The Neverwhere Tales

I've tried to play this for 2 days. In my opinion, they have piled on numerous (far too many) different negative aspects in the beginning that just create a "the juice is not worth the squeeze" scenario. An unlikeable, spoiled, and insolent MC who hasn't had to (actually) work hard or survive anything a day in his life is at the center of this mess. He's a classic "Zoomer" if it helps to tie it to a modern scenario or "issue" for some understanding. The MC and his sister (for whatever reason, as I got only to just after the Templar Council meeting) were kept ignorant and sheltered/coddled from the truths of this world for the entirety of their lives up to this point (likely going to be a "greater good" argument, statistically). So, 20 years of forced ignorance and stunted personal growth. When stated that way, it seems OBVIOUS that it's a stupid thing to do. But understand, we as humans have (mostly) raised our kids like this since forever. It just changes generationally based on trends and technology. So there are multiple reasons why this is written this way. It's historically accurate in comparison. Parents do naturally shelter their kids from many things. Parents sometimes make bad decisions in guiding their kids' futures. Kids being kids, even if you decided to "wait till they're old enough to understand," like with adopted children or any analogous scenario, they will likely STILL have resentment. Emotional objectivity and pragmatism come with time and wisdom and are not usually characteristics of youth. Unfortunately, for me, it doesn't stop it from being annoying to play through. At the end of the day, you still have to balance (as the writer/developer) what you are subjecting your audience to. And my feeling is that this is out of balance in this game. But I am not a Zoomer; I'm a Boomer. From a Zoomer's perspective, all of this insolence, self-pity, and these tantrums on the part of the MC are "normal" and "justified." So, your mileage may vary. For me, the MC behaves like a "Karen" when confronted with situations that he doesn't like or is reacting to from a position of weakness (doesn't/can't understand or cannot separate personal feelings and judge things objectively). This kind of scenario repeatedly happening back to back because everything in this world is new for him is just a test for one's patience depending on where you fall in your awareness of this situation. How long can you tolerate a strobe light flashing constantly at your face? This is me, playing this game—so far. Given no one else has brought this up in the other reviews that I've seen. It is likely that this is just a "me issue" and won't have any effect on you, unless it's a "can't unsee what you have seen" scenario now that I've pointed it out. *shrugs* My apologies if the latter is now the case. But the writer/dev is at least somewhat aware of this, since it's written into some of the reactions by characters interacting with the MC, namely Kaija—so far. While her character is a Zoomer, in this scenario, she has been exposed to this secret world her entire life. So her perspective is informed and "Boomer"-esque and ends up being a bridge or fence-sitting between the two, because she's the same age as the MC and grew up with him, but there's no forced veil of ignorance over her eyes. I enjoy the idea and the world. The renders are pretty good. I believe they've made a concerted effort in making their models unique-looking, which accounts for the "uncanny valley"-ness I feel looking at them. The MC kind of looks sickly to me in the face, almost vampiric. Kaija also looked odd at first, but she's grown on me. I don't understand the other potential LIs beyond them just existing to provide other options. I'm very early in the game, so this will likely change. I should probably stop reviewing here and avoid more "reviewing by speculation." I'll try to continue later. **Continued** Well, I've lost my patience. Whoever wrote this writes like they're paid per word. It is especially noticeable when the Council are talking because they already talk too much with how much they bicker, and like typical politicians, they just love the sound of their own voice. I'm reminded of when I was a small child and constantly saw something that caught my attention, and I'd wander off, usually getting lost. I did it so often that my father eventually would place his hand on the back of my neck and use finger and thumb pressure to guide me through crowds and keep track of me when I'd get distracted. The MC (ironically) is actually the character most often used that repeatedly has to jerk the reins, so to speak, to get conversations back on track when other participants go off the rails and just "filibuster" endlessly. I'm speed-clicking through this text just to get to the next scene and hoping that something interesting will happen. Unfortunately, it really looks like they're going to turn this MC into someone "special," like he has inherent magic or is some kind of superhuman. I can think of no one more undeserving of a blessing of that kind in this story. He's just a spoiled, lazy, whiny brat. I'm rooting for the Hellspawn at this point, because the Human Templars are simply politicians in the ugliest sense of the word. And the Elves are cunts, and there's been no explanation or hint as to why. This is like an M. Night Shyamalan script WITHOUT all of the hints littered throughout showing that you COULD have guessed the ending if you paid attention closely and connected the dots. The reason why Sixth Sense was clever is because it was all there, all along. They told you, point blank, from the beginning the truth. But like the ghosts, your mind saw and believed what you wanted and expected to see and believe. Here... there are no hints to pick up on, no point-blank tells or truths for human nature to see and then glaze over. Or, if you're clever or autistic, you do see and mentally document and eventually see the path and maybe even the outcome. Even if you didn't, there's a chance at the reveal that you'd at least be able to enjoy, "I f'ing KNEW IT. I knew something was off; I just didn't know what." Instead of clever, we just get annoying characters engaging in annoying, often pointless dialogue that would have benefitted from some editing. I've lost the patience race. The point where I was thanking the MC (of all people) for having the sense to try to fruitlessly wrangle the feral cats that are the Templar Council. Well, it just crossed a line for me. I don't WANT to cheer for or identify with this capri-pants-wearing guy. I'm disgusted with myself at this point. Oh! The earlier "uncanny valley" with the character models I had. It's the EYES. There's some kind of shader on them that makes them overtly glossy and unnaturally shadowed, like occlusion gone wild or something. It's in conflict with all the other lighting in every scene. It's like the fairy lights they put in Galadriel's eyes in every scene in the Lord of the Rings movies to give her an ethereal look compared to everyone else. Except in this case, it's "fairy lights" in EVERYONE's eyes, and it just looks weird. Anyhow, I've wasted enough of your time. This game is probably mostly fine or good for most people. My hangups likely wouldn't be your hangups. But if any of this strikes a chord with you—my brother, I got your back. This is littered with triggers. If you're going forward, proceed with caution and have an exit plan at the ready. Oh, one more warning. They chose discrete paths for the LIs. It doesn't seem to be all-encompassing—like I was able to juggle them most of the way I've gone so far. But they do force you to ghost someone fairly quickly. Adding insult to injury, this discrete branching also seems to make you miss out on an interaction with the hot, badass Templar Councilwoman if you don't choose to ghost someone. Damned if you do and damned if you don't. It's a game designed to piss me off, it seems.

Withholding one star for now only because of how the situation with the sister was handled: That she threw back her own ridiculous situation in the MC's face as if their respective outgoings into this interstice realm are remotely the same was irritating. The MC going on a diplomatic mission (a reckless one, albeit) and the sister using this new realm (which is repeatedly said to be extremely dangerous) to go clubbing with a friend of hers are not the same, and the MC taking this and saying, "We're both stupid" was ridiculous, even with the sister giving a one line apology. I hope he's able to lay into her more, as he does his parents and (ex-)girlfriend, but I fear that she will use this newfound ability of hers to squash that. There's no mention of consequences for his sister bringing a normal person into this interstice with elves and magic either. The MC is told in the beginning that people who blather about this stuff get suicided. Does that not apply to his sister? After seeing the scene which results in her hospitalization I thought: "Great, this is going to be annoying." Maybe it's trauma from bad visual novels, but these quirky, teasing characters who butt in to more serious parts of the story that the MC is involved in are very annoying, and seeing the sister experience the thing that happens was a red flag for me. From seeing that, I know now that the dev wants to move her into a central position of the MC's story. I don't dislike the sister, but I don't want a degradation of the narrative I choose because of her being forcibly integrated and destroying the tone. That all being said, the dev has done very well to give you choice in regards to your parents and (ex-)girlfriend (though you still play nice with her in some scenes when I choose over and over again to not) with whether to forgive and involve them in your life or not. I hope that I will have similar options for the sister if I want them. For the death of the character, I think it was a fine enough choice. I'm disappointed that I won't be able to see her anymore, but it's fine for the greater narrative. If I'm able to have revenge, the choice from the dev to have her death would be much better. What I thought was disappointing about the end of the current chapter is that I would only be able to return to the world of the girl who died if I messed up my relationship with the mother and daughter (in my playthrough, anyway. I don't know if you need to have all relationships with main girls in a poor state or what because I'm on good terms with only two of the main girls). I think I should be able to go back regardless of my relationships with the girls in the main world, but the dev has a good narrative, so it's fine.

This game took me a little bit to start getting into it. When it first started I was leaning towards this being a ehh game to pass the time. After the first couple chapters I finally started to get into it and by chapter 3 I was locked in. The story is great and I love that its not a harem game that just lets the MC go from a monogamous committed guy to a harem leader. Most of the LIs stories are amazing with some being on the ok side. The nice part is that you can pick the girl you like and your not forced to explore relationships with the ones you do not want (although you can keep most of the paths open at least up through chapter 7 for now). Positives: Great choices that matter, control in how you want to play and who to pursue, Great blend of mystery and erotica, good writing, and an immersive world and lore. I cannot say enough about how much I loved the world building that comes across as both sci fi and old world at the same time. The MC and most of the NPCs are amazingly well done, flushed out, and have unique characteristics that make you care. Look if you can make me feel sadness in a game you did an dang good job of character development. Negatives (and reason its 4.5 instead of 5 for me) - The MC even with choices not to be a total pity me for my life character just whines way too much. I mean I get it your upset for legitimate reasons, but once its explained and what you experienced can you not understand why? a character death that death that bothered me as I me I get it for the plot but come on. I just never like getting you to like an NPC and then killing them off just as quick. Neutral - The Dad, The Mom, and Elea (plus adds to the MC whining). They just do not come off as strong as they could be. For now I think this will change moving forward, but I do think they are portrayed as being fairly weak atm.

When great fantasy writing meets great erotica. This one hits all the right spots, with women on the more realistic side of anatomy (which I understand can be a sour point for some players), amazing dialogues, meaningful choices and fantastic animated sex scenes. 10/10 no notes!

This is one of the best story rich mystery games with interesting lore I have felt. I really into AVNs in which MCs start as a nobody surrounding with his close people at top positions, yet slowly becomes important to the story as the chosen one in the later chapters. And the different paths of LIs doesn't mean just their romance or Lewds, there is a whole lot of story and lore attached to all those paths. So, in order to get the maximum story out of TNT, you have to play all the available paths. Positives : Great Story, Great Lore, Love Interest characterization and romances - particularly with Kaija & Fiona, even some lewd scenes are impressive such as with Fiona & Kaija Dates in main girls and kate, annissa, Linnae in side girls. Also, The Music selection. Sometimes I just stop the scene and listen the music. Negatives : MC whines a lot no matter how calm I play him, Sorry for Elea Fans, but somehow her story both in romance and lewds felt like meh. I think it is early to judge. I talk about this again when she gets the date scenes like Kaija Or Fiona. Neutral: Your talent in Lewd scenes getting better and better from the first lewd scene with kaiju the last kinky scene with kate. Anyway, the negetives are nit picky (just my personal) and positives are so many. And thank you dev so much for the wonderful game.

Very much enjoying this one pros -Attractive unique women -The plot has me hooked -Interesting world building -Great renders and decent Animations -Writing is mostly well done neg -MC is overly emotional and can't seem to grasp the bigger picture -MC looks off and like he is about to throw a tantrum (which he will) -The LI paths interfere with each other and block side charecters leaving maybe 1 -3 Hscenes in the game rather than like 10 -The game goes out of it's way to make you feel bad about not picking the other main LIs

TL;DR: It's worth playing if you're into fantasy stuff. Beware that there's no branching, no mini game, and no freeroams. The animations and renders are not great quality, but it's nice enough to play through, given that the story is good along with the writing. The characters are unique and interesting but not remotely as pretty as in other games. The game's missing any form of mini games, free roams and branching, which is a big negative in my eyes. I was torn between 3/5 and 4/5, but decided on 4/5 because i like the story and the characters overall, and i'm a big sucker for all things fantasy.

Don't play to fap. This is my favourite VN. I admit that I hate the start of it. Make sure to play until it gets to the actual story. It has an amazing story. Incredible renders, especially the facial expressions. Kaija's shrugs are my favourite part (you know it when you see it). It has great relationships and it is very emotional. 100% worth the time.

I really enjoyed this game, the story is captivating, the world building is good, You basically have our modern world with a fantasy/ neonpunk world next to it and with other worlds as well (still unexplored, not sure if these will pop up later), filled with different races (so far only seen elves and demons but there are some references to other races/deities). The MC is dragged into this world, with its different factions due to his parents and girlfriend. The renders are mostly ok to good, the character models are mostly good to excellent, except for the MC's eyes, they look like fisheyes. A negative for me are the animations, they are absolutely not smooth, on the contrary. This also is quite jarring in the sex animations. As for h-scenes, they are there but they are clearly not the main goal of this game, the story is. I really enjoyed The Neverwhere Tales and look forward to future chapters. I have a feeling that we are only at the start of the story and there is already quite some content. Hope the dev can keep on delivering on the story.

While this game is definitely one of the better ones I've played.(TBF I've played a HUGE amount) I can't help but feel a overwhelming sense of disappointment and wasted potential from it. Let's go through the goods. The most important part of AVNs, the LIs are beautiful, diverse, each with their personal quirks, backstory and what they offer to the story and MC. World building is pretty well done, leans into real-life mythology and tries it's best to fit into modern society and it's timeline. Production value of the game itself is certainly high. Effort is definitely put into the game, from the UI to renders, music and writing. While I personally almost always give 5 stars to game I thoroughly enjoyed and bother to write reviews about. The game itself does have a number of flaws. To start off with, the MC could definitely look better. There's something unnerving about the MC, and while that could be part of the plot, it's quite jarring on the eyes. Next is the LIs and how the game flows with the interaction with each of them. While it's respectable that the dev made it clear and ruled out incest and harem, I honestly fail to see how that would work with this particular game and how it's developing. Tthe dev also mentioned the story will progress the way it's supposed to instead of being influenced too much by player choices.(Great if you ask me, a solid ending is better than having to wait on 12 mulitple endings with 37 split branches, utter woke nonsense) That brings me to what I consider a major development flaw. I just don't see how you can progress the story with 1 ending with so many different LIs, especially since each of them provides a different kind of aid that the story and MC could use. This is one of those stories where a harem simply makes more sense than not. Players could have the choice who they want in the harem, or keep as friends to be included in the story But as things stands, you can only have one or another encounter/scene in certain parts of the story, which locks or leaves out certain characters if you make certain decisions. I could go on about how the MC's extreme reaction to certain plotpoints that doesn't really make sense and feels like it's only there to push the story along. There's seemingly also a large number of variables that can be triggered, and while that's good for the realism of the story, it feels a touch too ambitious and might come back to bite the dev down the road when there's too many things to consider and write, regarding split paths. TLDR: You can expect a good time if you don't have extreme expectations, but overall it feels like development will hit roadblocks down the line that will upset a group of players or another regardless of how it turns out. Highly recommended to try out if you like the modern/fantasy combination. I personally really enjoyed the hours I spent on it, which is a quite a decent chunk of content to date.(V0.6.0.1)

This review is for version (0.6.0.1) released on 2025-05-30. CODING: Technically competent. I haven't encountered any errors or bugs that were not my fault. RENDERS: The in-game renders are about the same level as the preview images. ANIMATION: Only parts of the sex scenes and a few cinematic scenes. Mostly, the animation is very stiff with unnatural movement. WRITING: The review by War Lizard has a very thorough breakdown of the issues with the writing. I agree with everything they said, so just read their review. PLOT: If you are a fan of the Dresden Files, stay away from this game. This is some alternate universe fan-fic version of the Dresden-verse where the Knights Templar are now the defenders of humanity instead of the Wizards Council. Spoiler The Knights Templar do not exist canonically in the Dresden-verse; the only active knightly order is the Knights of the Cross. Personal Pet Peeve: If you do not have any martial arts, stage combat, or actual combat experience, do us all a favor and minimize the screen time of any training or fight sequences. The lack of experience and knowledge makes those scenes painful to get through. There is a reason movie studios hire fight directors and actors undergo months of training.

It's a beautiful game and the story is serviceable, but in the end it's just that. Given that this is not a harem game (which I appreciate!), you end up with a ton of love interests that you can't really follow up on and the one(s) that you do barely have any pay off. It's just not engaging enough even for one playthrough, let alone severable. The story never takes off as the writing can be meandering and largely meaningless, so you wait and wait and wait for something to happen, you meet LI that you can't engage and... that's it. It needs far stronger writing, especially interpersonal depth, for me to care what happens here.

I had high hopes for this game, but it’s just not working narratively. Spoiler The MC finds out that his parents have been keeping him in a glass cage. His girlfriend, who he’s been friends with since childhood, is there because the organization his parents lead asked her to get close to him as a handler/bodyguard. (Nevermind that she is almost never actually with him and generally sucks at her job.) So the person closest to him has known about the glass cage, his parents, the organization etc since they were childhood best friends and has withheld that information every day they’ve known each other. Also, the company he works for is controlled by the organization. So not only are his parents responsible for him getting the job, but they got him a job as the complaints department at an insurance company. If people are unhappy because their rates went up or their claim got rejected – he is the person they talk to. Basically his parents got him a job getting yelled at all day. We also find out that the MC and his sister have magical abilities, making it unlikely that his parents are his parents. That means that when they finally had to sit down and tell the truth and apologize, they were probably still lying. And that girlfriend is one of four official love interests (Lis). So you can choose to stay with the person who has lied to you about everything, every day you’ve known them. The others are a woman who works for the same insurance company – meaning she likely has some kind of ties to the same organization (whether she’s aware of it or not.) She comes across as uptight at first but later seems to try too hard to convince MC that she has a fun side too. An (apparently) Irish woman who may be related to gods and is older than dirt. And right after MC finding out that everyone in his life has been lying to him for his entire life, she tells him that she’s hiding lots of dark secrets from him. And last there’s an Elf who is roughly as old as human civilization, and so is naturally drawn to an urban twenty something who has a low-level desk job at an insurance company because they have so much in common. Anyway, after confronting his parents he runs off to visit the elves – the sworn enemies of his parents organization. While with the elves he meets the best written character of the game, the elf woman’s daughter. Finn initially hates him, and tries to kill him – twice. Because the MC spares her they end up training together and slowly, reluctantly form a friendship that starts to turn into something else, then his parents organization kills her. I waited for months to find out how he would react. I mean, he was enraged when he left. He had cut ties with his parents and hated their organization. What would they do now that the woman he loved, who was definitely not under his parents control, was murdered by the same organization that had been controlling his life? And the answer was – nothing. He went home, returned to his job of getting yelled at at the company his parents controlled, and watched TV. Oh and we found out that the MC’s sister is completely irresponsible and not very bright. The game looks good, and it has an interesting premise and there are lots of choices, but the writing is terrible. Other than the elf girl who was killed after a single chapter, and the bartender who is barely in it none of the characters are very interesting or believable and most of their actions make little or no sense. You have to really bend your mind to believe this person would take that action in this situation, on a regular basis.

I can understand how I felt interested in this game but seeing as where we stand at the end of the sixth chapter I can't see the appeal anymore. The story is a typical otherworld, one secret organization aware of this world, multiple races about to burst to war against each other. I would really like to say more about it, and having read 6 chapters, I would hope to know more. This isn't the case. One of the scenes of this 6th chapter being even the Mc asking his childhood friend what is the job of the Templars: the question to ask the first time you hear their existence being pulled on until the 6th chapter to finally being asked. I do not think that there is a better example to feel the deep of the writing and the hopping of an explanation time should have been finished long ago. Plenty of choices are offered to us, a strong point some may think but they brought their parts of liabilities. The Mc is a mess. Preaching on saying the truth while lying, burning bridges with people then talking to them, being friend and yet going on a date with the said friend. He does have plenty of others flaws outside the choices obviously, but those came from the fact that the choices must matter while still having a game to keep going on. Li are one big problem. The game isn't a harem even though it does play like a harem. At first, it was scenes completely taken out, making each part rather short if you were not with the Li concerned. Lately, you do have the scene as if you were "friend", having just the end butchered without the sex. I understand that it allows to have more game time but it is completely stupid to not be interested in the same guy with the same action just because... Choices are supposed to matter? Conditional scenes are actually few. For some choices matters game, beside the sex you'll see pretty much all or the chance to be introduced to a scene will be here anyway to pull you where the dev wants. Pacing is awful, going around between otherworldly affairs and everyday life. Everyday matters are boring and have nothing to do with the story, making it all fillers. The point is that half of the Li are there, and since it isn't a harem you can be pretty sure that almost nobody will be interested in that part. A logical choice would have to simply trash it away and putting all the Li into the otherworld. That is one more proof that things wasn't thought through. Then comes others flaws all along. Dialogues felt mostly like preaching/question time or simply the characters weirdly understand inner jokes too much. Li are rather good-looking but the Mc isn't and the game loves shoving his ugly face in our face. The sex is bland, being mostly just an animation with 3 sentences to the point that cutting them out didn't bother me. Development is pretty dumb sometimes, just looking at the end of the chapter 6 makes me wonder how the hell did someone thought it was a good idea to make the sister disappear into a nightclub in the otherworld, which she shouldn't be able to get in, for absolutely no reason. Between the end of the last chapter and the completely useless everyday part, it is quite tiring to keeping it up with this game. The good parts are few and having that much bad parts prove that it is just a lack of skill rather than coincidental flaws.

Good Graphics. Good Story I like that you can flirt with most characters ( i hope you can do more than flirt with them in the future ) I really enjoy the last chapter , it was like you are in a movie or tv series and connect to that world.

As a story-first kinda guy this ticks a lot of boxes, and I feel like it gives me plenty of reasons to get invested and care about what's going on. I actually quite like Kaija too, despite how divisive the character seems to amongst the playerbase, I found her circumstances quite rooted and believeable in the context of the story. Without saying too much, choosing the Kaija route and going through that journey of re-building felt good. Re-playing the game to experience the different paths is a bit of a chore, but IMO it's worth it (especially as you can hold the skip key until you get to the route-specific content). I understand why the developer didn't want to go down the harem route like a lot of other AVNs, I think it keeps things grounded somewhat, but this isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea.

The Neverwhere Tales (as of 0.5.4p) Bad start, not gonna lie. Struggles to find it's footing and leans too much in to some cliches and tropes. Doesn't handle the LI introduction well (too much, too fast) and especially Kaija - the "reveal" does little, because we as the player just met her, so we give little fuck about her beyond her being gorgeous. The LI's themselves are interesting and charming, but it takes some time for the player to see it. Picks up at a decent pace after Ch2 both in story quality and in writing quality. Some genuine marvels in there. Visually it's gorgeous with tons of animations and attention to detail.. MC is ugly, tho. Sexually it's.... boring as fuck. You ain't playing this for the porn, my man. Bold choice for a chapter 5 end, even if somewhat expected. Still, got the feels rolling. All in all - starts meh, but gets better and better. 4.5/5, but I'm gonna round up. Can't wait for the new chapter.

It's good. I tend to worry about the supernatural AVNs because they can sort of fall of a cliff into their world building and all the character and relationship development just kind of gets lost. This one does a very good job of keeping a drip of world building and exposition going at a steady pace, while maintaining a focus on the characters/relationships.

BRAVO, I found myself carried away by the story even if it is sometimes a little messy. The author aims very high, it shows. The girls are superb and endearing. For the moment Medb is my favorite but I will miss Finnabair and that is a shame. The MC's sister is also very very well done and I dare to hope that she will have a role to her measure especially among the Altar. It is clever to use the known legends as a plot and I say once again BRAVO. On the other hand, the adult scenes are really not numerous or great and the lack of control of the character is a cruel flaw that should be reviewed. On the soft eroticism side, great! On the aesthetic and son side, it is very very well done. Personally the Alfar world is perfect and I want more. So I am impatiently waiting for the sequel and congratulate Ceolag for this great work. Please Ceolag don't kill too many people around the MC; already there I really had a big pang in my heart (I won't say anything to avoid spoilers) and I could already see my MC as a future Dad. Can't wait to see the rest of this AVN which is a gem for me.

dayum good game it is, i rarely play any avn despite all previews after an hour of installing cuz I want it to be interesting and immersive but this is one of those few games I binged played, amazing story , good scenes and of course branching elements based on choices any relationship with characters, kudos to dev and hope to see more cuz I want finnabair back , I ain't ready for her namaari, damn that was totally not what I wanted.