Recommending List of Story-first Games with a good pace of meaninful choices

[jarbas404]

I recently realized that I really enjoy a very specific type of game (usually VNs) that mixes three aspects:

• story-first (building charismatic and consistent characters who drive the experience, not just serve as simplified bridges to forced lewd scenes that don't add to the story)
• choices that matter (the use of choices that frequently generate a relevant immediate and long-term impact on the characters and the story)
• frequent choices with a balanced pace (the interval between choices is not too long, even if they don't have a great impact, so you don't have tons of linear content between one choice and another)

There are great threads here that compile story-first games and games with choices that matter. It's just that, sometimes, I see someone saying “wow, this VN has an amazing story, full of routes”, but I get frustrated when I play, and it takes so long before I can choose something in the game. Other times, “hey, this game has lots of choices and replay”, but they only have an immediate impact in the lewd scenes or the characters are flat and uninteresting.

So I'm going to leave here the VNs that I've played and consider reaching a satisfactory balance in this trio of aspects (and I'll update when I discover more or remember the ones I've played a long time ago), because I think it's unfortunately not easy to find them easily. I also invite anyone who wants to make a comment about their suggestions for VNs that also fit in. I'd appreciate it (please, only games without loli/minors or non-consensual sexual violence). I won't include games that are already considered abandoned.

Games that I think fit these criteria:

• Acting Lessons [Complete - My review here]
• Alpha Omega [In progress - My review here]
• Our Red String [In progress - My review here]
• Saving Chloe [Complete - My review here]

The "almost" games:

• The Night Driver [In progress - My review here]
• Shards of the Past [In progress - My review here]

 

[Typhu]

Cool list, might check some of these games out.

My personal recommendation to try would be https://thef95zone.info/threads/crimson-gray-final-sierra-lee.3739/ - there's not that much H content in there though, with the main focus being on the plot and mystery aspects of it.

 

[jarbas404]

Cool list, might check some of these games out.

My personal recommendation to try would be https://thef95zone.info/threads/crimson-gray-final-sierra-lee.3739/ - there's not that much H content in there though, with the main focus being on the plot and mystery aspects of it.

Thanks! I will try it, for sure!

I'll take the opportunity to give a more in-depth description of the games I've already listed:

Acting Lessons is a game that certainly surprises with the result of its choices. The story has a few inconsistent points, which end up coming up against the construction of the characters, but even so the characters are not artificial, and are greatly impacted by the decisions. The different outcomes are certainly the strongest point here, and that's where the story surprises, because towards the end it reaches a depth in turning points that greatly enrich the experience. Overall, even with its flaws, it certainly hits the trio of criteria well.

Alpha Omega was a game that really surprised me. The premise of it being a game about “muscular and fit bodies” gives the idea that the story is going to be generic, only serving to use models according to this type of content. However, right from the start you can see that the characters are very charismatic, and the subject of fitness is practically left out of the dialog and relationships between them. In other words, the story definitely matters. The pace at which the characters develop is very satisfying, neither too fast nor too long. This makes the balance of choices VERY pleasant, not least because the game features constant decisions, and they usually have some impact on the dialog and scenes, even though there are often clearly dominant choices (but it's a lot of fun to explore some of the less dominant ones). The routes are very clear and coherent, which makes you want to replay the game and see what happens. As far as version 4.1 goes, it looks like a very promising game that does well on all three criteria.

Our Red String is the icing on the cake here. It's been a long time since I've played such a satisfying, fast-paced and dynamic VN. With a large number of characters (including those with whom it is possible to have a relationship), the game makes a lot of decisions about how we want to relate to them, and demonstrates the responses to these choices in a very fluid way. This happens both in the personality of these characters, in relation to the MC and other characters, and also in their looks, which is really nice. So, even at points where we spend a little more time without choices, the fact that we can clearly see that what we chose before has had an impact on the experience and on the details of the scene totally makes up for it. The impact of the choices can shape the experience according to what you expect, being more vanilla, more “datesim”, more fetishistic, etc. What's more, it's one of the few games I've played with the music on, because it's very pleasant and varied, and helps tell the story. Up to version 13.3, it's a great example of these three criteria combined.

The Night Driver, on the other hand, almost meets the criteria, because it's a great game, the story is relatively thought-provoking (although not very deep), the choices are reasonably interesting, but at a certain point it seems that the consistency is lost a little. But that could be because the game is still being developed (version 1.3), and that works for some undisclosed purpose. But it's certainly a game to keep an eye on, it has a lot of potential, as well as extremely beautiful artwork.

 

[jarbas404]

My personal recommendation to try would be https://thef95zone.info/threads/crimson-gray-final-sierra-lee.3739/ - there's not that much H content in there though, with the main focus being on the plot and mystery aspects of it.

To be honest, I tried it and I didn't like it very much. The thriller proposal is interesting (I don't know much about the themes of depression, so I don't know how credible the references are), and the choices lead to very different outcomes, but sometimes the choice and outcome are a bit arbitrary. And sometimes a veeery long time passes between one choice and another. Although the game is short in order to favor replay, it didn't appeal to me that much to play it over and over again, there comes a time when the results of different choices and situations don't vary that much.

But the determining factor for me not liking the game was this: the fact that they were high school students bothered me a lot, I find this kind of story with minors very problematic (even though this game only included a few lewd scenes, and I have no idea why they included them, it would have worked better without them), so for me that's a big no-no.

Changing the subject a little, now I'm looking forward to trying out The Missing Part, it sounds very interesting.

[EDIT: I've played “The Missing Part” and so far it's a good story, full of clichés, but well used. It's very narrative-focused, and although it uses sensuality in a rather commonplace way in some scenes, there seems to be an attempt to make the lewd scenes well contextualized. But the game definitely doesn't focus on interactivity, the choices only lead to or avoid routes that (at least until Chapter 2) don't self-exclude, so it still doesn't feel like the choices really have an impact on the construction of the story. It's worth playing for the story, but it definitely doesn't fit the trio of criteria here at all.]

 

[jarbas404]

I've added another game to the list, Saving Chloe, which is the fourth and final game in a series referred to as “Chloe's Elsaverse” (in order,

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, and this one).

To play “Saving Chloe”, you have to play the other 3 games previously, in order, otherwise it doesn't make sense. Its story is very good, and intertwines with the other 3 stories (which also intertwine with each other), creating multiple cool references. But of the 4, this seems to me to be the only game that really fits all three criteria, while the others (especially the second one) “almost” do.

All 4 games have a very good sequence of choices, with an excellent pace, but in the gameplay of “Dreaming with Elsa” they don't seem to have such a big impact on the characters and the course of the story, but rather connect to the sensual scenes (although, yes, this does help to build and understand the character better and introduce the universe), and often seems a bit silly and biased. In addition, the VN has a points system that works well, but initially confuses rather than helps. “Redemption for Jessika” advances in quality, with very interesting character and story building, but it still doesn't reach its full potential, once again with the points system not really helping with the impact of choices on character building. “Finding Miranda” at least makes explicit the impact of the points system on the progress of the story, but this is still much more related to sensual scenes than to the construction of the characters and the story, and now it's clearer. However, it's still an excellent story, with great writing and interesting characters, apart from the fact that it's fairly linear in its choices.

And then comes “Saving Chloe”, which finally abandons the points system and moves on to a much more qualitative approach to decision-making. Perhaps it's a coincidence, but by changing this system, in this VN you can feel much more responsible for building the relationship between the characters, through the choices you make. And the story is VERY satisfying, with very interesting and intuitive routes and directions, which lead you to replay the game and look for the canonical ending intuitively, without having to do it “by force”. There's more to say, but as this game is the end of the series, going any further than that could lead to spoilers. They're short games, you can replay them without taking up too much time, and it's definitely worth playing all four in order to reach this fourth game.

 

[jarbas404]

I'm going to post here in this topic reviews of a few more games that I'm including on the list:

Shards of the Past (v0.3.1) is an interesting VN with a medieval theme, but keeping a fair use of the clichés of the genre. It's very story-centered, and doesn't feel like it's going to have forced lewd scenes; it gives the impression that they're going to be more rare and well-integrated. Choices matter, and some of them can have a big impact on the experience of the story (even if they don't lead too far down the path of the story), which is very satisfying. However, there could be more frequent choices, at least ones that reflect the dialog more, the game has the potential for that. That's why it's been put on the “almost” list, but in the hope that in future versions the pace of choices will be better.