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

Edit 3: Down to 2/5. I can no longer recommend downloading this. After being all but abandoned we got an update that was basically a backhanded slap to the face, and then right to abandoned town it went. It is a real shame as the game was really really good and showed lots of promise. It is possible that the sheer scale and number of characters was too overwhelming and the dev wasn't able to cope.

Edit 2: Dropping review down to 3/5. This VN had a lot of potential, but the dev has all but abandoned it. Updates take super long to arrive, the content is minimal, previously promised features have never been implemented, and the overall quality has deteriorated. Truly a shame, and a waste of what could have been a great VN.

Edit 1: I dropped my rating down to 4/5 because it seems like the dev has been half-neglecting the project. Releases and new information is spotty at best, and the last release was below the high standard that the VN set itself. I really hope to see the dev get back to working on, finishing, fixing, and polishing this VN because it has very high potential.

Original Review: 10/10. Cannot recommend this game enough! Amazing writing, well designed believable characters, engrossing story (both main campaign and side stories), great sense of humour, funny easter eggs in both the writing and the sound effects, and the most rare of all... actually difficult choices that impact both story and gameplay (sorta... there are some important choices to be made but the karma system isn't online yet). Even the 'game over' screens in this VN are absolutely worth experiencing!

It's still incomplete in both story and certain mechanics (like the phone feature), but the dev is working on it and every single update is a leap in the right direction. It might not get the most consistent updates, but I’d rather be forced to wait a long time before experiencing a masterpiece than getting able to click through garbage on a weekly basis.

I tested all possible choices before doing the reviews. (game version 0.9)

So I liked this game, but it has a problem, much of the moral choices are useless, since there is no variation of consequences in the story, not to mention that the developer repeatedly kidnaps your choice, putting 3 choices for the player to make, 2 two of them make you get to the "game over" and only 1 makes you advance in history , this is very annoying and unnecessary, the animations are good, mainly the movement of the characters pleased me, the graphics are not even the best, but it is not a problem, the game does not contain bugs and the protagonist is interesting, the story is basically revenge, only changes the reason for the protagonist to use or take revenge on each character. I do not intend to enter the part of the points system by "Karma" that the game has, it was totally useless during version 0.9 all of this game not impacting anything on the story or events.

Below I will give my grades for each category, where 10 is the maximum grade:

Graphics: 8;
Animation: 9.5;
Character development: 9;
History: 8

Verdict: even though I liked the game, I was as sincere as possible in the review, I recommend the game to you, but be aware of the problems already mentioned.

note: I don't speak English fluently, so the text may have connotation errors.

Unavoidable NTR at several points. Not just unwatchable/etc, no you will see it no matter what. For whatever reason, likely the popularity of the game, there's no NTR tag, but there is a lot of it. Not much choice in progression if any at all and being a karmically good person does absolutely nothing(You're forced into a gangrape/gameover if you don't let it progress to pre-insertion as one example). Oh and you constantly get beaten unconscious with no way to prevent it or avenge it. Terrible lie of a game, heavily dissappointed as the setting had such promise

Edit: Worth noting the amount of vitriol I've received from this community from simply requesting there be an NTR tag so others can avoid what I went through.

this game is really engaging ,story is interesting, characters seem to have some motivation and it feels like it's flowing pretty naturally it's great. i can feel like this is pretty well made.

minor typos aside and the blasphemy of that one scene of Mokoto putting the chopsticks sticking out of the rice bowl (Very very big cultural problem that clashes with Mokoto's general character but it's fine not expecting to have deep cultural understanding ).

Ima rate it 10 out of the 10 faps id had playing it, captivating story with a bunch of funny lines and puns. A really well made VN both rich in characters and well made scenes, trully a masterpiece worth playing.

I need to write a little criticism, cause things that frustrate me prevent me from enjoying the game further.


All the otaku wannabe slang makes me cringe more than anything, some stuff i dont know the fucking meaning.
The Mature nurse says "Fufufu" like a highschooler? She is very mature i guess... Get your characters straight, if i want a mature woman i want a mature woman. Having big tits its not enough to make a woman mature.

This Mc that lived with his grandmother and knows exactly the cup of every girl?.

Raping someone in their sleep and not cleaning? Im not taking bruises and skin issues into account.

The rest is good, i have played it once already, and it has a better second playthrough than others.

It's a great game, with good writing and hot scenes. It's just a shame that the creator is not releasing a new update. He keeps making excuses for why he isn't releasing it but I think he's just being lazy. The Patreon money comes in every money whether or not he releases it.

i like linear games, when u dont have to repeat it over and over to get some hentai scenes and u dont miss out anything enjoying artist work to the fullest, this is one of such games but with slight control over decision and karma (good and evil) from what it looks like there can be 3 routes good bad and neutral but they arent implemented yet, animations are great, characters have their own problems and personalities, latest story with Maki Takamura really groped my feels

This one has good gameplay, a wide variety of girls and scenes with great art and animations, this game is really something and I'm looking forward for its next releases. I honestly don't think I'd change much here, perhaps just add some more kinks to it.

This visual novel is average at best in terms of story, characters and sex scenes.

It starts off great with a clear objective in the story but devolves into a huge distraction of pointless subplots that will take the majority of your time and boring side characters that exist for the sole purpose to insert a specific fetish with no development.

This also gets minus points just for the fact that it uses basic HS models along with its assorted animations its not new or appealing when its just a copy paste.

Worst of all though is the time it takes to develop, there is no exucse for a single 20 minute update every year for such a simple Visual Novel using HS models, truly a prime example of why nobody takes porn game development seriously.

The writing is one of the best ive seen. It is friggin interesting as hell, funny to boot and damn characters are practically alive. I love it! The engine is old, but scenes are nevertheless hot as fuck. Give this game a shot - its totally worth it.

Note: I am being somewhat generous because this is an amateur game like most games on the site. If you compare this with a professional game, it's good but not the best.

One of the best games I've seen on this site! Well-written plot that is both engaging and also sometimes humorous. There are a lot of great pop culture references. Also, I personally like the monologues, but if you don't like things like that, I suggest not playing the game. There is a lot of good character development in this game, which is something I find a lot of games here lack. (There are however a number of stock characters types, but he pulls it off well.) Although I do think the story with his mother could do with a lot more sex scenes and a lot less general story, I'll give Irphaeus the benefit of the doubt in that regard because I may end up liking it when I play the finished product. The art is pretty good and the animated sex scenes are simply amazing and well-implemented. The animations are so engaging and organic. Irphaeus also seems to have a knack for adding the right music at the right times and ensuring that that music doesn't go over its thematic time. The interface is easy to interact with, though the karma system has only recently been implemented. I would definitely say this is more of a visual novel simply because of that. Although the dev takes a long time to update, the updates are often long and well thought out. A lot of devs here seem to let their random fleeting whims and their loudest fans dictate how the plot of the game goes, resulting in a very sporadic, unedited mess when you see the game in its entirety instead of just the updates. However, I feel like Irphaeus really takes the time to plan out exactly how the game will go way ahead of time and then rely on polls and other such feedback to adjust accordingly; he also seems to always hold continuity in mind.

[v0.8.0b]

I know it's marked as a VN, but why the illusion of choice?
Spent a while with the "game" and realized most of my choices of don't matter- they end up being obviously wrong, lead to a game over or end up at some other "choice" that was shown.

The plot is also convoluted and going by itself, making the whole "interactive" element feel even less valuable.

Would be 5/5 if not for yearly updates. Pretty good amount of content with lots of different good girls to choose from. Pretty linear path but quite a few options to go through. Wish the updates were quicker but what can you do.

Excellent game. Good job dev! Hope there will be more gangbang scene/routes in the upcoming updates. I love the story so far.. it feels like watching anime and while going on an adventure. Hope the updates will be coming soon.. i cant wait really anymore. Like really cant.

The renders and character designs are decent, nothing to rave about, but the animations are possibly the best on this site. It's not just the typical thrusting and bouncing either, it's full blown motion, there is an entire dance routine animation scene that impressed my socks off.

The game is also funny as fuck, plenty of pop culture references , probably the funniest game I've played so far. The only criticism I have is that there are times where you have to click to do an action that is completely unnecessary, stuff like that can be streamlined to a single movement.

There are strengths and weaknesses in this game, that unfortunately finish with this game being average on this site.

Pros:
Graphics/Characters - Nicely modded Honeyselect, looks better than a majority of others.
Character Design -Characters look unique and most of them fit a stereotypical character type, which in a School games is pretty good.
Content - Has an ok amount of content. Some nice sex scenes (But a lack of mother scenes, which should've had priority imho)


Cons:
Updates - The most major one is that the dev is fleecing its fans lying about why he delays the updates, and milking this game for all he can. For the last year, there has been 1-2 mediocre updates, updates that were supposed to take 2-3 months, but took 8 months instead.
Story - It started off strong, but at some point it just becomes an inconsistent mess. From what seemed to be an interesting conspiracy sort of story, became a "fantasy" story instead (Supernatural stuff going on, supernatural powers, etc). The last bit of story progression (which suspiciously seems to be linked to the updates being delayed) has gone down hill in both quality and direction.


Without the cons it would be a 8/10 game, but the cons take at least 3 points away from this game, maybe even 4, so for me it's a 4/10 or 5/10 (So it does inch out an "average" for me). Don't be too hopeful of the future updates tho, you will be disappointed.

Pros: Girls looks
Length of the game till now

Cons: You don't really have one LI it is just a bunch of sluts gathered in a school
Have more or atlest the same amount of scenes with the sluts(girls/LI?) fucking/blowing others than mc fucking/getting blowed.
To much monologues.
Story gets boring
Some renders are really weak and weird for example mc dick detached from his body and floating, the girls cumming its a contínuos spray.

Could be a good game with a nice story but the too much monologues a writing that gets boring , to much attempt fails of making jokes, you cant really connect with some suppose li or girl don't even know how to call them, dont really have good build up of them and they are basically sluts, atlest half of them is show blowing or fucking another guy or doing some really sluty choices, till update 0.8 I think only tomoko is really the one that escape the rule and can be a li but interaction with her isn't very developed yet and probably following the rule they will think in something to make her not worthy anymore.

So if you come here looking for a nice history, well developed with interesting LI you will not find it in this game so I can't recommend it.

[As of v0.8.0b]


The Good:
- Amazing Girls Waifus
- Amazing Animations
- Amazing Lewd Scenes, some of them are def. worth revisiting.
- Refreshing Art Style
- Great Storyline with potential numerous endings.
- Hilarious dialogues (dev's a memer)
- Cool sound effects (pls add more moans and some "watery" sound to match the lewd scenes)

The Bad:
- Not a fan of how MC looks and so Beta during a fight.
- Since there are so many Girls Waifus, some of the Girls Waifus, did not get much love later in the story. (Should add booty call function at school's WC, else what is the purpose of having a phone!?).
- No clear indication of current Karma points.
- Some typos.
- Slow ass updates.


Conclusion:
idk if I shud put this game top 3 or top 5 in the market.. FK!!

Excellent animation, excellent character design, great sex scenes, tons of content, not really much more I could ask for. I've been playing for several hours per day and still haven't finished it after about nearly a week of playing.

EDIT : I originally gave the game a 5 star, which I still think it deserves. But my experience since the 9.0 update was terrible, the biggest issue being the save incompatibility and having to use somebody elses save with different name and choices.

You can't do this with such a big and long release, I'm not replaying two weeks worth of content just because you made one small update and btw the updates being small and few between is another reason why I'm docking a star.

Until those issues get fixed, I'm not playing the game and I'm rescinding my five star review.

Edit 2 : I've basically given up on this game, the issues have gotten worse and the dev is focusing on non-issues rather than giving us more content, the updates are still slow, the characters didn't need redesigns and he split the update into TWO parts despite already having the assets since he mentions in the changelog what's coming in Part 2.

Reduced my rating to a 3 star, if this game still sucks so much by Summer 2023, I'm changing my rating to a 1 star.

Edit 3 : Matter of fact, I saw what he did to one of the best girls in the game Elizabeth, that's worthy of removing another star. I stick by changing it to a one star review in Summer 2023 if this shit doesn't improve.