VN - Ren'Py - Zeno's Anthology [v0.5] [Chemical Fire]

3/5 (being kind, should be lower)

[+]
*Amazing story, unique and different than the usual bs
*Milf character is hot af no debate about this


[-]
*Hot nympho/force milf turned to FBI bait corruption game like wtf??
*Male bod hogging most the frames, game should have GAY tag
*2 years of dev and barely any content and with that dev already introduced 3 characters like ... wtf?
*cHoIcEs ... there for minor changes and basically there just to be there.
**

Game has huge potential but suffers from alot of shit, play it if you got nothing better to do.

Best wishes for the dev

Finally after a long time, a game which is neither so long that you feel like you are reading a trilogy of books nor is a beautiful game with shitty story. Breaking the troupe and being an absolute gem, this game is such a masterpiece.

First of all, story is linear, divided among chapters, not that long but legible and well done. The choices matter and MC is not a dick. I do think the drunk scene is one where reading in between lines is very important but despite that if you feel that the drunk scene is not your cup of tea, you can skip it and play other chapters and still won't feel completely out of loop as the previous actions are summarized along the way.

Female LIs are well done, and justifies the heading of the chapter they belong to.

Definitely recommended for time and again replays. Simply a 11/10.

5/5.
First of all, the scenario is very creative, the story is very unusual, fluent and original, renders with high quality. For me, one of the top VNs, very underrated.
Laundry episode was the most amazing part.

The CG quality so far is very impressive, which alone is enough for any VN fan to check out.
Knocking a star because the typo/grammar issues are a little rough. The dev could use some help with proofreading the script (it's not completely unreadable, but the mistakes are very noticeable.)

What can I say ? This game is litteraly perfect ; we hope every game will have the same art, story and everything. Even the idea of making various scenes related one another is an original idea. Continue like that ; one of the best games to find around here, clearly.

Zeno's Anthology is interesting in the way it frames the narrative compared to other AVNs on here.

The stories that make up the anthology are mostly related because they feature the male protagonist Zeno. You select one of the stories and can either advance the story chronologically, or just hop to a random one.

You can make choices in the game that have some minor impact within each story.

The game has nice looking renders, initially without any animation. The recent episodes feature full animation for sex scenes but I think it was better without it.

The models are nice and the sex scenes are erotic and intense. The game overall has an earthy, european look to it.

My rating for Zeno's Anthology
In advance said it not bad at all, but there are some points that bother me a bit. I find the episodes a bit short. The animations are rendered are great, but they are not fantastic. Especially some of Zeno's animations I don't like that much. My favorites are Anna and Susan and the woman in the alley (can't remember her name). Unfortunately she was removed by an update. The story feels kind of weird, but also kind of interesting again. Sometimes Zeno is the bad guy and sometimes he is the good guy. I personally find the decisions a bit boring.

I still recommend it.

I wish the developer Chemical Fire continued success and all the best.

Love this project. The story line is interesting in a good way, the renders are of high quality, the animations are good, even the characters feel real and have depth. I love this project and can't wait for more updates.

I enjoyed this game. The concept of an anthology adult VN is a super interesting one. Though some choices felt kinetic, there are still many branches paths and endings to obtain, here.

The renders; even using the compressed version; are beautiful, as are the animations. And I really loved the character designs, as well.

Only real complaint is that the grammar isn't great. With some jarring instances of typos, even ones occurring on the story selector screen, which is baffling.

Still stunning visually, and with an overall unique concept that warrants 5 stars.

Edit: taking off a star because the grammar is *really* poor and it kinda' hurts the experience. Sorry, Dev.

Story is like a fine stake and ice cream. Great flavors individually but should not be eaten together on same plate. MC character behavior is different from story to story. Eclectic kink preference. Landlady story is pure rape fantasy and Dom. The best story was with Susan. It was an unexpected pleasure.

Very nice renders, finally a bit of a different story than most of the games have. Also like the timeline feature, it could be very interesting in the future. There is a huge potential to this game, wish the best to the developers.

I get that this game is an anthology, but its too short for my liking. The animations are renders are okay, but they aren't great. The story feels kind of weird. Its an okay game, but I don't get the hype. Cheers.

amazing graphics and storywise i loved the story with the landlady more than anne, but anne's story is still very undeveloped and there are many parts that the dev haven't put out like why is anne's mom beating her and even going as far as basically nuts like endangering zeno's life. also what is up with that story in the car, all i could hope for is that this game actually got finished and polished. Good luck devs

Writing dialogues of an edgy teen trying to be dark, it has to be some of the most cringe inducing lines i've seen in VNs. Main MC feels creepy af and choices pretty much does nothing. Its a shame since Its an interesting format with the short stories. And it has nice looking renders and really good looking main girls. But yeah the writing is just a huge turnoff sadly.

It's an interesting game, but the fact that the stories are separate from each other and don't have a general story is annoying.
If it only continued the story of the basement, I think the game would be much more interesting
In my opinion, 4 short games are stuck together and the rest of the stories are not interesting, but the game had good graphics

Played v0.2.9.4-2

I get now why the other reviewers struggle to describe or categorize this. You simply need to play it.

* It's a series of short stories that are interconnected. Thus it won't take long to get through everything...even with replays to pick different options.

* Renders are great!

* Highly erotic and/or highly dark and 'raw'.

* A horror element to each short story, except Devils (regardless of the title).

OVERALL:
I'll be returning to future releases.
This is one of my top 20, regardless of how short it is.

This game is.... something. It just feels wierd to have sex and traumatic experiences so close together. All the sex scenes feel like MC is just taking advantage, even tho you choose not to. Thats the second problem, choices dont affect the gameplay at all, why even bother making them. The renders are great but this kind of quality is nowdays nothing unseen and is slowly becoming standart. The game doesnt really have a story, but it kinda does, its all conected but its cropped. There is a lot of missing info about some things. + it just feels wierd jerking off to this

Overall its decent, short and wierd. It has the same problem as L.O.F. that is connecting trauma and sex, but L.O.F. saving grace was that the characters were really well writen and felt personal. This has no character developement and things like that.

I really believe that this game is in a class of its own. It's gorgeous and honestly makes it probably the best game out there. I play the games once a year and within that time its evolution is unique. Just a big thumbs up to the developer. And of course to continue like this.

The visual part of these games are simply outstanding. The stories are short, but that is rather a refreshing plus - you are never bored and do not need dozens of hours to finish a game. Unfortunately, I found not all of the stories of the same high quality, but that is quite ok for a game still in development. If evaluated by the fun to time spent ratio this game gets 5 stars easily.