Grand Academy for Future Villains

First of all; don't pick this up if you're looking for a story or even decent characters. Nobody is even a little interesting and there seem to be very few people for you interact with. Secondly; a lot of the choices didn't lead where I feel they should have or use/increase the stat that made the most sense. Easily the most annoying thing for me was how often the game would either give me the opposite of something I chose, forget what I picked, or give me both outcomes at once. There were at least five or six occasions throughout my first playthrough where it left me whisper-screaming, "WHAT THE F***! BUT YOU JUST SAID -". It was very poorly done and I'm kind of surprised it got published. I've played quite a few CoG games so far and this is one of the worst. Half way through the game I was starting to lose interest because of how far it strayed from the path I was attempting to play and by 3/4 of the way through I gave up entirely.

As someone who's played a lot of the Choice Of games, this is in my opinion one of the weaker ones. -The characters are extremely flat, and you never get to know them before having to make a choice about what kind of relationship you want to pursue with them. And it doesn't seem to matter how you treated them before that choice- they're up for whatever, lovers even if you stabbed them in the back, nemesis even if you were pals the whole time. -The stats are very unintuitive and unclear. I never knew what choice would result in what changes to my character, and sometimes the opposite happened of what I wanted, even on multiple playthroughs trying to play a certain way. This makes the choices feel significantly meaningless- these games are of course often faking true choice, but it should still feel as if what you picked really made an impact on the plot. The writing is okay, and I do like the concept and underlying plot; I just wish I felt like i had more of a choice in the matter

Disregard my playtime, because I read the android version of "The Academy for Future Villains" and bought it on Steam only to leave a review and to support the author. In actual fact, it is certainly more than 10 hours already, and I am currently on my third playthrough. Why does it take so long to complete it? Not only because it has a very substantial story, but also for the reason that I read almost everything, even on my subsequent playthroughs. Yes, even the text I've seen trice already. I don't usually reread novels, interactive or regular ones, - at least, not unless a sufficient amount of time has passed. However, "The Academy" is too much of a joy to read. Even on my third playthrough, I still keep noticing and appreciating small things that eluded my attention during the first and the second ones. Some scenes and interactions that I didn't consider to be something special and didn't pay a lot of attention to back then – now acquire special meaning (like the first encounter with Aurion, when he still is in the queue, but already has some problem with the Academy's staff; I might be wrong, and my supposition was never confirmed nor disproved within the novel itself, at least as far as I've seen... but I think that this hassle is one of the hints at Aurion's real origin – that, in his narrative, he was meant to be a protagonist. His bio matches the profile of a traditional fantasy hero perfectly: born in a small town in a middle of nowhere, coming from a fortuneless family... having a very, extremely ordinary appearance. If his designated role in the narrative really was the role of protagonist, then the scene at the beginning of the novel makes perfect sense. To make a face-heel turn is not forbidden per se, so Aurion was told that he has nothing to be afraid of, if he really is a person he described himself as in his application. However, there could always be a possibility that he was a mole, who just pretended to turn to the dark side and who planned to undermine the studying process from the inside. So, it would explain the need of additional verification). Speaking about the characters, every interaction with them (or their interactions with each other) is a damn TREASURE. I saw the reviews, in which people said that the characters are cliched and one-dimensional. I think, these people kinda... missed the whole point. "The Academy" is a very meta story, the story about a narrative itself; here, the most common tropes of traditional (and not-so-traditional) narrative are evoked. Sometimes they played straight, sometimes they are subverted, or inverted, or deconstructed. Sometimes they are used ironically, sometimes – not so; however, what I want to say, they are [i]played with[/i], and it is a very significant part of what makes this novel so good. Every character here is based on one or two fundamental tropes, but always – with an extremely clever twist. Or two. Or three. They break out of their designated roles in their unique fashions, and – ohgod, it is just so, so thrilling and amusing to observe them doing their things, reacting, being themselves. I am very, very NOT indifferent about every one of them, although still have my favourites. sdfksledf AURION. His interactions with Xi are precious, his interaction with Phil are precious, his interactions with MC are precious, and his interactions with THE WORLD IN WHOLE are so precious it hurts. I don't even know, whether I should laugh or cry half of the time, when he appears in the story; to think about it, his situation is kinda tragic. And when he fails at something, it is always both painful and hilarious. The way he respects the ones who were evil to him and made his life a bit (or a lot) more awful, because by doing so they embody the ideals Aurion believes in, is very amusing and fascinating, and, well, fun to watch. But it also pains to watch him fail, because he deserves to succeed and to get what he wants more than anyone. He worked so, so hard towards it, and he was damn smart about it. Such determination, drive, intelligence and capability should be rewarded! With something good. However, unfortunately, he has a fundamental aversion to "good". And he would also hate to be viewed as sympathetic. :D Not to mention the fact that, working so much on being evil, more than anyone in the Academy, apparently (may be, even more than anyone in the history of the Academy), - he still doesn't really succeeds in it. He talks so much about bringing pain and destruction, being treacherous and cruel, but achieves his exceptional grades almost entirely through honest studying, and, apparently, is not even capable of a proper betrayal. He had every opportunity for backstabbing, but preferred to announce his intentions, even if that meant putting himself at disadvantage. It looks to me like he couldn't escape his protagonist origin, no matter how hard he tried. What an unfortunate fellow. T__T xD But enough about that, or I'm going to bump into the word-limit. I just want to highlight again: for me, it is a very special CoG, and I consider it a work of pure brilliance. Clever, inventive, witty, genre-bending, giving the player vast opportunities for role-playing, choosing sides, switching sides (if MC changed their mind for some reason). There is a lot to uncover in the story: to learn more about its characters, to learn more about the MC themselves, to learn more about the conflict between their mother and professor Cerebrist, to be entangled deeper in the war within the Academy, to determine what it means to be a villain... At all times, I felt engrossed into the story, emotionally involved; I felt like the decisions of the MC were meaningful and consequential, and were to be taken seriously – but still there always were enough freedom to choose how to proceed in the way I thought viable and in-character, and not everything was about the MC and revolved around them. The world of this novel is alive, and the characters would take their actions, even when there is no MC to see them and to influence them; however, the MC plays a very satisfying part in everything that happens and has their means to influence the course of events and the actions of other characters – within the boundaries dictated by their personalities, of course. In both of my complete playthroughs, I also felt that my characters changed during the course of events. Not because I failed to make the choices that the people with their personalities would make, but because the experience of living through the events and interacting with other characters influenced them and changed their worldview and behaviour. And this is the best possible journey through the story. It feels substantial, significant and satisfying. I loved the experience. 10/10, and the title of one of the two most favourite CoGs and HGs of all time (and I played more than a half of the whole existing bunch).

This COG game exact like Hosted Games release Community College Hero but centralised around villains. It is obviously stated in the title. Thats were the similarities end, the basic story of main character attending educational institute to become a hero/vilain. The story is quite straightforward and simple. There are a lot of choices or sides to be chosen giving a lot of replayability value. Lot of character development for the main character but the same could not be said for other characters. Some side characters lack depth as their motives were not clearly mentioned especially differences between choosing modern or old villainism. Nevertheless, I really enjoyed playing as an up-and-coming villain. 6/10 Mva ha ha (pronounced mua ha ha)

The idea that different styles of villainy are incompatible was the worst possible thing to base the mechanics on, especially since which is incompatible with which is not at all clear and completely inconsistent. I've been through this around 100 times to try and map out the choices to get consistently good result and have been entirely unable to make sense of the stats system. I'm not sure if it's even possible to "succeed" in this game, and the achievements that hint otherwise seem to be unobtainable. Ignoring the game aspect, the setting and writing are acceptable but not amazing. I'd honestly prefer to see what they could have done writing a straight novel instead.

Well..what can i say that isn't in other peoples reviews already? probably nothing other than , unlike a lot of Choice of Games writers/devs whom seem to atleast skim the steam forums the dev/writer for this one seems to ignore theirs...though i'm also the only one who created a post on it so..yeah... The story itself - i haven't played for awhile i'm just making a review on a whim. Was okay , i liked it though i felt it tried to hard to play on the cliche 'villain' school in that it made you sound like you were training to be a villain in a movie, more than an actual 'villain'. with frequent references to how in the firing range your goal, an that of your minions was actually to 'miss' a lot - storm trooper style!. and most of the story seemed to not really know where it wanted to end up. i've only played through it once..and i can't really say its teh best Choice of Games game i've played but its far from the worst. it definitely needs some touch ups/edits to make it stand out more, and to give you more of a "i'm a villain in training" feel. but hopefully the writer will improve this , and add another story because all in all i did want to continue the story when it reached the 'finished' point..which seemed a little abrupt , in that it made it sound like it was intending to continue on but...then took me to the "enter your information to be updated of our future releases" . so i feel that this story may have been published a little early. i do recommend it since i did enjoy it when i played/read it. but it definitely needs polish.

I fully recommend playing this game. The writing is fun, exciting, and surprisingly tense at times. I was laughing the whole way through, and then desperately double checking what my stats where because I did not want to fail a particular choice. The little options here and there which let changes colours and font sizes are a nice and appreciated touch. The main reason to get this game is re-playability. You will sink several hours into your first play-through, fall in love with the writing, be annoyed at any unsolved mysteries and want to finish it again just to see what else was there. Buy this, and have fun!

This title makes a refreshing change to the fantasy choose-your-own genres, it isn't very often you can play as a villain and this was a fun experience. A must play.

“Grand Academy for Future Villains” has a fun premise: you’re a student at a school for aspiring villains and you can choose whether to embrace that or play a more reluctant troublemaker. The humor is light and chaotic, and the setting has its charm. That said, the game is more railroaded than many Choice of Games titles. Some choices don’t feel like they matter, and it’s often hard to predict which stat a decision will test, leading to unexpected failures. The characters also didn’t leave much of an impression on me; their personalities never really deepen beyond their initial gimmicks, which made it harder to get invested. Romance exists, but as I edit this years later, all I remember is that they were minimal and not especially memorable. Despite the uneven execution, I still enjoyed the playthrough overall. If you like stat-heavy comedy with a deliberately over-the-top tone, it’s worth a look. Just don’t expect strong agency or standout character work. (6/10)

It's great! hundreds of possibilities as you go and you can shape your character anyway you want. from traditional evil to moral ambiguity and even heroism, what path shall your character take? warning heroism is not recommended or available for the evil.