VN - Ren'Py - Lust of Pain: Rework [Ep. 7] [Vilkas Creative]

Review for ep7

The renders are high quality for the most part.

Most of the women are hot. Nisse and Jade, who both looked disgusting at the start, were updated at some point and look much better by the end.

There are almost no H scenes. There are 25 named women (not counting the MC's dead mother and Haze the therapist who doesn't seem to be a LI), and 3 have full H scenes, and like 3-5 have some teases like kissing, nudity, peeping. I can't believe we're 7 updates in and there's so little actual sexual content, especially considering the length of the game itself.

The writing is ATROCIOUS. Tons of grammar mistakes, numerous mistakes in the code concerning variables, and an endless amount of pronoun errors (he/she, him/her, grandmother/grandfather, mister/miss).

In addition, the dialogue itself is cringe. Even hiring a proofreader to fix the errors won't fix how shitty it is. No one in real life talks like that.

The plot has potential, but without fixing the dialogue and numerous errors, it means nothing.

I was planning to give a 3 star ranting when I started to play the first chapters, then as I kept going and saw devs fixed some questionable models, I gave it a 4. So let's see:

PROS:
- Some models at the beginning of the story are absolutely hideous, to be bold and brutally honest. I can't believe the team saw it and gave it a green light. The funny thing is, when they're posing on the side, their faces look good, but the problem comes when you see them from the front. Jade and Nisse look deformed in the first chapters. Cacau still has a very odd face shape, unless it's intended, she doesn't have enough jaw and chin, and her head is disproportionately small.
- Blatant typos and errors: I'm not saying it has to be perfect and I understand English isn't many dev's native language, but it was annoying to see many female characters being wrongfully referred to as 'he' (Example: The girl you rescue from the park, you can 'hug him' or 'comfort him', and there are other mistakes like this. Some questions lack question marks.
- In some scenes you can see the clothes clipping, and chunks of skin poking out through the clothes. There is also a scene where MC's dad is hugging MC's ex-girlfriend, and the position of dad and ex looks off (Clearly, ex was positioned to long, and dad's hand is hugging the air). There's another render where characters are sinking onto a car seat and onto the floor.

PROS:

- Devs did fix Nisse and Jade's models, that eventually look better and more proportionate (Specially Jade looks gorgeous now).
- Though it needs work, the story is compelling.
- This VN has cinematics and they look gorgeous, you can see the work and passion put into them.
- The devs are focused on keep developing the story instead of halting it on yet another rework.

SUGGESTION FOR DEVS: Fix the typos and gramatical errors. Hope someday you rework the early chapters to fix the disproportionate models. Having music is good, but sometimes the music doesn't match the scene, do invest in finding good songs.

Give this VN a chance, look beyond the first impression you get when you meet the models that don't look that pretty, cause I promise you they get better, and you meet gorgeous girls later in the game. Cheers.

Between the terrible writing and the mutant child with an obscenely large head, I couldn't muster up the will to get through the intro. And if I can be incredibly petty...

Lust of Pain is a god awful title and the part that hurts the most is if you just swapped two words it would roll off the tongue a lot better. Still wouldn't be GREAT, but it'd be better.

Anyway. Pass. Maybe I'll check back in if it gets some extensive rewrites.

one of the mest once ....now no so much

while i was pretty sure this game and this dev team cant do anymore dmg to his own work they come back to the game with pretty much a mess...
lots of cons:
1- the variety of misspelling ,mistakes in pronounces and all in all awful gramthical mistakes....
2-more anout proofreading is need it when we are talking about someone who comes from a slavic country ,words are not used with the same meaning...and this a a huge mistake....
3-the script itselve comes with a boring narrative but if you believe this is bad the lack of any lewd scenes for the majotiyy of the time is become bad very bad.
4-from a no need it rework to this and with another 1 or 2 games in the making it seems this team of devs is letting this nice and beautiful game once ,become boring ,predictable,a non script tell,and nosex scene at all,wasting time and lot of tools and skills in a non consequentinal story,......

ofc ther is always those nice models and renders but only that come to second to none when the story doesnt matter ,the paths are quite not open in a harem game,time wasted in showing off other non cannon sides and development of 2 more games.......

really a shame ,...was nice but every dream need to beconfront to reality,...this team need it too

this has to be one of the weirdest games ive ever tried
it looks like a failed hibrid between KN and AVN.
it has some choices, yet those are far apart and misplaced imo - where choices should be there are none and where they shouldnt be there are "choices". all that results in above mentioned weird feeling while playing this game.
seems as the dev isnt sure what he wants - and that is even more weird as this should be a remake or something. it almost loks like an AI attempt in creating AVN.

there are some eye catching renders/chicks so hence two stars.
almost everything else is way subpar, to say at least.

I chose to give this game a try because of a few renders I've seen online. I also found out that this is a reworked version which caught my interest even more. Renders are phenomenal although I've encountered comments saying differently. Characters are very detailed which is something I always pay attention to. There is a visible difference between the old version and this one. Let's take as an example one of the most beautiful mature women out there in the world of games like this, Thea. In the prevoius version of Lust of Pain Thea looked more or less like an 30 years old female, but in the reworked version she's closer to being 40 - mostly because of the huge increase of details on her face, hands ect. Considering that she's the stepmom of our MC, I regard this change as very positive. Animation during certain scenes is top notch although I sometimes thought it could be a little bit slower. One of the most fun features is the fact that characters can make noises during some activities (no need to explain further) so it makes it more realistic in some sense. Music is great as well as some cutscenes which feel like a ton of hard work was put there to make it look that good. Hats of to the creators. Story is quite interesting. It's one of those stories that make me read every single line with focus and enjoy it as well. Lust of Pain is definetly one of the best game we have right now in terms of quality of animation, renders, music, and story. 5/5 for me!

Excellent game, good story line, dev might work on dialogues and errors but overall its a solid 5 star game. I'm a big fan of teasing and slow burn so just love the story development specially with the stepmom till now.

[Rework Ep. 6] You play an adult man who lost his mother and now has a step-family he lives with. You're working a new job with new faces and trying to balance family drama and the multiple ladies of your life.

The women in this game are stunning! All the girls are fantastically beautiful. It is off for some of the younger characters to have more wrinkles and mature looking skin, but honestly I like this and find the more detailed skin textures to be very sexy! All the sex scenes are well fleshed out with multiple positions, smooth animations, and good angles of the action.

The story didn't really grab me. I was reading everything in the beginning but eventually I began to click through. As far as I can tell the story is serviceable with a few interesting developments, troubles with the law, revelations on characters, etc. I'm not going to focus on it much in this review because I honestly didn't pay much attention to it (sorry dev!).

The game is of a very high quality. The sex scenes (which are the whole point) are fantastic, the characters are all beautiful and mostly all well characterized, and the story is there for those that want it.

I highly recommend this game!

I appreciate the efforts of the dev team and the renders, settings and pacing is excellent, but the dialogue is so bad I just stopped playing it. I don't like banging on someone when English is obviously not their native language, but writing an email or a paper is one thing, but dialogue is a different animal. There are a lot of native speakers who can't do it either, so I hope the dev team doesn't take this personally, but the dialogue needs serious work.

I will check back in a few updates as it seems to have some potential, but for now, I just can't read it as it is.

Good luck!

The problem here is that there is precious little fucking in the scenes with these girls.
They are lovely to look at, well except for the one with the purple rinse, not again.
Grannies use this hair colour not teens but apart from Caocao (is that her name? fresh from the Kingdom of Wei) Coco or whatever.
The so called scenes are just a bit of nudity really. They are all screaming for the love of God Farkas.......FAHHHHK US!! well that what it sounds like anyway. So come on "Icebrain" need more action, especially seeing as it's chapter 6 already.
Slow burns one thing but this is in danger of going out and if that happens Eorlund's gonna be real pissed.

Awesome game great renders and quality and the animation speed is perfect one of the best animation speed seen so far in the AVNs
Models are damnn pretty and beautiful storyline excellent seems promising looking further for more lewd and sexual contents in the coming updates
Hope the develeoper keep working on this project and never let this game get abandoned.
At last a 5 star for this game one of favourite and in my top 5 for sure i can say top 1 hehehe

There is many drawbacks in this game. Reworked version is better than the original version. Best thing about the game is visuals and models. It's not your average model they are beautiful. Wrinkles in their faces and bodies makes them more realistic. Models seems close to real life. There is a story it's not the best but it's good. The problematic part is writing. It got mant grammatical errors.
Apart from this game is good. Keep up the good work dev, looking forward to next updates.

+ visuals
+ models

- grammatical mistakes

English: 5/10
User Interface: 3/10
User Experience: 4/10
Art: 8/10
Dialogue: 4/10
Story: 2/10
Opinion: 4/10
------------------------------
Avg: 4.29/10 [2/5]

If I remember to, I'm gonna include my review of the last version of this and compare them as my opinion of the last one was not great, and if you can't improve, maybe just move on. What little I do remember of the last version was MC going to therapy for.... Nothing? He was sad he had sex? I don't know, they never got to the point. And suddenly it turned into a dumb incest tale with nonsensical plot points. With experience, the only place you have to go is up, so here's hoping I'm pleasantly surprised. As per usual, this is started before I read anything, so I just wanted to be upfront with my negative opinion of the previous version. I was actually so put off by it, I've avoided starting this review for a few days. Only to be greeted by the first line in broken English "This game designed for just an adults and included sexual scenes." That is copied VERBATIM. You can't get FIVE words into this without "We google translated to English to get them fat american whales." And what little I've read after isn't a lot better, wrong words in sentences, incomplete thoughts, and just odd phrasing. And so far, it seems like they minorly edited interactions.

So this time around, they actually managed to explain why MC is sad. He had an amicable breakup. Wow, so hard. And why the hell he's in therapy? Who knows. But it's probably something as stupid as he's only getting one blowjob a day instead of 3, my god how he suffers so. Yeah, his mom had cancer, he didn't seem too beat up over it. But suddenly his dad brings Thea home and all is fine. And out of the blue, MC decides to not work from home at some ad agency. And I shit you not, this is what he says "I can double the experience of people who are much more experienced than me." That doesn't mean what you think it means, google translate. And the "interview" is just kinda disjointed. MC interjects with "Can I address you by name?" But doesn't address her? I guess it's more second language, sounds better in our native tongue, stuff, either way the dialogue is always a little janky. Then he has a tiny, two minute, questionnaire with Cacau and her gross chiclet teeth and the day ends..? After that you get the daily routine of MC gaslighting Nisse, doting on Thea, getting chauffeured by Rosie, going to work and flirting with Cacau, and very verbosely internalizing everything as if he's the smartest person ever. The Rosie stuff makes no sense "Were you looking at my tits? Uhhh... No? Oh wow you have a way with words." This is not improved at all. I guess the cringey balcony scene was improved marginally. Instead of MC thinking that a woman that doesn't jump on his dick is a cold bitch, he's just worried he won't find a way to make her jump on his dick. It's not a big improvement, but I guess it's almost in the right direction? And every internal compliment he gives her, he gives himself a better one right after. "She's cool, but I'm very cool." I don't like this MC, he's been a shut in for X amount of time, but thinks his farts smell of roses. And every girl is inarguably in perfect shape, but MC gaslights them all with "You'll get to the right body shape with some work." It's a little disgusting.

Eventually Thea tries to get MC to spend time with Maeve, the aunt. Then she says "You've always been much more mature than your age." Excuse me? He's like 23, acting like a child with Nisse, ogling everyone every second, when has he been mature? Nevermind the shit English that was. Next comes date night with Cacau, she says he's interesting because... He gets along with his step-family? Bar's really low I guess. The next day... He continues to walk in the bathroom when Nisse's using it. This troglodyte has no brain. Nothing about this has changed. All the same garbage is happening, MC is just written slightly better. And when I say slightly, I mean SLIGHTLY. Instead of asshat incel that thinks he's god's gift to women, he more just an asshat that thinks he's god's gift to women. I'm glad he's in therapy, but it's probably just gonna end with him sleeping with the therapist because this is a dumb porn game, and Nisse's eternal outfit of nothing but sheer underwear is proof. As I click through this, it's more and more apparent that this was just a minor dialogue edit. Why this is called a "rework" is beyond me. Best guess? Lukewarm ratings, gotta start fresh. So far the only time MC has been in the right is his frustrations with Julia. If the rest of his interactions were written like that, and were actual interactions, this would be better. But instead every "interaction" is: Idle pleasantries, then MC internalizing everything for most of the conversation, diagnosing every character trait of the person he's talking to, then the woman saying exactly how she's feeling and thinking. After that they tell MC how great he is for doing nothing, and he changes location, ready for the next woman to do the same thing with.

And, upon getting to the 4th morning, we see the same argument pre-rework. The fight was literally about nothing and MC started it just to be a fucking dick. Then he gets mad at Nisse for being upset with him, and he storms off to work. I can't be the only one reading this. If there's sudden drama with the dad after an overly long cutscene, I'm officially reviewing the same game twice... Great. When Danielle shows up, she gives him a lecture saying "You work too fast and too well, be careful." What? I just don't understand the universe someone needs to live in to need to be coddled this much. Every time the conversation gets serious, MC panics and wants nothing to do with it. Not even in the "This is awkward/tmi" way, he just doesn't care if it doesn't benefit him or his dick. Depending on your route, you get the cacau or julie scenes, MC goes home and... Lusts after Thea. Then she somehow doesn't see/feel her tits falling out, and somehow doesn't hear the shower running to see him jerk off in the shower. And again, you the reader, who is more than 99% likely a male, have to watch him jerk off? I really don't get these scenes. She then does these mental gymnastics "Oh god it was hot, wait, I should tell my TWENTY THREE YEAR OLD son that masturbating is natural." I say again, I'm sorry, WHAT? After that, he leaves, gets driven around by Rosie again, because he's a useless human being, the car breaks down, they go to her house and HE'S CAUGHT IN THE SHOWER AGAIN. TWICE in as many hours?! The same dumb event happens twice in a row. Why did he need a shower? He fell on the ground. This is such bad story flow, I don't even know who thought "Let's have him get caught jerking it in the shower twice in the same day." I'm shocked he didn't go to work, get too sweaty from typing on a keyboard, and have to get caught in the shower that is somehow at work by someone else.

After that, they call MC "Mc" so, they didn't catch that in the edit they didn't do. Nice. More constant praising of MC's work. Once you notice how far everyone bends over backwards just to praise MC, I hope it annoys you now. Eventually you meet Maeve, flirty aunt, whatever. The maid that wears small clothing. Then. The gremlin that is Jade. If you aren't horrified by her face when she says the line "I'm coming to heal you, [MC]." You have low standards, and I'm jealous. Really I'm gonna stop myself from bitching about everything that annoys me, because most of this annoys me. Like when the dad is found to be cheating, (Something MC is doing at all times) He's kicked out but his dad says "Stay with Thea, I can't give you a good home life" He is a grown man, my god. After that, it just kinda meanders. The dad gets arrested, and MC just walks girl to girl complementing them. I think this changed to get rid of sexual content though, I swear I remember more, but who knows. And it's really not worth it to go back and check. I started zoning out after Jeff was found to be cheating. Nothing matters, MC becomes a detective, flirts with everyone, exposes a cheater all while being unfaithful himself. Not that he's WITH anyone, more that I know for a fact he's not gonna be confronted with the fact he's sleeping with anyone else. It's boring. So now, my new working title for this changes from "Horny and Sad" to "Boring and Bland." The themes and sex weren't the issue with the last one, it's the writing. MC is an incessant man-child, and all the interactions leave no impact. On top of the fact the English is sub-par. And if you've made it this far, up until the arrest, the game is exactly the same. After, it changes to be a dull nothing burger. And I haven't talked about it, but almost every render has clipping of some kind. Body parts phasing through clothes, z-fighting, and when Jeff hugs MC, his hand is just clipping into his ribcage. Sure, the lighting has that decent looking gradient overlay, but the posing is either stock DAZ or god awful.

Really, this is a lateral move from the previous version. The English is not good, the UI/UX is stock Renpy. The Art almost saves it, the only way to get "Content" is going the Cacau route, but her and jade's faces are horrifying to look at. The dialogue is as I said, "Hello, MC, you are amazing. Everything you do is perfect, want sum fuk? But not right now, bye" And NOTHING outside of the cheating and arrest happens in this story. Oh the biker? Let me tell you right now, it's gonna be some dumb corporate espionage/mafia family plot that just leads to sex on a motorcycle. All in all, I'm not gonna come back for more. There was nothing to call a rework, and it's not improved upon in any meaningful way. If you're curios, here's my review pre-rework:

Very like a work, modeling, rendering, are first class. The only thing is that the story hasn't fully unfolded yet, but he still showed me the potential for a superb work.Feel and milf City, Santa County. no more money. These works belong to an echelon. The author is great. Come on

The main milf is Goated. That alone earns this game 5 stars.

I've seen some complaints about character models looking too old, which personally I don't understand. Often in these games tend to de-age every character (even supposed MILFs) so much to the point that they end up looking doll-like. Since this dev had the restraint to properly age the characters, that's not an issue here.

I will admit that seeing a "rework" this early into a project usually isn't a good sign, but the changes were positive and the project is back to progressing normally.

Well yes, the "milf" tag hits it as most of them look like up to 40-50 or even older, don't know how bad it was before the rework but i guess some ppl will like that.
Animations are sometimes a bit bumpy but at least there are animations.
The story is ok-ish but don't expect to be taken away by it.
Writing mostly is ok but im not a native so ...

At least for me it is a game within the middle, could score a point more if the models offer some age difference, but thats personal favor. (No im not talking about loli...just something around 20-30)

v0.4

this is a remake or restart as the original never actually got made, merely started. you would think then that planning went into this. and yet...

so lets start with the one thing most people give 5 stars for in their reviews on this site, the art. not the best. one girl has serious forehead and another has an overbite that is borderline goofy and fails to match the rest of her face. it gives her an unnatural duck face. other than that, and the odd weird looking render like MC's body looking seriously aged for a moment, it is pretty good.
but as human nature, we always notice what is wrong more than what is right so it pulls the eye.

then we have the plot. solid. it is not some wonder plot but it is a decent medium for the story it is telling.

the writing, well, at times it is average to good (more the latter) and others gods awful. that one scene of MC and jeremy on the bus and the overuse of 'buddy' was mind-numbing. just from that i conclude the writer has never had friends as no two guys have i ever met talk even remotely like that without spilling braincells. the dialogue just does the job, there's no intelligence to it. i found it really lacking.
the proof reader has also quit....or bloody should.

overall i just cannot get into this one as there is just a bit too much focus on sex and the V and very little on the N for my taste. it just fails to spark

Renders are beautiful, animations as well are nice, little choices that matters, mostly to choose girls to date with so yeah content overlaps.
Didn't like the constant bickering and nonsense arguments, dialogues felt like aiming for the throat to cut it open everytime someone opened their mouth.
MC's mixed bag, don't know when to shut it and monologues of his doesn't help either. Good that he isn't horny obnoxious guy and showed to have self respect at times. The romantic or emotional attachment, sexual tension is missing and that makes sex scene hollow and unenjoyable.
Sometimes the explanation of events are bizarre to corny.
Hopefully the pieces are in place as game progresses. All the best

This remake made graphics to way better level. I love the way your story flows. It's developing step by step, I know everyone wants to bang milf and "roommate" but it's great that you showed h-scenes with other characters but not with them. It makes this game even more desirable. great short update but good remake. Gladly waiting to see what would be done in this game by the end of the 2023

So I just want to make this clear that this review may change if changes are made to the game. First off, the good. I think that the models look stellar. Second, I think the sibling rivalry between the MC and step-sister is a nice change of pace compared to games where all the girls love the MC.

Now the bad which is honestly the writing. I admit I didn't play the original game so I won't compare this one with that version. Two BIG fundamental writing mistakes were made which can kill a story before it even launches.

The first is exposition. GET RID OF IT. The writer tried to "hide" the exposition behind it being a therapy session, but readers can still pick up on being spoon-fed plot points. The story should have begun with the MC being woken up by his stepmother, and you go from there. Every plot point spoon-fed to the audience before that point should be learned (or even missed) by the audience later in the story when we become emotionally invested in a character. This may sound harsh, but the audience won't give two damn's about a character dying if it's not in the context of having gotten to know them first. This is a writing mistake that is very easy to fall into.

Second, SHOW DON'T TELL. There are many instances where we as a viewer can be shown a situation where we can be left to infer about the complexities. For example when the MC says, "I became introverted because of the trauma I went through" or whatever. SHOW us that became introverted. SHOW us the consequences of that introversion. I know he stayed in his room and he lost friends, and honestly, that's enough. You could literally RIP so much "fat" off the writing and be left with a semi-decent written game.