VN - Unity - Noemi's Toscana Rebirth [v0.22] [beWilder]

Review of v0.12...

I like the idea this game presents, but it's not presented in the best way and that's mainly because of the writing. I'll get to that in a minute.

The characters models are pretty good. Kriem and Kelsey are the better models. Noemi and Frankie's tits are so wholly unrealistic it's a bit of a turn off for me. I know some people are into that though.

The game in incredibly slow. Now I like a slow build up...I'm not someone that needs fucking right out of the gate, but the slow progression needs to be interesting and feel organic. It doesn't here and that's because of...

The writing. Holy god! The writing in this game needs a serious overhaul. It suffers from a case of severe over narration. For example; at the beginning Neomi goes to her office to change for work. There are maybe 30 paragraphs describing her changing clothes....while the visuals go through her in various stages of undress. That level of narration is unwarranted. These are called VISUAL novels for a reason.

This is why I said the game is incredibly slow. We don't need multiple paragraphs describing the smell in the air, or the flowers in the image, or Noemi cleaning the restaurant.

If it wasn't for the writing I would have given this game 4 stars, but if they continue with this trend in future releases then the writing is going to continue holding the game back.

I really like how this game is coming along. The writing and renders were always really good. The last couple of updates have brought the gameplay up to par through various improvements to the balance, UI, and some quality of life features such as the gallery and "Endless Mode".

The game overall has potential.

[update 0.11]It still needs some work to iron out some of the problems it has, but the dev is actively looking for input on the game, and is making good steps toward making the game good and fun.

The renders and characters are great an if you are in to ntr games this is shaping up to be a good one.

disclaimer: changed review based on the steps the dev is taking and the 0.11 release.

Thought I would write a review for this, just because I feel like it deserves more attention and I'm really enjoying it! The story isn't your typical cliche corruption game which is great, it is well written with steady pacing and an enjoyable set of characters to become familiar with. Noe is sexy as hell, but does think for herself and is not like the mindless MC we play as in 99% of other games on this site.

Yes, it isn't your typical VN, but I think it's simple enough for everyone to handle. With some light reading and skipping you can get through it easily and it's kinda fun!

For those who say it doesn't have NTR yet or it's too much grinding, I would disagree. It's nothing like games like JOHN or AWAM, with huge potential that is being wasted. The progression in this is natural yet exciting, even the non-sex scenes are awesome. Would highly recommend this game for everyone, can't wait to see where it goes!

Reason for Rating:

1. -Has NTR tags but NO NTR scenes at all in the game. Not even Noe kissing another guy on the cheek lol.
2. -Super slow build up that leads to nothing. I don't mind a slow build up that leads to a really steamy sex scene or something, but in this game it's a waste of time.
3. -So repetitive, same thing day after day, with a few short stories told every now and then.
4. -NTR tags but the only sex scene worth remembering in game is between the wife and husband lol.

As it stands now, if you are looking for a NTR game where you see the wife succumb to temptation, and getting it on with another guy, this game really isn't for you. Might be worth playing in 12 months time or something.

There's a lot to like about much of this game. The renders are gorgeous, the story is original, the characters are almost unusually well-developed and the devs seem to make consistent progress.

Its always difficult to judge a game that's clearly fairly early on in its development - and full disclosure I've only played it three times in various stages of development - but the gameplay itself still leaves a little bit to be desired. The idea of managing the staff of the restaurant, coupled with levelling up the stats of several characters is great. I'm fully on board with that. However, the goals seem to be obscure and it can be difficult to determine exactly what to focus on. Additionally, the game guide is massive for a game of this size. The gameplay needs to be streamlined a little bit.

Now, with that said, the dev has clearly improved the gameplay since its inception. The game itself - stripped of its lewd content - would actually be enjoyable to play, which is definitely not something you can say about most of the adult games in development. I know that's not what a lot of people are looking for but it speaks to a development team that is thinking outside the box and committed to raising the bar.

Overall, it's not perfect, but it's also far from finished. The devs will have to continue to make improvements but as long as they're committed to that, they are soon going to have an excellent game on their hands.

Great game from start to finish if NTR is your thing I highly recommend as this is probably one of the best NTR games I've ever played. Slow build up that others complain about is necessary to not trample over the story and making the plot feel less realistic. Quick updates with gorgeous renders and great writing, however, if you're here for a quick finish this game is not for you.
That being said I'd love some changes to the gameplay as of 0.10 locking content behind Noe's debt and forcing the game to end after an amount of time regardless if you've seen all the content. Also maybe a tip system for the people not working the tables? Why isn't the cook making any money for example, I'd love to see a goals menu to show what you need to do to progress which path.
Overall stunning game and I can't wait for more keep up the good work.

Story: We take pleasure in following Noémie's adventures, I haven't skip any dialogue until then, they are well written and allow me to completely immerse myself in the situation that I am exposed to. Developing Frankie's story further will be a huge improvement, the character is magnificent.

Gameplay : Having a debt to repay is not the most original in an NTR game (a classic that works well) but having to run a restaurant? a great idea! it's fun, the gameplay keeps improving after each update, we try to make a maximum (money / reputation) each day and we take advantage of the rest days to develop our character, the traps set by the another restaurant will spice up the work of the noe's team.

The Renders are very good, well detailed and sexy. The characters have a strong personality and a crazy charm a winning combo.
To finish you will understand, I love Noemi's Toscana Rebirth and at the time or I write this review almost nothing displeases me in the game, that's why I put 5 stars.

TLDR: Good, slow-paced game with a lot of potential and a fantastic female protagonist. If that's your thing, this one is a must play!

First, I really wanted to give this game 5 ★'s but then that would mean this game is near perfect, which it is not. Having said that I really like this game, and rooting for it to take seriously some of the feedback, and of course keep developing it.

Pros:
- Fantastic female protagonist -- believable, sexy and charismatic. Noemi is amazing!
- The dialogue is pretty good. Characters have their own unique personalities.
- The story is interesting and believable.
- There's just enough characters to have variety and to reasonably develop everyone's story.
- Potential for elements of incest between Frankie and her son (my personal kink )

Cons:
- The lack of renders. I'd love to see a wider variety of what's going on in a scene. As it is, the creator resolves to using gratuitous narrative to tell the player what we don't see. The principle of "show, don't tell" is really powerful in VNs.
- Sometimes the narrative for a given render will describe people (or actions) that are never shown to us. Like at the poker table, only Noe, Brad and Beck are ever show, but narration tells us of other people present. This just feels... cheap.
- Given the disparity between the renders and the lenghty narrative, one might assume the renders and the text were developed separately -- first someone does the renders, then creator wrote the story to fit (and describe) the renders (and what's missing).
- I'll mention this again: let the renders speak for themselves. A picture is worth a 1000 words, and all. As others have recommended, don't describe what we already can see from the render.
- The writing takes itself too serious, trying to be a romantic novel, yet there are obvious spelling mistakes and grammar. Recommendation: try to reduce the number of words, straight up cut out some sentences, and avoid juggling uncommon synonyms.
- The early scene with Noe getting changed for work... that was some kind of a test-drive, right? It was painfully slow and unnecessarily over-descriptive.
- Roy -- he looks like an Asian teenager who put on an old-man mask. His wrinkly face and his physique don't seem to match.
- The pace is quite slow. Yes, I can understand games with slow-pace, and prefer them. But, we don't see any erotic scenes with nudity for a long time! After a few hours of reading and clicking, I literally had to start skipping through everything just to see if there will ever be anything pornographic going on and what that would look like.
- Quality of renders can be improved. Some renders look great, but majority look subpar, and strangely blurred.

Now, even though I outlined more cons, that's not to say there isn't much to be enjoyed in the game. The cons are more things I'd love to see changed/improved, to make this game really shine. With better and more renders, and taking out the text that describes what the player can see on the screen, this can rival Jessica O'Neil's Hard News!

I'm sorry I can not give this game more than 4 (hesitating for 3) . Normally I wouldn't even bother rating, but I will for this one , because there are lots of good sides , that could easily be fixed.

Now the bad things:
1. TEXT. TEXT . TEXT....so much to read and so much useless rubbish of it. This is the biggest turn downer. Its annoying above and beyond. This alone makes me rate the game with 1. I literally skipped the whole game, cross reading on 10%, even though at moments the story seemed to go well.

Please delete 90% of this nonsense, most importantly the narrator.. Make short and tidy sentences and I'm sure everyone will be happy with the game.

2. Fonts - most of whats written is almost not readable. Character names for example. or Sal's sabotage missions. This font is the ugliest and not readable Ive ever seen. It took me literally 3 hours and had to start the game all over, until i figure out how to save the game. Totally not user friendly.

3. Breasts. I know there is a audience for such ladies. But Noe and Frankie's breasts are way beyond unrealistic . When they bend down it looks like if i spread their breasts I could see their belly buttons. Repelling.

4. Clothing is not conforming enough. Its like plastic piece of texture put on a static object. Use dForce.

----
Now the good part and why i actually bother to rate the game:

1. Outstanding idea and job on making tasks system every day , which is the biggest + in the game! The codding here deserves cudos , for sure. Its all very well balanced. Challenging and creative!
2. Very good event system, following the plot properly. Also there are plenty of events as well.
4. I like that you can boost the other girls stats , as well.
3. Good textures used on the props and characters. Good renders and lighting as well.

IN SHORT: this game is not bad because it misses someting , but contrary. There is too much text, breasts and rubbish narrator, explaining how she moved her arm, which is obvious from the pic in front of you.

Updated Review:

Gameplay: 9/10 (up from 8 in my last review)
Story: 9/10
Character Design: 10/10

The game keeps aging like fine wine and every update makes it much better.

Gameplay:
Gameplay has many new additions now, of course, there still hasn't been a full-fledged scenes update so usually you run out of gameplay scenes before you explore all story scenes. That will be something to look forward to when they add those scenes. Other than that, the gameplay has been totally upgraded and made very fluid with the repeat button added as well. It's smooth sailing with the stats, especially in endless mode.

Story:
The story has progressed beautifully and all the characters have something of interest going for them and something they can offer. Every update is made unskippable due to this and due to the fact that the quality of this game is way above most of the genre. The story is well put together, you will never feel like things aren't adding up between a scene and the next one, this means the progression will always feel natural and things will add up no matter your choices.

Good job!

Sad to say, but this is a 1/5.

While the story is alright and the CGs are nice, we must remember that this is a porn game first and foremost, and this is where it fails.

The game is a mix of management and VN, but there in lies the issue. Doesn't matter how good you are in the restaurant management side, most scene triggers are timed both on date and debt. Not only that, but the game is time gated, that means after X number of days, the game ends and that's it, you have to restart.

What this results in is a game where you must follow guides or you won't get scenes. This isn't a game you can just pick up and play and enjoy, nope, the only way to really get any content is to follow their walkthrough or else you'll hit the time gate.

The game has some great scenes and very nice renders, unfortunately, it doesn't seem to know what it wants to be, kinda mix between a restaurant simulator and a female corruption game (with way too many characters and "routes").

*review for v0.7*
This VN/game is unfortunately a bit of a mess at this state, I downloaded it and played all of it looking forward to some NTR and instead I got 10,000 words of useless descriptions and barely any plot at all (not really 10,000 words its a joke). A huge problem with this game can be summed up very easily here: not enough sex and too much overly detailed descriptions. The author spends WAY too much time describing things that are best left to the VISUALS, this is after all a VISUAL NOVEL. It feels as if the author wrote a slightly racy romance novel and then ported the whole thing word for word into a game, there's no need for so much descriptions bro! This is a VISUAL novel, let the visuals tell some of the story and describe the dialog and inner thoughts!
Now this wouldn't be such a glaring problem if there was some sexy and raunchy scenes being described in detail, or Noe's slow decline into cheating on her husband and losing her business (this is NTR) but all the author takes time to describe is "the sound of the room" or "the smells of the kitchen". Get to the goddamn sex already man!
This review is already too long, let me blast out some likes and dislikes.

*LIKES*
- Solid set up: Totally good set up for NTR, I want to see Noe lose her business to the competitor or become slutty to keep her business and it turns her into a very different person. If the VN's plot isn't moving in a similar direction it will lose me.
- Good Models: Hot main girl, the dark punk girl (kriem? wut?) is OK. The mom and slutty girl are not in the game yet but they look good.
- Good Renders: Scenes all look nice.

*DISLIKES*
- No Sex: There just isn't enough sex OR sexy scenes for the length this game is. I love a nice slow burn and build up, especially in NTR, but goddamn bro there is NO sex at all and like 3 scenes that could be considered "sexy".
- Descriptions too long: Please either stop describing in detail the flowers in the scene and start describing Noe's fat tits bulging out of her shirt. Honestly I love a rich story but overly describing the smell in the air when it doesn't fucking matter to the scene is annoying and not helpful to the story at all.
- Game Aspect not fun: The restaurant managing day to day game is not that fun and seems a little counter productive to the story when I WANT her restaurant to fail so she will become desperate. I want her to jump on the competitors cock or become sleazy to get attention, I don't want her to save her fucking business, is this NTR or a love story?

Long story short this VN/game could be great if the PACING is fixed by adding more SEX or SEXUAL scenes. As of right now I wont be playing it again unless the direction is changed a lot and that's a bummer because the SET UP was good!

This game shows potential and the renders are good. The functionality of loading and saving games is terrible and there are some pretty major bugs which is to be expected in a game in beta. I will revisit once the game is further along.

This game is the one that is most "could be one of the best ever" although right now there is not really too much to do and the gameplay can be a bit buggy.

But great story and great art and great potential.

Excellent game very good noe is an independent woman who is having a hard time and this story follows through those time and how she deals with it but one problem is its taking too long other wise quite good I'll give it a 5 for now and see how things turn out

My Rating of [v0.5] is:

Pros:
+ Fantastic Renders
+Active Play
+Beautiful Women

Cons:
-Grinding Game Play
-No Adult Scenes
-Confusing Game Play

Conclusion:

Played the first release but couldn't say much about the Game,now we are with v0.5 and still cant say much about the Game,Your Job is to get out of debt,and try to run the competition out of business,so that is about it,you have a couple of scenes that always keep repeating itself, an no nothing to do with anything adults would do.
Wish beWilder would just make a normal game like a lot of other games out there,that would make a big change.
beWilder makes absolute some of the hottest Renders out there,with his talent I would make a simple story without grinding game play in which the player can't wait for the next update.
I personally would Give the Game a 5 Star rating alone for the Renders, but the Grinding Game play just destroys everything in my Opinion.
Like I said,Love his work,but not this Game.

No. Simply. Just no. It's one thing that the renders are undeniably great quality, but that's the only good thing about this game.
The story. Nope, there isn't one. You are a restaurant owner who has to repay a debt. That's all.
Dialogues. Awful. They drag long and long, without taking the story ANYWHERE. Not entertaining, just long and icredibly boring. If you actually read everything, NOTHING happens in the first hour that would make the game interesting at all (that's where I stopped)
Gameplay. What? Gameplay here? You have no other options but click thru the scenes, and decide which character you want to put in which role. That's it.
Sex. I don't know, there must be some in there, but I don't care. Even if the were incredibly well written (which is highley unlikely given the writing quality everywhere else in the game) the other parts of the game don't worth to suffer thru.
The engine. Why? Nothing justifies Unity, when it's a simply VN, that could've been done in Ren'Py. My laptop sounded like an airplane trying to take off while playing this game that doesn't need any real time rendering.

I really can't think of any reason why anyone should play this game.

After 3 updates the game still doesn't offer much in terms of content (0 sex scenes, no corruption). You are the owner of a restaurant and you have to pay a big debt. THAT'S IT! So far, you have a total of 3 choices in the game and it doesn't seem that they affect the story in any way (besides the management sys). Prostitution, brothel, affairs, developing relationships with those around her ... none of that so far.

All you get instead is this restaurant management system that allows you to pick which girl works in a certain area. Overall the gameplay looks like this: you start a new day -> you select where the girls will work -> proceed -> read the first text block -> double click(or click just once and wait for a text scrolling effect) -> read the next text block and so on -> view the day stats. After you repeat the process 4-5 times you will get either a free day scene or a story scene.
Graphics: 4/5
Gameplay: 1/5 (double click, double click - annoying)
Story: 2/5 (I found a dog collar in my steak, everyone, they are serving dogs here ... )
Development: Slow