VN - Ren'Py - Where It All Began [S1 Ch.4 Fix 1 Steam] [Oceanlab]

It feels like this project’s stuck in a rut. Four or five years ago, it was at the top of the AVN game, but the plot changes, the endless wait between updates (and how slow the story moves), and now the lack of cinematics that gave it that high-quality vibe just leave us with a collection of gorgeous renders and not much else...

Very good game, with a very good story and awesome renders. Of course its not a game for everyone as it will give more importance to the plot and story over tons of nonsense sex scenes (but relax, there is sex scenes on it already since first release).
The game suffered a rework, but since then theres a lot of content imo, but it takes more time between releases, but nothing much different from others AAA games here on F95...but on the content regard this depends on what point you considerate things, if it is from the first release of the old game or if it is from the rework. But in this regard you just need to think if its worth the wait or not, if its not just go and play something else, its not hard. But there are HOURS of gameplay on it already.
Other good thing is that this game is connected to the same universe of devs other game.
From my part is a very recommended game...but if you are the kind of player that just plays on "skip mode" to see sex scenes and masturbate, not the game for you. The best tip i can give you here is: Understand yourself. There are games here on F95 for many type of players, theres plenty of mindless fuckfest games here, and if you dont like to read dialogue, dont like plot development, you will easily find something to play. But if you like better developed games, with good plot, good dialogue and all, you will probably like this one, and understand that to make something very good takes time, just remember that most triple A games here that delivers good amount of story, content and renders have longer times between updates.

The game has been in development for six years and is still in its infancy. In that time, we've seen Covid. The war in Afghanistan has ended, the war in Ukraine has begun. Somebody got married, somebody got divorced. What's changed in the game? A lot. Gone is the story of one dysfunctional family, and in its place is a mafia mess.

The graphics have improved, unfortunately at the expense of everything else.

The story drags and despite the creator's best efforts, it's obvious that the original storyline has been heavily interfered with. The final impression is a mess.

* If all you expect from the game is beautiful pictures, this is the game for you.

* If you expect a superficial story without unnecessary bullshit and a lot of sex, this is not the game for you.

* If you want a solid, above average story with no major logic lapses and characters you can relate to... run and never look back.

Just like summer's gone its absolutely a piss poor drag fest that is like an infinite tease, Im convinced the dev has erectile dysfunction in real life because this game is a form of torture and dialogue diarrhea.

Its tease > exposition > tease > exposition. You stand a better chance getting lewd with your anime pillow than this game.

I finally finished playing it—oh fuck, what a bottomless pit Ocean dug themselves into! All this flirting, so much garbage across 4,800 renders, and the plot progression… Oh, and then this dumbass introduces a whole new storyline after eight years? The best idea his fried brain could come up with was taking a mafia world where we only knew Zane, Rivera, and the Petrovs… and dumping in an entire mafia nation?! Some people joked that John Wick doesn’t seem so unrealistic now—fine, whatever, keep the mafia. But then they cram in these medieval-ass marriage-of-convenience tropes? Brilliant plan! Take the mafia + arranged marriages + John Wick’s dog, chop it all up, flush it down the toilet, and hit ‘publish on Steam.’ A recipe as reliable as a Swiss watch. Now we’ve got seven more years of development for the rest of the mafia families, and if SS doesn’t ban incest, Ocean’s officially a clown. How they’ll dig themselves out of this mess? I don’t even care anymore. I refunded it on Steam. I supported a different game—one with actual logic and none of this mafia bullshit. And yes, ‘Giuseppe’ is a first name, not a surname. Germany was Italy’s ally—embarrassing not to know that. Whatever you’re smoking, quit it. Drugs are bad. For all your pedantry, how could you write this nonsense? Hire a student screenwriter. Stop wasting money on music.

And how easy it would have been to avoid all this bullshit, just leave William as Zane, and make Katie and Leah adopted by anyone in fact, and then at least some sense would have appeared, even in the nonsense that we have now.

Another banger update, the plot is going forward at relative slow pace but in an amazing direction, new faces, new drama, the classic Ocean giving a lot of teasing , potential new lovers, possible cheating in future (Miru dream) (NTR?) we have to wait and see, it leaves u with all these crazy ideas in ur head on what/could happen in the future, and the best of it is the shared universe with SG, makes the experience a lot more fun and interesting, it is sad to see some people giving low ratings because short sighted things , or even dumber things like update time too long, like bro, there are 10000 other games here, if you are impatient just let it cook for a couple of years then come back, writing a low review just because the game is taking long to update is the dumbest thing ive seen

6 years 8 months 6 days since it was introduced on F95 (as of today when i write this review) and its simply not good in any other category other that renders are pretty lol i played it when it was new and then couple times over the years (before and after rework) and also today i simply cant recomment it.

Haven't and won't even touch Season 1 Chapter 4 after reading all the reviews. This game was in my S Tier list. With the family dynamic gone (you leave because you had feelings for a roommate??? [What are we in first grade?])

I tried to ask about what the reason was in Ocean's discord, what I got was they lost support for it? (I feel like that is a lie but w/e) Sad to see a half decent game go into the trash.

With it being so long since either this or Summer's Gone had an update, I forgot just how good Ocean is.

This game is stunning. Arguably the best visuals on the site. That is, of course, the main selling point. On top of that, the writing is quite good if you ignore the infrequent grammar mistakes. My personal favorite thing about the game though, is how well the character relationships develop. Obviously, as for all AVNs, some suspension of disbelief is needed, but not an excessive amount. A baseline relationship is defined, and over time the boundaries of it expand and evolve in ways that can be easily followed.

A simple thing, but one several AVNs miss out on.

+ good looking MC and he's not a total loser
+ Miru of course
+ great soundtrack, it also perfectly suit most of the scenes
+ outstanding renders/animations
+ funny moments
+ gallery
+ story is ok..

- ..but thanks to slow development I forgot most of it. I barely remember what's going on
- poorly done lewd scenes, it's just a short and boring animation compilation, no dirty talk, no narration - absolutely nothing. Game with that calibre should offer something better
- relationship development with LIs is very fucking slow
- lack of lovey-dovey, affection and romance stuff
- some girls are bitchy and unpleasant

In the current state - 3 stars, nothing more, nothing less

S1 Ch.4

Story has really slow start and it does use it to build meaningful relationship for the main characters. Main story has lots of moving parts and it feels confusing at the start, but when it finally picks up, it is pretty good.
Game does not make it clear from the start, that it is NOT a harem game. It kind of feels like it sometimes. Conversation options are pretty much "do something character 1. likes or 2. dislikes." This is normally used only in harem games. Also NTR/NTS options may confuse some viewers, as the game is not pure cuckold game.

Writing is really good. Characters have distinct and nuanced personalities. Characters you learn to like, but also find problems from them. Perfect for a game where you try to learn the world, its characters and whose side MC should take.
Game could really use some kind of character encyclopedia. It has way too many side characters with same facial structure and even almost identical names. Cryptic talk about characters that have not yet been introduced does not help either.

Visually game is like a adult version of candy story for kids. So much eye candy. I was not happy when the press 1,2,3,4 sex scene came, but later the more cinematic sexual scene made me more than happy.
MC also builds sexual relationships really slowly, so we have to settle long time for the not-so-pretty girlfriend who sadly has mutilated tits (nipple piercings). But at least pretty much all the other characters look like perfect sex goddesses.

Like other reviews said.
Flashy graphics of big titted, artificial looking women try to cover an otherwise pretty poor VN. There's really nothing worth playing here. Plot, characterisation, writing etc., it's all very underwhelming and boring. Not recommended.

The core issue with this game, and another one by the same developer, is the sheer number of love interests

Now, to be clear, the developer provides an average of 4,000 to 5,000 incredibly high-quality renders for each game every year. That's a significant amount, especially when you compare it to other games out there
However, because there are so many love interests, that huge number of renders just doesn't feel like much
For instance, their other game has nearly 30 love interests!
If you divide those 5,000 renders by 30, or even 20 or 10 love interests per update, it means each character gets very little content
It would have been much better if they had introduced/developed characters gradually over time, instead of putting them all in at once

I genuinely believe that if this particular problem didn't exist, most people would be completely satisfied with both games, as both the story and the relationships with some of the characters have progressed quite well

So many years of development, yet such little materialization. If any private investor put their stake into this project, it wouldn't be allowed to continue, based off the fact of the lack of material. That's a fact. Do more, do better, cut the excuses.

One of those games where the artist is supremely talented in a technical sense yet zero characters (male or female) are remotely attractive.

Imagine a world where everybody is an absolute caraciature of a genetic freak in bodily/facial beauty, then spends 30 hours a day in the gym, gets implants and a facelift, destroys their beauty with gairish makeup, fake eyelashes, fake nails, fake hair, tats, piercings through face and body--a world where everybody is a wealthy, soulless, jaded, bitchy, phony, trashy try-hard. Then turn it up a few notches and you have the world this game takes place in.

While this is universal problem (in game), the worst offender as a try-hard caricature of pseudo-attractiveness is MC. It's absolutely awful playing in his shoes and carrying this guy around from scene to scene.

On the plus side, if this all sounds appealing to you, and you want to fill your life with these people while rarely having sex, go for it. It's a true VN with no bullshit labor involved, and the UI, performance, and such are good.

More than half a decade of development (lol) with nothing to show for it. Great renders as in Ocean game trademark, but that is basically it. Story is boring and nonsensical. For an erotic VN there is almost no scenes in the game, and the rare scenes that exist are in video clip format, were you control nothing and just forced to watch the action, where any click by mistake makes the video skipped.

One of my favourite game, been like that for years, even went through a reboot/remake, very great story and art but the updates are extremely (painfully) slow

Pros:
Character arts
Characters
Fetishes
Plot

Cons:
Extremely (painfully) slow updates

Another Ocean game with plenty of beautiful renders, annnnd nothing else.

That's the theme of Ocean games, lots of cool renders of big titted and well proportioned women. And nothing more.

There's no story, just it's not there, it's so boring, renders can only carry so much, just like Summer's Gone, Ocean's other game, it's the same slop as this.

Uncreative writing, good renders, and nothing else.
7 years in development and there's basically nothing in this game except big tit renders of pretty girls.

Try it on your own, but it's clear to see this will never be finished.

Started to play, forwarded because of the visibly empty and senseless plot, quitted the game since there is nothing from value in for me.

All characters are escaped from a bodybuilder-model-agency and hanging around the whole day looking sexy and fumble each other, there is something with mafia and killing people too, thats it.

Graphics are very good, but the h-scenes are unfortunately just some "videoclips" that are not even near to turn someone on - even if they are technically from excellent quality, that for sure.

All in all: nice packaging, boring content.

2 stars because the graphics are really good.
And the menus/ui is really well designed too.

If i were the dev i would hire someone who can write a story, change the superstar-cast to some real humans and stage the h-scenes more spicy - it would be probably a hit.