VN - Ren'Py - Wild Cats [April Fool's Special] [LopaPhi]

I rarely bother reviewing anything unless the writing stands out, and here the writing definitely stands out. The characters have characterization! Even the MC - who does start out as a bit pathetic but that's important for his arc. And it's nice to see a plausible in-universe justification for women throwing themselves at the MC, namely, he is incredibly charming purely by accident. (Honestly to such an extent that it's slightly unbelievable, but it's shown not told and anyway this is a fantasy so I'll allow it.)

Really hoping this sticks with the harem theme instead of making you pick a path. That's harder to write realistically but way more rewarding.

Impressive start. 0.1 was ok, the renders are beautiful but seem a little rough. Story was good, dialog was decent but a a bit cringe.
But 0.2 was really great, maybe one of the best pure vanilla AVN i've ever played. Writing jump through the roof, from decent to outstanding. Sex scene are well made, also the renders are improved a lot. The 0.2 UI is top notch.
Highly recommend you guys to try and support this guy, really talented dev, got hell of a passion for this game.

A good writing goes a long way... You can have amazing renders or great animations, but if you don't know how to tell a story, you're screwed...
This is a great example of how storytelling can be effective; it's immersive and compelling, hooking you instantly.
In terms of graphics, it's Honey Select - not mind-blowing, but serviceable.
Don't expect a lewd fest; it's a slow burn. You'll have to get to know the girls first, and trust me, it's really enjoyable.
If you like story-driven AVNs, give it a try and enjoy the ride. I think it's worth it.

10/10 Perfect score from me.
I didn't expect this to be THAT good. The story is fresh, well written, and interesting. For 2 episodes there are quite a lot of contents already.
The girls are unique, each of them actually has their own charm and personality. I like how the dev write the characters, especially the MC. He actually got some character development instead of being the perfect guy from the start.

Can't wait to see more.

It's an excellent game.
The beginning is a bit rough - it's supposed to be. The protagonist, and several of the girls, have problems that they're compensating for with aggressive defense mechanisms to drive people away. It's part of the story, and it's executed well, so push through it. It doesn't take too long before the protagonist is an acceptable character.
The girls are great. Diverse, hot, fleshed-out. They're well developed characters.
The sexy scenes are solid, with the potential to be excellent once things go all the way.
The story is solid. I enjoyed it (once the protagonist grew up a bit), and I'm looking forward to more.

Got so invested in the story and characters I started playing with two hands instead of one.
The LI designs are amazing too, really elevated the HS models. The animations are also surprisingly good.
Currently, its lacking sex scenes (I think there are 3 as of 0.2) but I'm too interested in the story to care.
The amount of time between 0.1 and 0.2 release does make me nervous though, 5 months? I'm not sure I could wait that long again.

Review as of 0.2

Storyline and LIs are great, looking forward to future versions.

Visuals are good, 0.1 felt a bit lacking in some areas (stuff like a lot of clipping), but that was minor and 0.2 seems to have improved a lot.

Great promising game with a lot of heart put into it. The setting is interesting and the LIs are all very charming, unique and really hot. Clearly the dev had put significant effort into his work and it shows. If I were to pick something to nitpick it would be that some dialogue in episode 1 seems rather stiff, that and it would be amazing to have a high resolution, say 4k rendered version of the game.

It's very good thus far and has a decent amount of content for how early into development it is. I was already hooked from chapter one and have been checking in every so often to see if a new update had come out. All of the LIs are unique and come with their own challenges and quirks to navigate through in building both personal and coach-athlete relationships. I really look forward to how the story pans out the developer is absolutely killing it.

First impressions:

It's a good game that could easily be a great game.
The models are fantastic. The MC and the team, purposely made to be dicks, are a bit annoying but I can see why it's been done.

The story so far is at least a bit different from 90% of the other games out there so that is refreshing.

It's the technical side of things where most of my problems with the game are found. Some may be just the dev getting used to the mechanics of a new game but some seem to be purposely included.

Here they are:

The dev's decision to wash out all scenes with a sepia filter to remove colour is just baffling. Why decide to degrade the 'visual' from a visual novel?

The time delays in reading some lines is irritating. I'm no speed reader but this pause is ridiculous (yes, I have time delay set to minimum), especially when some lines are on for a micro second before zapping to the next line, and don't get me started on ....... 'click' ..... 'click' .... 'click' ... between scenes

Never been a fan of "game overs" but that is not really an issue with a walkthrough

As I said earlier, this is an good game spoiled a bit by some baffling technicial decisions that, to me, only detract from a potentially excellent game.

I highly recommend the game, but you will be irritated with it at times.

Incredible game. For being on version 0.2 the quantity of content is very good, I got through it in about 4 hours or so and I generally find I get through VNs faster than the average. The renders do have a lot of sharpness which comes off as a stylistic choice, I personally love it but it might not be everyone's thing. Aside from that, the only real complaint I could think of is every now and then a letter won't be capitalized, or there will be missing punctuation. This is a game I will happily support until it's completed.

It's a really hard game to get invested in. From reading some reviews it seems this is the best thing since animations were added to AVNs but really it's so difficult to feel anything in the beginning.

The game starts with a dude who can't do the thing anymore and must now teach the thing to get into a school. As a hook it's good and all but the issue is the characters are just unpleasant. So you're playing a game as a character who's unlikeable talking to people who have the charisma and appeal or a half brick and you're clicking along going.... why am I bothering?

The game starts with a disclaimer that the MC's attitude sucks and you should stick it out but the fact you're even being warned of this suggests there's something wrong story wise. You wouldn't have Steven Spielberg coming on before a film saying "I know Indiana Jones sleeps with a kid who's still in school when he's a teacher but he's nice, honest". It's so jarring to just be playing a game who's angry all the time. Don't get me wrong, he might have reason to be angry, he's been dealt a bad hand in life but as it's only touched upon you are left thinking he's the issue.

Another silly issue is the needless choices. There are.... 4? I think. Maybe 5 instances where the MC is getting nowhere and he goes "should I just give up" and saying yes ends the game. What's even the point of these choices? These type of choices are worse than those that just go down the same route anyway. At least with those you're making progress. Basically the game stops and goes "do you want to keep playing" and if you go "na I'm good" then it just ends. Pointless.

The supporting characters are ok but again the first three you meet are all inherently dislikeable so there's no hook to draw you in, two of the three straight up insult you. So you're questioning whether to keep going or to just cash out. There's no warmth, there's no chemistry. There's just an angry dude speaking to angry women and that's it? Like maybe later it'll get good but will anyone keep at it to get there

Give up?
Yeah sure, why not.

Its Very good VN so far and its quite promising to be one of the best stories .
Moreover the title is very fitting indeed, visuals are very good (though they need some polishing especially near the hair) and the story is quite interesting and nice.
MC is quite good and i can see the character development and the inner struggle even in 1 chapter.
The LI are beautiful ,unique and yea wild cats ..... (Mc gonna have a hard time)
Thankfully is Harem because the choices are many and diffucult... though personally im gonna go for Eve and Zoe for sure and perhaps Lexi and Saki.
Moreover i don't see any lesbian tag and i personally liked this (i hope though if there is any change in the future to be optional)
Nonetheless i believe if it continue like this it would become a great VN and personally i enjoyed it a lot.
Highly recommended and i cant wait for the next chapter.

The game looks great. The developer clearly is pushing the Honey Select 2 engine to its fullest capacity and the results are very nice. The writing is good and all the characters are likeable.

0.2 took a leap that was I was very glad to see and it looks like the story is progressing along nicely. Can't wait for the next update!

A really well-written story, great renders, hot scenes, and no grinding. Everything you want from a great AVN. It's rare you see this good writing in actual sports movies or anime. Really looking forward to next updates!

Sports based AVN and it's executed well. Good looking renders and girls. All got their own personalities. Story moving in good pace too. On the lewd part it's slowburn another plus for me. I'm a huge haikyuu fan so I'm glad volleyball is getting attention here. Hoping to see intense matches later in the game.

+ Story
+ Visuals
+ Girls with unique personalities
+ Mc ( he ain't a creep )
+ Sports based

Keep up the good work dev looking forward to next updates

Review for v0.1.1

Sports-based AVNs are a genre I'd like to see more of, and it seems like Wild Cats might fill that particular craving I've been having for one. The previews and concept of being a coach for a volleyball team are what drew me in, but what I didn't quite expect is just how deep the writing gets in regards to the characters.

That's not to necessarily say this is a literary masterpiece, but it would have been easier to throw together a basic underdog story with some quirky girls and call it there. The game takes that deeper though, and lets the characters have real flaws and conflicts with the MC, the MC being a very flawed individual himself. And while I do think some of the dialogue and story beats are perhaps a bit on the unrealistic/played up side, there's still a lot personality shining through that's essentially capturing me into wanting to play more of this.

The overview gives you a decent idea of what to expect, but this really is a rising from the ashes story more than anything. The volleyball team your future now resides on coaching isn't just some group of diamond in the rough players you have to train up, it practically doesn't even exist. As the game puts it, you're starting from rock bottom. Your first task is getting the few players on the roster to actually train, which becomes rather monumental task itself.

What makes that task harder is the MC shooting himself in the foot left and right, which clues you into his character flaw. Truthfully this is an aspect I'm pretty mixed on. While it is nice to see a character have flaws and have to deal with real conflict, I've never been a huge fan of making MCs purposely unlikable. That's kind of what this game does, and I mean it's working, but not necessarily in a way where it's making me want to see him fix himself and succeed if that makes any sense. Rather, it's just a bit annoying? After the MC has a career ending injury and seemingly spends a year of his life crashing out, we learn the main consequence of that is he now doesn't have much of a filter and is kind of an asshole. He actively makes his own life harder by being a dick, which to be fair he recognizes and attempts to fix.

I think my problem is stemming from the fact that we don't really see any of his struggles portrayed to justify the way he is now. We kinda get a time skip where the games tells you "yeah the MC went through some shit" but we don't actually see that, which makes him hard to empathize with for me. That being said, when he's not an asshole, I'm liking his character and how he's trying to dedicate himself to this coaching thing (mostly for his benefit right now, but I'm sure it will grow). There's a couple cheesy/cringe lines here and there too but that's just being nitpicky.

I like the girls a lot too actually, partly for the fact that they don't let the MC walk all over them when he's being a dick and actively oppose him at points because of it. Which again he deserves and even gets a punch in the mouth for. It's surprisingly realistic in that way. It's not just the common AVN trope of the girls immediately falling for him and doing what he says because he has "something special." We get focus on some more than others, but they're all endearing in their own ways. Enough for me to want to see more of them anyway.

It's got a lot of other solid AVN staples like music and sound, plus the renders and character designs have a pretty unique feel to them. Some of the renders are pretty grainy or low quality maybe is the word, but the core part of them is good if that makes sense. Like they look good but need touch ups. There's also some very good animations not just for sex scenes but for moments like volleyball stuff as well. All great things to have. I have some smaller complaints, like the choices and bad ends being kinda pointless, but nothing so bad as to really go into a rant about.

All in all it's still early but this is a very good start. I'm pretty eager to get to the point where they actually start practicing and playing volleyball, but this is almost a slow burn in that it's taking time to really detail the girls before getting there. We're in the problem solving stage where we gotta deal with outside factors to get the team together in the first place. I do hope this doesn't forget it's a volleyball AVN down the line though, because as much as I'm here for the sex, I'm also equally here for a good volleyball story. I want to see them succeed man.

To be honest, despite the moderate amount of content it has which is understandable since it is the initial release, my experience was quite good. Each characters felt so real and distinctive from each other. Even MC got a troublesome past and it is refreshing to see how he is struggling with his personality and trying to overcome it. A must try AVN if you play for the story.

After scrolling through dozen of games and becoming an Idol Manager to being teleported to a house in the rift and another realm with baddies that has qi, enrolling to a new school abroad just to become an op newbie in a vr, to surviving an apocalypse with two sisters and now becoming a women's volleyball coach but with a bad temper seems great.

Quite ballsy to make the main character with such a severe flaw in a genre filled with wish fulfilment fantasies and perfect protagonists.

There is only one time where I found him too whiny, the scene where Desirée tries to help him, where it just went for a bit too long. I am otherwise okay with it. It gives room for him to improve as a character and makes the story have a bit more depth. It's great.

Off to a good start, keep up with it.