VN - Ren'Py - Completed - Chasing Sunsets [v1.01] [Stone Fox Studios]

I did not like it too much.

I did not like the writing and atmosphere, I found it humorless and pretentious and full of tired tropes. The narrator gets in the way, too much tell instead of show.

I found the MC tiring and unlikeable. He is increadibly capable and cool, but also very tragic and thoughtful and angsty.
He spends a lot of time looking off screen in a forlorn way, and the LIs notice his "sad eyes" and accorgindly immediately want to fuck him.
His main way of "showing his love" for his sister is beating people up?

I found most of the LIs uninteresting and unlikeable.

Graphics are good.

The story is bad.
The central premise of the siblings never being able to tell each other their feelings because something prevents them doing so in the last second, over and over again, turns annoying and boring soon.
I found the plotholes and the weird behaviour of the MC off-putting:

Yes, the main character has the standard magical dick syndrome where beautiful women want to be impaled by his magic wand at all costs. Unrealistic? Definitely. To be expected? Definitely.

But putting that aside Chasing Sunsets has one of the best written stories and dialogs that I have seen from a visual novel in the adult category. It is well thought out and well executed. I would gladly follow this just for the story. Easily in the top 20 visual novels available currently in this genera in terms of story telling and writing.

In addition to the well written prose, Chasing Sunsets features beautifully constructed images and models. There are a few minor issues with skin appearing a bit too glossy or shiny, but overall the images are top notch. The sex scenes are also well executed, and I don't think the lack of sophisticated animations really matters, especially in the later parts of the game where sex scenes are more intertwined with the story.

Chasing Sunsets is, in my opinion, a legitimate piece of art. It is clear that Stone Fox Studios is attempting to go beyond the standard confines of the genera by offering up the best quality product that they can create on all fronts. Everything from sound effects, character creation, story, and dialog show an attempt to produce the best piece of entertainment possible for the chosen genera. And to that I say, "Bravo!"

Take for instance, the story of David. A lot of time and work went into his story. It wasn't technically necessary. They could have handled this character with prose only, but instead a lot of time and energy was spent creating David's story. It ads depth to the main story and really elevates the quality of the overall work. David exists to help tell the main character's story, but in the end these vignettes with David are interesting in their own right.

Chasing Sunsets is still in the early stages, but if Stone Fox Studio can keep up the current quality as they move forward with the story then Chasing Sunsets will turn out to be the sort of VN that others will try to copy for years to come.

The Good:
I liked the story line. It kept my attention which should say it all.
The art work was well done.

The Bad:
The only complaints I could a raise is some of the naughty scenes were too short. As well the some of the transitions screens (between chapters) seems to hang longer than they I would expect. I could not click through them.

I am playing for like two hours now. But I am speechless ... Definitely one of the best games I have ever played here. The renders are very good, like really pro. But the story, oh man, gives me shivers ... The story is really good and the main thing, making this game so brilliant, is the way they are telling the story. I really like it and looking forward to more. Thank You for a great game and best of luck.

Superb ! For once the story is narrated really well. The Visuals are strong and after some time there were the first animations kicking in, very subtle though. could be a bit more of those. the models are sooo hot. maybe one of them to much quantity wise i could live without fiona, but i am not complaining a bit as long as this continues on this level. Kudos

V.03a, Damn this is good, i don't even know how to really put it into words, Emotional roller coaster?, The Story writing, either some one has a very good imagination, or the deep emotions in this story come from the heart, I don't have a single bad thing to say about Chasing Sunsets, The personality's seem so real, it pulls you into the story, make you apart of it, Dev or Devs, whatever you are doing.. DON'T STOP!

Wow. I'm usually pretty hard on games, but this one is pretty damn good. Good story, good renders, good models....not the same old rehashed, reused models. Plus bonus points for a realistic redhead. Following this one closely. Can't wait for the next installment. If the quality keeps to this level, I'm gonna have to support the author on patreon.

I can't say I'm a fan of VNs, but the comments section convinced me to give it a try and I'm glad i didn't skip this! I played version 0.3a. The storytelling is great, I was really invested into reading through each dialog. The character development is great and the story has a natural progression, doesn't feel out of place and doesn't leave questions unanswered. The renders are amazingly good with great detail. Also H-scenes have a good number of renders per scene,so it doesn't seem rushed. Music most of the times sets the mood for the scene,at least the times that I took notice of it. Content play-through should be at around 2-3 hours if you read through everything at a normal pace. Overall its a great game if you are into this genre and definitely recommend it!

I'll start by just saying "wow".

I'm completely sucked into this VN. The story is engaging and compelling right from the start. It takes a different approach to themes and settings we're all very familiar with so it's quite refreshing.

The renders and modelling are top notch. The characters are beautiful and the scenes are well designed. It's not often that I take screenshots of a game but I have with this one.

My only complaint is that I found this now after Chapter 2 (well, 3 including the prologue) instead of when it was complete. That means I have to wait for progress rather than playing the whole thing. To help with that though I went right to Patreon after finishing and made a pledge.

The basic premise/outline of this game does not reflect how amazing it is.

Let's start with the writing.. it is the best out there. It can get lengthy but there is purpose to it, I did not labor reading through it. The storytelling quality to it, the clever going forwards and backwards in time and in POV, make this extremely easy to fall into. The general framework of this story is not that complicated, but the set-up and execution and care to detail is what does it. The story has been planned out to where there is a great twist or reveal hidden around the corner now and then. There is a tone of warm-heartedness, humor and levity, but also gravity and seriousness when needed.

The renders are excellent. Fantastic attention to detail. A lot of little things, like reaction shots and in-between shots that most games wouldn't bother with, this one does. Very easy to lose yourself in this universe.

I feel like the plot is good but again it's really the combination of the writing and the renders is what does it. Hey, it's a rich siblings with baggage and potentially sinister villains pllot, I think I've seen quite a few of these before. But it's the quality of the storytelling, renders, execution, attention to detail, that really set this apart.

And I always have this rule, any game that goes through the trouble of rendering children in a game, you know those will be good. Definitely true here, haha.

EDIT: 3 years later I completed the game in 2024. By 2024 standards, it's a good game, however the ending comes abrupt. It's certainly one of the best finished games ever, as a game in general it's worth a play. One thing that irks me is that the main 2 girls are.. so fundamentally similar. If I just read the dialogue without any context, it could be either one of the 2 girls.

The most interesting girls in the game are not the 2 main girls.. the Chef, Lisa, Amanda, are far more interesting than the 2 girls. And well, I get it, this is not meant to be an extreme VN, just high quality, light tone, well written, and it is.. so the girl were never going to be edgelords.. but yeah.

This game is really well made, has excellent art, and engaging characters. I highly recommend it, however I have one specific issue with it. The large use of people being repeatedly unwilling to just talk about issues that cause plot/drama problems (over literally the course of years in game) but would be 100% resolved if the idiots just took 20 minutes to have a conversation is exceedingly frustrating - especially at this situation keeps reoccurring in this story. I know it is one way to add tension and drama to the story, but it it can be infuriating as it happens multiple times, and makes me question the intelligence of the characters involved.

I know this won't matter to some people, but if you're like me and find yourself wanting to yell at characters in a book or movie when you're really into the story and they're doing something fucking moronic and braindead - well, consider yourself forewarned, there will be a lot of that going on here.

This is actually somewhat surprising. It's clear to see how much care is being put into the game right from the beginning, it's all in the small details, in the announcements, in the menus, etc.
The models are really good, and what surprised me the most was the story. It's quite original and took me into an emotional roller-coaster.
As of episode 3 it has about 7 hours of content, so if you want to binge it, maybe wait a couple more releases, as so far it seems like it was just a prologue of sorts.

5/5 (v 0.3 Ch. 2)
Fantastic game. Sometimes I regret getting invested in a game in early development knowing that I'm now in it for the long haul (years) ... but this one seems worth it.

Gorgeous renders and characters. Best looking MC I've seen in any game, period. A long welcomed change from creepy pervs, shotas, and extra-chromosome MCs featured in so many other games.

Excellent complementary sound-track.

Very well written, though some inconsistency in the narration (this is supposed to be MC telling a story just prior to some kind of ending where girl(s) pick him up at the bar, but there are many scenes that go into detail well beyond what should be MC's knowledge).

Characters are a bit of mixed bag so far.

Will eagerly await future installments!

Edit: Removed 2 stars, now 3/5 as of v1.01
Removed two stars due to story decisions by devs that quenched most of the lewd potential of the game for me. Everything about the production is top notch from sound to renders to interface, but you simply can't tease taboo liaisons for years without payoff and you can't artificially dead-end one of the major routes. Should have used the trust variable to affect whether the open relationship route could work instead of forcing it to fail no matter what. Shame.

Wow, I'm so glad I decided to play this after seeing the cameo in Leap of Faith. For a dev team's first foray into an adult VN, it certainly doesn't show. This felt more like I was playing a movie than a Ren'Py game. The characters' models are unique, their personalities and dialogue are organic (especially love Rikki's accent btw), and their faces actually look expressive like actual people (which is a huge immersion point for me!). I'm caught up in the story and I love that the plot doesn't fall back on tired old tropes. What I'm trying to say is: I love everything about this, and I feel compelled to give it an unironic 10/10. Keep up the amazing work.

This game is amazing so far. The graphics and renders are on point, the story is believable, well written and the pacing is just right. I like the character development for everyone, the player gets to know all of their motivations and is really invested in the storylines. I very much like the fact that the MC is not some scrawny/ugly simp character and this makes it believable that the beautiful ladies around are attracted to him.
Keep up the good work Fox Studios, you quickly became one of my favorite game devs out there.

V0.3

The story, the characters back story, how they look, the twists and the turns. I'm hooked!

Although most of us here are here just for the NSFW part of the games. I personally like games like this. This has one of the best storylines I have played, the plot, mysteries and all the twist and turns are coming along and are placed so well.

All there characters have depth in them, the MC is not some stupid MC how thinks with his balls, he's also not some push over who gets suckered into every stupid thing he can get himself into. He's a proper MC. The ladies around them are also not two dimensional, they have their own identities. And every single one of them look so good and well thought off.

Kudos to Stone Fox Studios, amazing work you guys. This will be the 1st time I give a 5 star to an incomplete game. I really hope you guys complete this one.

After playing all three releases all I can say this is my favorite game.
Kentyrr and Stoya are a great devs.

Story wise:
Original story and well developed characters.
Learning more and more about the characters giving you a taste to know more and just keep playing none stop.
Saw pretty girls on F95, thought what a good fapping material and fuck me fell in love in the story and the girls.


Art:
AMAZING, girls look beautiful and unique, the locations and the renders are well made and given a lot of thought.
You can clearly see the amount of hours and dedication each render has been given. For someone who play around in Daz I inspire to get to that level.

If didn't play that game and you not familiar with Kentyrr and Stoya, please make the time and chase the sunset.

Thank you Ken and Stoya for that game.
(Mel best girl)

SUCH an amazing game! Great story, amazing renders. I am definitely vested in what's going on, so I hope nobody actually dies or have to choose between them. I want them all!!! This one is already on my short list and I'll be eagerly awaiting the updates.

Despite the CW drama on steroids narrative and a frankly kind of annoying narrative structure I really enjoyed this game. Dev does a really nice job with characterization and the relationship between the MC and Jaye is heartfelt and well written. Renders are great and the models are all really hot. Dev does an especially nice job with facial expressions which can look really janky in DAZ but are almost always nice looking and spot on here and that really helps sell the emotional aspect of the game's relationships. The sex scenes are almost uniformly hot, some animations would be nice but the game isn't hurt because they aren't present. This is a nice example of a story being told that has porn elements, but the porn doesn't drive the narrative, but enhances it. Overall a really entertaining and nice looking game that is definitely worth a look

I seldom rate games like this, but must give this one a highest rating. Story, renders, writing all are top notch, Seldom been this invested in a game this early in development. Am looking for much more, and hope this conitinues for a long run. Kudos!