Renryuu game review by WhiteSerenity

A while ago, WhiteSerenity wrote me a long mail with feedback and some questions about the game Renryuu. At my request, he made a review version of this mail, to post it here now. Maybe this'll be interesting to people, who haven't played the game yet. 

 

WhiteSerenity’s Review:

 

I think Renryuu: Ascension is an extremely good game and I loved how forward it was with the nudity. Most 18+ games that have a nudity or a sexual related tag are usually either based on sex with a terrible plot or it’s a great game but you have to wait quite a while before anything pornoghraphic is shown. 

 

This game blends both plot and nudity in a wonderful way. It feels like the sex is actually a part of the story, instead of it either being something that can only be accessed by earning it or the nudity being blatantly thrown in your face. The only time that Renryuu: Ascension threw the hentai in my face was at the very beginning, but that was also surprising because most hentai games with good plot like this generally won’t give you any easily obtainable CG’s or sex scenes without making you complete a difficult task. And I doubt anyone is going to complain about a free sexy CG. I also like how each sex scene has a story with a different location every time. I felt like I was playing the game for both the story and nudity, rather than forcing myself through a bad plot for some sex scenes.

 

Renryuu: Ascension was very detailed. I found myself going to every location at least 10 times to make sure I didn't miss anything. When I was close to finishing the game, after completing the main story I referred to the walkthrough to make sure I collected every CG and completed every quest because of how much there is to do. There may be some people who may or may not like having to return to every area of the game again and again, but I enjoyed the game so it didn’t feel like a hassle; And sexy/cute hentai girl CG’s around every corner was good  enough motivation for me ;).

 

Drawings

 

In my opinion, the drawings of the sex acts were very different in how well they were drawn. I am not saying that I think there were some created with less effort, I just feel that some were better than the others. I still loved every drawing in the game because they were drawn satisfyingly well. Two of my favorite CG’s were the very first scene with Tsubaki (damn that was hot and unexpected. I hit “New Game” and *boom* Tsubaki’s voluptuous tits were in my face) and the scene with Lace. Having a full view of a hot hentai chick is awesome but I’ve never been a huge fan of missionary, so pulling her up with chains to see everything was arousing. 

 

Characters

 

With so many characters it’s great to see that they all have their own individual personalities. I have seen some similarities, but they all feel like they are their own person. Three of my favorite characters are Ryoko, Elly and Kayelinth because their personalities are so openly expressed. Ryoko with her constant need for orders which may be seen as annoying to some, but I see it as cute and endearing. Elly with her overflowing amounts of passion and honest love for Ryen. She’s a perfect example of a deredere. I don’t hate tsunderes and if they are done right they can be awesome and adorable, but they’ve been used so many times that I want to see other dere’s being explored, especially deredere and coodere. And Kayelinth being the most adorable character (in my opinion) in the game, with her inexperience with intercourse and her constant obvious and lovable need to eat and play. I definitely didn’t expect the dragon I was feeding to become a hot naked girl. I’m into anthropomorphic furries, but dragon girls and shark girls are quite rare compared to cat girls and dog girls, so I was pretty happy when Kayelinth appeared. 

 

Music

 

I also love the music in this game. The main harmony for when Ryen and the rest of the group are walking across the map was perfect. I would definitely describe it as adventurous. Some of it reminds me of this game made for the ps2 called Nier. Like the music played when you enter the Fision Tower, which I absolutely LOVE! It’s soothing and peaceful, yet beautiful and mysterious. 

 

Grammar

 

There are quite a few grammatical errors in both the walkthrough and game, but it really doesn't bother me at all. I’m not the type of person to let some misspelled/misplaced words ruin a game for me. The only games that I think should have complete grammatical correctness would be million/billion dollar game companies.

 

My Overall Rating

 

I played this game for 29:51:59. Within the first 20 minutes of playing I rated it a 4/5 and after completing the game I changed it to a 5/5. I look forward to playing the rest of the game and to any future games that Naughty-Netherpunch may make.

Update 17.05.15

The new update is done and contains:

- A new scene with the fire spirit in the south dungeon in Central.

- 3 new quests from Flaire at the thieves guild below Thremten. The third quest has 5 different ways to solve the problem, 4 of these are optional and hidden if you haven’t met the necessary person for it yet.

- Some small balancing changes.

- Dialogs from the last update were spellchecked and corrected now.

General news: 

Tomorrow, Tuesday 16. May 2017, the grand final of the Tournament of Fame will beginn at www.patreon.com/naughtynetherpunch 

Only Tsubaki, Vampire and Kurohime are left! Everyone will have only one vote, so the choice won’t be easy, but the last girl standing after this poll will be the winner of the entire Tournament!

Download the newest version at:
-- Mediafire -- 
-- MEGA --

Streaming schedule

Since I'm planning to stream more from now on, I made a google doc file with my streaming schedule. In this file, I'll add and change the date and times for my streams, so that you're always up-to-date.

The stream times are marked with a color, to show whether the stream will be on twitch (non-mature content) or on picarto (mature content).

Streams will usually be 23:30 or 13:30 CEST. Feel free to add the difference to your timezone in the file, to make it easier for everyone in the same timezone to immediately know at which times the streams will be for them.

Link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19IDljgty5NQFl0Lt8_zz1swihyZrcZHd5sZJciRrLnE/edit#gid=0

Streaming on picarto.tv

I'm going to stream on picarto.tv from now on, beside the irregular streams on twitch.tv, so that I can make more regular streams even when working on mature content, since Picarto allows for streams with such content.

The first stream on https://picarto.tv/NaughtyNetherpunch will be tonight at 23:30 pm CEST (which should be 17:30 EDT, if I'm not mistaken. :D )

If you're interested in watching streams of my work on Renryuu, make sure to leave a follow and you'll get a notification when I go online again. 

Streams on twitch can be seen at http://twitch.tv/ryensaotome

On a side note, the polls for the last 6 characters in the Tournament of fame will continue on Wednesday at www.patreon.com/naughtynetherpunch. Make sure to drop by and leave your vote!

Update 17.05.01

 

The new version is ready! Beside a new scene for the maid Vivian, most time went into the changed for the warmap. It's not done yet, but the current version should be enough to give an idea to where things are going. Please let me know, when you find any bugs, and what you think of the changes.

General changes include:

- Spire on Courage added to the Begus south map item

- Ryen can obtain his new level 15 skill now by sleeping in his bed, when you play in a savegame where he was already 15 or higher when the skill was added.

- Higher m.atk for Chiyo

- Fixed the bug, which gave you steel instead of coal from mining coal inside of the Spire of Courage

- Fixed a buggy demon in the Spire of Courage

- Added a CG scene with Vivian to the headmaids girl selecion screen

- The music on all maps was changed to the same volume

Warmap changes include:

- Completely new map in between battles

- All unit can change class now (but require the necessary resources for it)

- You can heal and train new troops for each unit

- The first farm can produce Wheat, Hops, Pigs or Horses

- The storage can be upgraded from 20 to 50 resources max

- Watchtower can be build directly on the new map. A lot of buildings will follow, which will eventually replace the old "choice tree" of Sir Edward in your throne room for constructions

- Special events marked with an "!" symbol give short dialogs on the new warmap. For example, having helped Val's mercenarys before will give you a dialog at the blue villa on the new warmap, which gives you a few new recruits

- Constructions take several turns to complete, but are instant while no battle is active.

- Battles show you the win/loss condition at the start now, and a "victory" or "defeat" image at the end. Winning and losing will make you gain/lose supplies

- If your supplies drop below zero, they'll stay at zero but the moral of your troops goes down.

Bugs I'm aware of:

- Problem with unintended change of looking direction of enemy units when they're marked as in your attack range

- The AP counter sometimes doesn't refresh after the turn ends. The unit has the correct amount of AP, but the display is not updating until you move the unit again.

Download the newest version at:  

-- Mediafire -- 

-- MEGA --

Update 17.04.19

 

The new version is done and contains a lot of new maps and CGs!

 

- 13 Floors for the new map Spire of Courage [3 safe floors, 3 base fighting floors, 3 easy floors, 2 medium floors and 2 advanced floors].

- The easy floor ends with an event, that can lead to a CG scene when you win the fight and make the right choice afterwards.

- Medium floor introduces the Tigergirl patreons have voted on before. Her events aren't finished yet, she'll receive a CG scene later.

- Hard floor will bring back a good friend for a rematch, unless you haven't met her yet.

- Several new enemy battler CGs

- New skill "Dark Blade" for Ryen at level 15

- New skill Mana Burn for some enemies

- Balancing changes for element attacks and defense of friends and enemies

- New CG for the scene with Chiyo and Kayelinth playing in the river

- New recipes, items and steel equipment

- Replaced some normal soldiers with dwarves at and in the Drunken Cave

General notes: 

- To help balancing the game, please let me know with what level and party you managed to clear the Spire of Courage or where enemies were too strong for you.

 

- I changed the system for the version number from day/month/year to year/month/day, so that the higher number will always be the newer version.

 

- At the time of this post, we're ~60$ short on the patreon goal to get a new monstergirl with CG into the game each month. Should you like the new monstergirls, you now know how to get more of them. ;) 

 

Download the newest version at: 

-- Mediafire --  

-- MEGA --

Update 07.04.17

The new version is up and contains:

- New CG scene with Aleah. This scene will be different, depending on whether you freed her or put her into your dungeon.

- New event with two different CGs for Grey, if your previous choices with him included keeping him in your castle.

- The solutions for the Magic Test during the events with Chiyo have been added to the walkthrough.


- The RPG Maker MV now has the option to export games for Linux. I've uploaded the newest version, but expect it to be buggy or not to work for certain Linux versions. As I don't have a Linux system myself, I won't be able to provide tech support for this version.

Download the newest version at:
-- Mediafire --
-- MEGA --

Future warmap changes

As part of my effort to change and improve the warmap, I would like to present you my current plans and thoughts. I'll work on them at the side, while I continue to make and upload the usual content, since it'll take quite a long time to finish everything.

Most changes will be for the "map" system, before you go into the strategy battle. Instead of moving your forces around with some slow choice, I'm going to make it into a worldmap, where you can send your troops to active battles and improve your cities, recruit new troops and much more.
Outside of battles, all upgrades and recruitments will happen instantly, but you won't gain or lose any recources over time.  Once a battle is active, the system will change to a turn based system, during which things take turns to be build, but you gain or lose recources each turn. The active battles will have a "deadline", until which the enemies have either conquered the area or retreated, so you'll have only a certain amount of turns to work with each time. This is for balancing reasons, since you could otherwise improve your country endlessly outside of battles.

As seen in the screenshot, you'll have some rescources which will be generated over time during the turn based phase, while the storage will hold things which you need to built yourself each time. Those unique recources are either required to build, recruit troops, or to give a boost to the gain of a certain recource.

There are 27 possible buildings, which can be built for different benefits. The actual number to get into the game might still change of course.

Buildings and troops will cost supply for each turn. Should you not increase your supply gain enough and the supplies drop to 0, your Moral starts to drop until it get's to 0 and none of your forces make any damage anymore.

The new system is planned to support up to 15 allied and 15 enemy units, to allow for bigger battles. All normal units can be changed to any of the 6 base classes, given that you have enough resources to do so.
Special Generals can be recruited as well, to give units a certain unique buff.
Unusual forces, for example consisting of tamed monsters, might be added as well.
All of the above changes depend on how well thing will work, when I try to get them into the game, and might be changed depending on it.

The changes will also affect the Skilltree upgrades for the warmap and the research options in the Laboratory.

The upcoming changed to the tax and policy system will also affect the warmap. Taxes will, depending on whether you set them high or low, raise or lower a counter during the normal gameplay. This counter will decrease or increase the population gain during the warmap turn based phase, during which the counter goes down again, until it's at 0 and has no effect anymore. This way, your choice on the "real time" taxes will affect the warmap in it's "turn based" system afterwards, making the choice more important.

Strategy map changes:

I'll add different animations for some classes, and add an animation for ranged units that attack, to make it easier to tell when an enemy attacked.

Before each battle, the winning and losing conditions are going to be displayed on the screen.

At the moment, enemies attack you if you're within 2 tiles walking range. This gives a big advantage to all 3 AP and ranged units, since the're certain to get the first hit. It also makes it unlickley for enemies to help their allies, when they're being "lured away". That's why I consider changing it, so that enemies not only attack when in range, but walk 2 tiles when your forces are 3 tiles away. This increase in range will hopefully improve the enemies, and make them less static or bystanders during their allies battles, without making them much stronger.