VN - Ren'Py - Hillside [v0.15 First Half] [DarkBlue]

Hillside is a game that strikes a balance between great graphics and an engaging storyline. It's evident that the developers have put thought into crafting a vibrant setting that breathes life into the game. With a substantial amount of content already available, the game offers a sense of progression in the character arcs that have kept me thoroughly engaged. What's especially noteworthy is that the game doesn't rely on filler conversations to artificially prolong it. Instead, it adeptly transitions between scenes, allowing for a brisk and enjoyable pace.

However, my major concern lies in the adult content side. While the narrative has been built up for moments of intimacy later in the game with the main female protagonist, the scenes thus far have been lacking, both in quantity and quality with the side characters. At this point, the primary draw is the storyline itself, as even the teasing moments prove to be more enticing than the actual intimate encounters. In anticipation of future developments, I sincerely hope the developers can enhance these scenes, ensuring that they truly capture the essence of intimacy when the time comes for Charlotte to shine. That's the missing piece for an otherwise promising game.

Review of 0.14

I'll start this review off with a clarification that this is an absolutely excellent adult game, NOT a mindless porn game. If you're just looking for a game to CRTL through and find scenes to fap to then this is NOT the game for you. If you want a very well thought out story with well writen characters navigating complex situations, relationships and drama then you'll love this game.

I've played many AVNs and very few have captured and held my attention like this one has. This is truly one of the best stories that I have come across on this site. I really don't want to spoil anything in this review but if you like a good drama with twists and turns, highs and lows and the occasional gut punch then you will love this game.

It took me a while to try this masterpiece, but I will be eagerly awaiting the future releases from here on out.

This game is concentrated drama fest for the sake of even more drama. MC voluntary involves himself with womans who bring him only a lot of headache and troubles just because why not? thats writen in the plot. This game is not about MC having a fun time with girls on a new job, but having to deal with a lot of bullshit thats going on around those girls and thats it.

MC is decent man but still he have to endure a lot of totally undeserved mistreating, deals with a lot of drama and issues that he doesnt obliged, like at all. But he still behaves decently and continue his work, he solves issues and risks himself. But for what? Services? No. Favors? No. Money? No. Sex? 3 years in development and MC can have sex only once with a girl who was a total whore in the past, but for you as MC even being all this cool and decent is not enough for her to spread her legs for you just for fun, you need to ROMANCE her literally after her words that she let dudes in the past fuck her just because she was mad at her sister. So why MC endure all this troubles and unnecessary for him drama? Because of vietnam flashbacks from past mistakes, which somehow he can redeem by helping this fucked up family with their troubles.

In conclusion, this game is not about sex, have Santa Barbara level of drama on every corner and for those who read at least some books in the past this plot will pass as mediocre at best.

Great game, masterpiece. Not the typical harem-idiocy that you see everywhere where every single girls are braindead who can't breath without holding MC's dick. Would go as far as to say this is one of the best game for the VN genre.

I kind of want to give this a 5, but until it's finished I won't. I'll explain why. But consider this a very solid 4.

So, to begin with - it's definitely not a perfect game. There's a lot of western AVN tropes and it starts pretty clunky. The game does pick up a lot at some point and it becomes engaging.

Renders are alright, sex scenes non-existent. This is a slooooooooooooooooow burn game. Personally I found that okay. Again, more on that in a second.

Final thing to get out of the way - the women are pretty ok.

So, the thing I was getting to is that this was a very enjoyable light crime thriller. If it was a book it'd be one of those pleasant things you gloss over lazily during a vacation. It's not ultra smart, it's not extremely deep, it's "safe" in a way. Which is absolutely great - listen, you're probably not Agatha Christie if you're writing a game that's on here.

I found the entire experience kinda nice. The point is, it's compact and doesn't try to be something it's not. It's a very...coherent game. Hard to explain.

Hence, I'm reluctant to give it 5 stars before it finishes, because if its strongest point is that its coherent and focused, if it veers off too much at the end it'll mean the rest of it was pointless as well.

I just hope the dev keeps the same direction - nothing too wild, compact, nice.

There isn't a lot of story oriented VN like this on this site. Some might say it's too pure but I like it. Sometimes it feels like there will be too much drama but it doesn't. The devs did a good job in adding drama in a linear plot line and even though everything seems to be dramatized in Hillside, the plot is balanced.

I think no one is going to complain about the visual aspect of the VN.

v.0.14 Nice and wholesome long stretches of story written in this visual novel. I can't say its a game as there is nearly no choices to make for our protag and some of them are final way too early in the story. Like having interest in a girl yet said girl didn't do anything to show interest back. So I don't get why he need to be loyal to someone he isn't in relationship with? This game lacks manwhore route. One in which we will see all branches of relationships with many interesting girls. Until we settle on one or a few of them. Till v 0.14 there were 2 instances of sex. With 2 characters and you can't have them both at one playtrough... as mc stays loyal even when player wants to pursue more interesting girls. Especially if said girl was interested in physical only interactions. This story is too wholesome for my tastes. If you added sex then try to make players expirience it. In this game there are too many girls trying to flirt with Mc yet he brushes them off. Its not an erotic game if you tried to play it for that. I wonder if we will see many more sex scenes because for now we have 14 updates. 1 sex scene per 7 updates. So I will try to wait another 70 updates before I play it again

Might as well add the no sexual content tag to this shit, the most content we've gotten is one sex scene. This game tries to focus on the 'story', but it's really not that good of a plot. And without any sex content, all you're left with is a mediocre story with characters I could give two fucks about.

The greatest compliment that I could give Hillside is probably that I actually want to stay loyal and not just fuck every character in the game.

The story is honestly quite grounded and while obviously working at an accelerated pace relationship wise due to it being a game the character interactions feel like they really could have played out over time.
The people your character interacts with are genuinely good people who are a delight to spend time with too. Each of them is an actual nuanced person, not just a single caricature defining their whole being.

Now the bad news for anyone just looking for a fap, you won't find that here. You get the odd moments of titilation and do get to progress forward in a relationship with all that entails but anyone looking for the poke-em-mon 'gotta bang them all' approach will be sadly disappointed.

The models are gorgeous, the renders are of good quality, the writing is well done, characters feel like people and the MC isn't a sleazy creep.
The only extra I could ask for would be animations but not every dev is capable of that for a multitude of reasons so I can't fault them too much for it but if I'm to write an honest review I would drop it to a 4.5 if that were possible based on that reasoning.

Now what are you waiting for, get out there and give Emma a hug, the girl is too adorable not to want to dote on her.

Hillside really has a great story in very believable settings that seems to be based on those weinstein and eipstein assholes cases from few years ago.

The characters are well wrote and act in believable ways in the conditions they're living in.
The focus of the story is on Charlotte and her daughter Emma, with Emma being an immature young woman that react like a 12/13 years old girl as a result of being sheltered all her life by her mother (with reason considering how despicable evil the people are in the business she works in).
This create a strange and interesting dynamic in which the MC is slowly going from being the bodyguard of the family into becoming Emma's dad.

The writing is very good and even the MC is interesting.
oh and Team Lucy for the win.

top AVN deserving of 5 stars to me.

Slow burn? Of course!
It's like love/drama movie and not an erotic movie or porn movie.
I have no problem with it, but in my opinion, the story may be interesting, but without anything "spicy and risqué" to make it attractive, and it generates little interest.
We have: Blah blah blah... hug. Blah blah blah... sobbing or crying, and blah blah blah... some shouting/argument... From time to time there are kisses on the cheeks, on the forehead, some on the mouth... You can also see some boobs , ass, nipple... but little else.
And why 2 stars? The renders are quite decent, especially the one of the little daughter.

I've already gotten used to unren rpa files, seeing the images, and if they catch my attention, I play the game. If not, I delete the game directly. And this game is not the only one in which I do that process, unfortunately.

Regards.

There are hundreds of reviews, but I'll add another one onto it.

Story and writing is pretty good, but drags in several places. The characters in the VN are actually written like characters though, which is a big benefit and probably the only reason it gets a high 3 I guess. Unfortunately though, there ARE some issues. The longer the game goes, the less the characters actually evolve. The mother is forced into the "aggressive and possessive" stereotype, the dev insists on the younger daughter being unable to have any level of maturity, the villains are all cartoonishly evil, it just ends up dissolving.

Visually it's great, not really any complaints in that department. The biggest complaint though is that for all the time spent on how great it is visually, there's barely any intimiate/sexual scenes. For all of the dialogue you sit through, there are only a handful of scenes. Why even make a nsfw VN if you're spending 96% of your time playing it just treating it like a VN? Either add more sexual content, or just make it SFW. Not very complicated.

Positives:
Interesting story, great renders. Very appreciative of the "normal" physical proportions of the characters.

Criticisms:
Firstly, while I understand the direction of the game and intent to tell an adult story and not just produce masturbatory material, I wish there were a couple more naughty scenes already in the game.

Secondly, while I mostly like Emma as a character, she come across like a 13-year-old, she's meant to be eighteen, but her personality and character feels much younger and that's a bit ick to me.

I recommend this game if you're looking for a story focused game with some mild sexual content.

This is a terrific VN ! Ok, people looking for a fap game, pease move on, you'll waste your time. But for those looking for a real story, engaging characters and this feeling that you're really part of the story, please come on !

I have played so many VNs on this site and finally enjoyed only a few ones... Why ? It all depends on me, on what I'm looking for, and I've never been looking to 100% sex games. I like it when the story catches me and this is what I got here. Really well written story, this could have been a real movie regarding the scenario... We all know a few unmissable games here for sure ! But stories wise ? Not that much. Once again be aware, 4 hours playing for just a short sex scene. If you're looking for that, once again you should look for another game. But if you're looking for something where you will go in deep in the story, stay with us and give it a chance cause it's a must have...

Sorry for my poor english, I'm just a french guy, but I hope this will be understandable for the most of you !

So where to start ?
From the start of the game, I am caught up in the story that is being told to me, the author could have written scenarios for the cinema, I find it really good.
There is suspense, emotions, we develop affection for the main characters, it is really worth reading all the dialogues while taking your time.
The renderings are also very beautiful, the intentions/emotions of the characters are well transcribed on the features of their faces.
I haven't finished, I'm testing, I haven't seen many animations but they aren't missing from the game because the story makes up for it.
I give this game a five out of five.

-The girl designs are quite natural and beautiful, which is not very common in adult games.
-The slow pace of the story does not get boring due to the deep character relationships.
-Girls have personalities and conflicts.
-The emphasis in the game is on establishing relationships rather than sexuality.
-The story is original and more realistic than other adult games. Of course, except for a few stupid things...
-Choices do not have much effect other than love points.
-The music is a bit boring.

The story is somewhat decent but its very drawn out so you dont feel any progress for a looong time, also its not really a AVN its 97% text 3% sex scenes, so if your looking for an adult game this wont be it.

For once MC seems to have a brain which is nice to see for once, but the mother is getting annoying to say the least, for a very long time she hates MC and men which is fine with what shes been through but it feels like they dont know what to do with this LI, even after you save someone from rape and save the mother from her old attacker, she feels safe with MC and wants to share her historie but the very next day shes back to hateing MC, same when MC is around her daughter or other girls she gets jealous and dont like it which really dosent make sense when she constantly hates MC, she swings way to much and its getting to drawn out.

Also feels weird how the mother wants Emma to get a boyfriend and even ask her other daughter to help with it, considering the mother has 0 trust in men that feels way off.
Also both the mother and emmas sister hates that MC is a friend of Emma but is totaly fine with her going after Zak who always has multiple girls with him, everyone knows how Zak treats girls and yet Emmas mother, sister and kaylah are all so happy for Emma to date him, in what world does that make any sense......and how brainless can Emma be....

Emma is also just annoying, i normaly like the hole build up between MC and a LI but it feels painfull with Emma since she constantly acts like a 12 year old and constantly talks about her crush on a famous boy at her school, and it really just gets boring and annoying to listening to her go on and on about Zak, which we all know is an idiot who couldent care less about girls and just want to fuck em and move on to the next, but this story is also just drawn out for way to long, and when you finaly think its over when Emma finds Zak with her best friend having sex, it still keeps going and she still loves Zak, no one should ever be this stupid, shes supposed to be 18 but clearly shes not anywhere close to that.

And MC letting Emma go out on the date alone made no sense either, the cop already told MC "she has to go on the date" which MC dident even wonder about at all, then a kid gets arrested for being a stalker and MC thinks great they must have the evidence for him even thought he think it was weird he still lets her go out with 0 protection also knowing Zak is bad dude, all this protection doing the hole game and MC is fine risking Emmas life, gimme a break...

Must say i am supprised it has such a high rating with no animations or music and a story full of holes, i really feel like people are way to nice.

Story 2/5
Story is pretty vanilla and no real twists, but drawn out for way to long, and to me the story it self dosent make any sense, if someone tries to kill you by beeating you up, kills your friend by overdose, tries to rape you, then you get the fuck out of there and protect your 2 kids......you dont stay in the same town and work with the ones that wants to kill you, its just beyound stupid and there should have been put alot more thought into writing this.

Animations 0/5
Well there arent any so no real reward to playing might as well read a normal book, or atleast i havent seen any yet like i said its a very drawn out game.

Music 0/5
Again there is none.

Girls 4/5
They look pretty nice.

A story that is out of the ordinary, endearing characters to protect, the renderings are good, the writing is good. If you expect sex everywhere and all the time move on, this game is not for you, we are closer to reality so no MC who attracts all the women of creation

imho best game i ever played in this forum, story that beats most of holywood movies told in a way that makes you develop feelings for characters around you, great 3D models...my only complain is that at some moments main character doesn't react as someone who spent years as a soldier and bodyguard

Je to absolútna TOPKA! Za túto hru keby bola kompletná by som dal kľudne aj 100euro . Nedočkavo čakám na ďalšie pokračovanie. Je to prvá hra tohto žánru ktorú som si zahral. Keby sa len zrýchlil vývoj tejto hry, dal by som za to všetko.