H-Soul Caller

Well the renders (VAM) are obviously the weakpoint as of now. But the story has great potential and i´ve never found a similar topic in any game. The writing, imo, is quite good. I am looking forward for more.

This early-stage AVN, kinetic except for love interest affection points and the ability to bypass sex scenes, has a 4 to 4.5 star plot that explains my rating. The story is not polished enough to deserve 5 stars, but the concept combines popular tropes in a fresh way that makes it very memorable. I find the graphics relatively poor and the porn sub-standard so far, though nothing bad enough to get in the way of enjoying the plot. So my rating is on the strength of the story alone. The main character (default name Kurou) was once an abandoned child living in the streets, had a stellar career in a gang, and ended up in juvenile delinquency. He has since been working on building himself an honest life. This would be hard enough in any case, but occasionally acquaintances from his former life turn up and make it even harder, plus he is now caring for Ren, a blind girl who was similarly abandoned. On top of that, Ren talked him into studying at college. The main source of income for the MC and Ren is the MC's part-time job as de facto manager of a café. So far this is basically a gritty version of the released prisoner trope. But it quickly turns into a supernatural harem-as-power fantasy. Fortunately the MC is a chick magnet who has trouble fighting off more or less crazy prospective girlfriends. The story starts early in the MC's first year of college. After a while it turns supernatural when Pandora, the mysterious fourth love interest, turns up. She teaches the MC to see the supernatural beings that can control people and attack other people while themselves being completely immune to physical attacks. And she teaches the MC how to deal with these supernatural beings by summoning the souls of girlfriends to fight for him. The closer the relationship, the better this works. Do not go into this expecting a cozy harem game. All the principal characters, not even just the MC and the main love interests, are broken or at least seriously eccentric. And as of version 0.3, all the sex scenes are with repulsive side characters. Spoiler: Main love interests so far Ren : Picked up by the MC some time after his release from juvenile detention. She spent most of her time in the streets due to her family situation. At some point the MC got attacked, and Ren took a blow for him and became blind. The MC now rents a cheap apartment for both. Ren talked the MC into going to college. Iroha : A very energetic classmate of Ren who is repeating her first year. Interested in occult stuff, which leads to her getting the MC to solve a murder case at college. Intriguingly with the support of the murdered guy's ghost. Nora : Spoiled by her rich family, she is the owner and super lazy manager of a café. The MC works here part time, but does all the work. Pandora : Mystery woman who tells Ren and the MC, that her blindness has a paranormal reason. When Iroha's father suddenly starts attacking Iroha and the MC with superhuman strength, Pandora shows the MC that the father is possessed by a demon, and teaches him how to summon Ren's soul to deal with the demon. She then uses the loot to partially heal Ren's blindness. She recruits the MC as a Soul Caller. Crazy, clumsy, quirky. Has a mysterious connection to Ren's mother Ayame. Ana : Crazy arts student, claims she is Anastasia Romanov, related to the last Czar. Tries to hire the MC as her bodyguard. When that fails she goes full tsundere and awkwardly follows him to his lectures.

What I liked most about this AVN were the LIs. They seem like genuinely great people, and they're all beautiful. The LIs are really attractive, but the entire game is visually awful. The render quality is extremely low, and I'm familiar with VAM, so I know it could look infinitely better than what is shown here. It's obvious that all of the developer's effort went into the LIs, while everything else feels temporary and neglected, with little to no attention given to it. What I liked the least, aside from the render quality, was the way the characters move and gesture during conversations. They often look like they're dancing, and it just feels ridiculous. There's also a lot of gratuitous violence, and the MC is always there to save the day. If it happened once or twice, it wouldn't be a problem, but it keeps happening over and over again, and the game has barely made it past the prologue. The overall impression is that this is nothing more than a teenage fantasy, where the MC is a badass who fights villains, saves girls, and those same girls become so grateful that they throw themselves at him. Honestly, there is potential here. I really liked the LIs, and they are the only reason I would have kept playing. But the render quality goes beyond what I can tolerate. This is the first time I've ever dropped an AVN primarily because of how bad it looks. The game also has other problems, but they're on a level that I can ignore, so it's not worth mentioning them here.