VN - Ren'Py - Ravager [v5.1.9] [4MinuteWarning]

Very beautiful and attractive. The sound is not negative.
Lots of fun options with fun characters, and some instant miss, but few nudges. Statistics play a very important role, but there is no need to grind over it.
I never fully understood hypertrophy, so I can be on my own. However, when I sing "Up to the Ball" and that was impossible with the chosen art, I let go of my disbelief.
4/5 to Art 4.5 to writing.

Wonderful. Truly wonderful.

This is one of the best CYOAs I've ever played, even outside of the porn industry. For each character and event, you have multiple choices, all of which deciding the course of the story, and the fate of the characters around you.

The characters all have fleshed out personalities and interesting backstories. More importantly, these characters can interact with each other, showing us how the personalities mesh.

Artistically, the game has illustrations and voice acting for most scenes. The quality can be a bit hit or miss, but just the fact that they exist are already a step above most games in this genre. As the game evolves, I expect the quality of the art to improve.

Overall, if you like CYOAs and/or want to experience a power fantasy involving dragons, interesting characters, and promising art, you have to try this game out. Even if you don't, you'll probably like the game anyways.

The game is really unique and a true RPG as you can customize your experience to a great extent. I appreciate that this game doesn't try to punish or reward your morals too much. You never feel like the author is taking a moral high ground, at least not in a sense that he would punish you to go a certain way. Obviously it's very lewd as well and in my opinion most scenes are done quite well. The voice acting is probably one of the best in the genre right now.

Version Played: v4.3.7 Public
Time played: Roughly 3 hours. Saw two characters' "end of current content" notices. I reckon if you spend more time to see each character's path, you could easily hit triple the time I have here.

I don't know if I can add much to the discourse of a game with 130+ reviews at the time of writing, but in this review's brief period of time at the top, I hope it might offer some insight to someone on the fence.

First off, know that your playable character is a literal dragon. Not a dragon man, or a dragon with a human form or something vaguely humanoid, but an honest to goodness dragon. I don't know why I was thinking it wouldn't be, so I went all shocked Pikachu when it hit me. There's nothing wrong with that, and it's certainly unique, but now you know. In a way, it's a saving grace in light of all the extreme content due to its absurdity -- they play the whole dragon thing incredibly straight with flying and fire breathing and treasure hording, dragons also just happen to be really fucking horny for humanoid chicks too.

The setting and story are very cool, but what at first seems to be a very open-ended adventure actually reveals itself to be more limiting the more you play. There's a decent amount of "romanceable" (I use that word very loosely) ladies and they are overall well-written, but the inherent power inbalance can be take it or leave it. This is first and foremost a dark power fantasy so potential players should expect more dominance than sweet back and forths (though there are some lighter, sweeter moments if you do choose to play it that way). On that note, this game has some gnarly content. When you first boot it up, you are given a questionaire of what you are comfortable with. I kept everything on sans torture, but let it be known, the more you turn off the less content there is to see as there are no alternate scenes, just ones you opt into or out of. You can, of course, toggle what you want to see in the menu after you've made your initial choices.

Positives
+ Wholly unique and interesting setting
+ Good writing
+ Doesn't fuck around in terms of content: if you want some dark, depraved shit, you've got it
+ Voice acting if that's your thing (it's not really mine, but what's here is fairly well-done)

Negatives
- Character conversation bust ups are in a cutesy anime style, but the sexual scenes are in a much more realistic, fantasy style. To me, this disconnect was incredibly off-putting. I also generally found the anime art hotter (though far less detailed) than the sex scene art. YMMV.
- Really, really dark content. Depending on what you're into, this could be right up your alley and I've actually played a game that I found more off-putting, but I, personally, really needed to be in the right frame of mind to get into this.
- In spite of a seeming wealth of choices, there really aren't that many that dramatically change things overall and most fall into the same general pattern.
- Related to the above, the story doesn't really seem to go anywhere and, in spite of there being parameters and such that change and grow, nothing really seemed to make much of an impact. I bumbled around with little direction and sort of stumbled into completing some content. If you really like to dig deeply into a game, play it multiple times and unravel its secrets, this might be a positive for you, but I prefer my games a bit more cut and dry.

At the end of the day, in spite of what the numerous positive reviews might say, this game has some serious issues that potential players need to be OK with before diving in.
For my part, I did enjoy my time with the game and it left quite an impact on me with just how far it was willing to go. I don't think I could stomach a steady diet of this or games like it, but every now and again, this hits the spot.

Well. I've been playing .. some games on f95.
Most of which never made it out of alpha or started to get milk-farms after just a few months.
I'd say 95% for the latter, what a sad, cruel world.

There were games i liked, there were games i did not like. But only very few games ignited that.. That spark. A feeling i can only describe as a mix out of sheer interest and satisfication. Ravager does that.

While there is a good amount of content, not a ton tho, and while the artwork is really nice, yet no masterpiece and while the game offers some unique ways of playing and some actual choices that matter ..
Given all these points i conclude that Ravager is a game worth everyones while, looking for a good time.

So, why only 4/5 tho?
3 Years, that is the time this game's being worked at, and counting. Sure, it's basically a one-man-team, yet others did get a lot more done in a lot less time. I do hope, sincerely so, that this ain't end up as yet another farm. The developer has the chance to finish this project and then, as a renown man, start a project, for real. Money, renown and fame shall be given to every man not falling for patreons tricks- Or so the legend says, after all.

I'm eager to see where this is going, i'm a man of principle tho and i won't be sitting around for another 3 years to see this game being finished or, dumped. I'd really like to see this project succeed and blossom tho - Surprise us, 4MW, show us that Developers can be different in times like these.

Another game where I came for the porn but stayed for the story.
Amazing writing, unbelievably good for a porn game. The lore and story are incredibly consistent and feel very plausible. There's a certain level of verisimilitude you don't often see in games like this. Just the cosmology is very intuitive and makes very much sense once you learn about it, and the game presents it in a very interesting way. Honestly, it's riveting once you get into it.

Let me start of by saying that this is a truly excellent game and I can't recommend it enough. The base premise is really cool, the art ranges from good to great and it even has some decent voice acting! Also, don't be scared away if there are flavors that aren't for you in the tag list, the game gives you the option to disable just about all of them and on top of that you can still turn down any scene. Lastly, my favorite thing might actually be the "lore" or the setting. I love this game's take on dragons and how they're all male but can reproduce with multiple different species and how this can produce different kinds of offspring. If there's ever a lore compendium or codex feature I'll lose my shit! I'll be picking this up on Steam for sure, really excited to see what the future holds!

A unique dragon protagonist roaming through the world, his decisions limited only by his own strength. Choosing if he wishes to capture and ravish every beautiful woman he finds, or to treat them kindly. Finding a lair, building a base of operations, recruiting minions, growing in power -- all great. Every decision is impactful, every choice real, it's truly a great game with a great story.

The sexual content is amazing for its niche, the things you can choose to do are hot as Hell. Every scene is well written, the characters unique and appealing.

I wish I could give the game a 10/10, but the scene art...

Truly, Lubbio's art style is just a massive no for me. Angular, masculine faces on women is a turn off, and while I understand some people like the thickly proportioned body art that's also not my thing. It's a shame, because the content is Chef's Kiss (even supported on Patreon for a while) but at the end of the day a porn game with scene art that's actively unattractive is well... counterproductive. As harsh as it sounds, giving full honesty, some if not most of the scenes are sexier as just text without the art.

The portrait art (for now) is much more appealing. Really, the portrait style what I'm imagining the character's appearance to be in place of the scene art.

It seems some other people aren't a big fan of the art style as well (and that's the people who actually played and are willing to type about it). I'm sure many more simply took one look, decided the art was not their style, and moved on without bothering.

I wish them success nonetheless, but they'd probably have a lot more of it if they went a different direction with the artstyle. I'm drawn back to the game myself in spite of my feelings about the art because in all other aspects it's perfect.

One of the strangest, most entertaining and best porn games I have played in a long time. The premise is unique, the art is pretty, the writing fantastic and the extra mile that the developers take to include voice acting is appreciated.

v4.3.6 Public

Ravager was a truly excellent VN. You play a newly hatched dragon, and there are a lot of different choices that help shape the way the story goes and what kind of character you are. You can be honorable and merciful or cruel and monstrous and both are as well written and satisfying. The game has great art and animations, and has well done voice acting as well. The music is also really good. A real stand out in terms of quality and gameplay. It's a new favorite.

Amazing game. Well paced, excellent sex scenes, and plenty of content, It even has pretty decent VAs for a porn game. Instant classic for me. I think it could use more pregnancy content as that's my personal favorite, but I will definitely be buying it once I can get it for less than $10.

What an experience. This is not exactly my type of game, I'm not into dragons or monsters at all and yet, with this absolutely fantastic writing, great storytelling, compelling situations and really fun world to explore, and this amazing voice acting, I can't help but be enchanted by this game. Its so good, and not just as an adult game, but a solid game in general with really spicy stuff that you can toggle as well. Excellent and looking forward to more.

Do you like Imagine Dragons? Well imagine dragging the-I mean, imagine being a fucking dragon. That shit is so tight. I really love everything about this VN. It captures the feeling of being an all-powerful beast so well.

The writing is really good, and at times, hilariously self-aware, which is always cool.

The art style is cute and unique and the game is fuckin' voice acted. Sweet.

The Dev also updates the game frequently, so no insanely long wait times there.

Hope rating this 5* doesn't make me a furry now, but it is what it is.

V. 4.3.5

I would rate this game a 10 if I could

Story 5/5: The story is so immersive and well written.
Characters: 5/5:
Heloise: My favorite out of all of the potiential consorts. Heloise is probably the best written character out of them all, and the character that I interacted with the most while playing. The other characters have their own unique personality, and their own motivations to either help or prevent the MC from accomplishing his goal.

A Dragon that is the Main Character? Awesome

Art: 5/5
I'm not really into 2D art, but, again, the art is absolutely wonderful.

I've been following the game since before it could afford having unique, commissioned art for the sex scenes. The title caught my eye, the premise deepened my interest and the experience delivered far and beyond expectations.

Granted, I havent played through many visual novels, but this one stands head and shoulders over the ones I have. You feel the choices you take have an impact and see the difference, as opposed to choices changing several lines of dialog with the outcome remaining relatively the same. What you say, what you do, all of it reflects on the world and the characters around you.

Bit of a strange thing to say in a review of a visual novel, but im a stat optimizing junkie, and this game does a great work of having you run a fine balancing act between what you want and what you should do in order to obtain all that you can.

That is not to say that committing to a full-on destructive rampage or benevolence wont get the job done, but the best results require that you do both.
And yes, strange as it may sound, you need cruelty points to conquer your kingdom in its most pristine state.

Then come the characters, which for me are the real meat of the game. The various interactions with the myriad friends, allies and prisoners is what put this game into the very rare "came for the smut, stayed for the story" category.

Every character has their own agenda, dream or circumstances, which you can either indulge or trample over, and they will remember and react to you doing so. No personality comes off as forced - all of them are believable and easy to relate to, brought to life with absolutely stellar writing. Most of them you'll like, some of them you'll love, but none of them will you hate. I cant go on a longer tangent about each of them without quadrupling the review length, so I'll just add this: for the past year's worth of updates, the first thing i look forward to is checking the newly added character events and interactions.

The truest testament to this game's quality is the fact that this is the first review I've written ever since i registered here in 2017.

From the first seconds I realized that the game is very cool, unfortunately there is no my language, and considering the amount of text...I will wait for the translation and hope that the author will continue in the same spirit

Ravager was my gateway drug to this whole scene.
Just a quirky title that caught my eye on Steam.

It was an impulse purchase that I immediately regretted.
Usually my purchases are more thoroughly vetted.

But on this occasion, I was charmed by this wicked delight.
It entertained and corrupted me, well into the night.

So I played it right through until it directed me here.
And having sampled the rest, one fact remains clear:

Ravager, my friends, is most worthy of note.
And critics, know this, it deserves all your votes.

Man I usually hate porn voice acting, but this game has some great stuff in that department. Hearing that scottish girl's voice tremble as she begs for her life while trying desperately to make herself useful as a sex toy is just *chef's kiss* excellent.

I love this game. Mostly.

So, the start of it is amazing. Absolutely love it. It has great choices that feel impactful and hit certain buttons. 5/5.

Then it starts to fall off. Your choices come slower, and feel less meaningful or have less of an outcome.
And then it gets grindy in the attempt to find everything. And falls off nearly completely.
Then it picks back up! and falls back down.

I really do like this game, I just wish it kept similar quality throughout.
The first part of the game I would play through again to find all the paths. The rest, I wouldn't.

I was going to give it a 3/5, but I like all the things it does well very much. So, 4/5.

If you're on the fence about playing it: Play it.

Review on v4.2.5. No spoilers.

This one started out strong but as it went on, it just became sort of boring and predictable.

Storytelling and Writing (5/5)

The dev obviously knows what they're doing here. I like how the story opens pretty much in medias res and exposition is filled in as we go along.
Generally the characters feel very realistic (given the circumstances), I like how they're all pretty unique and consistent throughout.
I think the story is pretty interesting and I really enjoyed the attention to detail with the writing, in particular that there weren't any typos or the like.
So all in all, very well done in this regard.

Audio and Visuals (4/5)

Generally very nicely done in this regard as well.
I don't know if I'm a huge fan of the 2D art but if it's done as well as it is here, it can be really cool. The few animations we get in the sex scenes aren't too astounding but I still like them, I think they do their job nicely. Unfortunately, whenever we have sex scenes that only have still images, I feel like the action looks much too standstill for what is being described in the text. I know these what look like hand-drawn images must be very time-consuming but just giving us a couple more during the sex scenes could really help them not feel as stagnant.
I really like what the dev has done with the audio though. We have background music throughout so it doesn't ever fall completely silent and all of the voice actors hired to read the lines really bring their A-game, top-notch in that regard. It's just unfortunate that there are still a lot of lines that haven't been recorded by a voice actor (yet) so that all throughout there are still a lot of silent scenes which feels weird when you just had a voice actor the previous line.
But all in all, in its respective genre, the game really shine from an audio-visual perspective.

Gameplay (4/5)

This is pretty straightforward here but definitely not bad. The passage of time doesn't seem frivolous and arbitrary, it really does only advance when major events occur. And I like the way the dev approached the exploration feature with Ren'Py, it almost feels like a point-and-click in that way.
That being said, after you've established your lair and visited all the places at least once, the gameplay does become sort of repetitive after a while and you feel like you're just constantly trying to revisit every location and person so that you can trigger the next story event.
Still, I like that there is no real grind in this and that the story is all in all pretty linear while still giving you some modicum of choice in which part of the story you want to explore first.

Sexual content (3/5)

What started out as possibly the most original and intriguing aspect of this game, became pretty boring pretty quickly and really stopped exciting me after a while.
You obviously need to be into some weird shit to even start to enjoy the sex scenes in this game but if you are, you will probably find yourself instantly intrigued by this one. The unapologetic violence and gore in this one might be a turn-off to many but the fact that it is so over the top ridiculous combined with the pretty innocuous-looking 2D art makes it somehow not seem as bad as it could be.
But just after a few sex scenes there really is no escalation any more and it's all just pretty standard. The MC just forces his huge dragon-dick in any of the women's three standard holes and while it is described as belly-distending and ruinous and whatever, we rarely ever see that; for some reason, in almost all of the sex scenes, the visuals only depict the MC inserting only his tip which is pretty boring. And it pretty much stays at this level.
It's actually surprising how vanilla the sex can sometimes seem in comparison to the premise of the game. Yeah, it's often, if not most of the time, rape but that's almost always the most 'extreme' part of it once you get past the fact that the MC is a dragon with a weird scaly dragon-dick.
I mean, this game is tagged 'vore' but that's only applicable in the way that yeah, the MC can choose to kill people by eating them but we don't ever actually see that on-screen. Just a short scream followed by some crunching noise and that's it. So that's not really 'vore' in any meaningful sexual content way.
So yeah, all in all, the sex scenes have so far stayed pretty underwhelming in my opinion and are probably the main reason why I started souring on the game after a while; they just become somewhat boring and repetitive.

Conclusion

This game is certainly different and original which is probably its main selling point. You notice a high standard in quality throughout with its flawless writing, attention to detail and voice acting from most of the wide array of characters.
While the art style might not be my first choice, the game really sells it and by the end, I really didn't care anymore, it does its job fine.
However, some of the repetitiveness in both the gameplay and the sex scenes after a while did make this game seem a tad boring and tedious towards the end for me.