It took me several evenings to play through v0.4.2: there is a lot of content.
Nephilim is set in a medieval fantasy world with the usual panoply of mythological creatures. One thing that sets the scenario slightly apart from similar titles is the direct involvement of gods in the story.
The MC (I named mine “Creepy-eyes”) is your typical overpowered male-power-fantasy character, that all women love and who can always power-up enough to defeat any opponent. His back-story is told in a series of flashbacks (and flashbacks within flashbacks).
I liked the game. It looks very good, has an interesting story, and great world-building.
There are a few negatives which hindered my enjoyment somewhat:
1. Inconsistent pacing. It starts out as a slow-burn, outright telling the player that it “won’t be a wank every five minutes type of game.” It also seems to be pushing the MC towards a monogamous relationship to start with. Then at some point it flips that script, and all of a sudden there are love-interests throwing themselves at the MC left and right with no penalties in sight for pursuing all of them at once, and wanks start coming so thick and fast the MC might as well give up on wearing pants. This feels like a change of course that over-compensated.
2. Continuity errors. I suspect the dev is creating this from a fairly loose outline, as I noticed numerous points at which a character’s actions didn’t quite make sense, or they knew things that they shouldn’t have known (or visa-versa). There were also cases where the same explanation for something was given more than once: though this might belong in the next category.
3. Writing quality. There is always a balance between an author’s prowess as a wordsmith and how wordy their dialog is. A master can keep the audience eagerly reading page after page in a single scene, while someone lacking that skill might barely manage to make the most laconic characters palatable. This author uses too many words for their skill level. I ended up skipping a lot of the dialog, except when it seemed to advance the story.
4. Current Year. Although not as bad as many titles, there was noticeable leakage of modern dialog and standards into the story. A previous reviewer commented on the point at which the MC gives another man a lecture about ‘objectifying women.’ That was probably the most blatant example, but there were other cases.
5. Sex scenes. While the game occasionally features some fully-animated cut scenes, the sex animations tend to be very basic, and these scenes are far too wordy. They were also sometimes repetitive and annoying, as when the MC is going to leave, but has to return to kiss his girl goodbye...then do it again...then again...then again, with each kiss being the same series of images, but the player is forced to keep clicking and clicking to finally escape out the door.
I think this could be tightened up and polished into a five-star game.
Nephilim is set in a medieval fantasy world with the usual panoply of mythological creatures. One thing that sets the scenario slightly apart from similar titles is the direct involvement of gods in the story.
The MC (I named mine “Creepy-eyes”) is your typical overpowered male-power-fantasy character, that all women love and who can always power-up enough to defeat any opponent. His back-story is told in a series of flashbacks (and flashbacks within flashbacks).
I liked the game. It looks very good, has an interesting story, and great world-building.
There are a few negatives which hindered my enjoyment somewhat:
1. Inconsistent pacing. It starts out as a slow-burn, outright telling the player that it “won’t be a wank every five minutes type of game.” It also seems to be pushing the MC towards a monogamous relationship to start with. Then at some point it flips that script, and all of a sudden there are love-interests throwing themselves at the MC left and right with no penalties in sight for pursuing all of them at once, and wanks start coming so thick and fast the MC might as well give up on wearing pants. This feels like a change of course that over-compensated.
2. Continuity errors. I suspect the dev is creating this from a fairly loose outline, as I noticed numerous points at which a character’s actions didn’t quite make sense, or they knew things that they shouldn’t have known (or visa-versa). There were also cases where the same explanation for something was given more than once: though this might belong in the next category.
3. Writing quality. There is always a balance between an author’s prowess as a wordsmith and how wordy their dialog is. A master can keep the audience eagerly reading page after page in a single scene, while someone lacking that skill might barely manage to make the most laconic characters palatable. This author uses too many words for their skill level. I ended up skipping a lot of the dialog, except when it seemed to advance the story.
4. Current Year. Although not as bad as many titles, there was noticeable leakage of modern dialog and standards into the story. A previous reviewer commented on the point at which the MC gives another man a lecture about ‘objectifying women.’ That was probably the most blatant example, but there were other cases.
5. Sex scenes. While the game occasionally features some fully-animated cut scenes, the sex animations tend to be very basic, and these scenes are far too wordy. They were also sometimes repetitive and annoying, as when the MC is going to leave, but has to return to kiss his girl goodbye...then do it again...then again...then again, with each kiss being the same series of images, but the player is forced to keep clicking and clicking to finally escape out the door.
I think this could be tightened up and polished into a five-star game.