Played version: 0.4.2.2 (Chapter 4 Act 2).
Rating: I deliberated over whether giving Lineage & Legacy 4 or 5 stars for a few minutes. I asked myself how Lineage or Legacy compares to other AVN's in general. I concluded that it deserved 5 stars because it not only tries, but largely succeeds in depicting characters who feel "Real" for the duration of their screentime. That and despite a few moderate weak points, it just scores high on almost all objective metrics. A low 5 star rating is what it deservedly gets.
Summary: MC grows up as the oldest of 2 children in a very wealthy family. In the latter years of his childhood he increasingly turns into something of a loser surrounded by said wealth. He is increasingly scorned by his autocratic company head father. The mom on the other hand is extremely supportive, to the point that she might actually have the most destructive influence on MC’s life, by enabling and keeping him stuck in his sedentary gamer lifestyle. An argument with the father happens shortly after MC’s 18th birthday and MC runs away from home to start studying IT in a distant city. MC is still an overweight loser and after a few mildly failed attempts at making new friends and a rough beatdown from a bully, he finally musters the willpower to become a winner, both for his own sake and potentially, depending on our decisions, to show up the father sometime in the future. MC joins a small local gym with self-defense as their specialty. 2 years pass and MC is now quite the hunk and moderately confident. Having mostly just focused on the training for 2 years, he now tries to make friends anew, this time with success and come into far more contact with the ladies. He receives a text from home (mother) and decides to finally go back for a few weeks, meeting new people on the way and getting in touch with his old friend and his family. And that is where the content ends.
Pros: Well-made montages.
- Facial expressions are mostly on point. Good variation, depth and fitting in the situation and mood.
- Mostly great H-animations. Camera angles, positions, clipping, movement smoothness are handled competently. The only awkward aspect is that the looping is a bit more lacking and looks a little unnatural. And as smooth as the animated movements themselves are, they can look just a little bit rigid. They combined result is still plenty good enough to put it in the section for Pros.
- Decent male friend characters and healthy social dynamics with them.
- Overall, LI’s look great and the variety in personalities is fantastic. This technically also means there will almost always be a few that the individual reader won’t like. But that is part of what makes them feel so natural. Out of the 11 “Official” LI’s, I loved 4, liked 5, was interested in 1 and not the last one. There also were at least 2 suspected side-girls that I liked.
- While I am not fond of oversized dongs, I don’t think I have ever seen one looking this good. It even has dynamic foreskin moving back and forth during the H-animations. Is crappy looking dongs just an HS issue?
- This is only a gut feeling, but I believe that L&L might actually do well with the IC content and take that shit seriously, rather than just using it as the milkshake that brings the boyz (consumers) to the yard. I mean, the mother is literally the ultimate beauty, but controversially she is not an LI. The existing Sylvia content is great.
Mehs and hit/miss: Unfortunately, L&L probably has a few too many LI’s for its own good. Only a few characters seem to have more than 1 significant scene or sequence dedicated to them. I think this overextension will keep progress on the slow side.
- Somewhat frequent systematic grammar mistakes: Your/You’re, there/their/they are, how’re, etc.
- Simple and somewhat stiff language? Doesn’t flow naturally (early game comment).
- Many LI’s do not look their age. I’ll group this together with how a few LI’s have somewhat weird looking faces. Not ugly, just “off” in some way.
- The pacing within the H-scenes, as good as they otherwise are, frequently feels a bit rushed. This is spearheaded by the quite short dialogue and the short descriptions seen during the scenes.
- Small observation. Some characters who appear in the gallery are barely present in the actual story. I’m thinking the chick with the silvery-greenish page haircut. She appears briefly in the intro of L&L but then vanishes and we don’t get her name AFAIK. Yet she is prominently featured on the banner of the AVN’s banner.
- I suppose I haven’t played any Daz games in a while because the uncanny valley feel occasionally pops up.
- While the story has good branching and replay value, I can’t help but notice how weird the start of some events feel. The MC will have this strong urge to randomly engage in conversations for no reason.
- Skin texture can look a little weird (goosebumbs, shiny and glasslike, etc.) in some scenes.
- The gallery is highly random in nature. It is split in 2 sections. First the replays (actual ingame scenes) and then the image gallery (which contain plenty of animations in the chapter 4 section instead of still renders).
The replays are obviously unlocked by seeing the actual scene for the first time, but the still renders in the gallery are only related to the actual events of the story about half the time. Maybe less.
- Well, for a project that has been around for a few years, the number of actual H-scenes is a bit low. Now, L&L as a AVN is one of the more serious titles and leans more towards relationships developing natural ways, so it is only fair that half of the main LI’s don’t have sexual encounters yet. We get some options for one-off H-events instead.
Cons: No option to change text speed appearance. Full sentences are shown with each click. I am very used to having the text appear slightly faster than reading it. I would like to see more Renpy functionalities.
- Transitions between different H animations and between animations and still renders are jarring and rough. As good as the H-scenes otherwise are, the stuttering of the transitions can take you out of the action.
- What’s this? Do we have another AVN with an MC who Is exceptionally gifted down below? Yes, we do. Remember guys, you can always trust me to bring this trope up if it applies in the AVN I am reviewing.
- The initial 2-year time skip is a little extreme. A short section 1 year into MC’s education, with him in decent shape, but still with low fighting skills might have worked better than the complete loser-to-winner transformation spanning 2 whole years in a single go. You could have shown him 6 and 12 months into the training regimen, but still basic at self-defense and with his loser-mentality still being halfway present. And later, when he has become a solid fighter, you could show how he left behind most, but not all of his insecurities.
- It also feels like an actual plot hole, with how MC has been attending his IT studies for 2 years and basically hasn’t talked with any of his classmates (Donovan, Kaylee, Fiona, etc.) the entire time. Going no-contact with his family for 2 years is reasonable enough, but it would be nice to see the writing actually explore his thoughts about why he stuck with the decision. Like, halfway through his transformation he would have an opportunity to reestablish contact, but then explaining why he didn’t through some internal monologue.
Rating: I deliberated over whether giving Lineage & Legacy 4 or 5 stars for a few minutes. I asked myself how Lineage or Legacy compares to other AVN's in general. I concluded that it deserved 5 stars because it not only tries, but largely succeeds in depicting characters who feel "Real" for the duration of their screentime. That and despite a few moderate weak points, it just scores high on almost all objective metrics. A low 5 star rating is what it deservedly gets.
Summary: MC grows up as the oldest of 2 children in a very wealthy family. In the latter years of his childhood he increasingly turns into something of a loser surrounded by said wealth. He is increasingly scorned by his autocratic company head father. The mom on the other hand is extremely supportive, to the point that she might actually have the most destructive influence on MC’s life, by enabling and keeping him stuck in his sedentary gamer lifestyle. An argument with the father happens shortly after MC’s 18th birthday and MC runs away from home to start studying IT in a distant city. MC is still an overweight loser and after a few mildly failed attempts at making new friends and a rough beatdown from a bully, he finally musters the willpower to become a winner, both for his own sake and potentially, depending on our decisions, to show up the father sometime in the future. MC joins a small local gym with self-defense as their specialty. 2 years pass and MC is now quite the hunk and moderately confident. Having mostly just focused on the training for 2 years, he now tries to make friends anew, this time with success and come into far more contact with the ladies. He receives a text from home (mother) and decides to finally go back for a few weeks, meeting new people on the way and getting in touch with his old friend and his family. And that is where the content ends.
Pros: Well-made montages.
- Facial expressions are mostly on point. Good variation, depth and fitting in the situation and mood.
- Mostly great H-animations. Camera angles, positions, clipping, movement smoothness are handled competently. The only awkward aspect is that the looping is a bit more lacking and looks a little unnatural. And as smooth as the animated movements themselves are, they can look just a little bit rigid. They combined result is still plenty good enough to put it in the section for Pros.
- Decent male friend characters and healthy social dynamics with them.
- Overall, LI’s look great and the variety in personalities is fantastic. This technically also means there will almost always be a few that the individual reader won’t like. But that is part of what makes them feel so natural. Out of the 11 “Official” LI’s, I loved 4, liked 5, was interested in 1 and not the last one. There also were at least 2 suspected side-girls that I liked.
- While I am not fond of oversized dongs, I don’t think I have ever seen one looking this good. It even has dynamic foreskin moving back and forth during the H-animations. Is crappy looking dongs just an HS issue?
- This is only a gut feeling, but I believe that L&L might actually do well with the IC content and take that shit seriously, rather than just using it as the milkshake that brings the boyz (consumers) to the yard. I mean, the mother is literally the ultimate beauty, but controversially she is not an LI. The existing Sylvia content is great.
Mehs and hit/miss: Unfortunately, L&L probably has a few too many LI’s for its own good. Only a few characters seem to have more than 1 significant scene or sequence dedicated to them. I think this overextension will keep progress on the slow side.
- Somewhat frequent systematic grammar mistakes: Your/You’re, there/their/they are, how’re, etc.
- Simple and somewhat stiff language? Doesn’t flow naturally (early game comment).
- Many LI’s do not look their age. I’ll group this together with how a few LI’s have somewhat weird looking faces. Not ugly, just “off” in some way.
- The pacing within the H-scenes, as good as they otherwise are, frequently feels a bit rushed. This is spearheaded by the quite short dialogue and the short descriptions seen during the scenes.
- Small observation. Some characters who appear in the gallery are barely present in the actual story. I’m thinking the chick with the silvery-greenish page haircut. She appears briefly in the intro of L&L but then vanishes and we don’t get her name AFAIK. Yet she is prominently featured on the banner of the AVN’s banner.
- I suppose I haven’t played any Daz games in a while because the uncanny valley feel occasionally pops up.
- While the story has good branching and replay value, I can’t help but notice how weird the start of some events feel. The MC will have this strong urge to randomly engage in conversations for no reason.
- Skin texture can look a little weird (goosebumbs, shiny and glasslike, etc.) in some scenes.
- The gallery is highly random in nature. It is split in 2 sections. First the replays (actual ingame scenes) and then the image gallery (which contain plenty of animations in the chapter 4 section instead of still renders).
The replays are obviously unlocked by seeing the actual scene for the first time, but the still renders in the gallery are only related to the actual events of the story about half the time. Maybe less.
- Well, for a project that has been around for a few years, the number of actual H-scenes is a bit low. Now, L&L as a AVN is one of the more serious titles and leans more towards relationships developing natural ways, so it is only fair that half of the main LI’s don’t have sexual encounters yet. We get some options for one-off H-events instead.
Cons: No option to change text speed appearance. Full sentences are shown with each click. I am very used to having the text appear slightly faster than reading it. I would like to see more Renpy functionalities.
- Transitions between different H animations and between animations and still renders are jarring and rough. As good as the H-scenes otherwise are, the stuttering of the transitions can take you out of the action.
- What’s this? Do we have another AVN with an MC who Is exceptionally gifted down below? Yes, we do. Remember guys, you can always trust me to bring this trope up if it applies in the AVN I am reviewing.
- The initial 2-year time skip is a little extreme. A short section 1 year into MC’s education, with him in decent shape, but still with low fighting skills might have worked better than the complete loser-to-winner transformation spanning 2 whole years in a single go. You could have shown him 6 and 12 months into the training regimen, but still basic at self-defense and with his loser-mentality still being halfway present. And later, when he has become a solid fighter, you could show how he left behind most, but not all of his insecurities.
- It also feels like an actual plot hole, with how MC has been attending his IT studies for 2 years and basically hasn’t talked with any of his classmates (Donovan, Kaylee, Fiona, etc.) the entire time. Going no-contact with his family for 2 years is reasonable enough, but it would be nice to see the writing actually explore his thoughts about why he stuck with the decision. Like, halfway through his transformation he would have an opportunity to reestablish contact, but then explaining why he didn’t through some internal monologue.
The story is interesting, funny and entertaining and I hope it stays that way.
