VN - Ren'Py - Tribulations of a Mage [v0.14.0] [Talothral]

Writers are doing a great job. I like the story line. Graphics are good, but could use more detail. I would like to see better quality animations. I like the wider range of characters. Each character gives a different favor to the story line. Over all a great game.

There is some complex lore inside for just a common fantasy game. Weird. I liked the dialogue so far and it keeps me playing. But I am impressed by the amount of gods. Almost Skyrim levels. The main character is a common fantasy MC with no remarkable personality traits beyond being a nice and honor-full guy most of the time, but the models are nicely made no uncanny valley or deformed bodies to be seen.

Not very good. The plot is good, the writing is poor, the girls are... niche, and the sex scenes are bad.

The plot is solid. The writing doesn't quite work, however, at least in English. There are lines dealing with intrigue, cleverness, and implied secrets, and they don't make sense. There's a lot of stuff that I can't directly follow, which is not normal for me.

The girls are mostly not even close to human. LIs include: a red-eyed dwarf, an actual fucking ghost, an orc, a halfling (probably), a woman corrupted by necromancy so she looks half like a zombie, and an actual human. If that's what you're into, then you might like this game. I don't mind there being niche LIs, but I want there to be actual human women. I probably wouldn't've played this game if the screenshots were representative of the LIs.

The sex scenes are not animated, and don't have dialogue. They are basically just a series of slightly changed still images. They really don't work for me; I was actually laughing during the first sex scene I got with a human.

Anyway, I got basically nothing good out of this.

The art is top quality both in characters and backgrounds, while i personally don't like animations you have to notice that they are also very high quality even if a bit slow.

While the main story is way over complicated it is still an interesting read and plenty enough to keep you interested in playing, on the flip side the minor story arcs are too simple basically there is an enemy kill it.

Characters are good from a story standpoint, coming off as very realistic being just what you would expect from the situation but again on the flip side because of that none of the women are likeable from a dating point of view, personally i didn't like any of them enough to see a single sex scene in the whole game.

The other thing about the characters is they are almost totally useless beyond a quick healing and general cooking the MC does everything by himself, would have been nice to see them help out once and a while.

After playing to the end i didn't see a single consequence of any choice that was made, a few were obvious see sex scene or not but the ones that should control the story had no impact of any kind that i could notice, maybe they will end up doing something in the future but for now choices are mostly pointless.

Story 3/5 (needs a little work)
Art 5/5 (very good)
Sex N/A (didn't get any on my play through)
Fetishes 1/5 (nonhuman if that counts)
Choices 1/5
Characters 3/5 (Ok)

This VN has some of the best world building I've ever seen in a VN. I love fantasy worldbuilding, but a lot of stories just use exposition dumps. But this VN doesnt do that - everything is unraveled slowly and the dev actually actually leaves it up to the players to piece it together through the dialogue and the preexisting knowledge of fantasy stuff.
There was never a scene where the circumstances are explicitly explained to the player and the fact that I was able to piece it together really shows how well the whole thing is written.
As for the technical stuff, the dialogue writing and the visuals are good, but the character models can look a little generic and the posing is a little awkward - especially in the sex scenes.
Definitely give this one a shot if you are at all interested in magical fantasy stories.

I'm completely floored with how good this VN is. The story is well told with multiple outcomes for what some might see as minor choices at times. Took me forever to figure out what choice I made that killed off a character, but once I ran through a few times I figured out, "Oh, the writer actually accounted for these choices to line up and lead to this, damn, that's awesome." So many VNs seem to drag a story or not actually give you choices, but this surprised the hell out of me and made for an experience worth rereading.

Speaking of choices, the amount of choices given in the preferences alone should be praised. I've never, and I mean never, had a VN actually have an option to turn off dialogue during sex scenes. Personally, I prefer the dialogue, but the fact that the Dev actually thought of that shit? Wow. This is just a small detail that the Dev took time to notice that some players may want an option to just turn that shit off and enjoy the models the Dev has created. Hats off for that.

This brings me to the model work. There's no half-assing it here. The model work is top notch. From the random encountered NPCs to the companions you can tell some real thought went into each character design. Which really helps with the world building.

Needless to say, I loved this and I'm going to be supporting this Dev as soon as I can budget it out. Take a bow Talothral, you deserve it.

I have to admit that Talothral shows how a good story can go a long way in making a game enjoyable. No foolish "sandbox" play that is really just a vast waste land of empty locations at multiple empty times. We get none of that. What we get is an interesting story with decent renders. The animations are Talothral's weakest link and hopefully he can improve in this one area.

Time and time again Talothral gives us an interesting story worth reading and his world building is always top notch. One release schedule at at lease once a month is great. I look forward to this story as it unfolds.

English:............9/10
User Interface:.....4/10
User Experience:....8/10
Art:................7/10
Dialogue:...........5/10
Story:..............7/10
Opinion:............7/10................
Avg:..............6.71/10 [3.35/5]

Honestly, this is now my fourth or fifth attempt to write a review of this. The first time, just wasn't feeling it, it's more of the same kinda issues from this dev with a slight visual improvement. The rest of the times I got a few paragraphs in and accidentally deleted my review, so it's just cursed for me at this point. I will preface this by saying this is MOSTLY GOOD. Three stars doesn't mean bad, just needs some elbow grease. The short answer is "If Tally's stories do it for you, here's more of the same." It's marginally reductive, but true. This story feels like a spiritual successor to their other magic based AVN. (which I can't name because we're not allowed to compare games because... devs can't take criticisms? I guess..?)They STILL do the same, awful, sex scenes that are two images of one or both of the characters breaking their bones to crash into each other's pelvic regions. Instead of learning about the characters or relationships, there's miles of world building and everyone already knows everyone. Instead of two characters interacting, the dev would rather have 20 frames of MC getting on a horse, or have an entire scene play out but never talk about it or be relevant after the fact. Sure, a couple of those issues are just a constant in the AVN sector, but Tally here REALLY likes to write this in-depth world and politics. The problem is I DO NOT CARE about Emperor A or Queen B and their relations with Kingdom J or Village K. This time around MC ACTUALLY has issues, but they really only flare up or cause any inconvenience when the plot needs something negative to happen. I'm not asking for the world's greatest hero's journey, but if writing is the focus, which it very much is here, then give me a reason to care. MC once again acts like everything going on is just an annoyance to him. He seems to know the answer to all the issues unless the person he's after has hidden their face or there is travel time to limit his limitlessness. If you're gonna create universe after universe, and call the game "Tribulations" you better write some tribulations, that's all.

This starts out the same as the rest of the AVN's, MC doing SOMETHING. A pointless action sequence showing MC being the best, it being nothing more than an inconvenience, and it's NEVER talked about again. You meet MC and Mal, (I really don't remember if is name is Maltrin, Malgrin, Masrin, or Malfrin as the font is not great(It's malgrin, that's apparently a 'G')) They're finishing up a job for some noble that cheaped out on them. Then Nisha, MC's familiar that is a female panther because she'll probably become a horny humanoid one day. They need to get to the capital for some reason. You also see MC coughing and Mal's constant worry for him, implying there's something wrong. Spoiler alert, it's his one tribulation. Singular. Part of his soul is missing and it's killing him. Normally, I'd be interested, that's kinda a cool thing to explore. The issue is that it's the problem, the plot, and driving force for everything. The whole of the story is focused on this one thing. Solving his declining health. AKA finding the necromancer responsible(or another one to fix him, I don't 100% know yet.) You get a scene at the inn of the people not wanting him around because he's sick, I will say it's a nice little thing even though I think the thumbheads are a little too belligerent in my opinion.(You also see Mal moonwalk because the CGs aren't in order) This next section also highlights one of the HUGE issues I have with all the MC's by Tally here. While he's talking at Nelda, AT not TO, he's painfully aware of everything she might do or say even if he's not even looking at her. He acts completely disinterested, and she almost NEVER has anything to say. So many of the dialogues end up this way. What is the point in making other characters if MC knows, says, and answers their questions befpre they even ask them? These all-knowing Wizard of Oz type characters are NEVER supposed to be the main character. Omnipotence and omniscience are boring. Not to mention MC just comes off so matter-of-fact and sounds like an ass most of the time. I honestly think this dev would be one of my favorites if characters were written better. The only argument would be that part of his soul is missing, but everyone is just as stale.

Soon you meet Shani, I suppose MC's primary LI. And like their last game, their relationship is made difficult, only this time it's due to size issues, not political ones. He never loses the impatient attitude either. She brings him news about a conjurer? I think? Maybe the one that summoned the elemental from the beginning? It's not apparent, and I like to think I read these games pretty thoroughly. Anyways she says "Yeah I found it" So his response is "You gonna tell me or what?" And he does that more than once. So he starts to feel a little unlikeable. It doesn't get WORSE, but it just persists and I don't understand why everyone likes him. And they all do, everyone regards him very highly. You soon meet Gweyr, an orc from a now destroyed village. This is where MC's assholery is most apparent. He just begrudgingly helps her and say how much he dislikes orcs and barely wants to work with her. I UNDERSTAND his pale orc issue, but they literally just did the "Those are northern dwarves I'm eastern" and she says "What's the difference?" and they compare forest to pale orcs. So the lesson was supposed to be learned. Only he still continues to be a bit of a dick. I dunno, just weird to me. Maybe I didn't read his reasoning right, but she falls for him after a week anyway. Which pushes them to the capital.

You meet the whole gaggle of mages. Lian, Ayaka, Uche, Jian and Magnus. You KIND OF see that Ayaka is prideful, Uche is supposed to be comedic relief, if having one of the two jokes is comedic relief, Lian and Jian are.... Characters in this story. And Magnus is MC's mentor. This highlights another aspect of poor character writing. None of them have personalities, or at least to me they don't feel like they do. Sure, they kind of relay information in slightly different manners of speech. But all they do is provide exposition or plot for MC to hear. Shani and Mal are the closest to real characters, but still don't feel like they have personalities deeper than playful and grumpy lecher, respectively.This whole section is meant to tell MC "Go here and do this thing. That being kill a necromancer because a magic war is coming, I suppose. Ultimately it's long, drawn out, and nothing happens. It's SUPPOSED to establish the aforementioned characters and their relationships with MC. But since everyone comes off as monotone and dry, at least in my head, it just feels boring. I think a big part is the stiff posing, like the walk cycle that is overused? It's not even walking it's the character starting from a rest position mirrored over the body. So it makes it feel robotic. Also I believe a whole month is just skipped over at this point. I get that things don't always need to happen, but some of the best character moments happen during downtime. So I don't know why the opportunity wasn't used to get to know people a little more than their one personality trait. Another thing that bugs me is MC says "Now if only I could move from point A to B instantly" but MC teleported earlier at the Orc scene? And the ONLY reason I remember that is because he was like 10 steps away then made magic happen and was next to him instantly. I thought he was being so lazy he couldn't be bothered to walk that little of a distance. And I really don't want to learn or complain about the depths of how the magic works in this world because I know for a FACT that I the player will never impact MC's use of magic in any meaningful way.

The next bit is two side stories and the necromancer. The travel bits are SUPPOSED to be MC learning about Gweyr and sure, it almost seems like you learn about her. But she literally says NOTHING. "We don't talk about the dead" But MC asked about her? It should come off as a "moment" but no one says anything and cuts jarringly to MC's nightmare again. Then you get to see that Dev doesn't know how to make multiple dialogues work well. It needs to be edited a little bit so the backgrounds don't stack on each other. The gladelings are inconsequential. MC knew some when he was young, they want things from the necromancer, nothing special. I guess add a possible furry tag. The witch teaches MC to fight possession and talk with the dead. And the necromancer... Is a fight scene. I don't think he even gets what he was supposed to from them? Either way, Eirlys, the witch joins the party afterwards. I like her look, I will say it's very different. The passage of time is very strange too. It will say a couple days later or some amount of time, THEN the characters will have the discussion. But the time between the two scenes wouldn't have needed the time? Like when MC is stopped before the capital, he's at most half a day away(give or take) but it says DAYS passed before he enters? I guess being slow is better than teleporting, it still makes it hard to judge the size and distance I guess. It gets difficult to talk about the story even, as at this point most of what's happening is everyone standing around TALKING about what they're GOING to do. "We need to go here" "We also need to do this" "You are free, do what you want" "This character died off screen and no one batted an eye at it" You see why I think it feels dry now? I don't mind talking or a slow burn, but there's a difference between slow burn and inactivity, this comes off as the latter. Sure they fight some Wights, and are headed for an EIGHT MONTH journey. But it just doesn't feel as grand as it's made out to be. Though, it is a LOT more entertaining and engaging than the last game. The politics take a backseat and it never feels like a board meeting. All to end on an okayish cliffhanger. (As of 0.8)

All in all, this isn't bad. Am I interested to see more? Sure. Tally always does a decent amount right. But it's still missing that little bit of character writing and personability to make me love it. As always, the English is fine. The later chapters have a couple odd tensing issues and missing words in sentences, but it's good overall. The UI/UX is slightly edited, and they have the choice wheel option, but it's still stock renpy with a couple extra buttons, I'd love to see an overhaul to add some personality. The Art is better. The sex scenes are still two back and forth images of the SINGULAR body part moving up and down, making it uncanny and a little comical. The Dialogue is the biggest hit to this. It reminds me of an episode of Criminal Minds, yeah all the characters stand around and finish each other's sentences, but no one has their own personality. No one adds a unique perspective, just their one character quirk. Hell, there are only like 4 jokes in the story. I'm glad it's not marvel levels of quippyness, but lightening the mood with something OTHER THAN sarcasm would be appreciated. The story is interesting. Or I guess more that the events that are happening are interesting because, as it stands, I can't really tell what is the main storyline. Is it save the world? Is it meet his old friend? Is it get his soul back? I just don't know at this time. If ol' Tally ever reads this, what I want most, given all my gripes and nit-picking, is more effort to go into the characters and interpersonal dialogues. One thing that is certain is I do not care about a single person in this. Are a couple of the models appealing? Yeah. But all I know about them is what race they are and what they ate for breakfast. The only time I (the player) ever learn about a character is when it's about MC and his past or afflictions. That's great and all, but this is an AVN, I don't need to feel anything for MC. I'm sorry, that's just how it is. I will ALWAYS say how much I love and appreciate the world building and lore, but characters are really what make a story interesting.

Dev's name is enough to play this game. He is one of the most promising Devs here. 3 completed games already this is 4th one. He gives frequent updates too. Within 2months this one got 7 updates. For now there is around 7 - 8 hrs of gameplay depending on your reading speed.

Only play this game if you love playing story centric games. If lewd part is your primary focus this one's not for you. There is lewd here but there is also lot to read. Good decision to add orc as LI, seems like I'm developing an orc fetish. Comparing to his other games render quality increased lot. His all games got High rating but I think he still deserves more recognition.

Overall I enjoyed this game. If you love playing story centric games give this one a try. I remember playing sorcerer long time ago but for some reasons I dropped it, now it's time to play it again. I will review it later.

Wow, to say amazing would be an understatement. The story, the world-building, the characters—all were so unique and refreshing to see. I especially was amazed to see so many unique races in this version alone. And the companions, superb. I liked the dwarf, Mal, and he was a male too. Having a male as a close companion and friend is so rare in AVNs. Also, I liked the fairy and her shenanigans, and the chemistry of the trio—I mean, their chemistry alone would have been enough to give it a thumbs up. Plus, the magical fights, especially with the necromancer, were so well done. I don't have many negatives to say, though I have some, but they are not that important considering the effort and care that went into making this game. Though I will state one, please develop the chemistry as you are adding more companions properly and also add one or two more male companions if possible, as you have made more males than I could have expected from an AVN. But please look into considering them in the companion lists; that would diversify the party. Thank you, dev, for presenting to us such a high-quality and polished game, and best of luck to you for future updates!

Just like The Sorcerer, its a perfect choice for fantasy enjoyers and Harem enjoyers. I would've liked to of seen animations but that's not paramount to the games enjoyability.
Perhaps a little confused on setting, drifting back and forth between eastern western influence. But again its a fantasy game so who am I to judge.

Review for v0.7.0

I'm pretty partial to high fantasy settings, and this feels very much like a sort of classic take on the genre. We play as an experienced mage who's been effectively handicapped after getting his soul damaged. We want to fix that. Due to specific circumstances, we are working under an emperor as a sort of means to accomplish that among other reasons. Lots of different races, your usual magic, mysteries, lore, etc etc. It feels like a world with some thought put into it, which is nice. One thing I do want to praise especially is the environments. There's a lot of detail going into them that I appreciate.

The dev has a certain writing style that I do find enjoyable overall. It's a lot more mature than your usual AVN. I also like playing as an MC who's confident and intelligent without having to be cringe alpha chad. I have a feeling he's going to be a bit of a Gary Stu as the game goes, but maybe not egregiously so. Other characters have been fine enough so far, though maybe a bit stiff in moments.

Building on that last point, I think that's one of my bigger criticisms. I don't think emotion gets portrayed very well. A lot of things feel very logical in the ways they play out or are talked about. A lack of passion in the way characters express things maybe is the issue.

I think what also hurts the game and plays into that problem is the camera angles. It feels like just about every shot is a distanced wide-screen view of all the characters relevant in the given scenario. No close-ups of faces, switching around when someone talks, or just any kind of dynamic angle really. Again, it feels a bit stiff at times because of this. Doubly so with action scenes, which haven't felt very exciting so far.

What's probably the biggest point of contention is the lewd scenes. I'll be honest and say I think they are by far the weakest part of the game. Especially in comparison to a lot of modern day AVNs, they just aren't very erotic. I'll say I like the variety of girls, but most of the scenes kind of feel thrown in more than anything. They aren't animated, the renders are fine and only fine, and the overall composition of them leaves things to be desired. It doesn't feel like there's much passion behind them.

I've only played one of the previous games from the dev, but from that alone I feel like I can say this game is much of the same you'd probably expect. For better and for worse. If you liked the other games you'll probably like this one. If you didn't, I don't think this will make you feel different. I enjoy the game enough for what it is, but I wouldn't recommend it to you if you're here for the sex.

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Pros
+ Decently 'mature' sense of mood writing
+ Main characters will feel fairly individual, if a bit uninspired
+ Good visuals
+ Some degree of self-awareness
+ Amongst self-inserts, this author has made it a point to do their best to avoid making you feel embarrassed by your insert MC.
+ If your idea of a good self-insert is an unflappable and willful harem MC, the general writing outclasses most of this website.
+ The author has historically finished all his previous games.
+ If you were already a fan of his style, you can stop reading this now, I'm almost assured that little has changed and you should know what to expect by now.

Cons
- The mood writing is always the same. It never changes. If you're lucky and not the type to notice this, it's great.
Unfortunately, you've read this now.
- Despite a decent spread of identities, they're shallow proxies of common tropes with little in the way of interesting points or growth.
- The self-awareness it has would be considered sufficient compared to the bulk of its peers but not to anything considered good.
- I've said this about games and writing like this, this MC is basically Kirito if he was allowed to be edgier and own a harem.
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Spoiler: summary & pointless monologue

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As soon as I saw that some of the text was in an almost unreadable font, I thought to myself that this was going to be bad. I wasn’t mistaken. While the graphics look nice, and the dev may have a good story in his head: he does not know how to tell that story in this medium.

Imagine picking up a novel, and flipping to a scene where a character walks across a room: “Mal got up and took a step towards the bar. He then took another step. A third step he took, while onlookers marveled at the sight. A forth step followed, then finally, a fifth, at which point he found himself near the bar. A sixth step took him still closer, and finally a seventh step put him close-enough for his beard to scrap the bar-top.” Now imagine that the pages of this novel often turn themselves, whether you are ready for them to or no, while sometimes they get stuck together and you have to struggle valiantly to progress at all. That is the sort of prose, and user experience, you will find in this game, only told in pictures instead of words.

A rather good story so far, as to be expected from this dev, but useless adult/porn content. I can't help but feel the dev would succeed much more outside of the "adult" market. The sex scenes haven't improved even slightly since his first game. It's a real shame. Should go with still-rendered but high-detail or actual animated sex scenes in this day and age, this in-between looping between two renders without any text is way way worse than either of those options. You don't even get the option to control the pace of the sex scene because the dev decided you should have to stare at his 2-render loop for nearly a minute each time.

Visually, there are barely any improvements either. Characters still do the thousand-yard stare when talking to each other just like they did in the other games by this dev.

If this was just a visual novel without adult content, I would likely give this at least 3 stars for the story-telling alone, but the fact remains it's an adult VN and that aspect of the game is just terrible, with zero hope for any improvement because the dev just doesn't care to experiment, change, or improve anything art-wise even after years of experience and growing monetary support, despite being the most criticized thing in all of his games.

As per usual from Talothral, another great start to another VN.

This dev puts a lot of thought and energy into storytelling. It shows with how much time he spends on improving his craft.

Story--5/5
Renders--5/5
Characters( as of now)--5/5

I've been following and subscribed since the first novel. Talothral has improved leaps and bounds with each story that has been created. This one is no different.

Review

This one starts off with a fire. Then you get flashes of the past that has put the MC on his current path. Struggle, fight, sex, magic and good story telling pull you into this new world.
I recommend this VN and this dev. Constant improvement and great story telling drive this VN with every update.

Once again a nice game from Talothral. I love his games (ok animations could be a bit better - fucking looks like rabbits ). But with Talothral you can be sure that his games will be finished. I don't know any of his games that have been abandoned.

Story - 4,5/5
Renders - 4.5/5 Better with every new game
LI's - not much atm
Animations like all Talothral games - 1/5

Why i give him 5/5 for this game? Because he is one of few developers who completes his games and give us frequent updates.
Ive played all Talothral games and i like them, story is always fun, rich variety of LI's in all his games and i see his skill progress.
So yeah 5/5 for this.
Please pay attention to animations more and work on them.
Looking foward for more

The game, and therefore the journey of our heroes, is only just beginning, but even now I have to say that this game will once again be a masterpiece of the genre.

Everything is just right again, the atmosphere, the environment, the characters of the people who have appeared so far, as well as their dealings with each other.

The story is excitingly told and I can only look forward to the further adventures of our group of heroes.

The story looks interesting, the dialogues are good and logical.
the renders look great especially the panther and very good detailing, but the sex scenes are boring, no roleplay or anything , no animations as of now.

The dialogue font is default , and game font is not good, it's hard to read the text when the scene changes.

The characters are average, no in-dept detailing and all.