Divine Dawn is an adult RPG in which you step into the role of a would-be hero, with dreams of greatness and no likelihood of achieving any of them in a peaceful world with no real genocidal threats. Then you nearly die several times in a row, discover traces of an ancient mystery and (possibly) impending doom, and go on a road trip with a colorful cast of comrades to save the world! Maybe. You've got a lot of fighting, therapy, adventure, and monster girls to deal with before we get to that point. Fortunately, you'll usually have a partner at your side to help you out in fights and offer witty(?) banter(?). But only you can decide if it's worth trading your humanity for the power you need - otherworldly energies offer much, but will change your body over time.
0.34
Rosalyn
gets two giant scenes, one full of reveals about her character - and your backstory - and another that's more about your growing relationship with each other. God I wish she would hug me.
Sarah, Ashley, and Metatron
get a daytime conversation, touching on Bariura lore and giant mecha.
Siofra
gets Trust 8, Affection 4, and Affection 6 scenes, significantly deepening your relationship with her and revealing more of her (mostly) likeable side.
Ina
gets Trust 8, Trust 10, and Affection 8 scenes, showcasing a lot more of our favorite princess, plenty of Atlantis lore, and hinting at the start of a relationship.
Aspasia
gets a Trust 12 scene with a moral quandary and some of her being surprisingly sweet.
Sam
gets an Affection 16, following up her date withsome character development and cute moments!
Maya
gets an Affection 12, which is equal parts her shitposting, lore about the east, and admitting you're alright, which is basically a declaration of love from her.
Sarah
gets an affection 18, very comfy and sweet. Comfort food reading and I love her for it.
0.33
Rosalyn gets two new scenes, a conversation (visit her after the Astrologia setup group scene) and a second conversation followed by a paizuri CG (choose Flirt in the conversation menu).
Aspasia gets a trust 10 scene, discussing golems, artificial intelligence, and what souls are. She loves this stuff.
Ina gets a 6 affection scene, which includes some discussion on whether Kuril or the MC would rock a dress better, along with more discussion of what relations are.
Sarah gets a 16 affection scene, with some MC childhood lore drops and her trying to be a supportive girlfriend. She's doing her best.
Ashley gets a 14 affection scene, discussing succubus lore and Ashley's stellar descriptive skills when she's trying to make a point. Especially when she's horny.
Siofra gets 2, 4, and 6 trust scenes, all of them very meaty and deeply philosophical. She has a lot more going on than 'smug goofy forest lady' and is happy to challenge the MC as well as be challenged by him. I meant that intellectually, but she would probably also be into ranked competitive sex.
Siofra also gets a 2 affection scene with some shameless flirting and fun lore. There WAS a 4 affection scene, but I lost it, and I'm still hopping mad two weeks later. I was really happy with it man. I'll rewrite it in a future update.
Sarah and Ashley get a massive evening affection scene, showing their growing bonds with the MC as well as a variety of conversation topics. Sarah is very cute and gets one extra bit if you have high strength, otherwise it's just a trio of goofs in a complicated relationship.
0.32
Sarah got a new lovey thighjob CG, attached to a very... ethereal sort of scene. If you needed a reminder that she's a succubus, not a normal girl, this is it.
Sarah also got a new trust scene, with a bit of character development, bonding, and hints for the future. Not all of them are good! Her finalizing her decision to invite Celica for the upcoming library research trip is, though.
Sarah also got an amusing new conversation, in which you and she discuss Ashley's viability as the true Demon Queen. Her answer may or may not surprise you.
Maya got a chonky new affection scene, which has her being almost suspiciously cute when she has her guard down. It also has doggo ear rubs. This is very important.
Ina trust 4 and 6, delving heavily into Sahuagin lore and her feelings about it. Not all are positive, but it's a good bonding experience.
Metatron gets a new trust 18, with a lot of emotions running rampant and a reveal of something that has been bothering her for some time. Robo-angel-wife has been going through a lot, please support her.
As always, I'll take a few days off to recuperate and fix bugs as needed, then get to work on the next update. Not sure exactly how long it will take - I don't wanna do any more giant 2 month updates, so probably more in the 2-4 week range, depends a bit on how much I want to fit in.
0.31
Sam's actual first time (affection 14), with a massive date, relationship building, special backgrounds, and a new CG courtesy of Aragiken! Watch an unusually fancy aurora with her and realize that you are not immune to tomboy propaganda.
Sam trust 16, which continues the events from her spar with Metatron and grants her a new Instant.
Maya affection 8, which has some pretty funny sprite movement and Maya being abnormally honest (sometimes). She's a very good dog.
General plot scene, which randomly occurs sometime after Ina joins. Bit of a callback to the scene when you leave on the adventure, with some character development and a fiery new arrival.
Celica trust 10, which sets up the totally-not-a-date with her and Sarah in the coming updates, and also has our beloved gremlin being vulnerable and cute. She's always cute.
Metatron affection 16, which starts off with her asking what it means for a woman to be demure, and kinda goes downhill from there.
Ina affection 4, in which you and a princess decide how to handle the eventual race war you're going to start by sleeping around too much.
0.30
Sarah affection 14, with entirely too much plot relevance to be in a random affection scene
Maya trust 12, showcasing Maya being less of a gremlin than usual (barely)
Metatron affection 14, in which Ashley is the MVP
Metatron conversation 5, further proving that Hieroneiden did nothing wrong
Ina joining scene (random event in camp, pass time/come back from adventure)
Ina trust 2. Got wood? She does! I promise that will be vaguely amusing when you read it, but no refunds.
Ina affection 2. Expect romance, get philosophical debates that get really depressing.
Ina, Kuril, and Kandros playable. Each has unique traits, some with funky mechanics!
Abilities are now sorted within an element by school. Martial arts are now color-coded by school as well - if people like it, I can do the same for magic schools.
Does anyone even want to read 'assorted bugfixes?' I feel like every patch notes has them, I never know what they mean, and frankly I don't even remember what I fixed.
0.28
A massive combi-scene covering your return to the knight camp after the Deepwoods finale, with some significant plot development and some major callbacks to previous major choices. Also includes Ina being thirstier than usual, which is a feat in and of itself.
Aspasia 12 and 14 affection scenes, pushing further into friendship and romance with the starstruck slime. Like, astronomy stars, not a metaphor for romance.
Sarah 10 trust gets moving on her own Rocky training montage, which is unsurprisingly less violent than Ashley's. Slightly more messed up tho.
Metatron 10 trust finally starts delving into Metatron's own martial art, as well as more trauma. That's gonna be a recurring theme.
Ashley affection 12 is mostly really wholesome, with a side dish of PTSD. She's a good girl. Might purr if you pet her.
Greatsword rework; 4 new traits, a few new support abilities, and several new elemental skills. It's still probably not as busted as Greataxe, but
way
safer and plays more into the unstoppable juggernaut vibe.
Some new music; Selendis and Ina each get their own themes!
A new knight, with art from alhazart. Same guy who did Kuril, Kandros, Svyatibor, etc.
0.27b
Aspasia
gets 4, 6, 8, and 10 affection scenes, as well as an 8 trust scene setting up future combat upgrades!
Sam
gets a 10 trust scene that lets you somewhat customize her playstyle, helping her synergize with various builds. There's a much smaller, separate scene in the Training tab that lets you change it at any time while in camp.
Sarah
gets a 12 affection scene that finally reveals one of her Aspects~
Maya
gets an evening hangout/lap pillow scene, unfortunately not involving her lap. She also gets a new missionary sex scene with a CG!
Ashley
got a 10-affection scene pushing her romance forward.
Damage/heal displays *should* be less prone to displaying 10+ digits, but the move to Renpy 8 caused some more backend issues than I had hoped so it's possible I missed some. Please let me know if you run into any!
Various other bug/typo fixes as mentioned above. Probably the most obviously notable one would be Maya's 10 trust scene having expressions now.
0.26b
A new area, the Deepwoods Heart. Chock full of plot, new art, and music, it will be a true test of your your abilities and your beliefs, with heavily divergent endings depending on your final choices.
Sarah gets a wholesome new CG and sex scene (night) as well as another talk (evening), both requiring high affection.
Celica gets a new Affection 12 scene pushing the relationship forward, as well as a shared hangout with Sam (evening).
Aspasia gets a new 6 Trust scene as your bond with her begins to grow and she gets a little bit snarkier.
Ashley gets a new conversation with Maya as oil and water mix into a big fucking problem. She also gets a followup conversation discussing her worldview.
Trait and now Ability dictionaries exist in the right-click menus, with better use of icons and separation to make 'em a bit easier to peruse. Hopefully helps for making new builds.
Chesed completely revamped into 7 new spells, while Malkuth got quite a few spellsword-oriented spells as well. Binah and Geburah got a few new spells apiece.
For some godawful reason a lot of active Charisma abilities didn't actually let you master them, which is now fixed.
A metric assload of new traits; Charisma gets a bunch that let you buff your allies passively, while healing magic (mostly Aether and Water) get a variety of specialized as well as generalized traits. Pyromancy got some love as well.
The Athame weapon gained several new elemental skills and traits, hopefully making it a strong option for a more dexterity-focused spellsword rather than a stat stick. Oh, and you can bleed yourself horribly for a short magic buff.
New stat icons! Also rearranged the display a bit. No functional changes.
Several existing characters now have new music; Maya's default, Sarah during her lewd scene, etc.
Several new themes for the Heart; there's a lot of new boss music to say the least!
Minor channel balancing; each active channel increases the activation cost of the next. More thorough work will be done with them when I revisit the mana system, this is somewhat experimental.
v0.25
Sarah affection 8/10
Celica trust 8
Sam affection 10
Ashley affection 8
Metatron conversation 5
Charles gets 3 new worldbuilding conversations
7? new armors, with unique stat combinations
30-odd new armor traits
10? new Charisma traits
Traits to unlock critical heals
Elements and armors all have fancy new icons, courtesy of TheWiseHedgehog!
v0.24
Maya gets a new conversation about therianthropy, a 10 trust scene, her first martial arts training unlocked, and a new nighttime sex scene with maledom. Bratty dog requires correction.
Ashley gets a 6 affection scene
Sam gets an 8 trust scene
Celica gets evening campfire cuddles
Experimental cheat menu! Some functionality is duplicated to see what people like and what I want to stick with/improve on in the future. Be careful with leveling down, that is experimental.
Initiative list shows up in combat
24? Charisma abilities + masteries
Cryomancy revamp, including a bunch of new/revamped abilities and 6? new traits
The they/them army of Sam has been further decimated
Assorted bugfixes that I forgot 15 minutes after I put them in, weeks ago. The one I remember is fixing instant ability targeting.
v0.23c
Changelog:
A new area, the Deepwood Vale. Plot-heavy, it introduces a variety of new characters, including an ara ara butterfly girl! Also a talking tree. Also an eclectic mix of monsters from Brazilian mythology, angry hobs, and spirit beasts.
Maya gets a blowjob and CG, as well as 6/8 trust and 6 affection scenes
Ashley gets her first martial arts training, as well as 14 trust and 4 affection scenes
Sarah gets 8 trust and 6 affection scenes
Sam gets 4/6 trust scenes
Celica gets a trust 6 scene
New Charisma/Magic hybrid weapon, "Mystic Harp," unlocked via Rosalyn in the Deepwoods Vale. A potent support weapon with free but mutually-exclusive channels!
50-ish new abilities, including a spread of Charisma active abilities to buff your allies and some more dedicated Theromancy spells!
20-odd new traits, spread across existing weapons, the harp, charisma, and magic
New, matching sprites for every weapon!
Rightclick stat and ability menus upgraded
All ability displays now intelligently show channel upkeep, in battle it *should* even show it with traits considered.
Svyatibor and Eldrad both have custom music as well!
Waaaay too many bugfixes.
New monsters courtesy of aekashics, NPCs mostly from alzaharart, Rosalyn drawn by Coubalty, Maya CG drawn by InCloud, Svyatibor theme by Ubercrow, Eldrad theme by mnervastudios, weapon sprites by TheWiseHedgehog
v0.22d
Major updates to the opening and weapons in particular
Changelog:
The pre-temple opening of the game has been completely redone. Pick between bespoke new premade choices or a custom character builder, meet a new character, and meet a more tolerable Sam. Female Sam only; male Sam has been completely removed.
The temple has gotten minor updates, making it possible to skip some text, taking out some lower-quality stuff, and adding a bit more.
Sarah and Ashley temple scenes now have their own CGs! Minor updates to the scenes as well.
The game now has a LOT more backgrounds; temple is unchanged but the forest and home scenes, camp, and Badon now have proper art.
Amnelis sprite courtesy of Coubalt. Knight-Commander Selendis art courtesy of jfc!
Amnelis theme and Sofra normal/battle themes all by Ubercrow! The temple boss also has a new theme, courtesy of The Mad Duck
4 entirely new weapons - Greataxe, Dual Daggers, Mana Blade, Longbow, each with unique playstyles. Almost every old weapon has been heavily reworked as well! Earth magic got a major revamp too. About 300 new abilities and ~100-150 reworked ones in total.
A new set of no-requirement channels, so non-mages have good access to buffs, and new Reaction system which lets you reflexively block, counterattack, or evade attacks for a certain duration or use count.
Significant improvements to much of the progress menu UI, showing much more info about abilities
Around 15-20 ish traits, some for existing weapons, some for new/magic
New Metatron 12-affection scene, covering the aftermath of her first lewd. More to come~
v0.21e
The biggest update yet, with about four hours of content as the result of two months of work!
Changelog:
Metatron's existing romance and Celica's new 10-affection romance scene now lead to lewds, each with a bespoke CG with multiple variants! Celica's CG was drawn by Nor, while Metatron's was provided by SunsetSkyline.
Deliver Ina to the knight camp, meeting several new characters, running into your first main plot decision, and unlocking...
A new combat area, the Deepwoods Verge. Expect to target down specific enemies, deal with cancerous bullshit, and fight...
Siofra, an extremely hot spirit mommy drawn by Coubalt, a new character debuting as a boss!
Two entirely new weapons, the Shortbow and the Greatsword, each with 6-10 abilities. Shortbows excel at ability rotations to keep debuffs and statuses on enemies, and can synergize with magic to become a magic archer, while Greatswords deal ruinous damage and can cripple enemies.
Most weapons now have various stat bonuses and penalties, including several new magic or hybrid melee/magic weapons.
Ashley gained 8, 10, and 12 trust scenes, which start her along the path of her own custom martial art and reveal quite a bit about our beloved gremlin! Soon you'll be able to follow her down the same path~
Maya got adorable new art, courtesy of jfc, with a boatload of new expressions!
Progress menu heavily revamped, with far more information and less reliance on shitty tooltips, as well as aesthetic improvements.
Tons of new icons for statuses and stats, especially visible in the progress menu and rightclick stats menu, courtesy of Clockwork Raven!
A new Charisma stat, which buffs your ally's offensive and defensive abilities. It can benefit multiple allies, which may become relevant soon...
Deepwoods Verge monsters are a mix of custom stuff from Garrisen or acquired from Aekashics.
Deepwoods Verge background art courtesy of Chrisowl!
The main menu now cycles between a couple cool new backgrounds, and some of the commissioned music. Also messed with the layout slightly so it feels a little more... idk, professional.
A bunch of new music, particularly the Deepwoods and Sam battle/camp themes by the talented @Ubercrow, and a few from various free-use repositories.
Various fixes to channeled abilities; they now update targets each turn, including newly-summoned enemies or recently-dying foes, rather than needing to be re-toggled. Buff boosts and channel cost upgrades SHOULD be working properly as well, but doublecheck your pre-mastery channels.
v0.20e
Sam has a new sprite, courtesy of Coubalt, going from 8 to ~35 expressions! It can also get naked, which features in her first lewd scene. She also got a titfuck CG with 9ish variations, also provided by Coubalt!
Metatron's romance also moved forward; she'll get her first lewd scene with a CG of her own next update~
Ina gets a pretty chunky camp scene, showcasing her character much better, dropping some lore, and setting up next update's plot progression.
Sarah got a new conversation and 6 trust scene, Maya got 4 affection and 4 trust scenes, Ashley got a 6 trust, and Celica got a 4 trust. I'd summarize them, but these patch notes are already too large.
Celica now has a phenomenal new camp theme, and Ashley got a dope new battle theme, both courtesy of the talented Ubercrow! Some other characters, like Sam and Metatron, also gained noncustom music for various scenes.
The equip menu is finally functional, allowing you to change your weapon, bring up to two weapons with you and switch in battle, and learn the abilities of any weapon you're carrying with you without needing traits. More weapons will be added later.
The game's music has been streamlined and converted to a more efficient format, cutting the game's overall filesize down by ~40%. I also equalized some of the louder songs, so hopefully audio will be more consistent.
Camp and adventure transitions are now a little less clunky, ditto with some character appearances/disappearances.
Allies now gain masteries, which work about the same as yours, except they pick theirs from a curated list.
Several allies gained unique traits, and some had their abilities switched around to better fit their character.
In general, allies should be MUCH more potent now.
Unique and unlock traits are now colorcoded, and ally trait lists are now ordered, so it should be easier to parse them.
Abilities now have a dedicated custom tooltip screen in battle, which shows projected damage/healing to target, requirements (color coded in case any are missing), and remaining cooldown.
Damage and healing numbers are now displayed in battle. It's a little chunky right now admittedly, but at least you have some idea of what your abilities are actually doing.
Identical enemies now get identifiers to better tell them apart.
I'm gonna be honest here, I know I added some new abilities, but I forgot what they were. Good luck finding them!
v0.19e
All girls with art now use that art for portraits when speaking, which should make it easier to follow their expressions in a conversation.
Sam now has 4 and 6 affection scenes, kickstarting her romance from a very different direction than others. She also has a few new expressions/overlays, and by 'new' I mean 'I remembered they existed'
Celica's wind training 1-3 are all done, with a massive number of dialogue swaps based on your stats, choices mid-training, other learned magics, and romance progress with her. Her Water training pt3 has also been updated to reference romance if you pursue that first.
Existing and new wind magic split into three distinct schools; each has a decent variety of spells and synergy! There are also a bunch of new wind-related traits, both general and for each school. Some other traits got buffs (ex. Flutter for daggers) and I added a couple others, like Vengeance for slower mages.
Metatron now has a massive Badon scene that significantly advances the plot and gives more information on the world.
Ina now has art, courtesy of jfc!
Her bodyguard Kuril also has art, courtesy of alhazartfinds!
Most characters now have unique battle themes, camp themes, or both, including some updated songs. RIP Celica/Sam not having camp themes... yet.
Maya is the recipient of our first custom commissioned music! Her camp theme was provided by ubercrow.
All Severn enemies now have art, courtesy of Garrisen! I think that means every enemy (except Maya) now has art!
Event UI has been extended to evening and night scenes, which should make it much easier to see how to unlock them. Also made me realize how few evening scenes there are. Fuck.
New targeting indicator in battle, courtesy of jfc! God it looks so much less ghetto now LOL
Sam now has a unique trait that gives her increasing Glancing Hit as her health lowers, adding a decent bit of survivability
Sarah now gains Perpetuity as a normal trait, somewhere in the 20s (may move it earlier, idk) to turbocharge her buffs.
Hopefully fixed all the bugs/errors known as of 0.18d
Added a generic Wait command, so you can't softlock yourself by running out of mana
Spent hours for nearly zero tangible benefit reworking a few poorly-coded functions. Aside from fixing some bugs, they mostly just look better now. I consider that time well spent.
v0.18d
Metatron now has 6 and 8 affection scenes, exploring her character and pushing her romance forward. She also gets a conversation with Sarah, a conversation about gods, and (if you refused the moonlit visitor's offer) a special conversation about that.
Aspasia now has art, courtesy of the gigachad jfc! Along with the usual expressions and ability to get naked, she also has an adaptive portrait next to the text. If y'all like it, I'll extend it to other girls next update.
Aspasia also got two new conversations, which have a decent bit of lore and personality in them, as well as a 4 trust scene. She actually has a personality now!
Sarah and Ashley both have massive new lewd scenes, available in the evening and at night respectively. They are by far the longest in the game currently. The Ashley scene was partially in honor of
TheTimeHasCumAndSoHaveI
's phenomenal review!
Maya got a dumb conversation because I was wondering how she felt about pets.
Most buffs and debuffs have been reworked; they no longer cost a turn, but instead cost mana per turn. They have been rebalanced, but not necessarily perfectly, feedback would be very helpful.
Many new buffs/debuff abilities added, ex. AOE buffs/debuffs exist that can affect much of the battlefield, like permanently burning enemies. My tentative feeling is that they're probably too strong, but again, feedback is welcome.
Massive amounts of functionality have been added to traits, and there are ~15-20 new traits taking advantage of it. Most magic and weapon types have 1-3 special traits, most of which only apply to that form of offense, but can grant benefits like increased freeze chance or reduced cooldowns for dagger skills. Once again, balance is WIP.
Arden Outskirts and Arden Expanse now have monster art, courtesy of the talented Garrisen! I really love how the hobs came out in particular. Unfortunately, the Shaman is still a huge dick; art can't fix that.
Complete honesty, I guarantee I forgot to mention a bunch of other changes and probably missed a scene
Special thanks to grim for help proofreading, Pavonius for help getting ability sort working, and jfc for helping me get the instant ability UI looking nice!
v0.17a
Sarah now has art, courtesy of Mistimagi! Her old content has been updated with expressions, as well as various outfits. Underwear, temple/exercise outfit, normal sweater, and tights-only for her thighjob LOL.
The monsters in the opening forest area and temple now have art as well, thanks to Garrisen! Let me know how you like them (and if you find any bugs). The abomination is... really, really big and gross, as he should be.
I honestly can't remember if this is new to this update, but monsters and characters will now appear inbattle instead of text boxes. This applies to normal battles as well as sex battles.
Celica has 6 and 8 affection scenes to give her some character development and start her romance route. She really, REALLY needs a hug.
Sarah has a new conversation about succubi with some plot
Maya has an armpitjob scene, available in the evening. Why armpitjob? idk man. I just wanted to try it.
Lots of bugfixes (not enough)
v0.16b
The game has been ported to 1080p. Characters should look MUCH sharper and have their canon heights.
The UI has been updated for the new size and improved in some cases.
There's an all-new, auto-populating UI for camp visits now that displays event requirements even if you don't meet them yet.
Aether training was completely revamped. There are now five scenes, including one with Sarah, and a significant increase in the amount of affection and aether corruption gained.
There are also five new unlock traits (which don't cost additional attunement) that unlock a variety of new abilities across five different 'schools'. There will be more abilities in the future, some of them are pretty lean right now.
Sarah has a new night scene, cowgirl position, unlocked at 6 affection.
Rollback is back, and functional everywhere but in battles and certain parts of adventures. Let me know if anything seems weird.
v0.15a
Celica now has art, courtesy of Mistimagi! She has 40 something expressions and a few layers of clothing, though some of the uhhh...less wholesome options aren't available ingame. YET.
Ashley's Nether training is complete, with parts 2 and 3. That means that Nether magic is finally available to the player, with 8 abilities (and various masteries). Expect a lot of debuffs, statuses, and weird mechanics, with good firepower.
Ashley got a 4 trust scene as well, with some philosophy to discuss.
Ashley sex battle now exists, because this is the second Ashley-focused update in a row apparently lmao. I swear she's not the creator's pet.
Celica got a 4 affection scene that pushes your relationship with her forward a bit, and maaaay lead to... places... in the near-ish future.
Metatron got a 6-trust scene that gives some character development and starts to explain her martial art. More importantly, it also gives her sleeveless art for a bit. THEM GUNS.
Various engine improvements; now most status effects can scale, the status effect window now has better descriptions and some new icons, lewd battles can now have statuses, etc.
v0.14a
Ashley has art, courtesy of mistimagi! 20 expressions and a variety of outfits, with 200% smug.
Ashley's Nether training part 1
Ashley date in Badon, which unlocks her punk outfit and has an H scene
Severn now has a proper ending, which fuckstarts the plot back UP. Has a few routes and moral choices to make. Also, optional temporary partners!
Badon is now sorta in the game, with a pretty chunky intro that has even more plot!
A huge variety of ability conditions and additional scaling types are now functional, with some used in past or new abilities. They can have alternate descriptions play now too!
Bleeds, Burns, and Poisons are now somewhat better differentiated. Burns typically deal strong constant damage based on your stats, while bleeds typically have weaker scaling but can be stacked infinitely. Poison can now deal varying % max health damage. In the future, traits and abilities will play with the system more.
Some abilities can now apply elemental vulnerability effects, which amplify elemental damage. In the future, traits will also add resistances.
Sarah got a 4 trust scene
Aspasia sex battle is now replayable at camp
v0.13a
Fixed an error after sex battles
v0.13
Metatron art added! Only the clothed version is visible ingame atm, but there's a nude version for when her romance gets a bit further along. Please join me in worshipping those tattoos!
Sam's fire training part 2 and 3 are complete, unlocking fire magic.
Four new Pyromancy/Thermomancy spells are available, most of them with masteries (RIP Heat Ray). More will come in the future.
Stat respecs are finally possible. The UI sucks, I know, it'll improve later.
Various backend upgrades that will be used in the next update, like equipment system.
v0.12a
Sam has proper art now! With three outfits and a variety of expressions, she should have no shortage of personalititty. Previous events (hopefully) updated. Battle art is not yet implemented.
Sam's fire training part 1 is done; parts 2 and 3 will come at a later date.
Metatron got new Trust and Affection scenes, the beginnings of her martial arts and romance plotlines respectively.
v0.11a
New evening group scenes for Metatron/Maya and Sarah/Metatron. Requires 2 affection with each character.
Aspasia now has Trust/Affection scenes.
Ashley now has a footjob night scene. Requires 4 affection.
Frost Bolt and Frost Nova buffed slightly to keep up with other abilities
You can now pass time in camp.
v0.10
Celica's
water training parts 2 and 3 are done, culminating in the ability to unlock Water magic. Also showcases her character pretty significantly.
Water magic as a whole is now better differentiated between its component schools of Hydromancy and Cryomancy, with multiple new spells for both schools!
Maya
now has Trust and Affection scenes, which cover a little bit of why she's here and what the fuck a yamabiko is. Her camp sex battle shouldn't mess up the HP display and will restore health afterwards on win or loss.
Sarah
got a new nighttime sex scene, requiring 4 affection. Probably the longest scene I've written yet, with a few pieces of art to go with it.
v0.9a
New adventure, the Severn Floodplains, with a wide variety of non-wolf/boar enemies. And some boars.
Respec system introduced! Currently, you can fully refund any buyable ability, trait, or mastery. Stat respecs will come in another update.
New waifu to hunt down, Maya, the smug petite dog-girl. You can fight her, sex battle her, or headpat her. Celica/Metatron have extra lines!
-New trait window, which tracks current traits and comes with a trait dictionary that shows ALL buyable traits, and can be sorted by requirements or only show certain types!
New Glancing Hit system as part of Agility rework. High agility grants a chance to reduce damage by 50% and ignore crits/status effects. May be too strong, as with the Vit rework I'll keep an eye on it. Some enemies with high VIT/AGI had their values nerfed or removed so they wouldn't be too annoying to fight.
New schools of magic are now limited by Attunement slots rather than your Magic stat. You get one free slot, and more from traits or high MAG.
Celica water training pt. 1 is out, based on feedback about Metatron's. The remainder will be out in 0.10.
Massive sex battle rework. Mechanics, UI, lines, etc. entirely changed. Progression and some further updates still planned, but now the framework is a lot better I think.
Some new abilities for most magic elements. Also a Target skill.
Metatron has a new conversation about Gabriel.
v0.8a
Sam finally has camp scenes! (S)he is still an idiot, unfortunately, but a cute one.
Once you're on day 3 or higher (aka, slept in camp once), a new option will appear at night, allowing you to meet a mysterious benefactor and make a major choice in return for some spicy info. Please don't spoil the answers here!
Various backend improvements; using a flask while resting won't change the battle repeat, some AI improvements, many crashes fixed. MANY crashes. So many crashes, wtf.
Intimidate buffed from 10 to 20 threat. It may need more love, honestly, but for now it should help Sam/Metatron or tank MCs do their job a bit better.
Easy mode added. It's a toggle in settings, when on you gain 3x xp/trust/affection. Down the road when I do a proper cheat menu, you'll be able to change them separately.
Vitality reworked as per option 1 of the recent roll; this makes tank builds (both player and enemy) MUCH stronger. Maybe too strong. Boars are way more annoying now. I welcome feedback!
~6k words added.
v0.7
New Trust and/or Affection scenes for Sarah, Celica, and Metatron. Metatron can now teach you the basics of Aether magic if you have enough trust and 5 Magic/Insight!
Dawn timeslot lets you work out or spar with allies, granting affection or trust+XP respectively. You get the XP whether you win or lose.
Combat system improved in a variety of ways, most notably with some hotkeys and the ability to repeat your last move. Focus now reduces cooldowns by 1 turn for every 10 focus, simpler than stronger than previous breakpoints. You can also use your totally-not-Estus flask at rest points.
1 new sex scene, a thighjob from Ashley.
Roughly 8k words added.
v0.6
New adventure, Arden Forest Expanse. There's a wide variety of random events throughout, so hopefully it'll be a fun challenge. How you treat the hobs will play into an upcoming storyline! Don't worry, there are no wrong choices, but killing or helping them will both have consequences.
Next semimajor party member, Aspasia the slime alchemist, can be found about halfway through. You can fight her, sex battle her, or use the incredible power of basic communication to recruit her as a party member and/or waifu. 0.7 should make both repeatable in camp, but for now, you may wanna save before deciding. Good luck if you decide to fight her, she's pretty annoying in a 1v1.
So yeah, sex battle system is in. First take on it, may not be super fancy just yet, but it works.
Oh, and she gives you a totally-not-Estus-Flask so non-mages can have some healing. It has limited uses each adventure but always recharges upon returning to camp, so you don't have to worry about saving it.
Ashley now has Trust/Affection events that reveal a little more of her real personality.
Allies now have levelup traits! Most will get a new trait every 5 levels up to 20, which will make some of them MUCH stronger than they were before.
The sex battle system absolutely kicked my ass up and down over the last two weeks, so this is a little later than planned. 0.7 will be much more chill and focus on camp scenes, particularly adding more trust/affection scenes, and some mix of additional sex battles, sparring matches, and maybe learning new magic types from allies. We'll see what all makes it in. I'm gonna shoot for the 4th of May, we'll see how it goes.
v0.5 Release:
Metatron and Sarah now have camp conversations, trust, and affection scenes. 2 trust and 15 affection will unlock all current content for them. I welcome feedback on the scenes!
3 new H-scenes, 2 with Sarah, 1 with Ashley. A bit more femdom-heavy than usual.
Camp sex now builds affection and corruption. Corruption currently caps at 20, so don't stress it too much.
The new Evening timeslot lets you hang out with an ally of choice to gain affection. It'll be fleshed out VASTLY more later.
Crits now display in battle! Also, cleanse/buff/debuff duration and regen effects should be less buggy. Maybe.
Many bugfixes and typo fixes.
v0.4 Release:
The first randomized adventure is out, with a mixture of battles, a boss, normal events, and a special event hinting at future conflict.
The Mastery system is out as well, allowing you to upgrade abilities you've used enough times to superior versions of themselves.
You can now unlock a persistent camp to return to.
One new H-scene with Ashley during the Night timeslot
Trust and Affection systems added
Lots of new music! I highly recommend listening to the Arden Forest Outskirts default music and the camp nighttime music, or the new boss theme.
v0.3 Release:
Dinner, night, and morning covered, about 20k words
2.5 new H-scenes with the succubi, based on earlier choices
5 and 10-stat requirement traits mostly filled out (RIP libido)
Gallery system added
Lots of bugfixes, as usual
v0.2 Release:
Finished the temple and covered the evening after returning home, about 28k words of content
Fancy-ass boss with a bunch of mechanics. Pay attention to the turn counter and its health bar!
2 lewd scenes, both with major variations based on choices in temple, and some boob fondling
Character window improved, now lets you see more info, and shows ally info as well.
First pass of AI improvement, for both enemies and allies. New ally commands added and existing ones retuned to work better.
Time system added
LOTS of bugfixes...
v0.1
Initial Release
cheesezod2026-03-20★★★★★
Divine Dawn is pretty good. The writing is what keeps me playing to be honest. Gets better as you progress, not that it starts off bad. Can be a little "childish" at certain points, as some have pointed out, but it didnt bother me much. The author does repeat some of his or hers writing "tricks?", or in other words they have unique writing traits that does get a bit repetitive at times. Atleast in the beginning, but I wouldnt say that this is a major issue. The author obviously has a good understanding of the english language and it shows. Characters are unique and have their own archetypes. You have seen these in other games and media, but Divine Dawn does it better? Unsure what the best word is here, atleast they arent annoying or unlikeable like so many other media portray these archetypes. They get more and more fleshed out as you progress, and they have more depth than most games ive played. Scenes and romances are nicely done in my opinion. Some scenes do not have images to go along, but the author is adept at painting a picture with words. The scenes with images are nicely done, these do not have animations other than two to three frames. In my opinion this is fine. After all, my favourite game is Superhumans, which uses the same approach as Divine Dawn when it comes to scenes. The only negatives I can think of are some art inconsistency and that combat is quickly "solved", meaning you quickly find your winning strategy and use that strategy on repeat, regardless of enemy. These are small negatives which I dont mind.
smallst82026-01-28★★★★★
First off huge fan. Cannot wait for the updates that come. Characterization is great. Every "Person" feels like a real Live being. They feel unique some a quirky some are serious and some feel goofy/autistic. Loved getting to know them. Gameplay, To main points here. YOU play the hero, literally and I love the way MC is written... He repeats himself ALOT but that's part of getting to know as many love interests as he does. I would to. regardless. 1st point you actually get to be the hero. Pick his stats and figure out how to put down your enemies make important choices and actually matter. Which, you know, feels good man. 2nd point, you interact with the love interests. Kinda grindy not gonna lie. But hey people don't just open up no matter how 'swave' or dashing you is. The art can be improved. By that I mean more of it but come on you can say that for any game. The characters basically have a model that moves a bit and then different CGs when you "get there". Most CGs are of lesser quality then the character models themselves but I don't play these games for CGs if you want that play a gotcha. Over all my play time to the end of update .33 was well spent. about 50 hours. Wouldn't replay. But don't regret in the slightest. Worth.
Honorable Lord L2025-06-16★★★★★
This game is... awfully good. I went into this with low expectations, sure, but the characters and world are well written and interesting. Combat is a bit repetitive but it has enough build variety to be fun enough for what it is. My single, glaring issue with the game... is the slang abundancy in the dialogue. Things like "Yeet, cringey, looking like a snack" etc just really mar the overall writing quality. Sure, the MC and several characters are teenagers but they aren't MODERN teenagers, they are fantasy/medieval teenagers. Where are they even getting these jokes and terms..? It really sucks the energy out of a scene when the a character says the dumbest shit imaginable in the middle of an otherwise great event. I genuinely hope the developer decides to go back and axe 90% of these, because it truly is the only thing stopping me from a full 5 star review. With all that rambling out of the way, I can still say it's worth playing.
pingedme2024-10-17★★★★★
Talking about philosophy, the nature of reality, religion and interpersonal relationships with cute girls with some combat on the side. The character writing is excellent and not just by adult game standards.
UnknownPalette2024-10-16★★★★★
I have to say, I'm surprised by the high quality of the writing. I do wish there was more "specialized" content for Aspasia (my favorite) considering her unique features. Aside from that, the only real criticism I can say is that I think that Celica is introduced in a way that makes the player (in my opinion) not like her. Without going into all the details, she kind of just pops up after the player is told that there was some form of history between the three friends. To me, it made it pretty easy to just ignore her, but that's an affront to the game since its written so well. Aside from that, unsure if I'm blind or not but I have not been able to disperse the ability points my allies have built up from leveling. Aside from their growth stats, I have a few of them sitting on over 5 points that I thought I read was supposed to be distributable by the player (might not be implemented yet or I'm blind?). Maybe in the future, you could incorporate unique loss scenes if you engage in a sex battle with your companions based on the position you lost in. Would be cool to see. All in all, this game is a solid 4.5/5 in my book and I'll likely be joining the patreon and seeing what else you cook up in the near future. Nice job.
Webopo2024-09-07★★★★★
This is a really good game with a lot of potential that made me write my first review. So delving into the different aspects: -Gameplay: really good rpg with a lot of classes and abilities that I found really enjoyable to explore. My nitpick is that it got a bit easy once I figured things out (went ranger), but maybe it is a bit more challenging with other classes. My suggestion would be to make the story mode harder and implement an easy mode if possible, but overall the gameplay is fun and I look forward to how it evolves. -Story: There is not much to say because despite the amount of content (20-30h), everything covered for now was an introduction towards the big adventure. It starts slow and the intro feels a bit chaotic to read, but it gets quite good once you meet Ina and enter the deepwoods, a sign that the dev has been improving with time. -Characters: The cast is good, varied in designs and personality which for now is developed in small episodes in which you develop your friendship, which is nice so you can focus on the characters you like. Moving on to the MC, I personally like him although he is more of a character on its own rather than the blank slate in which you build the character typical in rpgs. For a game like this I would like to have choices a bit more often (specifically in the trust/affection scenes) though it gets a pass because the MC is quite relatable for me (he is literally me fr). I also like the implementation of slight variation of some events depending on the stats you have, I hope to see them more often. Now one nitpick I have is that the MC uses too much slang/vulgarities in really serious moments. I don't mind him being informal towards his friends, but when he is talking to demi gods and elder hobs or trying to stop a war I would like him to be more formal. I can get that he is young and inexperienced, but he is also supposed to be well spoken and should be able to switch to a more standard speech when needed. -Erotic/romantic content: Art wise is the standard you can find in this site, with different art-styles/artists. I honestly don't care too much about the art I'm the kind of guy who watches porn for the plot, although I wish Sam had more muscle in her cgs as she is supposed to be fit. As for the plot of the porn, this is probably the best handled thing in the game. All the romances have a really good build up and the sex scenes have a really good amount of text and feel very loving, I ended quite satisfied with each affection route (romance episodes). The sex in general is really vanilla, with very short moments of dom/sub. Some characters show some gentle femdom vibes sometimes, which is pretty rare in this site and I hope it's not just me hallucinating. If you want to play this game mainly because of the romance I think you will not be disappointed in the slightest and with the variety of the cast you should be able to find at least one girl or your liking. I also found interesting that mostly the confessions happen relatively early which leaves the content being mainly about them already being a couple, which is not that common in these type of games. -Writing: This is probably the most polarizing part of the game. The writing is really verbose, often pompous and doesn't try to summarize things or leave room for subtlety. I personally don't mind it and that's why I gave it a 5 star rating but if it's not your cup of tea you 100% won't like it. I do want to note that it gets better as the game progresses and you can notice the improvement, part of it because the story also gets a more interesting pace. I also want to leave some comments about the writing that I hope they can be of use: -I think that during the story there is an overemphasis on its main themes. For example, the MC mentions too much that this is not the hero adventure of his dreams and its not all roses, etc. If I have to guess this happens because the game is expanded through updates, so it's logical to write again about the core parts of the story to refresh the memory, both yours and the readers. But to me who has read everything in one sitting, I ended up finding it repetitive. -This one is more of a suggestion. Despite this being a visual novel, it uses the novel part quite well but ignores the visual now. If you changed the game to a text based one like Corruption of Champions or Trials in Tainted Space the difference in the experience would not be very big in my opinion. This game has a really varied sample of expression for each character and decent landscapes. I think it would be good to play around that more. Some emotions or situations are too complex to not to describe extensively, but you should play more with the expressions/backgrounds and dialogues for the simpler ones, so they have more importance and can implement some subtle tones to some of the character's behavior, as well as leaving other things for the reader's interpretation. TL;DR: This is a great game that is both fun to read AND play. It has it's flaws but you can clearly notice the improvement as the game progresses, so adding that up with the potential it already has, it leaves me excited to see what will become it. Definitely going to buy it soon.
kileos1232024-07-30★★★★★
Divine dawn is a beautifully written erotica and a pretty good rpg fighting game mixed together in a not so great way. You have to grind out fights to level up and get to the actual good stuff, the characters. The combat has lots of variety but you will quickly find the combo that wins you fights not in as few moves as possible, but whatever can be clicked easiest while holding the skip button. The main characters are interesting and the setting is ok if unoriginal. One of the things that may break your immersion is the writers use of modern terms and slang in a fantasy setting which is an odd choice, probably the writers sense of humor fighting against the setting they chose. In terms of erotica, the girls are cute and the writing ok as well, variety is the thing that kills and makes the game a slog to play through. No gallery, so save at story scenes or you won't see them again. I can tell a lot of effort goes into this game but the distribution of resources could be improved in my opinion. Less reworking of combat, more character work. Porn chore != porn game, I can edge on my own.
Father Lorne2024-05-05★★★★★
I wish with this to state that it the game is absolutely worth your momentary revision and perhaps, should it then captivate you, the several hours of your time it would take to currently view most of its content. My rating is granted cumulatively; the game itself warrants an approximate 4.4 Stars. It is not without its faults, but they are overshadowed by its successes- this would usually however, warrant the rounding down of the score to match general perceptions. Not in this instance, for the simple reason that I possess a nearly unfathomable respect and admiration for the developer; for many reasons. This results in me granting it an additional star of score by itself. It is here however that I falter. The score must be given, the review must be posted- because the game and developer deserve it. In due time, whence my mind finds all the words it wishes to speak, is able to articulate and organize them; this review will either be edited or deleted and reposted in its entirety, with all the things I wish to, and should, say. For now, as always, I ask that you trust an internet stranger in his judgement and give the game a try if nothing else, that what is here is truly special and worth experiencing- though I also apologize for not being able to detail my thoughts.
PantsuHelm2024-04-26★★★★★
[0.30 review] This is a decent game with some pretty good art, but there it doesn't have all that many H-CGs. The characters are pretty nice well defined, although the game dumps a lot of them on you pretty quickly. The combat is fun and the build-your-own class system is always appreciated in any game. The story is decent, but the exposition dumps are tedious. I also didn't encounter any bugs whatsoever, which is quite impressive for a game like this. Sadly, the gameplay gets a bit lackluster after the intro. It's all just menu-ing, grinding, and stat-checks to see if you have enough relationship points with a character to view a scene (of which there are multiple types relationship stats to grind...). The worst part about this game would have to be it's overly verbose nature. On it's own, it's not all that bad, but it does a whole lotta telling after showing. It loves using 2-5 flowery sentences to explain something that can be done in one, and at one point, goes so far as to explain that a joke isn't funny when it's explained. This makes the MC feel much more obnoxious than he may actually be since all of this overexposition is coming directly from his own thoughts. Add on top of this abrupt modern-day lingo used in a high fantasy setting and it's a tough one to read through. I found the game to be much more tolerable when I skip over all monologue and only read dialogue, but that only does so much for the game. TL;DR: A decent adventure RPG game marred by constant overly verbose and kind of cringe MC monologue.
MalkavianVamp2024-04-25★★★★★
Story 9/10 reminds me of another game I will Not mention There is interactivity in story Art 10/10 that Megatron first time art was chefs kiss Content 10/10 a lot of content I think 4 0 to 50hrs As of 0.31 Humor 10/10 funny jokes always land sams intelligence Lol Writing 9/10 great writing but lots of text may Not please some pple In short great game can't wait till completion ☮
Eroitch2024-04-25★★★★★
This is not a bad game, but what it is, is another example of hopeful idiots review inflating it to near perfection here on F95zone. Divine Dawn tries to rewrite the Japanese "Monster Girl" formula by westernising it with tropes and elements that would cater more to the western audience. This happens by the overlay of literally a Dungeons and Dragons like atmosphere to both the story and gameplay. Surprisingly this is done to a sufficient extent. I say only sufficient though because it is unfortunately not perfect at all. The first quarter of the game starts off really nice. The writing here is actually excellent. However it loses momentum rather quickly as it becomes apparent the dev for some reason tries really hard to make the game more into a book than a hentai/porn interactive novel. Thanks to this the players are greeted with walls of text describing the ongoing story which after the first quarter is no longer trying to follow to the original premise and turns into your average, off the shelf fantasy novel. While I like that there is no strict insistence on the hentai/porn portion it is also a bit of an identity crisis since the first bits of the story were nothing like the later parts. The characters however are all backed by their respective storylines, they never feel like your average generic monster girl. Which is nice for a change. What this game also suffers from however like all "Monster Girl" type games do for some odd reason is that they use like twenty different artists for their artwork. The problem with this is that you get huge mismatches between different illustrations in both quality and style. I do not understand why can't none of you devs pay a SINGLE artist to draw all your characters, why this has to be the case every time. The "support as many artists as possible" argument here is pure garbage. Game development isn't charity but product delivery. Using 20 different art styles for your assets does not help improving your product quality. On the contrary, it makes it worse. While the game is not that old it has been around for at least 2 or 3 years now and considering how much content you will find in the current version which would be 0.30 as of writing this it is also apparent we are looking at a really slow pace of development. Meaning the project is most likely a part time activity for the dev. While this is not something that take away from the value of the game it is something to keep in mind for those considering to support the development. Now, what I can definitely praise in the game would be the combat. Clearly a lot of though went into it and it has surprising depth with near infinite specialization options. While there is a learning curve to it, once you get the hang of it it is nice. Also something new for a change considering the other turn based alternatives in this genre. TLDR.: In conclusion, Divine Dawn is a decent little game with good combat, memorable characters but inconsistent artwork and a bit of an identity crisis on the side too.
felrient2024-04-15★★★★★
Ashley is an insanely good character, genuienly funny interactions and well written dialog. The diversity of girls is really refreshing and most of them seem interesting, unlike many other games. Amazing game
fez162024-01-26★★★★★
The game is super fun. The combat is acceptable, but that isn't why I play the game personally. The writing is genuinely good. It can occasionally be a little wordy, but after the intro I stopped noticing this because I enjoyed the characters so much. Metatron I think one of the best parts about the game is how active the dev is in talking with fans and responding to feedback. While I really enjoy the game currently, half the reason I am giving it 5 stars rather than a lower rating is because of how promising things look. Just scrolling through the thread any concerns I had about the future of the game have been assuaged because of just how active and transparent the dev is. I can't wait to come back in a few months and see the progress.
Deleted member 26566942024-01-13★★★★★
Good game. Good enough to force me to leave a review. Good story, Good characters. Gameplay and balance is fun. Cheats easily available if not interested in grinding. I really want to see more sex scenes with Sam.
StormrReaper2023-12-28★★★★★
Story- Amazing Gameplay- Balanced and fun Characters-Must protect- Must fuck the sass out of Ash. Overall. Stop reading reviews. go support this dude on patreon/ steam and treat yourself to one of the best H- Visual Novels i've played in a long long time (shoulder racist buff for maya when?)
Crestrial2023-11-10★★★★★
v0.26b Been a bit more than a year and a half from when I first came across this. Coming back to it now that it's a bit more fleshed out, it's time to review. The largest strength this game has is the writing, especially in the erotica. I used to write some well-received unaccredited smut for a popular game a long time ago. It's not easy to write something with the intention of turning someone on. It's usually either "he put his dick in her pussy. PLAP PLAP PLAP", stupid shit like cervix penetration, or worst of all, writing the scene like its a staged porn scene "Aw yeah baby you like my cock all the way down your throat?!" It's refreshing to see it done right. The girls each come off as unique characters. Good, but if there's one that stands out it's Aspasia. In the fact that even after not touching the game for over ~1.5 years, she's basically the same. At this point she's there as a running joke I feel lol. Combat is okay. It's hard to balance out something when you're given 3 stats points per level but have 8 different stats. There's going to be some clear winners in terms of effectiveness and you can especially see this when picking your combat partner. Some stats/traits/equipment/partners are clearly better than others. Fortunately however you can entirely respec yourself if your build sucks. It's great for people who like to optimize. Now here's my biggest criticism of the game. Once you find your optimization, things can get stale as you repeat your best moves in a cycle with hardly any regard to what your opponent is doing or is capable of. When it came to the bosses, I just did the exact things I do in normal encounters . This will only become more grating as the game gets longer. With how the game is set up currently though, I don't see this changing easily. I'll provide my 2 cents on this anyhow. Several games have spiced up turn-based combat into something that engages players more. Which is mainly the player having to react to enemies. They have different ways of going about this. Sometimes it involves keeping buffs up against certain enemies. Sometimes it involves a direct reaction to impending attacks. Sometimes it involves keeping an eye on enemy status. Sometimes it's the ol' elemental rules of rock-paper-scissors. Sometimes it's knowing enemy weakness. Sometimes it's a mix of a bunch of these things. This player engagement is something Divine Dawn lacks. I don't even have to look at what I'm fighting to know what I'm going to do. Using the same moves over and over again is even somewhat encouraged with Mastery. Food for thought, but I can't imagine being particularly thrilled about the combat anymore if the game was any longer than it currently is. Despite my criticism of a major part of the game, I think this is top tier as it stands right now. It does what many others fail to do, write good characters and smut. That alone puts it above the rest.
monk_562023-05-08★★★★★
0.25 Review. 5/8/2023 TL/DR: An enjoyably complex home-brewed combat system scaffolded cleanly into the ren'py engine, a potpourri of personalities and types of very huminoid "monster-girls", complex dialogues, and light femdom bias make this a very accessible title for vanilla fans. However, if you aren't much of a reader you might not like it- the exposition is both verbose and frequent. If you like reading, you're in for a treat! Pros: + Intelligent MC who thinks about the needs of others. + Good characterizations across the board. They are exaggerated like in an anime- but it works. + The scene writing is quite good. Lots of creative ideas / focuses on some of the monstrous qualities of the gals. + Great mix of different talents so you can build a character that feels personally tailored and suits your play style. + The way the MC internally monologues and speaks reminds me of my own communication style. Usually, MCs are simple AF. Asta is not. + Strong world-building re: magical systems, races, religion, ect. Neutral/Give and Take: ~ Those hoping for monstrous monstergirls may be disappointed. The general appearance of the monstergirls is veryyyy mildly monstrous. That said- the author does make up for this a bit in their narrations, world-views, and sexual content. Most of the racial diversity is encapsulated in those descriptions rather than how they look. ~The use of modern vernacular and sayings hurts the serious tone of parts of the game. The trade-off is sometimes it is pretty funny. ~Lots of different UI screens. Some have a couple annoying redundancies and the filters need an overhaul- but overall they are utilitarian and suit their functions. ~I'd say the bulk of the content feels like light femdom. It is very suitable if you have a shy personality IRL and want to RP a character that most of the women actively pursue / lightly dominate. It isn't my favorite type of sexual progression- but its vanilla enough to still be hot. Hopefully the vibes become more balanced over time. ~ The art is a mixed bag. It is all slightly anime style and ranges from decent to very amateur. The silver lining is it is improving significantly over time and I presume is mostly limited by the developer's funding over time. Cons: - MC is occasionally annoyingly childish. Its suits the character in the narrative; I'm just not not overly fond of YA protagonists. - It is hard to take the story seriously sometimes b/c of the language choices. It is simultaneously trying to be SOL anime with lots of silly modern moments, but also an epic fantasy. It succeeds at both in different moments, which feels like a vibe whiplash. Hopes for the game. * It follows through with the "coming-of-age" narratives present. I hope the MC develops past his youthful bumbling self and develops into a more confident young adult with better maledom content and more sexual / physical power. (Lil' Hommie is already OP AF from a combat POV).
docclox2023-04-23★★★★★
Not a great fan of visual novels. Nevertheless I've been enjoying this one. Art is good, writing is good (if occasionally a little too self-consciously clever - but we can put that down to the narrator being a bit of a clever clogs). Also, I find I'm actually interested in the story which, forgive me, is something that all too rarely happens. It has been a little light on the smut so far, but that hasn't really bother me. Criticism: I've just met Metatron so I've got a ways to go yet (hopefully quite a long way to go) so I can't speak about the whole game. The one thing to strike me so far is that it could use some background art in the temple. There are all these glowing descriptions of amber crystals and glowing magic circles, but all we ever see is the initial area. It's distracting. Needn't cost the earth, either. Detailed as those descriptions are, I expect you could enter them into one of the AI art packages going around around and get something reasonable. (And since we're only talking background art, you don't need to worry too much about missing limbs or additional fingers.
LS472023-01-15★★★★★
Version 0.30 This is an update to my review on the version 0.22d I did a year ago. While not much content has been added since, I felt the need to reevaluate my judgment towards this game, as there were many qualities and flaws I glossed over and I wish to give a less biased verdict. For starters, the gameplay is really pushed foward in this VN, even by Japanese VN standards. In the vein of Dungeons and Dragons, there are many character classes to choose from, each with their own gear, stat changes, abilities and upgrades for you to experiment with. It looks pretty vast, but unfortunately, only a few of those are actually useful; most of them are just slight variants of the same set of abilities, or just plain worse versions of some others. It's not possible to reassign your stats once you've leveled them up either, so if you went for a particular build (melee for example) and wish to switch to a more magical build just to see what it does, you will need to grind a lot to be even remotely completent, or just restart the game all over and pich a different starting background. The status effects are complicated. They are numerous and varied, and the sheer number makes them difficult to learn. The game helps you by letting you hover the cursor on their icons to see what they do, but most are vague and offer no description available outside combat, forcing the player to go into battle to test each build and see what they do. For most of them, their effects in a fight are so minor they are easy to neglect and just focus on hitting fast and hard. The only ones that will be somewhat relevant to you are the Stun status that some builds can spam, and Initiative to indicate the attack order of characters. So yeah, the gameplay has many good ideas, and it feels pretty alright once you get the hand of things. But the developer prbably should have cut back on some of those mechanics and opt for a more straightforward combat system. Plus, it wouldn't have crippled the already glacial development pace of the main story for so long. Presentation-wise, this is your typical anime style, nothing that sticks out of the crowd. The character sprites during dialogues are pretty alright, and some character designs (like Metatron's) are pretty cute and pretty. The adult illustrations, however, look very amateurish and can vary in quality pretty often, most of that quality flying pretty low, to be honest. That, on top of being the most vanilla shit you could find in that kind of game, which always struck me as odd in MG games, being focused on "freakish" monsters and all that. But the real problem with the presentation comes from the variety of sprites you can see in combat, where the artstyle of the enemies clashes jarringly with the rest of the game. Divine Dawn is not the only game to have differents artstyles of varying degrees of quality, but it is certainly one of the most egregious examples, and not in a good way. I've never understood why hentai developers took the habit of hiring different artists with different artstyles for their adult scenes and whatnot, instead of having a single artist, with a consistent artstyle and vision throughout the entire game. Because as it is, the quality for some of those sprites are either nowhere near the standard I'd expect from an adult game nowadays, or so outlandish that it often takes you out of the experience completely. On of the most striking examples of this is you can go fight an disgusting eldritch abomination in a forest late into this version of the game, with serious stakes to the fight and all, and then suddenly a horny fairy girl with huge boobs joins the fight, and you're like "Oh yeah, right, I'm playing a porn game, I forgot." The developer really should have taken his time to create or commission enough sprites from a single artist to form a more coherent aesthetic with the rest of the game. It would have been at the expense of content, sure, but at least what would be there would be good and wouldn't detract from what the game is going for and doesn't break the immersion. Now, there's only the story to talk about, and I think this is where Divine Dawn really drops the ball. Specifically, with how the characters talk and interect with each other, and the dialogues. The first quarter of the game is, honestly, really good, and it really hooks you for what's to come in the future. You get thrown into a weird dimension, you have no idea where you are, why the place is abandoned by its creators, nor why there are monsters running around. You free two succubi from what seems to be a prison, and then an angel who you help fight against an eldritch space monster that threatens to kill you all. You go back to the normal world, and you learn that apparently, the gods and angels have dissapeared, and so you go on a quest to find out what happened. This part of the game is really good. It successfully instigates mystery and raises many questions about the world the MC lives in. The introductions for every character there is pretty well done; each one of them has a distinct personality and an additional aura of mystery surrounding them, being from the weirs dimension you just escaped. Who are they? why were they locked up there? It's also a good thing the story brings us to the first adult content fairly quickly, content which become very frequent and easy to access past that point in the story, so that's a big plus. Unfortunately, the game drops the act pretty quickly and gives you the answers to most of those questions fairly early later on. In this case it's excusable because it props up the motivation to go on an adventure, but it's still not very well handled. It breaks a lot of the tension and undermines the aura of importance some of those characters have. But then, those characters tag along with you on your journey, and that's where the problems really start: The dialogues. The characters themselves are all pretty nice, distinct in their personalities, qualities and flaws, troubles and development. Some are more developed than others, and I doubt the usefulness of some of them in the plot, like Aspasia or Maya, but on the whole, all are relatively likeable, even the MC. The game gets rid of the femdom and rape clichés that have plagued MG games for a very long time, and opts instead for a more wholesome, consensual approach, which takes longer to establish a relationship between the characters before going through with the deed, which creates a bond with the player and makes these characters more likeable. The problem comes with the way their traits are presented to the player: Via bland, extremely long and winded dialogues and monologues that tell more than they show. The dialogues and monologues are long . For one line of dialogue, there can be 2, 3, 4 or 5 blocks of text of a monologue from the MC describing the characters' facial expressions, elements of the setting, useless lore that only serves to justify a meager stat change or new ability, what they might be thinking or just to tell jokes that aren't funny. All this text could easily have been replaced by more succinct descriptions, or replaced outright by illustrations or better use of sprite changes to indicate a change of mood or whatever. What's more, many of these dialogues and monologues serve only to repeat over and over again things already said in other characters' dialogues, or even in previous dialogues with the same character. I understand that this is because the dev couldn't predict which characters the player would want to interact with, or in which order, and so he was forced to fit it into all the routes to make sure the player didn't miss these events, but he overdid it. Seriously, take a shot every time the MC say “Goddess”, or that “they're still just teens”, and that they “will figure it out as time goes on”. It's unbearable. This is particularly annoying for scenes building up the romantic tension between characters. Since these dialogues are designed to promote consensual relationships, there are plenty of moments where the MC aggressively insists on making sure the girls want to sleep with him, like “You're sure about that? I don't want to ruin our relationship. I'll only do it if you want to do it, are you absolutely sure? Send me the confirmation by email and enter your password so I'm sure it's what you want”. My fucking god, is the MC flirting with her or defusing a bomb? The developer goes to great lengths to make PP as non-offensive as possible, to the point of being annoying at times. It completely nukes the erotic tension of these scenes by having the MC attempting to cockblock himself every two seconds. Please stop. In understand you want to establish wholesome, consensual sex scenes, but this is taking it way too far. Worst of all, these dialogues have a negative impact on story progression, as all these useless dialogues could have been converted into plot-advancing text, with new places to explore and new characters to meet and recruit. There is progression, but it's slow, the developer preferring to add new dialogues for characters already present rather than advance the story, and I don't understand why, as you already know pretty much everything there is to know about these characters, so what's even the point ? There isn't even any adult scene at the end to compensate, either. Another problem stemming from piling dialogues on some characters and the lack of story content: The characters talk as if they'd lived through the Vietnam war. They're constantly talking about trauma, war and that sort of thing, but apart from the succubi's pasts and the angel, none of that happened in the story. Sure, there was the episode in the temple and in the forest, but that's still too early in the plot to talk about that sort of thing. From the player's POV, not much has happened to merit this development. These extra dialogues seem to exist as if the player had progressed at least 5 chapters from where we are at the moment. It's a really bizarre decision coming from the dev. There's also the story with Sam and Celica, a friendship that the player apparently ruined, but the game never explains what happened, and never makes the MC, Sam or Celica confront each other about it. At best, the game says the two girls don't get along, and makes some unfunny jokes about it, but that's it. The girls quickly say they don't hold a grudge against the MC, then adult scene. It's really bad in this instance. In the end, I started skipping most of these dialogues and monologues, since most of them are just inconsequential lore that doesn't advance the plot or develop the characters, or nonsense and uninteresting jokes and descriptions. There are cool ideas and character arcs here, but very little of those is executed properly. Overall Divine Dawn is still a very nice package, albeit a pretty bland one past its first quarter. The combat is fun and some plot points are pretty interesting. The first quarter is really good and worth playing the game just for that. But after that, it seems the dev lost track of the story he wanted to tell. The dialogues became more and more bloated, and the artstyle more inconsistent. The dev really needs to focus on progressing the story and hire a singular artist to to the work for him. Then it would need to fix the dialogues that are already there, and it would become something pretty cool.
CATCH PHRASE2022-10-16★★★★★
I think this is my first review on the site, but after playing it a bit, I figured why not? Despite being pretty much a .PNG-fest, which is usually a turnaway for me, the characters are genuinely well-written for the most part-- which is odd since most of the games focus more on fetish material than actual gameplay. I'd focus on enjoying the script of the characters, and-- instead of rushing to the ending as one usually does-- I just enjoyed the time. The combat does feel a bit... Unpolished, and how your teammates level up does feel overwhelming to understand-- but it does show potential to entertain later on, for sure. The lewd scenes are, for the most part, very well written. The characters feel homely, the aptitutes feel legimitate-- I think the only bugging thing I noticed was how unpolished a couple of scenes appeared, but that's mostly due to a change in art format-- IE Sarah's titjob scene has a completely different looking character as their portrait. Overall a very solid story-based RPG, 8/10 with tons of potential. I definitely plan on pitching in funds in the future.