VN - Ren'Py - omiSt [v0.2] [Hanamura]

Review of omiSt version 0.2

This game reminds me of others that “may fly” if they had well defined “new horizons”. A year after the first release you can tell that the game improves with each new update. But not in what is really important.

Graphics 4/5
The developer has been improving a lot since the first renders, which had so many deficiencies that in the second update he had to change most of them. Good in general, although there is still room for improvement. There is a correct use, sometimes more than that, of light/illumination. You see what you need to see, even in low or very low light scenes. Post-processing could be better at times, but overall it's also good.

Animations 3/5
Most of them are custom made, which is important. Varied, and not only in the sex scenes. In these you see what you have to see, which in other games doesn't happen.

Music and sound N/A
I usually mute the game before even starting to play, and this game is no exception. The little I've heard doesn't make me think I'm missing anything interesting.

Gameplay 2/5
The UI is very good. Made by the author (supposedly), clean, tidy, original and without bugs. I found a bug in a scene, but in general the game is well programmed. Correct English, although sometimes there are some mistakes or weird things. A visual novel that really is a visual novel: besides the typical option to get points with the girls, the choices have consequences, although at the moment, with the exception of choices to not continue progressing with characters, only have importance to add different dialogue, different options in some scene, etc.. However, the scenes lack something, sometimes a lot, to attract the player. Many scenes of slice of life, school life, daily life, virtual reality, college clubs, etc. that I don't feel are really necessary for the plot. Sometimes not even for the characters that appear. The text in the scenes also doesn't help the player become immersed in the game, the scenes or the characters.

Plot 2/5
A relative of the MC is a great scientist, and the MC and the typical childhood best friend go to live in his house while studying at the university. From here on, despite four updates in a year, I'm not sure what the plot is. A lot of high tech, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, cyborgs?, genetic or whatever experiments with people? It's not clear to me, despite the thousands of renders the game has. The game is lost in countless scenes in my point of view unimportant already mentioned in “gameplay”. There are snippets of what may be the main plot and other subplots. But the game lurches from one scene to another, which makes unimportant or even inconsequential scenes blur or even hide the main plot. Example: suddenly you have to connect to a virtual reality using a special headset. That seems important. But first you have to run away from a monster chasing you, and then find the secret of an old sanatorium. We go from a fantasy environment with slight touches of high technology and science fiction to immerse ourselves in a scary movie environment. What is really important is blurred or even hidden in what today is totally inconsequential and superfluous: virtual reality and what can be done in it seems important in the main plot. Too bad, the plot gives the feeling that it could be interesting... if it were clear and defined. The plot right now seems more like a group of actors and the making of a movie or a group of young people going to college while living their lives than an intricate plot of virtual reality, high tech and important experiments. With the problem that the latter is what the plot seems to be.

Characters 2/5
I don’t really feel like they’re anything special either. The MC is decent, and overall, he’s not a bad character, but he lacks something to make the player feel attracted to him. All the female characters play a musical instrument. Or at least, that’s what appears on their gallery page, as if it were important or like they were going to form a band or an orchestra. But I think only one actually plays in the game. And of course, that’s not important. Typical tsundere character, typical spoiled rich girl, typical shy girl, typical childhood friend, typical more or less normal characters—none of them stand out beyond their role as characters outside of their personality, and many of them could be interchangeable in many scenes. Most of them lack charisma and personality. The only female character that stands out and actually has importance so far is the AI, Aurelien. The male characters are somewhat better. At least the ones that have some importance: the MC’s familiar, his partner, and two bodyguards who work for him. But their time on screen, except for the familiar, is very limited. Because the rest, including the MC’s friend, have the charisma, personality, and especially the importance in the game of a squashed ant stuck to the sole of a shoe.

Final thoughts
Without being a bad game, it's not great either. Too bad, the plot seems to be good. But the indifference that generally the scenes, the characters and their dialogues cause in me make it stay in a middle point, like the bad student who gets the minimum grade to not repeat the course thanks to the pity of his teachers.

Review 0.2

Score: 1.5/5

While there are glimmers of potential in the story, the overall experience feels underwhelming. One of the major flaws lies in the pacing—it oscillates between being painfully slow during mundane interactions and jarringly abrupt during pivotal moments. This inconsistency makes it difficult to become invested in the narrative or the characters.

The dialogue, while attempting to capture a natural flow, often comes across as stilted or overly simplistic, stripping away the emotional depth that could have connected players to the story. The characters themselves feel more like archetypes than fully fleshed-out individuals, leaving little room for genuine engagement or relatability.

Visually, the game struggles to maintain cohesion. The art quality fluctuates noticeably between scenes, which can be distracting and detracts from the immersion. Furthermore, the music, while serviceable in some parts, tends to loop repetitively, ultimately becoming more of an annoyance than an enhancement to the atmosphere.

Overall, the potential is there, but the execution leaves much to be desired. It feels like a rough draft rather than a polished product ready for players to enjoy.

Review of version 0.1.5

I'll keep it simple by listing what I liked the most. But long story short, I had a great time playing and definitely recommend trying this one :

• Great cast! Both the MC and the girls (even the male BFF is great which basically never happens usually ).
• Great graphics with smooth animations! There's still room for improvement to be one of the very best among the games that use HS2 but what's there is already very pleasing on the eye
• Outstanding use of the background in the renders to make the world more alive. Sometimes used for comedic purposes (Lucia being Lucia, the engineering team acting like doofuses, Jace eating the macarons) or just to show snippets of wholesome moments (Cora feeding Livia, Cora eating MC's banana ). I love it and this really deserves a gold star because this is something that we don't see very often in AVN.
• Good comedy and feel-good moments so you mainly play with a smile on your face.
• Great use of music to enhance the experience and the immersion.
• Only one sex scene but it's really really well done!! Super hot with things escalating little by little with this beautiful stranger (hopefully, we'll see Ria again at some point). When things got serious, the use of animations with different angles that are in a loop was fantastically done (I greatly appreciate the fact that we didn't have to change the angle manually... This is often what the player is forced to do but it kinda kills the mood when you start clicking here and there during a sex scene) with great dialogue/narration and a soundtrack perfectly chosen. The orgasm was peak but the animation weirdly starts over at the end before the black screen. That's the only "faux-pas" in this very well-done sex scene. The bar is set pretty high for the next scenes!! Good luck dev!
• Badass scenes when the MC awakes his powers... As a power fantasy lover, this is right up my alley and very satisfying ! (good use of the meme "violence isn't an answer... It's a question and the answer is yes!" by the way )
• Harem path! Gotta catch them all! (hopefully, the lovely Lily will be among the love interests despite her lack of stats at the moment )
• Good writing when you take each scene individually even if misspellings or weirdly worded stuff happen here and there (especially towards the end so I'm guessing this will get fixed at some point depending on the community's feedback).
• Good little bits of drama. I liked the scene with Clara being motherly towards Sera :')

Obviously, not everything is perfect. The plot is very mysterious and we don't really know what are the stakes at the moment. And this lack of clarity in the direction of the game is a bit worrisome because so many threads have been pulled already. It could very well end up being epic or it might crash and burn plot-wise... Hopefully, the dev won't throw immersion by the window by breaking the 4th wall too much or using weird deus ex-machina (a time-rewind feature to erase a cliffhanger? What the heck? ) to magically make sense of everything.
In any case, this has a lot of potential and at the very least, I should enjoy the journey very much even if I'm not sure about the destination yet!

Comedy, drama and a bit of Violence full of action.

This is type of game I like, comedy, comedy and comedy.

MC is pretty decent too not our usual wimp MC.

Girls are cute and full of drama, their is good too couldn't find anything ugly about them.

Story seems interesting too, he have at least goal despite building a harem, lol.

Renders quality is really good!
Obviously you can guess how good their skin texture is!

Animation is good too a bit laggy but better than many games I have played.

I'm giving 4 star only because game is still in early stage didn't have much content but according to "0.1" it actually have lots of content if you're reading my review don't forget to give a shot!

Overall I would've given the game 3*.
The story is decent (albeit not very unique).
Most of the initial characters are quite nice, even the rich uncle seems like a bearable person.
The dialogues are somewhat clunky but have a certain charm, definitely better than most VN on this side.

But the dev decides to ruin this with all their might.
They force a male "best friend" upon us, which takes about 50% of screen time of the second half of the game.
The "braindead-annoying-goodfornothing" guy no one needed. After introducing a very nice actual best friend in Olivia at the beginning of the game.
Then proceeds to force MC into fucking a hookup at a bar.
A really nasty, slutty woman that will most likely be an LI.
No choices, justa disgusting, forced sex scene.

I really hope these reviews stay as low as possible and reach the completely ignorant dev.
They stated multiple times already how important feedback is for them, but radio silence about all of these points.

Update : The first sex scene is now optional (not forced) in version 0.1.

This review is for version 0.0.5. so bear that in mind. The game is in its infancy but it already impressed me with what it has shown so far.

Pros:
The characters are interesting and I like the friendship dynamic between the Mc and Olivia and the friendship with Jace. I can see myself potentially becoming invested in the characters and the potential Lis.

The renders and the animations are pretty good and the sex scene was pretty hot.

There is fair amount of humour.

There is an interesting scifi/fantasy mystery developing.

Cons:
The one sex scene is forced which is never good as players tend to hate that.

The jokes are hit or miss as jokes usually are and the ones involving
Lucia fail spectacularly as she comes off as a complete psycho for no damn reason.

Overall a strong first showing and I will be following this one.

The 1 star I'm giving this game is from the small stuff I've seen from the story that could've made it better had they been the main focus or expanded upon (i.e. the science experiments, the uncle focusing on his projects, the sci-fi futuristic vibe of the setting, the humorous moments happening in the background during the intro and the expo).

The minus 4 stars is for everything else: from the actual story being wholly derivative and does a great disservice to the setting that it has, to the unoriginal character writing, to the renders having this weird "unfinished" look and have proportions that look "off," to the music being ho-hum, and to the overall experience making me less interested in seeing what happens next.

Just terrible all around in my opinion. Avoid this one like the plague.

Review for Demo

Right away this game does itself two disservices, the first being the overview. Anyone remotely familiar with AVNs on this site knows the concept of "young guy moves to new town to attend new school and meet new people" has been beat to shit. You've likely played five other games with the same idea. Thankfully this game is almost deceptively deeper than that.

Things start to deviate from that cliché a bit with the setting. The world is more technologically advanced than our modern day. Automatons, hyper-advanced ai, crazy inventions, etc etc. Not a new concept either by any means, but it feels a bit fresher. Then, without spoilers, the current demo ends on a cliffhanger that completely upsets wherever you thought this might be going. I was pleasantly surprised.

The other disservice I mentioned is with the renders. It starts out pretty rough graphically, and in my head I was thinking it would probably be the games biggest issue. But then, like 15 minutes in, it all improves astronomically. It kind of boggles my mind the dev didn't take the extra time to just rework that opening given how important first impressions are, but regardless the problem was solved. Don't judge a book by its cover I suppose.

So with that out of the way, I gotta say this was actually pretty solid for a demo. Characters are fun so far, dialogue is solid enough, MC has been fine to play as, it has music, the list goes on. It's a bit early to talk about a lot of these things in-depth since there's only an hours worth of stuff to go on, but at its core the game has some personality and that is an important quality of an AVN imo. Once again the plot is moving in a much different direction that I thought it might as well, and I'm interested in seeing how that plays out.

You can tell the dev is new with game development in a couple areas for sure. Some spots need grammar/translation(?) improvements, the writing falls a little flat in spots, some of the poses and models can look weird at times, humor doesn't always work for me, and again the list goes on here too. But really there was nothing major that would turn me away from this. The only aspect I can't speak on is lewd stuff, as it doesn't exist yet. We had the cliché girl walks into our bedroom while the MCs dick is out and rock hard while he sleeps (the accidental dick slap was funny admittedly), but no actual sex scenes yet.

All in all a surprisingly solid start. Need a lot more to go on to determine how I realty feel about this, but I'll return to it after some updates for sure. Worth keeping an eye on for now.

2/5 A below-average AVN

The writing is pretty bad, the game is filled with cringe dialogues, cliche situations, etc. with very questionable humor, in my opinion of course. Can't say anything special about the music, some choices were bad and the rest of the music wasn't catchy enough to point
something out.

When it comes to characters, I can say that they look somewhat unique but at the same time have some weird problems like gigantic eyebrows (MC), very shiny hair (MC), and extremely glossy/shiny skin (Miss G, Clara, Olivia). Nothing special about their personalities as well, everything felt basic and "tropey", at least when it comes to the first few introduced LIs. The facial expressions most of the time are not quite there I can appreciate the dev trying to add details like this but he hasn't executed it well yet.

The posing was quite basic and sometimes unnatural with occasional and noticeable clipping, also a bit overused gestures/poses.
Lighting is very chaotic in this game constantly changing in-between renders for no reason, shadows are jumping all around in the same scenes, and in some moments lighting doesn't make sense and is either too strong or too weak. and sometimes you can see random lights that seem to be coming from nowhere like the blue light in the restaurant.

The amount of references is a bit overwhelming I think that a game should be able to stand for itself and only have the occasional subtle reference/cameo.

I was kind of conflicted about animations, it's good to see some casual non-lewd animations but so far, most were a bit out of place. For example in Rich's house, Simple camera work would've been more than enough no need for the weird diving/swimming animation, the Clara walking one clipped a ton and I think just a camera movement around the character would have been a better introduction, The fighting one had very rough not smooth movements I think that so simple timed renders would have been a better way to execute this (also remove the white flash bombs from it), on the other hand I think the spoon animation was nice and smooth. As for Lewd animations, they were significantly smoother than the others which is good but the forced transitions with a lot of blur took a lot away from the scene it could also use slower camera movement imo.

Humor is one of the most difficult things to write in my opinion since it's very subjective but to me, the "funny" moments in the game felt a bit forced and didn't cause any reaction except a facepalm here and there.
The developer should definitely spend some time proofreading or find someone to do it, there were way too many problems with grammar/spelling.


Overall, it could be a decent HS game once the developer fixes a few things: rework the first ~200 renders (before he changed presets I assume), proofread everything, fix rough lighting/shadows, floating items (plates in kitchen scene in the first house), change or remove unnecessary animations, and fix the glossiness of the character's skin/hair.

P.S. The font in the main menu needs to change.