Past Mistakes

I'm not one for overly technical reviews. I've seen some very well-made games that bored me to tears and others that were very basic but a lot of fun. This visual novel, in my opinion, shows great promise. I enjoy mature and realistic fantasy, and well, I'm open to creativity. I liked the mix of adventure, isekai style, and eroticism. I hope to see more of this title and how far a plot that can become both very complex and intriguing can go. The introduction is excellent, and the assault on the throne is very well done. My congratulations to the artist.

VERSION: EP1 v0.1 SUMMARY: Not bad, wants to be more but sadly isn't RATINGS: (out of 5): NOTE: The following are my own criteria and may require more context, so keep an open mind. Models: 4 Animations: 3-4 General Visuals: 4 Characters: 3 Story/Pacing: 3 Writing/Dialogue: 4 UI & Gameplay: 3 Content Quality: 3 Sounds & Music: 3 H-Content & Fetish: 3 Average: 32 of 50 possible points giving a 64% rating i.e. 3 stars. PROS: Renders are generally not bad looking, apart from the dull, haziness that the scenes have. Models seem to be fairly good looking and clearly the developer wanted to emphasize tits and ass, maybe a little bit too much... Writing is not bad, simple, to the point and reads well. Extra details like the narrator voice is done fairly well also. Sounds are good and add to the immersion, nice ambient sounds. Music is OK...the dynamic music during action scenes are a bit out of place IMO, but its not bad. Story is not bad, not new or very interesting and filled with a few cliches, but not bad. Fair amount of content for initial release. CONS: The renders are generally dulled, like some film grain/mist or smoke is hanging in the air. Its all very mystical but really just makes it all dull and visually less clear. Some characters like the queen's expression is just bad, the sad or tired look she has during the initial confrontation is way over done and her face is contorted out of proportion and its simply FUGLY. UI is a bit finicky, clicking X-ray button causes that the screen gets locked and you can't progress to next render. I eventually noticed the small X to close the X-ray screen down, its too small and depending on background gets lost easily. MC hair is too much...and his lips look like he had botox, some pretty boy trapped in a neanderthals body. Not sure what to think to be honest... While animations look decent, some are ridiculous, e.g. the tavern wench and MC kissing looks like they screwing or are having a tug-o-war with their tongues... Some animations not that good, are very short, loops are not smooth and break immersion in a few places. Also per above, despite de-selecting FUTA options, some scenes still have buttons showing FUTA genitals. The dev needs to disable this based on player preferences. Choice for picking class is limiting and requires replay of game to see other scenes, but difference between classes are not significant enough to justify this. Not many H-scenes early on, if you count the X-ray feature, which you shouldn't as it gets boring quickly... FINAL REMARKS, OPINIONS & SUGGESTIONS: Never been a fan of male characters with long hair. The first impression I got looking at the MC is, here is a viking from ancient times, driving a modern day car...maybe cut the poor guys hair and then if he ends up in the magic world, then let his hair grow over time? Lesbian and Futa are the only kinks in this game so far. I don't subscribe to either as they are boring IMO and futa is just not really an option with a male MC (at least for me). So other kinds of kinks would be nice also, pregnancy, lactation (especially with boobs this game has), voyeurism, water-sports, you can even throw in fisting, seems some characters may like it rough! While I can appreciate the system for specializing in a class e.g. archer, warrior or mage. I do find that in a VN, it only limits you having such choices and that content would end up locked, necessitating replay and going through maybe "generic" content just to unlock those few different scenes. IMO it would be much better to simply have the MC (who clearly is some champion, to save their world) be proficient in all 3 classes and stick to choices through the game story to shape the eventual outcome i.e. which LIs to pursue etc. This would OFC not be an issue if all 3 paths are COMPLETELY different, but lets be honest, that wont happen due to the game taking almost 3x longer to create. So I'd go for an prodigy MC able to do all and having all the content from the classes play out in one playthrough. Solid start, some things I would adjust and work on per above points, but overall not bad. I will review it in the future again, its well on its way to 4 stars, for now though 3 it is.