VN - Ren'Py - Imperial Chronicles [v0.5] [Lazy Monkey]

This game is underated imo, the renders is nice and beautifully done even tho its a little bit grainy.

The story are decent enough unlike most of the AVN on this platform but the multiplies path kinda ruined my impression as i'm not really a fan of that, and it can be confusing if you're not playing it by using a walkthrough.

Overall its deserved a 5 star as this game obviously getting an improvement from his previous game, i just hope that he toned down the multiplies path since you can missed a content if you're playing a certainn path and made a wrong decision, a single developer shouldnt made this type of game imo unless you had a team like most of the Japanese eroge out there.

A good game i cannot deny ,
but it has some positives & negatives ofcourse :

The Positives :

most of the girls are very sexy ,
my favorites starting with the best to less :
( Arcadia , Priscilla , the Mom , Isis , Tira the dwarf , Sona , Alaina , Ahara , Val , Cassandra , Lia , Elin , Rosa )
I can say ( Girl Spring - Aurora - Patty - the slave girl ) are OK , but not really my type. they are a bit skinny for my taste
the sex scenes are one of the best in all the games i have played , specially the sex sound effects , instead of writing the moans & the boring nonsense " OHH YEA , MMM , YOUR PUSSY ARE GREAT , OHH FUCK ME BABY " hearing the moaning & cum sounds instead will do the job perfectly & way better than using unfeeling texts , & you gonna actually read an interesting conversation during sex , its very unique , and adds more feeling to it , even the animation movement are great & not robotic like the other games , to bad its very short scenes
the story is not bad though , he made it serious some times & humorous at other times .
im also so glad there is no narrator that keeps on bugging my head all the time like most other games.

The Negatives :

girls that are in the game just for show & they are unfuckable , like :
( Alessa - Priscilla - Arcadia - patty - the girl predicting the future )
this is one of the major problems i face with games sometimes even the good ones .. some players might like those characters , you never know .. maybe they are not that important characters to the DEV or the story just because they were irrelevant side characters , but some of them are actually my favorite even more than the main girls , when the game ends without having at least 1 sex scene with them is very disappointing , but lets wait & see what the Dev will do with them in the future updates , who knows .. after all , the game is not completed yet its still in progress

i also have issues with the sex scenes , its very impressive as a mentioned before don't get me wrong , but it takes to long to get to a single sex scene ,, and the scene is very very short with only like 1 pose or something & you may not even reach them if you missed up the choices .. although the sex scenes themselves are great & well made , yet the amount of the sex content are very little in this game , and that's because the game is not realty rich with side characters unfortunately , it only focuses on the main girls most of the time , which is a bit lazy & boring .. again , it seems to me that the Dev is really underestimating the side characters , which he shouldn't , because it can be a huge flow in any good game , the side girls like ( Ahara , Val , Tira ) they are the invisible soldiers who adds rich sex content in any game & keeps the player entertained until he gets the main girls at the end of the VN .. less side characters leads to more blue-ball in game .

the story problem : the MC talks to much when it comes to irrelevant details ,, like , he spend more than 5 - 10 minutes listening or talking about " the history of this building - the past life of the king - the details of this war & that war - the explanation of this magic & that magic " i don't care about those deep details , its not gonna effect the story or the game , and if you want to talk about these topics at least make it short , or else it will just slow things down and drain your eyes energy , which made me end up skipping them latter on any way , i only read their conversations with their daily life situations , that was more entertaining than " the history of this & the dark past of that "

the choices : i appreciate the hard work , but im not a big fan of sacrificing some of the girls with every single choice i make ,, like for example , if you choose left , you will fuck ( A , B & C ) Only .. however if you go right , you gonna fuck ( E , F & G ) instead , why not make it 1 path with all the girls , yet The success depends on your choices ? that would be easier than this Chaos , that kind of tree branches stories with different roads & every road has another plot & different characters is just confusing & makes it hard to understand the main story-line , besides missing a huge amount of content

any way , its still a good game & deserve 4 stars .. but here is the short cut Conclusion :

---------------- BAD ------------ OK ------------ GOOD ------------ EXCELLENT
STORY :

SEXY GIRLS :

SIDE CHARACTERS :

SEX CONTENT :

SEX SCENES :

HUMOR :

CONVRSATIONS :

CHOICES :

DIFFICULTY :

TYPOS :

GLITCHES :

GRAPHECS :

+ Good plot.
+Narractive/Genre
+ The story is very good and there are several plot lines.


- Spelling errors and may be issues with translation
- Long development times but they are improving. Will see how it goes.

Average. Better than other VNs were the dialogue seems to be written by 5yr olds. The girls are good and the plot seems intriguing. The problem is the mc. Dude is just a clueless beta wimp. Constantly pushed around by those around him. Fk Cassandra overpowersand dominates him every chance she gets. He is just clueless and just goes along with the plot

Overall, great VN. The only major flaw is the English translation. 9/10
Version 0.5

+ Great story. The plot is intriguing. Political, mixed with important interpersonal relationships along with some interesting prophetical elements. All that in a fairly well realized fantasy world
+ The characters are interesting and well-written. That's the case not only for the main characters, but also the supporting cast.
+ The LIs are good looking. (No ugly DAZ models chosen poorly by a creator with a poor sense of aesthetic in this one)
+ Charismatic MC. Actually has a personality.
+ Choices matters. There's a lot branching. Some choices you make in early chapters affect what happens in later chapters. It's not just some inconsequential dialogue change. The game feel reactive.
+ Good world-building (for an AVN). Typical medieval fantasy stuff, but most other AVNs don't even try.
+ Very fast updates. No 1 year of waiting for only 30 minutes of gameplay. Roughly every 2 months, I believe.


- Renders a little bit grainy (the cost of fast updates)
- Animations are not that great.
- The English translation is a bit rough. Some proof-reading would squash a lot of the mistakes. I live-corrected in my head as I was reading. A couple of times, I couldn't understand what was written, so I just had to roll with it.

Render quality is good but never comparable with top games. Too many grainy or dark renders.

English translation is not good. Wrong genders for persons and objects sometimes also have a gender. Words are missing. Strange sentences.

Story is interesting but it would have been better to focus on one scenario (medieval fantasy). The addition of SF/dystopia and time/world traveling is unnecessary.

The women are good looking but this AVN seems to mainly focus on incest. And the incest is nothing special, just the same morale dilemma as in most other incest stories.

Pros

• A nice story emphasizing incest & poly-amorous. Incest approach with mom was very good, especially mom’s reluctance to give-up the morality was very well expressed.
• Jealousness of mom is nicely portrayed.
• Good to see three major characters of MC option to choose. Other than that though simple yes / no type of options included makes the game mode little interesting that player can opt for.
• Nicely expressed three different kinds of sister’s attitude in all sense and especially the incestuous.
• Excellent quality of image renders.
• Excellent quality of animations.

Cons

• Spell errors
• Mismatch of dialogues’
• Playful / mischievous little boy attacking his elder sister leading to blindness is unnecessary exaggeration.
• Image quality of dark scenario has to be improved a lot; Attempt to be more logic for too dark leading to poor contrast / visibility.
• Few Errors: Crash few times for some errors but able to ignore and continue.
• Walk through refers to relationship points but inside the game there is no clue / indications about the relationship status.
• It could have been good to have some lewd sound.

Reading the walk through; guess the story could go long mega series. Eagerly looking forward for next release.

A truly excellent game set in the Middle Age with you as the long gone heir to the throne who comes back home after 10 years exiled. There's a lot to like here: LIs look fantastic and all of them are lovable, the characters are well developed and backed up by a pretty solid story. Sex scenes are hot despite some cockblocking at times. The MC is more than likeable (he looks much like The Witcher) and has a normal sized penis for a change. There are funny moments for good measure too, and even sound effects and good music playing in the background when appropriate.

You will find some renpy crashes and a few jumbled character names here and there as well as dialogue sometimes too large to fit in the text box, but this is all minor compared to the great entertainment this game offers. If this is only the second project from LazyMonkey and the progress in quality keeps at this rate I'm expecting their third to wipe the floor with about any other adult game out there, but I'd be just as happy seeing anything this good. Truly remarkable stuff.

Great game. Not polished (spelling mistakes etc) but considering its translated its not bad. Well done story and the characters are all uniquely written, there are tons of player choices as well. Amount of content relative to how long its been developed is also on the larger side which is a plus.

Writing's an amazing step up from the previous game, the erotic/sex scenes are just as well done, plus a step up because the pace is really satisfying. Characters feel fleshed out and the plot is interesting, there's even some fun political stuff going on with actual stakes and compelling choices. IMO makes the erotic content even hotter, the "and then they fucked" kinda stuff of other VNs doesn't do it for me.

Great game 5/5

The world building and intrigue are top notch and the story is really engaging. You won't just feel the need to skip to the sex scenes which is more than could be said for 90% of other VN's.

This is the greatest creator I've ever seen, and he even suggested that everyone download the game on the forums at the same time as it was released. Seriously, he needs more supporters!

PS：Right now I don't have the opportunity to download the game to many different resources, so the best thing for you would be to download the game from some kind of game aggregator like f95:

Lazy Monkey is back with a vengeance, and after Monkey Business, Imperial Chronicles looks to be an even better passion product. I think it's clear by now what kind of fans LM is cultivating, because his games are primarily focused on incest, seduction, impregnation & pregnancy. You have been warned!

The Good:

• Art: Renders are not the best you've probably ever seen, but they are extremely good. Easily in the top echelons of VN society. Animations are also 30fps only, but very significant to plot development and not overused as such. A wonderful treat sprinkled throughout the game.
• Story: Expansive enough to keep you interested in actually reading the dialogue and narration, but not overly convoluted to the point you give up out of frustration or re-read scenes several times to understand what happened either in the past or the present.
• Choices: Beautifully done. Every, and I mean - EVERY choice will matter in the long run. There are no meaningless choices like "What do you eat for dinner?" that result in a singular different render for no reason. Instead, your actions and motivations are tested in "critical" moments of day-to-day as a young prince and future ruler, so think hard about the kind of king you want to be. Characters react to choices you've made, and avoid the nasty trope of skipping content; an abhorrent practice today employed by many amateur devs. If you choose A, you get scenes AX - and vice versa - if you choose B, you get scenes BY, and though they may lead to the same main story path, the little deviations you take elevate the experience (While other devs might just opt to skip content for players that choose B, LM creates a whole new scene for them). Props to Lazy Monkey for this!
• Music: Decent, nothing spectacular or to write home about, but at least it has some, and the scenes are always better for it.

The Bad:

• Choices: Literally the only bad thing about them is that you will have to have a lot of saves ready; or play the game multiple times (as in, more than two) to get all the scenes with every character. Some folk find this tiring, so I put it into the negative section, though I'd argue nobody is forcing you to do this, and it is nice to have as it adds some modicum of replayability to these types of games.

The Ugly:

• Nothing. Literally nothing is so bad that warrants a mention.

Imperial Chronicles is very ambitious coming from the dev's previous work, yet the consistent speed and quality of releases suggests that Lazy Monkey has NOT bitten off more than they can chew, and as a final verdict: If you like aforementioned tags/fetishes, love timely updates and consistent quality then by all means, Imperial Chronicles needs to be on your list. One of the most underrated developers on this site!

Love the game, characters,story-line , renders and animations, love the girls and the little harem we have got going with hints of pregnancy, hopefully its not shit as most games and we only see a few renders at the very end, Otherwise loving it and looking forward to it.

Lazy Monkey is in my opinion the most underrated developer in this forum.
His games deliver a fun and engaging story, full of twists and turns, with interesting characters and lots of variations.
The amount of work he puts in with the fast and consistent quality updates is something to admire.
I am personally a big fan of the look of the renders and I think the characters are gorgeous, although that might be considered subjective.
This game's story has been extremely interesting so far. It has a great setting/lore, with a diverse cast of characters to interact that will lead to quite different paths. Choices matter.
There's intrigue, action, drama, romance, and magical wonder.
I love everything about this game and just like his previous work it is most definitely a well deserving 5/5 for me.
This developer is one that absolutely delivers at an incredible pace and I'm more than happy to support him!

I really enjoyed this game, i'd say it has potential but i think it's alredy living up to it. There are multiple paths and atleast it seems like the choices you make actually do matter. The scenes can be a bit clunky although they are getting better as the chapter progress.

Definately worth both and downloading and keeping an eye on.

Version: 0.4
This has the perfect pacing for this kind of nsfw game.
What do i mean by this?
There is the right amount of dialogue to keep you reading and make you not skip by default. Sprinkled in between is the "content".
The Story is so far very interesting for a nsfw game (gives me the feeling of a mix between witcher and asoiaf) and the characters are all unique without just being some kind of archetype.

I would give 5 Stars BUT the game has a lot of branching paths and diverging content depending on your choices which is good at first glance. It could also be the cause of major feature creep but we will see in future updates how big of an influence this will be.

First off, I played the game in Russian, the English translation needs some rework. The writing in this game isn't the greatest but it's way more enjoyable and consistent in Russian.

The main story itself isn't that intricate, pretty basic medieval fantasy with some political intrigues but the characters and their romance paths and the way the story unfolds depending on player choices are what makes this game interesting, some key moments change and character alliances may shift to or away from the mc.

The visuals are mostly good with occasionally some grainy images and awkward poses but I imagine it's due to the dev's limited resources. In general, the scenes are fairly well structured and visualized and I liked the characters' design, they have a good variety in looks.

Overall this is a fairly good adult VN with some obvious limitations and flaws but while it's not perfect it is an interesting game with plenty of kinks and fun moments.

This game has also a disclaimer of a work in progress, so some things might get fixed and improved in a more polished future version.

Very well done overall so far, even if i am a sucker for fantasy.

The story is engaging and well designed, with almost every choices leading to a different outcome or scene in some way. The initial mage/bookworm/warrior choice is genuinely impactful and cuts off a number of options/outcomes in specific events without completely altering the story and requiring 3 unique paths. Some choices can have big outcomes in terms of revealing information, though so far i'd suggest that some of the 'reveals' have been effectively brushed aside The elven conspiracies that the MC is aware of have managed to not really be addressed at all

The renders are pretty good and all the characters so far have their own compelling enough stories and character development. The LIs are all unique. The sex scenes aren't long or complex so far, but i don't personally mind as for me it's more about the character dynamics.

I think the dev has so far struck a reasonably good balance between choice and branching content, which hopefully allows for the project to progress forward at a good pace. Often in AVNs, choices mean exponential branching and complexity, which means an exponential slowdown in game development.

I'm not sure how this will change in 0.5 assuming the main LI has become established - It's not seemingly a harem game, so this could completely change going forward. Also, I'd note that some of the apparent points systems so far feel a bit excessive and unnecessary, but this may change in later chapters. I'm concerned that the dev may be overcomplicating things. For example, you can obtain points for 'aurora love', 'aurora shame' 'aurora fear'. Is this a temporary mechanic that just influences a single event, or does it mean that there will be three unique aurora branches going forward that have to interact with every other branch. I'd rather we don't end up in a GRRM situation where the story is too complicated to finish or takes so long that the game gets abandoned.

I'm assuming that the English version of the game is in the Dev's second language, but one minor issue i had was that in quite a few of the lines, words were missing or the lines just felt a bit disjointed. I could still clearly understand the intended point and it wasn't immersion breaking as it can be in other AVNs (god some of them are so badly written). In that sense i commend the dev on the English translation as it does feel 'natural' and native. I just recommend going through and having someone do some further proof reading.

tl;dr: Good stuff so far. I'd consider removing complexity in some areas and maybe adding some extra scenes/depth in others. Wishing the project good luck!

This is one of the best games I have ever played. The choices you make in the game really matter. You need to play it multiple times to get the full experience. It reminds me of the book series I read as a kid where you could make your own choices.