Reviews

• gamedeal user

  Jan 17, 2022

  Pretty much the third best AVN on Steam after Being a DIK and Acting lessons, and followed closely by City of Broken Dreamers. I'd say these 4 really should be the Starter Pack for adult games on Steam. DrPinkCake does a better story, but PhillyGames does better adult scenes.
• gamedeal user

  May 7, 2022

  Please follow United Critics for quality reviews

  Depraved Awakening Review

  Depraved Awakening is a NSFW Noir visual novel game about a detective that has to solve a mysterious murder surrounded by tons of drama and sex. Be aware that this game’s targeted audience is straight males and contains lots of scenes with somnophilia.

  Questions you might have if you're interested in playing it:

  <*>What is it exactly that you do in the game? Like in most NSFW visual novels you click on stuff, read dialogue, make decisions over random choices and obviously you watch slideshows of your character having sex with lots of women. <*> Will it make my eyes bleed? It’s nothing special. The character models are great, their bodies are so detailed and beautiful but their faces, specifically their eyes, look weird… it’s not the worst game with uncanny valley faces but they are very distracting. The scenarios are nothing special and the textures are fine. I’m going to admit that for some scenes the game excels at creating a great classic noir mood which I loved, I hope more games would do this. The NSFW bits are slideshows that last 2 or 3 seconds. No jiggle physics but the poses are nice. <*>Does it have a good story? It’s kind of great, for NSFW visual novel standards, but way too unfocused for my taste. All the noir bits are great, the mystery and the drama of the main plot are great, sadly the sex scenes are the ones that mess with the pacing and as much as I like to watch some titties, they get in the way of the main story. <*>Does it have a good soundtrack? It’s all royalty free music that you most likely have listened to ony any random YouTube video. It’s not bad but it is certainly not great. <*>Does it have replay value? The game has multiple endings and you have a scene selector for the NSFW scenes. <*>Does it run well? It runs flawlessly. There is not much else to say. It’s a game that is not very demanding and I didn’t have any problems with it. <*>Is it fun? It’s fun enough. Your enjoyment of this game is going to depend on your tolerance for visual novel trapings and how attractive you find the game’s models.

  Is this game worth my hard earned money?

  I got a good 3 hours of content for the $10 that this game asks for. The NSFW scenes are fine, the story is really good, but I found the game a bit lacking. As someone that has reviewed lots of NSFW visual novels, I expect 2-second-long loop animations when a game asks for more than $5 on steam. The story is really good and it’s by far the highlight of this game, but I think this is a “wait for a sale” type of game. Rating: 6/10 Great story but a bit lacking on everything else.
• gamedeal user

  Nov 17, 2022

  What an outstanding game. I bought this figuring that I would become the most corrupt dude I possibly could. But this story sucked me in, and I ended up getting all noble by the 1/3 mark. I thought that I had the plot all figured out like early on, and maybe I kinda did if I kept going the corrupt route, but because I switched play directions mid-game that might be why some things that I expected didn't happen, and unexpected things did. Much like 'Acting Lessons,' and 'Leap of Faith' this game can get pretty dark. And not everybody will survive the story with all of their faculties intact. Be aware of that going in, but it was exactly that darkness that drew me in. The plot seems kinda goofy, but perfect for porn. You are a former cop turned P.I., and someone murdered your last client BEFORE you could get paid. So you become very interested in WHY he was killed which leads you on a 6-8 hour journey through the seedy underbelly of the city's rich and powerful while collecting a harem of beautiful women to help with all of your needs. Look, I'm not gonna lie. The sex scenes animate very stiffly. The Ren'Py engine has made great strides in animating the human body since this game was released. Ironically, I like the texture of the areolas on this games breasts better than any other porn game I've played...I think. They have texture, and don't look just like small pink or brown slices of pepperoni painted onto the breast. Of course, every breast in the game looks like it belongs to a woman who has given birth, so that's not super immersive, but first world problems! I was not expecting this story to be as good as it is. I mean it's not gonna win an Oscar, but I would have watched this story as a movie. Especially if they took the NC-17 route and included the sex! But even without the sex, there is a compelling story here...kind of. The plot heavily involves the use of an aphrodisiac, so that would kind of interrupt the plot if the sex was missing, but everything else would hold up fine in an action cop movie. When I first started the game, I thought Judy would be my main girl. But as soon as I saw Mi-do, I said, "Judy, I'll sell you to the traffickers myself!!!" But as the story rolled on, and push came to shove, I chose Judy after all. That surprised me, because I would rather date an Asian woman than a white/blonde chick. I like my women to look more exotic than my family reunion. And I just want to say that it was nice to have started out going after the corruption route, and switching mid-game to the noble one, and still getting a happy ending. Maybe not the happiest, but if it were real life, and things worked out this way, I would consider it a win. Also, I don't know if you could get a harem in this game. MY choices certainly precluded that option, even though every woman except Christine loved me, and she was totally submissive. Most of the women were ALSO submissive, so it seemed like a harem SHOULD have happened. Yet, I ended up with just a monogamous relationship at the end. And I actually liked that. Unlike most porn games, there is actually jealousy in this game, and it helped the immersion immensely. I think I'll probably add this to my favorites list, but I'll probably wait 6 or so months before coming back to play it again for the corruption. If you like dark stories, don't hesitate to purchase this game.
• gamedeal user

  Nov 27, 2022

  very good AVN! you will not be disappointed by purchasing this over most of other titles in this genre..
• gamedeal user

  Dec 24, 2022

  A well written poser RenPy VN with a well executed film noir plot. The playtime is really quite brief, only two hours for a run-through - just enough to edge you out of Steam's refund window, which is always a bit sus. To unlock mutually exclusive scenes, you would need to replay the game a few times for different routes, but I didn't think the pulpy plotting really merited that repetition. The game is themed a fair bit around BDSM, with a minor lean towards anal - but it's pretty good at letting you pick the CG sequences that interest you, so that's not a major issue if you're not super into it. There's some very light inseki, but it's so inconsequential that you'd not really know or care.

  The writing's above average

  While titles like Deliverance offer pretty much the same thing, they all tend to get excessively caught up in half-baked genre-fiction trappings - which is almost always a mistake, as third-rate genre fiction is of very little value in an eroge and at worst is just a replacement for the relationship driven content and context that makes the medium worthwhile. This game doesn't entirely get away from that issue, but it is competently enough executed that it can nearly be forgiven.

  The playtime's very brief

  Whenever indie VNs expect you to replay the game to pad out the run-time, it always feels a bit of a con. Even if that represents decent value for money (in that it actually provides you with fresh experiences each playthrough), it always leaves the game feeling unpleasantly shallow. This is very much the case here, as the final act of the game feels very rushed and unsatisfying.

  The core gameplay doesn't feel particularly fleshed out

  The use of an Affection / Lust stats is often one of the better choices for controlling how routing works in games like these, but even when it's executed in a way that feels relatively organic (Sisterly Lust for example) it's often under developed and intrusive. It's not terrible in this game, but unfortunately the story routing doesn't seem to have the depth to make good use of a points system - instead of it opening up narrative opportunities and interesting decisions, it's instead just obfuscating traditional VN routing mechanics. This is very much a product of how the game is overly concerned with the "meh" noir plotting, at the cost of exploring the erotic experiences.

  The sex scenes are ever so slightly above average

  The word I'd use to describe them is "competent". They're all typical of the medium, they do the bare minimum that can be expected of them, but they still suffer from the "disposable, inconsequential, narratively unimportant" trap that most amateur VNs fall into them. They all tend to rely on the CGs and the partial-animation to depict events, rather than using text to establish a significant erotic narrative through-line. The genre-plotting in an eroge should be set-dressing for the emotional drama, which gives shape and significance to the erotic content - the relationships and dynamics involved between the actors in any given H-scene and the consequences that result from this. Too many bad VNs instead think that sexy scenes are something you throw in to spice up something that reads like a Creative Writing class assignment - as evidenced by the medium's most hacky trope, the sex-dream-sequence. This game manages to avoid that specific cliché, but only ends up replacing it with similarly unearned scenes of an unnamed NPC having BDSM sex with a minor character you barely interact with throughout. Smacks of the same "there's nudity here, honest!!!" energy so many of the worst VNs have - and given the short playtime and how quickly the game legitimately comes up with the goods, ends up being totally unnecessary. It also uses the aphrodisiac sex-drug cliché, but does so particularly lazily without making good use of it - it could largely have been omitted from the plotting altogether without altering the plotting at all. Compare that to something like Prince of Surburbia that - while perfunctory in its handling of that conceit - at least knows what to do with it.

  The game is too brief, and too unsatisfying to recommend

  There's a lot to commend about the game - above average writing and decently executed plotting; tolerable characterisation. There's a couple of decent red-herrings, etc, etc. But even on sale it seems a bit pricey given the length; and its over-interest in pulpy plotting totally kills of any interest I have in replaying it. Ultimately it ends up being only marginally better than the turgid and warmed-over Deliverance, and that's damning with faint praise. It's a shame, as like Love of Magic the competent writing is nearly good enough to excuse the erotic shortcomings; but as I said - just too brief to toe it across the finish line.
• Demarest

  Mar 6, 2023

  Neo noir atmosphere, dark jazz and an eerie plot. What more could I ask for?
• Sugil

  May 5, 2023

  The content that has been produced and released for STEAM it's pretty good although short. The game takes a little over 2 hours to complete. I played through different scenarios which currently put me at 7.3 hours and found all of the fairly decent. The reason for me not recommending this came is simple. THE developer, PhillyGames, does not support updates for this game on the STEAM platform. PhillyGames has developed and released chapter 13 on Patreon but look at the release date here on STEAM....AUGUST 30, 1019. Do you see any comments or posts for future updates anywhere on this site? .... No, you don't and you wont. IF you ONLY want to see and experience 1 chapter then go ahead and buy it. IF, you have any interest in the story or more content of any kind you wont find it on STEAM. The future of the game on STEAM is written in stone by the developers lack of interaction with the STEAM platform for the last 4 years. Because of the multiple releases on Patreon and no updates at all here on STEAM I won't trust this developer with any work in progress or chapter type of games. PhillyGames, unfortunately can't be trusted to release the rest of the games they develope on the same platform.
• gamedeal user

  Sep 4, 2019

  Just finished the game (first of what I see being a few play throughs) There are some questionable reviews on this game that do sound fake. I'll tell you right now, I never heard of this studio till I bought the game and certainly never played the "patreon" version (whatever that was) So let's get into it. Pros: A really good story. One that even surprised me, and I have written stories for nearly 15yrs. The characters are deep(ish) and nuanced. Replayability. Not always there in this NSFW type games. The girls bodies are detailed. Cons: The animation was basic. Nothing I'd pat someone on the back for. The writing slipped a little, with typos here, and the wrong name displayed over text there. The sex was pretty repetitive, with the same "dirty talk" the fake reviews touted being what I imagine lonely men THINK is dirty talk. Crude, mood killing in a realistic scenario, and lacking any kind of real stimulation to anyone but the most base individuals. The STORY aspect was much better. Even though, I would point to a certain scene with a cop telling you info on an individual. He tells you this person's whole life story, after saying "We know very little." A novice mistake. You see it a lot in first time novels. The writer wants to get the reader information so they understand the context behind what has either happened or will happen. Instead of finding a more organic way, they unleash a flood of "back story" that smacks readers in the face with how out of place it is. A final, minor complaint...the women's eyes were way too big. When they'd smile, or laugh, they looked creepy. Is the game worth buying? Despite the flaws I mentioned, the story carries the game. Making it well worth the 9-10 dollars they are asking. You'll have your nudity, your S-Scenes, but you will also get wrapped up in the story. I think with more practice, the person who wrote this game could produce something spectacular. If they read this, whoever you are, feel free to contact me. I know what I am talking about, and can give you some insight. Because let me tell you, the goal when writing "dirty", when writing sex, is to make the person reading it feel as if they are about to....well, you can guess ...in their very chair. It was something I did non-stop for years, earned a reputation for it. I see potential in your writing. You have the mind for it, just needs polishing.
• gamedeal user

  Oct 14, 2019

  I'd say this game: [olist] [*]is cheap [*]has lots of beautiful teats and pudenda [*]has interesting plots [/olist] But you may expect [olist] [*]entertainment value got diminished for each replay, so I won't say that replayability is the game's strong point [*]fornication scenes feel unnatural [/olist] After doing some math, I'd say that this game is still worth the price, so I recommend this game. [spoiler]PS: I'm not a fake reviewer, I got 100% achievements in this game. So, trust me![/spoiler]
• gamedeal user

  Nov 27, 2019

  If you're like me and read that review that says all the reviews on here are fake, it probably put some serious doubt in your mind and you're hesitating to get this. I took the plunge though, and am very glad I did. In response to that idiotic review, this is a "Visual Novel", which means it's a "novel" with "visuals". So no, it is not an open-world sex game. However, if you enjoy good stories with a lot of eroticism, like I do, then this is a great buy.