RPGM - Completed - And the Hero Was Never Seen Again [v1.04] [Circle Poison/Kagura Games]

TL.DR. It's not unplayable, however not worth your time IMO.

Detailed review:
UI sucks. Everything takes few more clicks that it should and it times time a lot. Like the fact save is on the second screen. Or that you can't only use your mouse by default, there is a different bind for select and confirm. It's just not polished or very well playtested.

Gameplay is boring by the standard set by 2dcg games. Mostly simple attacks, lot of leveling, very repetive... on itself not terrible. In comparison it's like bottom 20% of the games on this site.

Porn part is so grindy. There are many chapters and its just slightly interesting story. No common H-scenes. The pace is just wrong. This is the biggest offender of them all.

Considering this is Kagura i would expect 8/10+ and i got this "I want to forget about the time i waster on this" game type.

This game production values are very high, has good music, good UI, goofd abilities and the game is actually, a very well crafted adventure. But in what really mater, the hentai stuff, is not that great,

For instance, is very noticeanle, that the developers didn't want to do a henta-game, but and adventure one, the hentai part is more as an accesorie, the plot don't goes around the echi part and can be totally skipped. The corrupption part don't make sense in the story or the ending has anything to do with it. (for the comments in this forum, following the virgin route is not worth it at all)

The art is also very simple and repetitive, even if the game is fun to play and is well done, this game is not either a great hentai game, but good adventure with a non-sensical ending.

A solid jrpg with a surprising amount of polish for an H-game but where it does shine in how it designed its characters I do have problems with the games story (mostly later half) and amount of H-scenes.

Story:

Pros- Story has some very likeable characters with some good character moments throughout the story. These good moments though do end up stopping as soon as the plot has to accommodate the storykiller that is both time travel and anthropomorphizing a concept.

Cons- A lot of the games twists and higher concepts fall flat because of a lack of understanding what something is or a complete disconnect from the plot in general. These scenes become extremely obvious when one simply has to ask is how an outsider became a ruler for a kingdom who's language and culture the outsider wouldn't know. Or even just look up the definition of what the Great Filter is as a concept. Or ask how a time traveler, who has master time, could be late?

These don't ruin the story. I still enjoyed the game but I rather not be laughing in disbelief in the levels of loops the writer has to put in to make their story make sense.

Art- The H-scenes are good but the are repetitive with not much flare into them. All three characters share the same scenes with a few noticeable unique ones. They are all solid but since each scene is repeated thrice, it does pad the number of h-scenes.

A great RPG gem with amazing writing, at the end of the story, I was very attached to the characters (even though the characterization was very trope-y, it does so in an endearing and genuinely well-written way), which I cannot say for most games I play. Absolutely recommend.

In terms of H-content, this game is disappointing. Not disappointing in that it is bad, but disappointing in that it could've been perfect, but it isn't. This game has so many mechanics and is incredibly well polished, which gave me high expectations for h-scenes. But the delivery is very subpar, there really aren't that many different scenes (like 10 unique sets of scenes total), but they artificially inflated by having a version of each scene per character. After beating the game and unlocking all the H-scenes, I was extremely disappointed to see the lack of unique scenes. And what few scenes this game does have is also incredibly uncreative and mediocre.

That being said, this game has a lot of content outside of its H-content. I can pretty confidently say that all of the H-games I've played, this game has the most non-H CGs, and by a long-shot too. I liked the skit mechanic, where your characters just have a side conversation about what is happening that you can trigger in specific conditions (which really adds characterization and makes the world seem alive).

Also, something that I'm not seeing the other reviews mention but a new player really should know, this game is fucking long. Like really, really long. My first playthrough took about 20 hours (18 hours in-game time), and even then I skipped a lot of stuff and didn't backtrack to get some of the items I unlocked. Just to give you a sense of content scale, there are 98 of the aforementioned skits spread throughout 12 chapters. This game is comparable to MGQ Paradox in terms of dialogue and content.

I also liked that each of the twelve chapters had its unique flair and mechanics to it. Even if the base mechanics is still a dungeon crawler. In terms of non-H content, the combat is passable. Some weapons building is required, and you will need a good setup to win fights, but the fights still end up being a stat-check at the end of the day.

The plot twist at the end was actually something I've never seen in fiction before, and it was pretty fucking peak ngl. It really goes to show that this game was an RPG first and not an H-game, as the 2 final chapters of the game (also the longest chapters, 4 out of 18 hours of in-game time were spent on these two) had zero H-content and was just non-stop RPG kino.

That's all I have to say. I've yapped quite a lot about this game, and despite all my complaints, I truly loved it. For me, this is an S-tier RPGM game on the same level as BlackSouls, MGQ Paradox, Demon Roots, and Pronant Symphony. Probably the most underrated RPGM game on this site.

I really enjoy erotic games that would still be great even without a single erotic scene. It's that kind of game — the story is solid, there’s voice acting, having multiple characters enriches the gameplay. It’s not just fap material, it’s a real game — enjoyable to play, with surprises and depth

Even without anything erotic, this game is just plain good. It has a memorable cast of characters, a great plot with well thought-out twists.

And the fact that it has intro's complete with soundtracks is pretty nice as well.

This is an RPG first and foremost; the lewd parts are separate and mostly avoidable. I downloaded it for the latter, only to end up absorbed in the rich story. There is multidimensional time travel involved, and yet there were NO PLOT HOLES. I've never seen that happen before!

I don't think I was able to find any redeeming qualities in this game with a 2024 release date. If this were released in 2012, it may have been passable as a 3/5. I had some hope because of the other reviews but I don't see it at all.

The game really drags on with a bottom tier combat system and long animations and reward screens. The difficulties mean nothing in this game because you only acquire h-scenes through losses to bosses and by interacting on the map. All the slider does is change how many times you have to watch the reward screens.

The h-scenes are boring. Like, just barely up to standard rape scenes. The scenes are not even that plentiful and collecting them is just annoying. You have to lose to the boss up to 9 times to see the three variations for each character, which are barely different sometimes. Each time you lose, you have to run back to the boss just to lose again. It must be one of the worst implementations of lose-to-view I've ever seen.

The story is just not very good. I'm not sure what has enthralled people in this game. I'm an avid reader and it felt like dredging through boring dialogue and middle of the road character development at best.

Like I said, if this were a scene collector from 2012 it would have been okay. This is not worth playing.

An alright game.
Pros:
-Good artstyle, many variations of the same scene (for different characters, with/without virginity status, etc..)
-Easy to progress game, not much grind
-Stats for each heroine and different costumes
-Heroines are voiced
Cons:
-Not many scenes. Instead, you have few scenes with different faces/bodies (when you change heroines to see the same scene)
-No corruption (corruption levels give some fighting stats and that's it, but it doesn't affect lewdness of characters at all), you can do anything with any heroine without having to worry about her not accepting that.
-Lame scene acquiring(not even night/day system, you just open a new lewd event, talk to the person 2-3 times to fully progress one scene and then switch heroine and repeat, no need to even leave the place you were standing at)
-Pregnancy is a lie, never got a scene with pregnancy (there is not a single scene in the game, I double checked in full opened gallery), it just says that you got pregnant and paints a fetus on the character portrain in the lewd menu, that's it.

Conclusion: not a gem in the slightest, but will do for killing time. I'd rate lower, but honestly, it's not that bad compared to most recent games.

First off I just want to say I really enjoyed this game. It's solid and worth playing if you're onboard for something with a real plot. The story goes way harder than it has any right to. Hell, I'm reviewing it and that's saying something since I don't really do this. It can be a little grindy here and there and it's a bit long winded, but generally it's way more engaging from a plot and dialogue perspective than it has any right to be. There's a lot of voice acted dialogue for just character building throw away conversations and jokes between the three main characters and it fuckin works.

That said, the H stuff is pretty good overall but also kinda mid. It's mostly non-con scenarios that are alright, and some corruption dependent scenes with some prostitution, but it feels like it's not quite there. There are some compelling ideas and scenarios. There's an rps minigame tied to a couple events that wasn't the worst, but overall I feel like they came up a bit short.

Here's a rapid fire of the short comings, but plese keep in mind I still recomend the game overall:

• The corruption mechanics felt pretty shallow.
• The character's personalities didn't really change all that much except in some scenes where they were gatekept by a certain corruption level.
• There weren't enough scenes in new environments.
• A lot of scenes could've benifitted from an extra additional sluttier stage.

One of the best games i played 10/10
The story is pretty good no lose the battle scene(only bosses)
The corruption is not too sudden if i remember correctly
Voiced + there is 3 protagnists so you see their past what happened to them
they really feel like a person not just some side char
You can switch between 3 chars to see hscenes of them all of them have diffrent kind of reaction to the hscenes
When you level up 3 or 4 times i really dont remember you get new skill
You can change the chars clothing
I forgot to mention there is chapters like 12 or 16 at max most of them have boss battle on the end of the chapter
There is gambling yes gambling but its just for clothing you need to get to see a hscene you lttrly need to afk 1 hour to get 3 clothe to see evry of the chars hscene you dont need to gamble you can get the clothes if you use cheat codes
The best part is when you go to shower they sing i dont know why but i still remember how they sing i felt deeply affected of it
The main char is funny a little stupid
The only problem is prob there is A lot of battles like when the enemy touches you go into combat
you can skip them but in first few chapters dont skip them it was annoying but i kept my sanity so you can too dw
i remembered now there is extra bosses like harder than bosses they all have diffrent weakness so you need to change how you use your skills you cant just use one skill well you can if you cleared the game but whats fun if you skip it : D
Anyways its 10/10 for me i def recommend it play it or else : D
(I writed what i remember there is a lot i dont remember prob so if there is a question you can ask me)(and please use the food bar in the game or you need to go back and forth evry time(when you fight they recover your hp and sp or you will need to go back to the safe zone without enemy to recover i dont use items in games so i forgot to even check healing items i remembered after like chapter 8 : D )) (i played like 2 months ago so i dont remember evry annoying part but it was at least fun to play if we dont include the fights)

It's a decent game for what it is, if you are interested in the story.

STORY AND CHARACTERS

The story is actually quite good, in fact, with some decent plot twists. Word of advice, though, skip the intros. Not the opening, the anime-like intros (you get to see it once per chapter, and there are 12 chapters), because it spoils some things.

The characters are generally likeable and have a lot of personality. Not just the main three, but the secondaries (well, most of them, at least)

GAMEPLAY

Now, the gameplay... It has good elements... badly used. The skill system (read, equipable passives) is actually interesting, the fact that you can choose the difficulty is always a plus, the battle system ON A VOID, is decent... but it suffers from:

- A lack of balance (Normal is actually VERY EASY, Hard is Easy, or Easier Normal, Very Hard is indeed Very Hard or even worse, and I haven't tried the rest)
- A lack of interesting battles. The bosses aren't awful, but the enemies ARE. Specially when they don't have interesting rewards (if you fight the first chapters, at one point the mone stops having any use, and until the end you won't get any skills above rank 1, and the crafting is basically useless until the chapter 10, where it BREAKS the game)

Also, there are systems that are useless through most of the game. The crafting, as I said, is an afterthough until the end of the game, as, if you've been lewding the girls (even in a Virgin run), you'll have better weapons than anything you'll get until... chapter 9? 10? And it's not exactly hard to get these weapons I've mentioned if you've kept with the scenes. Also the first rank of recipes are for weapons that you bought TWO chapters ago, the next rank you will probably have the lewd level weapons, the third rank are in the casino (and you DON'T want to farm casino coins yet), the fourth rank is barely above the already mentioned weapons, and by the time you are in the fifth rank... that's chapter 9.

The girls barely learn any active skills through levelling, so while the passives are cool, the girls will be limited to:




Besides that, you get the actually meat of the combat system, the weapon skills. You can equip one skill to your weapons, of three different skills per weapon (and three ranks per skill). So besides all I've already mentioned, depending on WHICH skill you've crafted into your weapons, you get:

Astel:


- Ima:


Disaster:


It sounds like a lot, yeah? It isn't. Outside of Ima, you won't be using the girls natural active skills if you can avoid it, and you can only have one weapon skill equiped in each weapon (with a cost in money to replace it), so Astel and, specially, Disaster, will be playing with two skills in combat most of the time (Ima too, but not as much as those two). A system that it is, in the void, interesting, in reality means you'll be spamming the same skill time and time again... or you'll just keep attacking.

You get the weapon skills by killing enemies. Again, in the void is sounds interesting and it goes against what I said about the enemies not having interesting rewards. In reality, though, for most of the game you'll only get the rank 1 versions, you can buy them in the extra shop in any case, and their real use most of the time is to sell for money, because for most of the game the enemies don't give that much (but selling the skills certainly DOES)

H-CONTENT

In the first chapters is actually quite decent. There are a lot of scenes, and outside of the most tame ones, the game certainly doesn't pull any punches for the girls. They are going to go through rough to brutal sex, with gangbangs (tens of people against them), mind control, monsters, tentacles... they also can prostitute themselves, for more consentual scenes. If you like hardcore hentai, this game will scratch that for you... until the shit hit the fan. Then, besides a few "game over rape" scenes (with no game over), you'll barely get any new scenes. That's about a third of the game. Maybe a bit more.

But it also has a lot of costumes, and the sprites REFLECT them. At some points the girls will change to a certain dress (usually the standard one) because a scene requires it... but you can change it and many times you can do it BEFORE the scene, so it is hilarious seeing these three in lingery saving a hostage, to give one example.

But, the content that it gave, I did enjoy, and there is A LOT. Just... not well paced. And not too much consentual. Also everything is heterosexual sex, so don't come here looking for yuri or gay, you won't get it.

FINAL SCORE

The score I give the game is a bit biased, because the story, for me, did save a lot of the game, but the battles ended being tedious most of the time, I missed the sex at the end and most of the systems were underused and lackluster. So read that score more like a 3.5/5 than 4/5. The sex and, specially, the story kept me, because the combat sure didn't.

I've seen people saying "play on normal, you won't miss anything". I disagree though. Hard is also quite easy, and in normal you won't get the crafting materials (they only drop on hard or above). And those are the core element to outright break the last fourth of the game, and that was the most fun I had with the combat system, seeing how three gals in brothel lingery could utterly humiliate gods and eldritch aberrations. I beat the first phase of the final boss in two turns, by example, and nothing endured more than three turns against my team at that point. Not even the hidden super bosses.

PD: Oh yeah, I forgot, unless you are into it, don't bother with a Virgin Run. You can obtain the rewards the game gives you for it in chapter 10... in chapter 10, it just needs a bit of effort. If anyone is curious, it gives you the rank 6 recipes and a lot of resources to craft them, but you can get them in that chapter fairly soon in any case, so... yeah, if you are into virgin runs, go for it, if you aren't, no, it's not worth it. The ending is the same, no matter if the girls would fuck anything that moves (and a few things that doesn't) or if they barely know the meaning of the word sex.

A monotonous game with unnecessarily complicated operation of heroines' skills. Even a rather interesting story doesn't save the gameplay. It's no slouch, but it's not an outstanding game either. Such an average.

I was really enjoying this game through about chapter 5. It had a decent story that advanced at a decent enough pace and each chapter added more porn to unlock. After chapter 5, the porn basically ends and you're left with an endless chain of dungeons that aren't very good or interesting. It's worth playing for about 3 hours and then I would just stop, honestly.

I am aware that a previous version of this game had bugs. I had this version, but when I ran into the bug, I noticed that the bug-free version was uploaded, so any bugs will not affect my rating. I am also a huge Cheat Engine/cheat program user, so grinding never affects my rating really.

This game has one big flaw that makes it just an average game.

Story is 4/5. Without spoling anything, I think the twists and turns the story make, while predictable, kept it entertaining enough for me. I really enjoyed reading through it.

H-Content is also 4/5. I thought all of the scenes were great. A variety of scenes that has good art, and while I wish there was a lot more, it wasn't too bad.

Art is 5/5, though I felt like the sprite artist and the h-artist were two different artists. I actually found the sprite art to be really cute, but some of that attraction was lost in the h-scenes.

So, if the story, h-content, and art are all at least 4/5, why am I rating this as a 3? Simple. The h-content and the story feel disconnected from each other. Besides a few game over scenes and one particular h-scene involving a mechanic, all of the h-content does not affect the story in any way. Whether you play a virgin run or not won't affect the story in meaningful ways.

This is cemented by how you can access the h-scenes. Some h-content will only unlock once you reach a certain chapter, but in some of those chapters, you are locked to a particular set of maps. Well, the game's solution is to give you a lantern that allows you to travel to the city in a parallel world to see these scenes. What's parallel about it? Does it have something to do with the story? Not really. It's just the game's excuse to give you h-content in a place that, story-wise, you shouldn't be able to access. Instead of putting h-content where your characters are in the story, they instead put them in a place that would make no sense to the plot if it was canonical.

It really feels like there was a RPGM all ages game and a corruption "find the scenes" h-game, and someone put them together without worrying too much on how it would fit. And it's not like you can't do both simultaneously. Plenty of h-games have a great story that can be affected by your h-stats. But this is not one of them.

TL: DR: There are two potentially great games here, but because they have been stuck into one game, it becomes just mediocore.

Porn: 2/5
Gameplay: 3/5
Story: 4/5

Overall: 3/5

Overall mediocre game, don't waste your time on it if u wanna good any H-content. A lot of useless fights, combat system has a little to none complexity. Story is engaging, but who the hell play h-games for the plot?

And the Hero Was Never Seen Again

Playtime: 12h
Playthrough: Virgin clear (not recommendet) on Normal

Story:

The story was good, it kept you somewhat interested in the characters and the voice acting made this game feel more like watching an anime. The game gives you in missions the option to start a conversation with your party and listen to their thoughts and opinion (fully voice acted!) which makes listening to them, if you care for the story and characters a must.

Story + H-Part:
Almost non-existent. I think there are one or two scenes with nudity and two optional scenes.

Gameplay:

You do your missions and after that you are able to roam a little to get some scenes. Battles can be challenging in higher difficulties and managing the right combination will get crucial, but not if you play it on normal.

H-Content+Gameplay:
Some lose scenes, a Battle-rape-system for specific jobs/activities which boils down to Rock-Paper-Scisscors and I think thats it. You can switch outfits, but they don't really do that much (some do unlock a job).

H-Content Overall:

Lackluster, especially if you like games where the story and H-Scenes are intertwined. You get a fully voice acted scene for every Heroine but they do not really vary in any special kind. Lewd Exp will make your heroines stronger and also does unlock some other scenes.


Overall:
Play it if you like the art and a nice story - but if you want the H-Content, you will be fine with a gallery savefile.

The main reason why only one Star, is the fact that this game locks one in the room before the final boss. If you can't beat the boss, you can't grind. Enjoy restarting the game or you had a save a room earlier.

Story is what ever. It is an anime level of writing. Same characters, same reactions. Nothing worth talking about.

Combat, the usual RPG combat.

Actual H-Content. Basically nothing interesting. Pregnancy is a HUGE lie! There is no real mechanic behind it. Just one extra scene per character.

So, you have found yourself on an ambitious little game in hopes of a good masturbatory session. Go, you, I would say, but also I would say hold your horses a moment. In all I would say the game is decent, but there's a lot of things that can be said about it:

H Content - 3.1/5:
The reason most of us are here, right? Guys, gals, in-betweeners; I don't judge. The game gives you three characters, and there are numerous repeats or variants between them depending on your taste. The deciding factor on whom is shown is whichever girl you have put in the lead of your party formation, save for special scenarios where you see all three girls at once for a moment; then you choose who gets used. There are a couple close calls of seeing all three girls used at once, but it never happens. On the one hand, there are a few fun scenarios to be had, but on the other hand you have variations of a shota scene, a few generic scenarios in place while saucier scenarios never occur, a trio of super fugly wannabe "heroes" who keep showing up, and a pregnancy mechanic that amounts to sleeping it off and it's nothing more than a nightmare (sort of more on this in a sec). The corruption system lets you become a lewd virgin (in stats only), a non-virgin who's never lewd, and the story-canon level of pure. I even felt like there should have been more opportunities in both iterations of the casino. Sadly, it's just scenes playing out, only some being decent or good while some are turn-offs for me, with no impact on future H events or story events. I'll touch more on one scenario I wanted more of in the next section.

Story - 4/5:
By itself, as a jrpg, the plot is fine, if the twists can be seen from miles away. I enjoy time travel as a concept, and this game almost manages to do one-way travel well on a couple occasions, not to spoil it. Some moments are too convenient, on the other hand. As mentioned above, H events and lewdness do not impact anything. I think what bothered me most was when the girls meet the princess, and there's an avoidable scene with the princess forcing herself on the main character; not because of the scene itself (though being less rapey could have been nice too), but because it's one-and-done and never brought up again, never given a chance to be built upon, and I wanted more fun with her, dammit. The story upholds its status quo harder than so many TV shows in the last 25-30 years, and railroads you into one canonical ending by the time you finish. I feel the story, which is again fine as it is on its own, could have been better with little routes for the three girls based on lewdness and such decisions as trying to romance the sapphic princess, whose role and personality in the story currently becomes as relevant as the birthing scenes once her one-and-done H event is over (sure, she's there, but... is she really?).

Level Designs 3/5:
Most of it all works just fine. There are times I just want to turn on no-clip and get on with it already. As mentioned earlier, the casino iterations (and another late-game location) are limited, but this is because you can't even use the bed and shower that are clearly right there (given the option that opens at Lewd rank 19, and that you'd have to portal back to the main city most likely once you get it, having more places than your Dorm Room for certain night activities would be good). The gameplay loops for the first few chapters doesn't feel awful or repetitive, so that is a resounding neutral, almost a plus. The chests like to give you weapon materials (fine), regular currency (cool), more casino currency than you'll probably ever need, and some healing items, but you can't tell what you're getting based on the color of the chest. So there's some decency here, but there's room for improvement or polish. Oh, and the chapter 11 bonus for virginity is actually laughable, I am sorry to report.

I did like the three girls, at least. Even though the mtf transformation was somehow even more underwhelming than the H events' impact on the story. It's alluded to a few times, but the six month time skip in the beginning makes the main character adjust off-screen perhaps a little too much, perhaps too quickly. The "demon" girl and "monster" girl have their own charm as well, and it's nice seeing an organic, natural camaraderie between the girl trio, made better by optional skits like you'd expect from a Tales game. The fugly boy trio? I wish we could have ditched them early, speaking as a pansexual lady of culture.

Combat 2.5/5:
On a side note before I begin, the music in the game is picked out fairly well. The reason I bring it up now? You're going to get in a lot of fights, and the victory theme is going to be A DEAL LOUDER than the rest of the audio. It's like a local TV or radio station's commercials compared to whatever you're watching or listening to, and it will be heard a lot (or is that just me?).

*ahem* Now then. The combat is neither good nor bad. I like the fact you can charge up an attack, but not how little time it lasts, and less how high-ass stats continue to do so little for outgoing damage, especially mid-and-late-game when monsters and bosses start taking those hits like lesser sponges. Leveling up is fine at first in terms of speed, but quickly becomes a chore. That's before accounting for how uneven the leveling thresholds are for all three characters (like I ended up opening Mtool just to keep the girls even). Skill customization is maybe so-so, but is a neat concept made slightly better by raising lewdness for additional slots or (non-lewd) abilities. I'm not expecting lewd abiliti4es in a game without lewd combat, but somehow the 20 lewdness levels are the last place I expected to receive aide for something so non-lewd, but I guess it vindicates the droprate of all those lewdness-raising items.

My final score 3.15/5. Playable, can be enjoyed at parts, but it leaves a fair amount to be desired. May Circle Poison do more and greater things in the future. =)

The gameplay and story are good for an H game, but average at best compared to normal rpgs. This becomes a problem because the adult scenes are way too sparse and spread out...you can easily go an hour between scenes. Good voice acting, but the game really started to drag, especially towards the end. There's a lot of grinding, and the stat curve seems off to me, started at lvl 1 with 30hp and ended at lvl 50 with around 250hp. I played on normal and spent around 16 hours fully completing all the side quests and optional bosses. I'm glad it has NG+, but no real reason to play it that I'm aware of.

Art is decent, but reminded me of games from 15-20 years ago and the scenes weren't particularly exciting for me. The main premise that the hero was a man turned into a woman seems underused as well, I only recall it being mentioned in 2-3 early scenes.