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

Like other reviews said.
Flashy graphics of big titted, artficial looking women try to cover an otherwise pretty awful 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.

Half a decade in development and you count on one hand the amount of lewd scenes there are.

The writing feels like someone who wrote riverdale but way worse as if riverdale wasn't cringe enough.

Renders are really good but nothing is going anywhere in fact half the people who play this probably can't describe the plot to you coherently. On top of that dev is also doing summer's gone at the same time. I just don't see how this is even anything close to 4 stars.

If this is your first VN then I think you'll be blown away. If not you get to see pass alot of the fluff and and realize how mediocre this game is.

I played this after playing Summers's gone, what a great masterpiece by Ocean, great story, great renders, this is amazing honestly, just a few VN had this feel of immersion. Cant wait for the next update

Almost everything about this avn is incredible, but there is one important aspect that irks me and deflates my enthusiasm..
The girls are all too massive chested / thick... sigh. There's only 1 nice sized girl the story that I can remember.
Not everyone likes huge tits and ass you know. Most guys prefer lean healthy girls with C/D cups. anything bigger or smaller is unnatural/fat or malnourished and not desirable at all to me. All these good looking girls ruined by gross proportions.
I understand that some guys like it, and I can deal with some thick girls, but ALL of them? Narrowing down your audience there. Maybe it's where the money is at. Major shame.

(Review of Ch. 3 Full)

Another excellent game from the developer of Summer's Gone, though here there's actually some sex And boy, those animations are something else. Very sexy and even original, which must be a first after playing who knows how many AVNs before. Very story driven, with awesome visuals and writing, though not everything is perfect.

For starters, there's maybe too many women around with huge knockers, though at least they are mostly proportional to their body frame. But then, all LIs are also so beautiful they could be modelling; this makes the introduction of Lucas (a perfectly normal guy, just a bit on the chubby side) totally hilarious as he looks so ugly next to everyone sitting around him.

Secondly, Helen is said to be Leia's mother, yet they both look the same age. Aaand, the MC is Geralt of Rivia literally on steroids. Someone went too far if you ask me.

Before starting the game you can decide whether NTR is on or off, but either I was very lucky with my choices or the story hasn't yet reached the point where this makes a difference.

nice stories, i thought it was just some adult scenes, but i was wrong, the stories is better than i expected, im hoping for much more updates coming up so i can get to know more about these nice stories and also the adult scenes

Extremely high-quality game... with no content. Dip your toes in, see if you like the water, just understand that currently, these waters are quite gentle and despite having a cast full of bombastic babes, only one of them is fuckable at the moment. The slow pace isn't a detriment, as the writing is solid and the characters are all likable. Buyer beware, however, until the author proves they know what they're doing I'd hesitate about going all in. Don't want to end up in another AWaAM situation. Despite all the caveats, I still gave it a 5-star rating because the quality really is that high. However, if there's been no real progress to speak of a year from now I'll probably drop this rating down to a 3.

Ah, here we go again. I started playing this VN not initially realizing who the dev was, and partway through this update the awkward pacing started to alert my spidey senses. Once the characters started referring to each other as "bibi", I knew something was wrong but couldn't exactly put my finger on what. Once I reached the end of this version and realized this was made by the Summer's Gone dev, everything made sense.

First, the positives:

• Similar to Summer's Gone, this game looks very, very good. Oceanlab is a very skilled visual artist. All of the girls are gorgeous, and the visual aspect of this VN is stunning.
• The characters are all very strong and likeable. The MC of this game isn't nearly as much of a chode as the one in Summer's Gone, and Miru in particular is adorable.
• I think the story is intriguing so far. It's tough to say for sure, because it hasn't been fleshed out very much as of v0.3, but I think it could go some interesting places.
• Unlike Summer's Gone, there is actually some decent lewd scenes. Not much at all, especially considering the dev time, but at least it's something.

The cons:

• Also similar to Summer's Gone, the pacing is absolutely fucked. This game is allegedly six years in development, but as of this latest version the story has gone absolutely NOWHERE. They just keep introducing more and more characters to the mix without actually advancing things at all.
• The writing can be quite cringe at parts. Not as bad as Summer's Gone, but for crying out loud can the dev please stop trying to make "bibi" happen? And why does Miru keep calling the MC's dick "wormy"? That shit is so weird bro, nobody talks like that in real life.
• The MC is such an obvious fantasy self-insert it's honestly hilarious. Like it might be worth playing this game just to laugh at how funny of a character this guy is. Similar to Summer's Gone, this MC is a "bad boy" with an attitude problem that all the girls find irresistable - except this time he's a bodybuilder or something? I shit you not, at one point the MC goes to the gym and gets swarmed by other dudes who are desperate to learn his secrets to getting swole. I actually have a theory that the reason the story goes nowhere in these games is because the dev can't stop jerking off to the MCs.
• The UI and general interface are broken. The gallery in particular doesn't show all of the lewd content, and trying to navigate it is a mess.

But by far the biggest problem here, is that this game will never be finished. Consider the following:

1. This game has been in development for over half a decade and we're still being introduced to new characters and have barely even scraped the surface of the plot
2. This dev is simultaneously working on Summer's Gone, which is an even bigger pacing and plot progression clusterfuck

For that reason, I can't give this VN a score beyond two stars. I hope someone can prove me wrong, but I don't ever see this game being completed in a meaningful way.

Great game, has Oceans trademark gorgeous renders paired with some of the most breathtaking girls out there, not much is out yet but I really like where the story is heading, more fleshing out and this could truly be great, short and sweet but worth your time

Reworking this game is the best decision Ocean did.
The game features beautiful Renders and good looking Characters.
I see this game being in the same category of the greats of this genre, and I hope for more content to arrive.

This one's kind of a toss up for me between a 3 and 4.. on one hand, all the characters look absolutely fantastic, as do the animations and most scenes. However, for a game labeled as ntr and which seemingly tries to give you options on how you want your playthrough to be focused, it has almost no impact on what you will be able to see or do. No matter what you choose, there is only 1 girl you will be able to do more than simply flirt with or barely even touch for 5 seconds.

That being said, the 1 girl you do get to actually have sex with is pretty incredible, so I can't fault that. But, the lack of any actual choice beyond when you do or don't have sex with the 1 girl just brings my overall enjoyment of the game to near non-existent. Hopefully in the future this could get updated? Not sure if the dev is still active on it however so who knows.

There are very good renders here
Animation is smooth and natural

The problem is in writing and general direction of the story

It's classical example of the story where dev throws in your face a couple of sex scenes at the beginning to keep you in game for some time. After that you will have reading, reading and reading. I'm OK to read a captivating story, some detective or maybe sci-fi, but all this novel feels like a big prolog to the actual story

The other problem here that I can't assossiate myself with MC. He is crying on the screen with a sad music, but I feel nothing, just a boredom. Why is he crying? There are so much loopholes in narrating that I can't even understand

The character appearance is completely unrelated to their age. You sister looks older than you mother and your father looks like your slightly older friend

Unfortunately I can't recommend this VN to play, it's boring and inconsistent

[Ch. 3]

Really excellent art, very attractive models, loving the atmosphere and story. Some of the English is imperfect, but it's otherwise intelligent enough to look past that. It's definitely a slow burn. It's pretty light on actual sex scenes, but there's a good amount of eroticism in between them. I'd like more frequent scenes, but that's not a big deal.