waste me time with it.

And I strongly recommend no one else wastes their time with it; there are plenty of games that are better managed, made, and MUCH MORE enjoyable to play.

A group on Discord recommended Waifu Academy, as a good VN. And after playing through it twice, I have to agree.

MC is a badass, knows what he wants, and is willing to do what it takes to get there.
Looking forward to further content to push the story along, as well as putting some of the main players in their place.

My opinion of the latest update (0.9.4a) after playing it:

TL;DR: I've seen bugfixes enable more and way better content than this so called "updates" brings to this game.

Technical elements: 1/5

• The smartphone remains accessible as well as 100% non-functional. It's there only to remind the player at all times that the dev doesn't care in the slightest about the design and functional features he once intended to give the game. And unlike the karma system, the smartphone would require an afternoon of work at most.
• The karma system is still not implemented, and it will never be. However, the karma points are still falsely awarded. The choices sometimes have impact to some degree in the same scene or the immediately following at most. But the karma points themselves do not.
• For the specific new content though, it just happens that in order to take the bad karma route with Yoko, you need to have taken the good karma route with Keiko, which is kind of... inconsistent.
• Lots of fake branching and unavailable options that are shown anyway, which mean the tiny update wasn't even finished or it was done precisely to create the illusion of content.
• Backwards incompatibility. This is a very problematic issue. I got "lucky" and had my latest saves halfway the last scene of the previous update so, they loaded fine. But many other saves at random previous points are now broken.
• Ending the updates with many advertisement stages at the end, that will be removed in the next version, dedicated just to lure patreons and create hype but never advising the player to save for the last time at a specific truly safe spot is something terrible that makes so many people not wanting to play anymore. Especially since, for some reason, with each update, renders are renamed in a way that the skip already seen content doesn't work and players have to either click through the whole game again or skip it without knowing if the reason the game doesn't consider it already seen content is because there could be something new inbetween. PSA: I clicked through the whole game for last update, there was nothing new other than the new ending content.
• Lots and lots and lots of bad grammar even when not "intended", unfinished sentences, sentences victim to being rewritten many times without much care. So much for the amount of delay that was being justified as proofreading. No one proofread last update and no one proofread this update.
• Other than this, the game still has the same style using minimal and most basic of ren'py options with no customization other than the main menu screen. This is not good or bad, just how it is.

CGI elements: 1/5

• The visuals are the same as always, for good or bad depending on personal taste. However...
• The amount of plot-related and/or character interaction renders is very tiny and in general not much appealing regarding their narrative usage nor the eroticism of the game.
• Keiko's sex scene (or the whole scene to be fair) is one of the poorest and less cared for scenes in the entire game.
• Caramella looks nothing like Yoko, to the point I doubt he's using the same overall model for both.
• Also, personally, I would have liked to see more Yoko and less Caramella, since it's Yoko the one we've seen the whole time she messed with MC and in all the relevant interaction between them that led to these events. So, "taking revenge" without actually seeing Yoko for the most part it's quite unfulfilling for me.
• Yoko's sex scenes are richer than many others in the game. So that's a plus, at least for the visuals.
• So few characters appear in the new content. And most of them so briefly. 80% of the renders are about MC alone or with new NPCs that have no relevance and will never again make an appearance.
• Black screen scenes. This is a big minus for me. Game overs used to have some visuals (like police taking you, for example) now there's only a black screen with text. And in this update it's not just the game over part, the whole scene that leads to a game over happens in a black screen. That's not a visual novel anymore. Just a regular novel. Pure laziness on dev's part.

Plot elements: 1/5

• As some other users pointed out, there are lots of other porn games out there with better visuals in every aspect, better sex scenes, better girl's designs, technically superior... The thing that made this game unique and captivating for many was the story and the MC's personality. The story for having mysteries, being about something else than just sex and having so many plot lines, almost one for every secondary character. And the MC for having a goal other than sex to the point no other porn game gets, prioritizing the goal over sex; and also for being put in difficult situations and being able to solve them most times in a classy way and if not at least in an original way, always outsmarting the antagonists. Well, no trace of this can be found in this update.
• MC no longer outsmarts anyone, he's been blessed with a plot device that solves all his problems for him in the form of a liquid drug.
• Before, the drug was just a way to justify some characters getting sufficiently horny to bypass the surrealism of some sex scenes. It was needed for the sake of having those sex scenes, and didn't impact the story progression much. But now, the drug justifies absolutely anything and without consequences. A great decrease in writing quality.
• Because it's been more than a year since the events that put Yoko as top priority target, I don't remember perfectly, but aside from being mean to MC and having some leverage to play blackmail with him a bit, I don't remember anything that justifies MC wanting to do his worst to her in a so vulgar and totoally uncarismathic way, that even breaks the character because it's never been MC's way of doing things.
• 90% of the actual content of this update consists of getting from a trains station to Yoko's house, encountering a lot of irrelevant events unrelated to the story that apparently are meant to be funny. None of them is. At all.
• The story progression is very minimal, and that's being generous.
• Keiko's character gets some development. Very little, but it's something.
• Yoko, as a character, doesn't appear in this update. All there is is Caramella, who seems to have a completely different personality and way of talking even when she's not broadcasting (which doesn't make any sense), and druged Caramella, who isn't even a character is a sexdoll that gets dialogue boxes full of not a single actual sentence.
• Kayane gets a very very tiny bit of development, so small that I don't even know if it should count.
• MC's personality is replaced by the miraculous drug, so the main character has just gone down the drain.
• The point of the revenge the MC had to take onto Yoko was to demonstrate who is in power, put her in her place, and maybe rejoice in her feeling overpowered and losing to MC. But the MC drugs Yoko without her knowing who is he and rapes her while she's not much of a person, none of that is achieved. MC just puts himself at the same level of Kenichi paying the other guy to beat him.

And that's it. the summary of the most important aspects of this update would be:

1. Magical drug just solves all situations, MC doesn't need to have a brain anymore.
2. 90% of the content is a pointless maze where no girl appears and no meaningful interaction happens.
3. Lots of fake branching and fake (ineligible) choices to create the illusion of content.
4. Hazardous text in 80% of text boxes.
5. Broken saves games and other game breakign events.

It's an ok game but the good and bad really seem to average out. Reviewed against version 0.9.4a but still waaaaaay early in the game so nowhere near far enough in to get to the newer content.

The visuals are good and varied, there's obviously effort put in. Even the MC looks "kinda" normal. I know the male characters in these games tend to get ignored so they end up looking like they've just came back from a few rounds of chemotherapy but he's looking passable.

The women are all different and are all filling a particular niche or trope which is fine. The fact so many are announced so early in the game is impressive as it would normally be easier on a dev to drip feed them in so that's a big plus.

The downside of the game is that, very early doors, the manner in which you progress through the game is trash.

There is also a small issue in that the MC is a bit of a dick and the whole plot feels like a massive question mark? All in all it's kinda weird trying to work out what his plan is. So the plot is MC goes to a school his dad used to run before being kicked out for fiddling with the pupils, or so the story goes. MC is mad and out for revenge. Which is fair enough but his outrage seems oddly directed. He wants revenge on the school (fair), his mum who abandoned him (fair) and her new husband (odd?) and your step sister (why?)

I get wanting to reclaim the school cause he believes it's his but any actor in the downfall of his dad (heh, it's a pun see cause he threw himself off a building) would be old now so why set out to manipulate all the kids at the school? they'd have been like 2 when it all happened. I'm assuming that whoever done his dad dirty will be a teacher at the school otherwise the plot really starts to have holes in it but still, it's a kinda weird mindset for the MC to be in. It's also not helped he's a bit of a plum. When he's reviewing his "case files" on the girls at the school he says his step sister "thinks she's smart but she's just a spoiled little girl" yet in the two interactions the MC and her had, she schooled him. So who's the idiot here?

It's also not helped that, early on, the game suffers from absolutely pointless choices and I don't know if that's a quirk of the dev but at a basic level it makes the game feel empty. The player will be given two or three options on what to do, but two will simply say "oh this room is empty" and there will be on for plot progression. If the two options are pointless why are there there? And it happens a lot. I think the first 5 or so "choices" the player has to make aren't choices at all. Needless padding. Maybe it's just the dev setting the groundwork for more content later on but certainly early doors it's like "here's a choice, but it's not a choice, do what I say".

Positives
Cast is varied
Models are solid

Cons
Plot is sus
Player given the impression of choices to progress, but really is heavily railroaded

The main thing i like about this game, the thing that make this game differ from all the other game is that, the MC of this game is amazing, he is smart, never thinks with his d*ck, master of comebacks, etc etc. This game has a good story, graphics, animation and writing. IMO the only negative of this game(which is a BIG one) is it takes forever for the creator to update the game.

It used to be a favorite of mine.
It had a decent story/ plot and looked like it was going to be a good harem build game. Art was ok. It fit together nicely.
Not sure why authors feel the need to go to the extremes and cater to the most fringe of individuals but not my taste.
Sorry, I'm a strait male. I'm not into MMF / sharing or NTR or stuff on that line.

Great game overall, excluding some of the recent updates which have had subpar writing and zoomed through content. Honestly used to be in my top 3 favorite games but the devs work ethic and scammy personality has dropped this game quite far down the list. Takes him about 8 months to pop out 20 mins of subpar rushed content recently.

Honestly, this update just sucks.
Keiko's scene is just stupid if you're honest. Bad writing and all. Because you basically still lie to her. About everything.

Yoko's scene is super unfulfilling because you sneak in as a pizza man, play off as being someone else for 75% of the time and it doesn't feel like revenge because she's drugged. At the end you get a little vindication but that's it.

There's missing parts of sentences even. The animation where you're mating press midair Yoko, your dick literally flies out of her every thrust, so that animation is just abominable to look at. Not to mention it's looped instead of properly animated. Signs of a rush job honestly.

Story: I give a 1/5
Animation: 1/5
Grammar: 1/5

Overall score: 1/5

Was it worth the 20 minutes I played? Not really. But it's up to you whether you think it was worth it. I can only give my unbiased opinion. The quality was there before the last 2 years. It's like he doesn't even wanna work on it now. Idk.

You be the judge. All I can say is, having backed him up to january last year, the content's just not worth backing anymore. If I felt like my money was going to what I thought it was, it wouldn't be such an issue. But the guy bought 2 3090s, and he still can't fully render an animated scene, and has to loop it? What the fuck were the 3090s even for then?

Anyway, god speed everyone. See you next christmas when 1.0's out.

Edit: I forgot I found like 3 crashes so far. So much for fixing the crashes and bugs. So much for those extra 24 hours spent.

Pretty much a 4/5 or 5/5 if its just for the game alone. But if you add in Irphaeus and all his bs, its a 1/5. This is a great example of a good developer who turned greedy. Willing to bet that this dude fucks around until 2weeks before the deadline then "tries his best" to meet it. If not, get ready for another IRL tragic. Btw are you and Icstor related?