VN - Ren'Py - Companion of Darkness [Ch.9] [Berkili4]

Genuinely one of the best VN's I've played. Characters are well developed and there's an actual build up of a connection with them. The story stays interesting with some shocking changes, but done well so that its not jarring and/or annoying. Sex scenes are decent, they get much better as the game goes on, but the story more than makes up for what the sex scenes lack.

I did not expect to find something this good randomly, also the sheer amount of story content I fucking love it, after putting it down and going to work I kept wondering what will happen next, thank you for making this, I rate it 4.9/5.

I'm really enjoying Companion of Darkness! The story has me hooked, especially because the characters are so interesting. All the girls are definitely standouts; they are gorgeous.

The visuals are also impressive. The character models are beautiful. The environments are well-designed. The animation is smooth and adds to the overall experience.

Renders 5/5
Characters 5/5
Story 4/5
Gameplay 5/5
Animations 5/5

Overall, this is a fantastic game! It easily gets 9.5 out of 10 from me. The story is interesting Definitely worth checking out!

overall 8.5/10
the storyline is great and engaging and offers something new in every update
the character models are okayish - I would have given this 9.5 if the quality of the models were better( plus some of the main models are copied from other VNs, so that's that)
the overall character development, though, is very good and feels realistic and natural.
the animations are of decent quality.
Overall, I like this VN because of the story and main LI (Noel, yeah she's great both model and character-wise).

Decent. but not great. That sums up the entire game but unfortunately you need more words than that:

The animations? You've seen them in every honey select game. The sex scenes that are there are few and far between.

The story tries to be deep but fails. It's like Game of Thrones but the dev forgot anything but the synopsis.

It's not a bad game, but it's ultimately forgettable.

It's an incredible story, for an adult game. I could swear with a little more attention (and if you remove the adult content) it could be a Netflix series.. I do not remember myself wanting to see the continuation of the story that much in an adult game. It has a full, well structured (relatively), fantasy world.

The models are not bad, but not fantastic either and the sex scenes are average, comparing to other top games.

Rating : 5/5

This is a pretty good game. The adult content is so-so, mainly due to the render style and middling frequency. What's there is good if you get invested in the characters, and the girls all look good enough. The overarching plot falls off a bit in my opinion - its starts off more focused and tense, as the MC is in a struggle for his survival from day one. The latter part of the first arc is where i think things start to go wrong - characters start doing things which are just too illogical, and things start to devolve into poor hollywood writing. Half of the problems and conflicts which end up occuring could've easily been solved with communication. I don't expect people to behave perfectly rationally of course - who would - but as readers we are asked a bit too much to suspend our disbelief at some of the frankly retarded decisions made by some of the characters. This is all redeemed by the setting and world building though - the core premise, demon-like creatures being bound to humans in an urban fantasy world really hooked me and kept me invested - this could be in part due to it hitting a number of taste points for me. Furthermore, the characters are all good to very good - dialogue quality and general prose quality were a bit mixed, and there were a few typos and grammatical errors I caught, but the most important challenge of creating characters which actually have distinct personalities was passed easily. Ultimately, the two most important things to nail for a story based VN, in my opinion, are characters and world building - I can forgive flaws with production value and plot if the rest of the meal is good enough. and in Companion of Darkness it is. In short I recommend this to anyone who feels like playing something which will demand a bit more of your attention to actually read it and appreciate what's there; this certainly isn't one for skipping to the adult scenes.

If there was an option to rate 4.5, I would've done so, but I know what kind of slop gets a 4 on this site so a 5 star rating it is.

Unexpectedly, this is a solid VN.

I am not a fan of VNs in general, wherever it is lack of choice, lack of gameplay, endless texts.

This is fairly good story, that for the most part can be read without skip button, the writing is decent, the models despite looking generic are actually well made. Late scenes also got a pretty good animation to it.

It could be better yes. But as it stands there are very few VNs at this level.

This is the kind of games where you are not expecting something special looking at the screenshots because it's safe to say that graphics and visuals are just kinda ok, maybe slightly above average. But oh boy I'm so glad that I decided to give it a try because now I can't even remember the last time when I was hooked by the narrative like with this one. Story, characters and the worldbuilding are the things which make this game to shine. And the game lore feels so well-designed, caught myself thinking that it's really interesting to get through all the things with The Dark Ones, Primordials and all the stuff, gives movie-like vibes somethimes. And the moment from the latest update with a two certain characers reunite was so heartwarming, damn... just perfect. So in spite of some minor flaws it was a great journey overall, can't wait for a future updates.

Normaly i would have rated this game 2-3 stars BUT the story is ADDICTIVE and the chapters are big the problems are the renders and the sex scenes but otherwise it is a game that you have to play at least once

Honestly i do'nt know where the script came for this game but the one that made it is AMAZING...

I'm going to give this 5 stars, because I'm excited when I see a new release, and my disappointment at the end is because of the fact that it ended.
The graphics are acceptable, the story is different (maybe unique? I haven't read every story ever) and compelling. The sex scenes are fairly good, although I'm not a fan of much of the descriptions within, and varied - not just the same thing from 80 different angles called 80 different scenes.
Maybe I'm just being stupid, but I can't figure out how to name the MC in the gallery, so I just have a save for each scene.
Since I haven't been disappointed overall, this is clearly 5 stars, since it's much better than the vast majority of 4 star+ games.

This is the best 4* game. It has everything to be a 5*, but falls short in every aspect a little bit to drag it down a point. It is almost as the plot copies the game (spoiler), it's a clone of something greater, but without all it's original powers.

I really, really liked it, and i guess partially because i have the same 'background' as the author, i know the games, i recognize the musics and references, so the little fun details don't go missing. It's very story heavy, and it is entertaining, plus in all games i ever played, only 2 games had a footjob scene that looked interesting, and this game is one of them.

The scenes are animated, the characters are pretty, the plot is interesting, it's contextual and satisfactory to play... but

The game took a different direction from where it started i guess, so like another review said, they have flaws in their personalities because of inconsistencies. Some characters were thrown away, and i feel that may be influenced by the community, either patreon or discord. Even the characters that stick around don't usually get deep enough. The choices seem like a big deal, but i didn't really see a difference in how things played out. Ah, and there are some typo errors here and there, but nothing major, don't really care about those.

And i guess the greatest sin, the sex scenes are more of an tease then a full deal. Rarely you get a blowjob and penetration in the same encounter. Actually, change that, because rarely you get a blowjob, it usually is a handjob, footjob, titjob or thigh...job? i dunno the name. I think there is only 1 anal scene, and even if the scenes are well animated, with different poses and angles, the writing doesn't really click with me. The most hot shit was abandoned i guess, that it was using the POV of your companion with your feelings sync'd so you could feel her fucking too, (Asari sex or the Basilisk in CyberP77)

Still looking foward, really liked how the game is going, and when finished if polished with some tweaks would easily be amongst the famous games. Rip Jacky, you were forgotten but no forgotten. I almost tought she became Candy

So as usual my review is long. I do not see the value in short reviews when I want to read reviews myself, so I will not make one myself.

(This first portion is not yet the review, just a message to the creator)

I can only hope the developer sees this review. If you are reading this, I want to thank you. This story is somewhat personally satisfying. I will avoid boring you with sob stories but I am currently in a life situation where my freedoms are significantly restricted due to poverty and mental health issues. So being able to live a power fantasy vicariously is very much something I need right now. And I will have to admit, I did not expect to get that satisfaction from this site. I expected a completely different kind of satisfaction

(Here begins the real review)

Sexual Content
Not that the game is unsatisfying in that area either. I'm sure the thing people are most interested in while reading reviews on this site is how's the sexual content? And it really comes down to what you're looking for. The animation quality is good and the camera angles are imaginative and show the scene properly while keeping unnecessary things out of the frame. In short, good. But if you want them very frequently? This game cannot offer that. The sex scenes are sparse. That isn't to say there are too few. Especially since by the time of writing this review act 8 has already come out so there is a significant amount of sexual content, though the disclaimer in the original post is very accurate. The game is heavily story focused, so there is plenty of story between each sex scene. This is not a bad thing in my eyes, and even on a more objective scale this is not bad. Just a choice that informs the syle of the game.
But I do actually have some negative criticism to offer as well.

Art
The first thing you will notice at the very beginning of the game is that the lighting is wonky. I would assume this is a limitation of the engine used but it can be slightly distracting.
The models are competent and do not stick out as bad but earlier on in the story there is some weirdness in a handful of models. Arsa's head being copied over from Devil May Cry 5 was odd to me as a massive fan of that game because I couldn't separate the appearance from Dante and I wouldn't say Dante's face fits a female character, and even towards the end there is some clipping with clothing. These are minor issues but I do want to be thorough in my review.

Music
The music was mostly songs I hadn't heard in other games, which was nice, but that just made it more jarring when there was the occasional extremely overused song. They don't mix well together.

Story
As with nearly all stories on this site, there are plot holes. Some of you might be questioning why am I being so harsh? Well if I care about something I will criticise it. And against my expectations I grew to care about this story and these characters. So I do not criticise it out of anger. I criticise it out of love. Maybe if my criticism is heard it will improve. That is all I want. Hurting feelings is unavoidable with criticism but I really hope that's not the biggest impact that this review has. I really am writing this because I want the best for the game. And if I want the best for it, I want it to improve.
I think one of the greater plot holes in the game happens in the very very beginning. When Arsael is "defeated" by Rule B, Rule B and his Dark ones don't finish Arsa off, they don't take her power. So they condemn her to going feral. Which is very out of character for every character involved. (Spoiler) And with how Nael's power is later described she should have easily been able to stop Arsael from harming Noel and should have been able to heal Noel with no issue even if she didn't stop Arsael. And it should have been absolutely no issue for Rule B and Nael to find where Noel had been thrown to before the main character since the main character just randomly stumbles upon her. So the inciting event for the entire story is out of character for everyone involved except Arsael. It can be really frustrating when the foundation for the story is already rotten. I would recommend going and fixing it up. But, the dev can do as they wish. Focusing on furthering the story will likely be time better used when it comes to the average player.
Another issue with the opening. The player character definitely did not get home by himself, and Noel was in no condition to bring him there either. So it must have been Gabriel. So Gabriel finding out about the MC having bonded with Noel should not be a surprise to Gabriel or Nael, and so their reaction upon finding them in the red light district should not go the way it does, because they would have had that conversation far earlier. Also the way Noel acts towards the MC while confusing him with Gabriel implies Gabriel was abusive towards her, which would be incredibly out of character for Gabriel.
And once MC wakes up, Gabriel's ignorance on why the MC is feeling off shouldn't happen either.
Also in the very beginning when Noel explains the Dark ones the explanation says that humans became more cruel than the Dark ones, which is not true as the dark ones often reference their lack of empathy towards humans. And saying that the Dark ones lost because they weren't willing to destroy everything to win is another issue. With Nael's power it should have been trivial for the Dark ones to simply end humanity and rule over earth and whatever new life would eventually form. The story is fundamentally inconsistent with itself in many places. These are only a handful of problems with it and I hope I proved a pattern with this. Because I don't intend to point out every inconsistency.
One thing I personally had a big problem with is that the MC never tries to tell Matt specifically what the circumstance for killing Michael was. Michael's crime was heinous and a strongly overblown reaction was not unexpected. MC would have strongly benefitted from telling Matt why he was so brutal when facing Michael.
There is still plenty to enjoy in the story. But if you have a high standard for storytelling, there are several times where you'll be scratching your head and questioning how these events were possible. And I think, since the game is mostly story, the story should be a bit more consistent with itself.

Edit (8.9.2024): So it's been two weeks since I wrote this review and I came across a thought that can be potentially devastating for this story. I'm debating on whether or not reduce the rating from 4 to 3 stars simply because of this. Again, my harshness is the result of this game being so heavily story focused. If the story was more just an excuse for sex scenes then this would matter less, but the game is mostly story.
So what is the issue then? (Spoilers) The main character is established as a rule breaker. Rule breaker how? Rule breaker in that the rules of the magic system do not apply to him the same way they apply to everyone else. Why is this a problem? Well that's a bit more complicated. See there is this writing flaw called deus ex machina. It's when a writer writes themselves into a corner, and they want a payoff they can't have. So they bring into play a mechanic that was not established in any way, often contradicting rules set up before. This is poison to satisfying storytelling. The way a reader connects with a story is by understanding the connections in what the writer tells them, and thus worrying if things look like they are going badly for a character they care about. But when they notice that the writer can just save the character whenever, that worry evaporates. So many amateur writers will think they are smart and create a rulebreaker character. A character who is established as one who doesn't have to follow rules can never be backed into a corner they can't get out of. And it won't be deus ex machina, right? No. That's just an excuse to use deus ex machina as much as you want. The stakes are completely annihilated. Nothing can matter anymore because we can't make accurate predictions because we have no idea what the character can and cannot do. It is not satisfying when a character can just get out of a situation with tools we had no idea he has access to.


Dialogue
I feel like if the developer feels like it the game could use a once or twice over with how the story and characters have developed. Some of the early interactions are somewhat out of character when we eventually learn more about them. And they are sometimes a little exposition heavy with little subtlety. Though I'm sure the very early parts will not stick to peoples minds as much as later when we start to learn more about these characters. Which makes this a very minor issue that you will mostly only notice if you decide to go and play it again while paying attention to what people say at the very beginning.
There is also problems with the flow of conversations. More notably early on but still exists later. Lines can be jarringly unfitting for the situation and for the character that says it.

Conclusion
I could go on for much longer but I feel like I got my point across. A mostly story focused game which's story is fundamentally inconsistent with itself, but still plenty of fun for anyone who likes conspiracy stories and power fantasies.

Having a bit more 'time' with my girlfriend being away for a few days, I decided to give a game with some storyline a try.

An hour later, here I am with the explanation about the primordials.. And I was instantly hooked
I like the story, not too complex, not too simple, with mysteries and twists
I really like the music (very important for me)
I appreciate the option to have either a femdom or maledom scene; I wish I had this choice more often.
Those few hours left me with a bit of a void once I finished it
The characters are likable

A nice discovery, can't wait to see how the story unfold

Review @Ch. 8:
- Deadly but cute waifus.
- Story not trying hard to be complicated. Fuckfaces got dealt with swiftly when the chance arrives instead of being left alive to deliberately lengthen the story.
- Characters with depth.
- Bro being bro.
- MC not OP but unique.
- Reference to other games.
- Beautiful render, and there are animations too.
- Visual novel, not sandbox, so no boring stat grinding. Just make choices.
- Good mix of porn content and story content. And yes, the porn happens for story reason, and as a reward for making the right decision.
- Ch. 8 ends where MC and his most beloved reunite so I don't have to die inside waiting for that moment.
- Femdom content are gentle femdom. Yes, like what you would expect from Leaf Geometry's game.

Therefore, this game is 11/10 for me.

Pretty slow start but gets pretty good for AVN standards.

MC is decent.

Graphics are above average for HS.

Writing is above average for AVN

Characters are above average for AVN

I would recommend this game as the Dev is consistent with updates.

I was not as entertained as the other reviewers were, apparently.

Part of it is the setting and tone, which is quite edgy and anime-inspired. FATE is probably the closest comparison, since the story revolves about people teaming up with some magical superhumans in pairs of two and then fighting other pairs.
I don't dislike Anime and edgy as genres, usually. Here, i think the story as a whole is just not that well done.

Sadly there is nothing else to really pick up the pieces. The characters aren't given time to flesh out and interactions with each other are a bit stiff. The Visuals are okay-ish, although I've heard they get better as the game goes on. I didn't really check if this was true.

Still, this is a VN and not a sandbox or anything with actual gameplay, so i feel like i have to judge it mostly by its story. And there are just so many bad tropes here:
- MC gets always attacked and is kinda on the run after being discovered as partner of edgy, but nice spirit.
- Gets told he's weak, wins all fights anyway with the power of friendship plot armor.
- There's like 5 Actors that matter or do things by themselves. The rest is maybe on break somewhere. Who knows.
- The actions of all characters can be boiled down to: Either wants to kill MC because duh! or wants to fuck MC because duh! Sometimes both.
- Selective memory loss/Secretive for no reason. Like, of course the partner we get doesn't even remember her own sister, who she hang out with the day before. And only tells us relevant information if we needed it two minutes ago. Worst example is when she tells us that the whole partner of magical being thins is a secret and to tell no one. She does this not at the very start, but in a conversation with a friend who we decided per choice to tell a little bit. She then takes control of our body and freezes us completely, unable to say anything. Yeah, everything normal here.
- No consequences:
I could go on about the breakdown of society or the absolute lack of any morals by literally everyone in the story.
More importantly tho, i will circle back to why i think this game wasn't entertaining for me:
The story, setting and characters are badly written while being the main focus.

Good story and a solid attempt; the ideas are original and interesting. The female models are good. Plenty of plot twists and drama as well as comedic relief, a little horror and graphic violence to round it out.

Some glaring issues are that the translations are difficult to follow and jumbled. Some of the scenes transition abruptly and jarringly, leaving the reader confused as to what is going on when a new scene suddenly appears out of nowhere. The sex scenes with some of the LI's are very limited in scope in that either you have a fetish sex scene or no scene at all, creating dry spells and certain LI's you can't even have sex with if you do not want to see a particular fetish. It would be much better to have a fetish scene and normal sex scene choices for all of the LI's so that the player can see the LI they prefer rather than forcing certain non-choices. Not being able to "get them all" can be frustrating in a harem game where not every player shares the same range of fetishes. Some people will like vanilla, some will like tutti fruity if you take my meaning. (For example: Sex scenes with Ciarara are all domination of one sort or another.... what if the MC does not want domination sex of any type? No Ciarara at all?) The animation speed seems a little fast for the sex scenes and some of the sex scenes are a bit contrived and sudden with no real build up.

Review for Chapter 8
Right off the bat, "Companion of Darkness" impressed me with its creative introduction. It's always a plus when you notice the effort put into the introduction instead of just the usual "Are you 18+? Enter your name." This kind of detail really separates an excellent game from a good one.

The story in "Companion of Darkness" is quite interesting. It's a fiction with a very unique storyline that develops nicely, providing a nice amount of content already. However, sometimes things escalate too quickly for my liking. Romances or major events in the storyline could be emphasized more, as the rapid progression can feel a bit unnatural at times. The characters are well-defined, though some, like Amy, start of quite cliché and not very complex. Later she all of a sudden changes her personality and is more self-concious. Unfortunately, some characters and storylines, such as those involving Amy (has been restored), Jacky, and Abrere, feel abandoned. They disappear for several chapters, and I almost forgot about them completely.

The graphics in "Companion of Darkness" are decent; nothing particularly stands out. However, the animations are a pleasant surprise and among the best I've seen. The girls, in general, look quite good, which adds to the visual appeal of the game.

Conclusion
Overall, "Companion of Darkness" is a solid game with a lot of potential. Its creative introduction and interesting storyline set it apart, even if the pacing sometimes feels rushed. While the graphics are just average, the excellent animations and well-defined characters make up for it. Despite some characters and storylines feeling abandoned, the game still provides a compelling experience. If you enjoy unique storylines and top-notch animations, "Companion of Darkness" is worth checking out.

The Story is addicting and interesting while the females are sexy as hell. the Action scenes are amazing and the sex scenes are hot as well but they can be improved. The Main draw of this game is the story and world building, it will sink its teeth into you and make you unable to stop playing. Its Fresh and fascinating which basically makes this Goated.