VN - Ren'Py - Wartribe Alliances [v0.2.1] [Mr.Rooster]

If you liked the previous installment, it's more of the same. New UI could use some work- the text color isn't legible if you don't want to use the textbox background. The new narrative direction seems promising and I'm looking forward to see how it develops

If this was it's own game instead of a sequel I would be rating it differently, but ultimately this is the verdict:

Graphics are the same as the first game, which took a long time to develop which makes it weird that there's been no upgrades. Of the 2 chapters that exist so far, 80-90% is a massive exposition dump, which honestly just feels like a stalling tactic. Based on chapter 2 it seems like there's going to be even more stalling before the story continues in any capacity through a guild system and such. The story has a lot of potential, but at this rate it will probably take years to get anywhere. The other thing that makes that more aggravating is the fact that it seems like the text wasn't even proof read once. There are really weird mistakes like the wrong character being listed as speaking, one character saying "8" then the next responding with "10?!" (in terms of surprise of the number being so high not a negotiation or something.)

If this seems to change in the upcoming chapters I'll amend my rating. The other issue is it SEEMS like the game is on a path where you're basically just forced to forgive those who have wronged you (quite badly I might add). If that ends up not being true and you do get choices to kill them I'll probably increase the rating as well.

TLDR: Its more Wartribe Academy, but a little different.

For the first chapter (0.1.0), there was more story content than I was expecting. I'm used to most games having fairly small updates, but this did play well. Not much in the way of animated scenes, so if you're mainly playing for that then I'd give it time to build up more.

As far as characters go, it is pretty much the same graphics, same animation quality. Sadly, where its early in development many of the characters aren't really in the game yet and because of the events at the end of the prequel, the tone is a bit different too as far as characters interact. I'm a bit on the fence with some of the changes but not letting it affect my review until more of the characters are back.

There is a newer UI and music, but I'm not a fan. it takes up more screen space and the font color forces you to run the dialogue boxes at higher opacity which means you'll have to use "hide" more if you want to see the bottom of renders. The music is also remarkably louder - I typically play on 30% volume in Wartribe Academy so I can also listen to a show or music. In Wartribe Origins I have to keep it on 5% and it still feels louder than I'm used to. I really hope the sound and UI wasn't a big part of the chapter development because that could have gone more towards the actual story instead of what feels like a cheap downgrade.

Really hope the quality keeps up with the original game, which was a 5/5, but with some of the changes I do worry it could slip from a 4/5 to being a mid tier 3-3.5 game.

Wartribe Academy from 2020 was a great game. Plenty, I mean plenty of gorgeous girls, good animations and story that was able to build tension.

Now we have 2025 and we get... the same game. I mean, in technical terms.
The same quality of models, the same quality of animations like 5 years ago.

For 2020 it would be still 4/5, maybe 5/5, but for 2025 I can't give it more than 3/5