Ren'Py - Rebel Duet [v0.11] [ionDivvy]

The art looks nice enough and is what brought me in.

The dialogue is... clumsy. It was really bothering me for a little while, since I couldn't place exactly why, but then I realized: the game directly quotes poorly translated JVNs constantly. I don't know why, because the English is overall fine. But then you get hit by a line or two which feel like they were pulled straight from JVeNglish. It's somehow worse than when everything is written like that, because it mostly isn't.

For example, something along the lines of "you want to do... that?" (If you know, you know) Can't be bothered to go find specific examples, but the sex scenes in particular are full of it. I half expected someone to say "h stuff."

Generally speaking there just isn't much good to be said for the writing. Relatively few of the scenes really advance the plot, insofar as there even is one. It kinda just wanders, with a lot of time and effort having been put into some generic sword training scene or something which doesn't achieve anything and doesn't feel believable.

Overall it's fine. The sex scenes have some variety if you can get past the writing. The art is overall better than average. But I ended up putting it down before hitting the end of the current content, just because there's nothing to keep me engaged.

v0.4b

tl;dr - Its worth checking out right now and checking back on when it has some more content developed.

It can hardly be called a game just yet. Aside from the length of expositional dumps, there really isn't much actual gameplay. It is, however, a rather well assembled tech demo.

The Dev has clearly put a lot of work into this concept and it shows. The renders used in the game are, on the whole, fairly impressive. The story is a little cliche, but is largely internally consistent. They even managed to avoid falling victim to the 'talking head' trope when trying to introduce setting and context.

I really appreciated having a choice of gender for the protagonist, even if the changes to the script for this were minimal. My biggest complaint is the 'protagonists hidden backstory' that gets dropped in at places. With no context, its a little jarring.

I also love that the Dev is active on the threads discussing where the game is going. This is a double edged sword though. Lofty ambitions have brought many a game to its knees and time spent answering and discussing these plans is time not spent actually doing it. So on that end, time will tell.

First VN since Ethereum where I find myself not being able to wait for more to be released<3 Sure there is little instances where you will think to yourself it could be slightly better, but the setting, themes, animation, and story is GOLD. If you are a fan of magic then you will love it. I would also like to say it is perfectly balanced in its themes and story as-well. I am not sure why I have read here that is is awkward... I never felt that way about it lol. Also you can choose to be a male or female MC, I chose the Female path.

Version 0.4b

First Impression:
I went into the game intrigued by the setup. Fantasy setting with Succubus summoning but Uno reverse sounds like just up my alley. And the game just wasn't what I was expecting.
In short: The entire game feels so plastic, artificial. Story, setting, characters, even the visuals. It's like witnessing someone playing with virtual dolls in a fantasy dollhouse. It's hard to describe.

Visuals and characters:
The visuals are its biggest strength if you don't mind the porcellan skin art style. It does fit the vibe I'm getting from the game. Spellcasting looks gorgeous though a bit too flashy for my taste.

I could look past the doll aspect if the rest of the characters, their motives, expressions and emotes were more human-like, or at least interesting. They're not; these characters emote and behave weirdly.
For example, once you're thrown into the fantasy world that's basically it. The MC and succubus girl take all of it in stride. Like, why does the MC not interrogate the living crap out of the succubus? Why not confront her with succubus folklore - you know, souls, sex? Why do they barely react to the entire thing?

Then there's the expressions: succubus girl constantly looks at you (especially in the early game) in this lifeless like kind of way. It never felt quite right to me.
Then there's a lot of disconnect between facial expressions and what's currently happening to the characters. I don't think it's intentional for succubi and regular people to be so nonchalant and unfazed by everything all the time. Succubus girl in particular just comes across as unintentionally alien. However, tt does get a bit better with time.

Scenes:
The bond between the MC and succubus girl starts off weird. But I can at least turn my brain off for long enough to accept the scenes on their own. It's not exceedingly well written, but good enough to be enjoyable. Sex scenes are a bit generic but there's a large variety on offer in the "training" scenes. Overall it's alright. If you dig the look it's even good.

Gameplay aspects:
The game allows you to choose between a male or female MC as well as an overall approach to situations or maybe description of your character. If there are forks in the paths I have not noticed nor tried.
There were only a few choices thus far. Most are fairly self-explanatory in what they'll entail whether you play with the walkthrough mod or not.
Not sure what the deal with the corruption vs. love and dom vs. sub stats is - it's so infrequent I'm inclined to think it will never be of great relevance beyond a couple of scenes.

Setting and Story:
Don't go into this expecting any sort of interesting world or setting. There's setup and lots of fantastical words being thrown around. But it never clicks, the game never feels authentic. For example there are no establishing shots of the places we move in that I can recall. Instead we get loads of close ups. Many of the daily life stuff you'd expect to happen in a fantasy setting just don't and the camera is always so close on Succ girl and at tops a single other NPC that the entire city comes across as incredibly empty, undetailed and or desolate.

Concepts, especially magic, are introduced whenever it fits the current narrative - which I personally despise like the plague. It's not to the level of japanese magic fantasy - the "hurr-hurr I cast a spell on you that does this and that to you and cannot be undone unless this and that happens" dialog - but it is noticeable and crops up often enough that it bothered me strongly.

I don't have much to say about the plot. It is there, builds a mystery and has some flashback, flashforward and flashsideways(?) moments. I wasn't really that invested since the dialog isn't particularly strong and the setting is as it is. It also doesn't help that the MC is neither particularly likeable nor interesting.

Conclusion:
If you dig the look you'll probably enjoy it well enough for the sex scenes. The story idea is interesting, but it just doesn't follow through. And it's not porn-logic, whacky or horny enough to redeem itself that way.

This is a review of v0.3.

I am in many ways impressed by the game at this time. Character visuals are some of the best I've seen, though environments can sometimes be overly bright or undetailed, standing out sorely in comparison. Above all, the ability to play as either a male or female protagonist is just something I wish far more games would offer.

I do have several complaints about it however.

Foremost, the MC's dialogue is very...wimpy is the best way to put it, I think. They constantly stutter or awkwardly laugh at even simple statements, which is actually pretty cringe-inducing. I understand they're in an unusual situation, but I would feel better if I could portray them with the confidence to understand what needs to be done and work towards it, which I don't currently feel is possible at all. Truth be told, I actually feel the MC is portrayed in a rather poor light, as they don't have even a single moment in this version where they show themselves to be useful, convincing me that an accidental hemispherectomy took place and Valerie left half the MC's brain on their apartment floor. They seem to be completely incapable of reasoning through or reacting to situations, and the story as a whole suffers greatly for it. It's to the point where I considered doing a rewrite mod to address it, but the game is pretty early in development so it hardly sounded worth it at this time.

Secondly, the knowledge gap. This sort of relates to the MC's dialogue, but they often don't seem to be familiar with terms I'd expect them to be. You will never convince me that they know what "cosplay" is but haven't heard of the idea of "parallel worlds", those are pretty intertwined in modern circles.

Besides these, I noticed some fairly minor things as well.

There are a couple screens where the MC fully outstretches their arm (such as the "give nipple pinch"). These look very odd, the bend of the arm is completely unnatural.

Additionally, following the , where the MC and Valerie are talking inside their home, there's one frame where Valerie's hairstyle suddenly changes (I chose her pigtails as my preferred hairstyle, but in that one frame it's suddenly a pony tail, then goes back).

There are some inconsistencies between scenes too. For instance, during the sword training, the MC is shown to wield the sword with their right hand...but the sword is later shown strapped to their right hip, as though wielded in their left. The sword then reverses itself entirely when the MC and Valerie are walking through the woods, in a way that would make it completely impossible to draw. It's incredibly jarring.

A slight bug I noticed. During your first night in the house, the game tells you that you can choose 5 sexual acts per night, but I was only ever able to choose up to 4.

If the game continues to maintain the visual quality that it possesses now, but improves upon the dialogue and presents the MC as a non-lobotomized character, I can see this game being a 5 star.

A game with a good story and who is bad and who is good, a demon or a witch ? and why ? what is the story behind the witch ? is it possible to chance her mind ? for me good questions but i will see how the story continue. i like the bound between the MC( i choice female ) and the succubus (maybye the MC fall in love ), good scenes and good pictures .the succubus is more like a bodyguard but maybye the MC learn to defense himself and help the succubus more by the fights, i say very intersting the progress and a great potential of the game too or perhaps i thinking wrong, i will see.

I'm not going to give a full mark on this one, mostly because of the sex scenes.

Don't get me wrong, they look fine, however, the story will have you redo them several times, and more than likely this is going to keep happening as it's an integral part of the story. The problem being: after you've seen them once, it's just becoming a chore. After you've done all the positions and choices of the main action, redoing them over and over every couple of days, just brings nothing new for the player.
Seeing as they've got a counter as well (up to 100, everytime gives you a couple more points in that position), this is going to be something going on for a very long time more than likely.

A skip button once we've seen them all, would probably be an improvement in my opinion, as this is just going to be boring very quickly.

The story and renders however, are really above average.
The writing's fine, the story's fine, the characters are above the usual stuff we see as well.

This game certainly has some potential, but the dev really need to think about the near daily sex interaction bit in my opinion.

I'd still recommend this game despite the sex "grind".

review for 0.6 (played as female protag)

one of my favorite lesbian games so far, hot main LI, pretty good renders and it has animations (even if it is just one small animation in each scene i appreciate every lesbian game that does at least have animations) story seems pretty good so far compared to the devs first game so i hope it continues like this bc it has a ton of potential to become a great game for the pure lesbian niche genre.

edited the rating for version 0.8 (-1 star) because it feels like a lot of possible scenes between the mc and some other protagonists are dragged out by endless teasing and conversations without any relationship improvment

Not much here so far, but the writing is already really good and the renders are fantastic. There's not much story wise yet but it seems to be promising. The only thing that could be negative is the "training" system which might not be very good as you can end up just repeating multiple scenes over and over, and even the dialogue in them is the exact same. Aside from that, it looks like it will be a great game.

The game is still in its very early stages but shows a lot of promise.

I'm really intrigued by the "training" mechanic for the MC and Val. I also like that you start out with some reasonable options rather than being forced to work your way through seemingly infinite handjobs (as some other games do).

So far, one of the best fleshed out story lines for a beginning game. and one of a handful games waiting to see what happens next. Has huge potential with the multiple countries and cultures. very ambitious and hoping it stays around. Not too many choices right now but with establishing the characters and the world kind of makes sense. Potentially huge decision with the last available option in this version. it did feel like the choices I made in the beginning of my character did affect my story.

Absolutly LOVED this.. as a writer myself i long ago penned a similar story with a crossing between the real and fantasy realms so this was a fun reminder of that work..
I love the characters so far and the visuals are pretty stunning at times..
Hope this one gets the support it needs and the writer can deliver on what could be a really good VN