VN - RPGM - Abandoned - Saria Reclaimed [v0.17] [Velminth]

★ Chef's Kiss: so much wasted potential in terms of art and gameplay, but as you can see from that ABANDONED tag, it has since begun to fall off

Pros (v0.15 and older):
++ Gameplay was a step above your average RPGM slop. It was to be Karryn's Prison's killer... well, not really. The really old version was closer to KP, but eventually turned into a deck-builder strategy game. The core was some rock-paper-scissors mechanic and some complexity involving lust/desire and enemy "frustration", but it's not too hard. On top of that, there was enemy variety and an explorable side-sidescrolling map.
++ Art. Holy... the art was insane. From the samples, you might see some off outlines and questionable AI-assisted uncanny-ness, but v0.15 had soul. The H-scenes come during combat, after combat (defeats), and what few cutscenes there are.
++ A decent amount of fap content for NNN (Non-stop Nut November)

Cons (v0.15 and older):
-- Oh. My. God. The Chef's Kiss I gave it? You can probably feel my disappointment through my review. If you're the type of player (or gooner) to keep tabs on a porn game, maybe visit the subscription pages from time to time for updates, or donate to the devs for their project... then this is NOT it. After you're done with what you had with v0.15, there's a high chance you'll be saying, "That's it?"
-- Missed potential in all sorts of aspects: bugs were few/non-intrusive, pop-in CG with variety in Saria's expressions, and most of all—character building. The FMC had options for backstory, traits, and sex counts for body parts (oral, vaginal, anal, outercourse: breasts-butt-abs)—this is the kind of crap that tells you this game is going to be PEAK. That your experience will vary depending on what happens to Saria and how you play her. Unfortunately, that went nowhere.

Pros (v0.16-v0.17):
++ More content, more characters. More "refined" art, but this one is subjective. I like the older ones better and some of the new ones feel like generative AI got their grubby hands on what would've been kino.

Cons (v0.16-v0.17):
-- Every single "potential" comment I had above was thrown into the toilet in exchange for a VN-style gameplay. Too linear. Too monotonous. Too lazy.
-- Buggier than the previous versions
-- Sloppy development cycle. Before the v0.16 update, stuff was fairly consistent (in development and being inconsistent). Afterwards, it was just a complete rework to seemingly facilitate an easier process of dishing out updates to keep the Patreon alive. In the end? Nothing. Not a rugpull I'd say, but just a nothing burger.

Overall: v0.15 is still worth a play with a good amount of content, but don't expect it to be fully fleshed out. v0.16 or v0.17 are not worth the "added content" in my opinion. As of writing, Karryn's Prison remains king (or queen?) in this sub-genre of porn games. I came back to this game after all this time, even intending to support the devs, but came back to it spiraling into disappointment.

yet another idiot who saw this and decided to try it out before seeing the rating here
tried like ten times to beat that boss too thinking I was missing a mechanic with daze
dev is the typical patreon grifter who ruined the game and will never complete it past the 1/20th mark of what was advertised

I play on the two version of the game (Old and New version) i appreciat the game and all the story. The CG and artwork its impressif but the only think bad its the difficulty there are, after more 50H of the game it's still difficult on enemy fight (like dog).

But in the big line,it's a good game and i like it

velminth had a great foundation and fumbled it all. first it was a pretty ok rpg, then a pretty fun card-building game, and then a rpg "vn" with 15 minutes of bottom-of-the-barrel content? no thanks, velminth

The guy under me said it all, but essentially, try the 0.15.1 version. That would probably get 5 stars from me; it works well, almost everything is properly explained at the start, the UI is reasonably easy to navigate, the exploration is fun, the combat is good and you get to make your own build and synergize between your deck and accessories. The art and sex scenes are good too, which is probably the only redeeming quality shared by the newer builds.

I don't know what happened to cause the change to 0.16 and beyond, but it's basically a completely different game with the same protagonist and some reused assets. It's not just the genre, even the story is entirely different. Worse, it has boring, tedious combat where you have access to every move of your "deck" every turn and victory hinges mostly on whether the enemy will be aggressive or horny. If horny, you can just kill them while they waste their time trying to seduce you. If aggressive, they'll probably kill you in a few turns, or one-shot you before you get to do anything.

Most of the interface isn't really explained. The buttons aren't labelled and many don't even seem to do anything. Things that look like buttons aren't, and vice versa. Some of your stats are only visible outside of combat and I don't know what they even do. It's like trying to play a poorly translated alpha build of an abandoned game from someone who's never made games before, but then I tried 0.15.1 and everything is just so much better. I don't understand what happened to cause such a regression.

Maybe the dev can salvage this, but if anything they should have cooked the remake much longer before releasing it.

V 0.17

This game was IT, man. It had great combat, amazing scenes, a wonderful VA for Saria, hell even walking around and interacting with the NPCs brought at least some degree of entertainment through their dialog (or that one NPC you could shove off a cliff).

First came the change to combat, going from choosing your skills in a more typical RPG fashion into a deck building game, and honestly? I didn't even mind it, it was different and I completely understand why some people weren't about it but it didn't bother me greatly. In that same update (or the one after) we even got different costumes for Saria and they were based of the different areas that she could travel to and that was pretty neat IMO, them not appearing in fights or anywhere else was a massive shame but Velminth made it clear he didn't want to change how Saria looked by default in terms of combat and whatnot.

Then came 0.16

The entire game basically got wiped and replaced with a Visual Novel "RPG". Gone are all the previous H scenes except for the generic bandit loss scene, The Tickler scene, and Oskar the Drunk loss scene. The voice acting is gone, being able to talk with NPCs on your own accord (it's a VN, sure, but I find it hard to believe going from a RPG to a VN was asked for) is gone, and the combat is just dreadful. How does a boss that can defeat you in one hit before you even get a chance to move because turn orders are random and the stance you start in makes you take double damage from most of his attacks sound? According to Velminth the solution is you have to get good.
0.17 took care of some bugs (supposedly. 0.16 was a disaster in that regard as well), added one new level which I'll fully admit I don't remember if the loss scene has art associated with it, and a new character that can appear to fight instead of Saria but doesn't have any unique attacks or stats, why bother at that point to make her "playable"?

I personally never said anything because I'm not much of a commenter, but I do want to mention something that is potentially off topic; Velminth's Patreon. As of October 2nd, 2024, he still has "Creating Saria Reclaimed/Cogito Line/Illustrations" and even says in both tiers that both CL and SR will be free until an EVENTUAL 1.0 release. Not only is CL canceled according to his Itch io page (again, as of 10/02/24), but SR hasn't even been touched since like January 2024 and I would suggest you consider both abandoned. (EDIT: As of Nov 20th 2024 both games are now tagged abandoned)

At this point Velminth is 0/3 for finishing games (he made another VN RPG called Miru-GA and abandoned it at V 0.0.1 a few years back) and said he's going to take what he learned from CL and SR, but not Miru-GA, and make a fourth game. Quite frankly I expect less than nothing at this point, 3+ years of work and what does Velminth have to show for it? 3 dead games and a slew of nasty remarks thrown at people for not liking the direction he took SR (anyone remember "gargling my balls like a little dog"?)

Velminth set his F95 page to private but before he did I noticed he was frequently online checking out other works (nothing wrong with that at all, mind you) so on the off chance you're reading all of this, Vel; you need to grow up. Have a proper plan and documents for the direction of what your next game will be and stick with it, don't just come back when the F95 page inevitably is made and spew vitriol (credit where it's due, you didn't do that for CL even though you were constantly watching when it was active) and learn to differentiate what is and isn't constructive (and helpful!) criticism. Meatbeater18473 simply leaving a comment saying "game sucks" isn't the same as, to use my previous example, getting defeated instantly by a boss before you even got a chance to act only for you, the dev, to say get good when told about it (and not changing anything in 0.17, you knew about this in 0.16).

When/if your next game comes out I'll certainly keep an eye on it, cautiously optimistic you truly have learned from Saria Reclaimed, because this game is such wasted potential.

Version: v0.17

I had seen quite a few reviews that other people posted about how the game had an interesting and good gameplay system but was later turned into a generic card game. Although i havent played the older versions, only the .17 i can confidently say this isnt really worth it. The game is nothing more but a glorified rock, papers, scissors with 5 generic cards. I kept waiting and playing hoping to see more cards to spice things up, but i didnt receive any fucking new cards . What is the point of a card based game if you dont give the player any cards besides the very basic default ones???
The art is great and the sexual scenes are above average. The story has promise, but i really dont believe it could go beyond very good rating if it was completed fully. Overall, i would not say its worth it to download and play, there really isnt much content here and what is here, is boring at its boring.

The game was good until your rework, now its damn near unplayable. I can't even get past the forth level because the asshole instant kills me on the first turn, and the few times that I do get to hit him, I do minimal damage. Unless I'm missing something here, all RPG mechanics have been removed so it's clearly not a issue with leveling. I honestly have no words but I do have a question.... What the fuck were you thinking?

This game had promise, between the kinks and the setting it had a bright future a head of it. The side scrolling exploration let you enjoy the various sections of the world. In it's current state its lifeless. Would need yet another revamp to reclaim it's former glory.

Sadly the game from .16 version + is remade, and the gameplay style is more akin to a VN, compared to its prior version where you freely roamed a map and encountered enemy. Due to this its lost most of its redeeming qualities, on top of now being on hold, I have to give this game a low review

Please do not be discouraged, Dev. The shock of a sudden rework that removed tons of content will calm down after introducing more content onto the new system. The whiplash just shocked people, and this being V0.17, its not like this is the final version. People are just shocked. It went from Lisa the Painful to Slay The Spire (My bad attempt at humor to cheer you up hopefully).

For those who are struggling with the new combat system:
Its basically rock paper scissors with the stances.
Slash bets blunt. (Imagine someone failing to catch the blade of a slash.)
Blunt beats Pierce. (Imagine someone grabbing the an arrow out of the air.)
Pierce beats slash. (Imagine someone stabbing with more range against a slash)

So if someone is going to use a stabbing skill, before they attack, set your stance to blunt. (For example: The default resting card)

Hopefully this helps you out till the next content update. I know they will either restore some previous features, or introduce some new ones. Lets see what they're cooking, so to speak.

the total shift in gameplay is just disappointing, the original exploration was fun and the environments were great, but now its on par with a mobile game, maybe making a different side project to use the new system would have been a better choice and could very well have lead to a good game to go along with this one.

Terrible recent changes.
Asshole dev, bashing criticism and slinging insults like a child.
the game went from having the tiniest bit of gameplay to having no gameplay.
the art style is slightly above mid.
oh by the way most of the art like the massage and poster one has been canned and missing from the new version.

I don't want to be too mean about the game, but like other ppl said, it used to be great until the dev changed it to a VN.Another bad new is that the game's status become on hold. I would just play the legacy version instead.

As of writing this review, the game has been put "on-hold" which is just code for "abandoned but don't wanna say it is."

I was a Patreon supporter for over a year, and in that time I spent a good chunk of it being in the discord server, if not active then at least lurking.

Velminth would regularly ban people for speaking against what he had planned/put in the game, whether they were being friendly or an asshole about it. He would also, completely disregard criticism most of the time and say "You guys don't even know what you want, why should I listen to you for what to put in my game?" roughly.

When he announced that he would fully rework the gameplay and story, for the 3rd time in a year, I knew this game was going to go nowhere and I wasn't wrong.

Do not support Velminth, on any game, it's not worth it. I wasted about 60€ supporting him and got nothing in return but disappointment.

Saria Reclaimed could've been another H-game on the level of KP in terms of gameplay and art, instead it'll go down in the depth of forgotten H-games.

"I really liked this game before you changed the whole theme. It gave me vibes similar to Karryn Prison. If you had continued with the corruption mechanics that were initially planned, your game would have skyrocketed. But now, with this new plan of turning it into a visual novel and removing the mechanics, and the combat being worse, I think this game is done for. However, you still have a chance if you revert the game to how it was before the update. I would then gladly give it a 5-star rating. I used to enjoy it very much."

The game itself is nothing like how it was first presented; it went from an actual RPG with corruption-like mechanics and was gradually dumbed down, until it reached its current version where it is just a visual novel without any real player input. There might be a choice, but every choice leads to the exact same outcome, the combat is worse than ever before, and the story was rewritten to be far worse than before, the main character was redone to be unlikeable, and if this version of the game was the one that originally came out nobody would have cared about it.

All of this would not be enough for me to rate it 1 star, however the dev's response to player feedback has been nothing short of embarrassing at best and derogatory at worst. That, combined with the above issues are why I'm rating this game a 1.

I don't even know what to say other than the fact that this game was one of the most promising games in its category with some of the best art of any H-Combat game. Unfortunately its gone completely down the shitter with 2 redesigns in the past 3 updates. Almost every single update up to this point has added a large amount of H scenes as well as content. Unfortunately, 0.16 cut about 95% of the content out of the game while also redesigning the games genre in an awful way. With the 0.17 update our fears were basically answered as almost zero new content was added with only 1 new scene and 2 "new areas" of which is just the most basic amount of dialogue and 1 new enemy. RIP Saria reclaimed please revert to pre 0.16.

This review is pertaining to the current version of the game (0.17).

As a developing title, it is currently promising. The combat system is neat but, considering what's available at the moment, it needs more variety, as you're currently stuck with the same initial deck.

The story revamp seems neat, though I do wonder what it has in store for me now, since Saria has a established, although currently split, team instead of the vagrant lone wolf she was previously.

My only current problems with this title is the lack of clarity in some of the mechanics (most notably the map, location's progress/health bar, the hourglass and the "Doll" and "Axe" buttons at the bottom).

I'm also experiencing some technical issues as well, since most of the sexual assets from the "Bandit" game over screen get stuck in unless I reload to any save made before losing, and that the post-fight latest chapter dialogue is a repeat of the one in "Oscar the Drunk", down to the assets and everything.

Before v0.16 this game had potential to be next "REDACTED TO FOLLOW THE RULES" and i am sure many people see that but now as i already did said in comments on the main thread it's 1-2 months away from "abandoned" tag.

Was really hyped for this game and was awaiting future updates with anticipation before v0.16 when all my expectation was crashed to dust.

I really don't know what was the DEV thinking ...