Ren'Py - Destiny's Embrace [v0.4.1] [yqmo]

There are VNs with overpowered Gary Stu protagonists who have everything go there way and always respond in an ideal manner to every situation. And then there's this game, which takes it to such an extreme that it pretty much becomes parody, yet nails the vibe so well that it provides a hilarious and enjoyable read.

Destiny's Embrace has a similar core premise to other harem VNs with a fantasy setting, some focus around an "adventurer's guild", and a protagonist with some sort of great destiny. I can think of at least two other Koikatsu VNs with a similar premise off the top of my head; I can't explicitly state them due to cross-promotion review rules but I wonder how many reading this could guess them if I described them as: "VN: A" - also really good, but starts with an isekai, and has a more oriental vibe, and "VN: B" - basically abandoned despite raking in massive Patreon dollars. I can say that while I like the VN described in "VN: A" too, this one is already impressing me in similar ways despite much less content, and so far is more over-the-top and has a bit of a (light) maledom leaning.

There hasn't been enough interaction with all the characters yet to have a strong opinion on them, but the typical "harem" trope of girls falling in love insanely fast is exaggerated to the point where it becomes funny (in a good way). Most characters are likable enough so far, but I can't comment too much on their uniqueness or depth until there's more to read from each of them.

The visuals are excellent for Koikatsu - no weakness with aliasing or low resolution that lesser Koikatsu games suffer from. There are some unique textures and shaders in use that give the characters a different style than a lot of other Koikatsu games as well. While the character designs are quite unique across the cast, I admit I wasn't the biggest fan of them at first, but they grew on me as I played more. The backgrounds are mostly stuff I've seen from asset packs, but they are customized enough to add some interest (eg. lots of colorful characters walking around in the city, and such).

It's too early to say much about H-animations, but they are custom, and mostly decent so far (the first one was a bit stilted, but that may have been intentional as it was the protagonist's "first time") - there havent't been a wide enough variety of positions/scenes to judge it too much positively or negatively yet though.

I like the music selection a lot, and none of them are tracks I commonly hear in other VNs. They're mostly chill or upbeat tracks that are a good fit for their scenes, and the often over-the-top and humorous vibe the VN gives.

I'm not normally the biggest fan of the click-directions-or-doors-to-navigate style sandbox VNs, but so far it's fairly unobtrusive - hopefully it doesn't become too annoying later. I'd recommend the dev uses it sparingly, and only enough to get any additional desired scenes/dialogues across, as I am far from alone in the dislike for this kind of sandbox.

This is an very promising new Koikatsu VN and quite underrated in my opinion (not many Patreon subs yet) - I wish the author luck and hope the traction and support pick up quickly.

One of the only games I've played where I could tell you every anime the developer has watched recently without any being explicitly mentioned.

It is absolutely littered with anime concepts and tropes, the most prevalent obviously being JJK (you literally have a genderbent sukuna named suku living in your body). I personally don't mind this too much but could see this turning some people off.

Overall, I'd say the story is an average power fantasy / comedy with very VERY heavy anime inspiration. I personally think it goes a bit too hard with this and could use some more originality.

Character designs, models, and animations are solid. Definitely better than your average Koikatsu game but not the best either. Sexual content seems like it will be quite frequent considering there's already a decent number of scenes when the story is still in the intro phase. You won't be going through 10 hours of dialogue to get a blowjob here which is a plus for me.

TLDR: play it if you like a power fantasy with plenty of maledom

Let it be clear that this is absolutely a power fantasy, so if you don't enjoy that type of story, this is not for you.
Still, I don't believe being a power fantasy is any reason to judge this game better or worse than it is, as power fantasy is really just a genre like any other.

That said, let's get to the things I would judge this on.
First of all renders are okay, nothing top notch or reality bending, but neither do I want to blow my brains out, so that's nice.
Animations are good, there's actually some rippling here and there, which is actually quite rare.
story is okay, nothing ground breaking, but its there to support the power fantasy, and in that perspective it does its job well.
The only LI's that's really been given any time to be be judged are Dalmata and the lust goddess, who are both likeable enough.

I also have a neutral point, which is that the MC's power seems to be rising at an exponential rate. I mean, the game feels like its barely begun, but by the end of the current update he's already on par with some of the highest echelon of sorcerers in the elven Empire. So how much story and character progression will there be left to tell? So far, it feels like he'll have the power to end everything with a snap of his fingers in another two or three updates.
But, maybe the dev has some plans still.

Now for the bad, the intro is a little all over the place. First, it talks about Empires, than it talks about Kingdoms, than it talks about cities. Apparently the demons attacked the empire, there was an explosion at the city gates, and the entire kingdom was alerted. I mean, I got the point, but it was still confusing as hell.
The MC is mostly okay, I like his relatively laid back attitude. What I don't like is how he constantly tried to refuse Dalmata's service. I mean, its fine when you say it once, but you don't need to keep hammering on it. He made it clear to Dalmata where he stood, Dalmata insisted, MC relented. That should have really been the end of it, but there was a whole bunch more that followed, and it got a little annoying.

Review for update: 0.4.1

Destiny's Embrace offers a interesting experience with its well woven story and plot, appealing to both nutzoomers and novel enjoyers.

• Unique (and honestly good) Storyline: The game excels in blending an engaging narrative that keeps players hooked from start to finish. The unique and interesting plot unfolds in a decent manner, drawing players into the world that yqmo has created.
  
  
• Pacing and Engagement: One of the game's strengths lies in its ability to maintain a decent pace, ensuring that we remain interested throughout the story.
  
  
• World Building: Destiny's Embrace really pulls you into its world, i personally feel like in a anime world when i read it and that's basically the biggest selling point for me.
  
  It does lacks a substantial amount of content. However, this should not deter anyone from experiencing this game. It's unique storytelling, well crafted plot and great world-building (so far) we see a foundation for a successful game that, I wish to see personally reach greater audience.
  
  That's all, thanks for reading so far, i rarely write reviews but i felt this game should deserve one, especially in it's current stage. Just keep it up yqmo, honestly you deserve this game to blow up (positively.)
  
  cheers, gown <3

[0.4.1 Review]

This game is quite good. Character models are great, H scenes are great and have a lot of detail in them. There isn't really enough content for me to judge the characters properly yet but they seem decent and the main character is pretty good (for being one of those mega overpowered main characters). The developer states at the start that English isn't his first language, and there were some points where I could see that being the case, but I probably wouldn't have noticed if he didn't mention it, so overall the writing is fine.

The amount of current content is promising for the time it's been in development, but in my opinion there still currently isn't enough to warrant a playthrough since it hasn't even entered the open world section yet (developer says soon, though).

It does a great job of explaining events and actions like a battle shounen, but it can go a little bit in to the over-explain-y side. If I had to gauge the game between being too obtuse, perfect, or being too verbose, I'd put it almost perfect, slightly leaning towards explaining too much. This isn't as much of a complaint as it is a light critique since I do appreciate thought being put in to the action sequences.

Overall great game that shows promise.

Really impressive considering this is the developers first game. I enjoyed it a lot, its a fun harem game with a power fantasy attached. The game is kinda short so it's too early to be sure but I like the characters and the MC's personality is good as well. Only thing I don't like is the inclusion of a woman who "willingly" and "happily" becomes the main characters servant I really don't like this trope. Especially when she could have just become an adventuring companion instead, it would not have have changed much. the only point of a relationship like that is so the main character can have a slave while side stepping the obvious problems with that. But that's more of a personal preference not an actual problem with the game. its great and if the dev maintains this quality I am looking forward to more

Very interesting so far, despite being the first game of the dev, the characters and animations look very well-made.

Good parts:

• Good looking girls
• MC that isn't a faggot or weak
• No bullshit and blue balling
• Dev is based and the game has promise

Bad parts:

• Few content because it's a new release
• The prologue is just text and name-drops so many characters and places that I had no clue what is what without an image reference.
• The navigation is a bit trial and error

Overall, this is a very nice game so far, and I enjoyed it a lot. I can't wait to see it grow.

Preliminarily 5 star for promise. As it stands right now the game is more of a high 3 star, low 4 star, but the issues can be very easily corrected, and the game has a lot of upside.

To the Dev:
Really great character models! I'm loving the extra curvy nature of many of them, and looking forward to more unique looking characters in the future.
Suggestions:
The prologue is a killer, and not in the good way. It'sVERY long, which is fine, but it's a black screen the entire time. My advice: Get rid of it. Let everything come about naturally through storytelling. Prologues are almost never needed in storytelling. If you DON'T want to do that, fill the prologue with interesting images of what's being told, rather than a blank screen. Personally I feel the quicker you can get the player into the story, the better. In that same vein, please lower the "I'm the creator of the game and here's a big preamble" portion at the beginning of the game considerably. This early on in development (in my opinion) your soul focus should be getting as many people into the meat of the game as possible, and overly long intros and black screen prologues will damage those numbers.

I strongly recommend the above, but for the below, these are just my personal preferences.
Sandbox: This game doesn't feel like it needs one. I feel like having some simple choices, maybe on which content the player sees first, that kind of thing, would be better overall, and might be a quicker and easier development cycle for you. I dunno, never developed in Ren'Py.
If you don't want to change to a VN model, my recommendation is to really make sure you're throwing in a ton of spicy content. If you're going to introduce a sandbox, having it to where almost every 'endpoint' of a chain of clicks ends in sexy stuff is crucial. In my opinion, having a sandbox just means that the creator has to include MUCH more sexy content in order for the average user to feel it's worthwhile.
Also, please make the buttons bigger, or at least the clickable part of them. Keep the arrows as they are, just make big clickable invisible squares around them to click, to make navigation easier.

All in all, please don't get discouraged, I have high hopes for the content, and hope you excel. If you're not the dev and are reading this review, please go support the dev!

Story is a bit predictable but I like this genre of fiction so I'm down for the ride. Characters are my type of curvy but those who prefer a more realistic body type probably won't enjoy them. Down to see where this goes and if you like power fantasy anime you might be interested as well.

Review for v0.1.0

Well, it's clear the dev watches a lot of anime. This game is very blatantly inspired by a combination of ones I recognize and likely more I don't. Truthfully I expected this to be that kind of cringe anime bullshit you sometimes see with Koikatsu games, but honestly? This was fun so far.

Now there's definitely a lot of anime bullshit here (which don't get me wrong, I can get into it when done right), so if that's not your thing you probably won't like this. It's a pretty standard harem sandbox power fantasy thus far. Almost every element of this I've seen done in another AVN, but it's quality enough that I don't mind it. I'm very glad this game doesn't try to take itself super seriously either.

Our characters motivation? Become the strongest (kinda already is?) and build a harem. I can get behind that. The character models are hot, the one sex scene was good, the action scene was fun, and the MC isn't mega cringe as it sometimes tends to happen with Koikatsu games.

Not much to say about the sandbox given there's just not much to do with it yet. UI needs some work, and when the game expands more I'd hope to see QOL elements like quick travel. The dev mentions English isn't their native language, and while some lines give it away, honestly the English is pretty solid overall.

Edit: according to a recent update my original complaint about the prologue has been addressed and it actually got rendered out. Nice. Gonna leave the original text in here until I update this review properly (whenever I get around to playing this again).

Not exactly original, but this fits the bill for a decent harem game thus far. Pretty good first release for a new dev too all things considered. Looking forward to seeing where updates take this.

Pretty good plot, albeit cliche or mabe the right words for it is its a classic but anywho...

Art is good, characters are inspired by some familiar looking anime girls which one would want to bang

The animation though have some flaws, but honestly having things animated than not, is already a good thing.... Yep my standards loww asff

Mc acts like the main character of JJK, but that's probably also where its inspired, but overall not bad

Let's pop this review cherry!

This is dev's first game so I cannot even fathom how good they are gonna get cuz what they presented so far deserves every ounce of my praise. I'll try my best to update my review for future releases to reflect the game's condition.

Pros:

1. MC is badass sweetie (bad for the baddies and sweet for the sweeties )
2. Writing is really good for an adventure-driven plot. It's very lighthearted with cleverly crafted comical moments with the usage of perfect sound effect and lighting.
3. Sandbox elements, UI, map, and choices are clean and simple
4. Action scenes are BADASS (super cool sound effects and animations and all)
   
5. H-scenes are heavenly animated for this artstyle
6. Renders are clean and beautiful. They look quite unique too.
7. Musical pieces are banger, especially for fight scenes.
8. Plot is generic but very nicely established (basically an orphan prince looking to get back what he deserves while meeting beauties along the ways).

Suggestions: I usually have this section as "cons" however this early release is so polished that I'm stumped and can't find any cons. So I'm changing it to suggestions and adding things that I'll enjoy if added.

1. I'm a proud handholding, pat-giving, hug seeking, kiss-loving fucko. So give me more wholesome! Repeatable actions would be lovely.
2. Rollback settings in UI would be good. Some devs also heavily customize settings GUI to match game's theme so you could try that.
3. Some kind of lore page that explains the spells, kingdom etc.

Verdict: Abso-fucking-lutely pick this up. It's around 30 min for first release but it's very well done so I definitely think you'll enjoy it.

(Insert Palpatine Voice) We will watch your career with great interest....