Unity - Completed - Becoming a King [v1.0.0] [Becoming a King Game]

  1. 1.00 star(s)

    Stellarky

    Wow, what a disappointment. This so-called adult game should come with a warning: “Get ready to talk, talk, and keep talking until your virtual throat dries out.” Literally, you spend a whole hour listening to endless dialogue that goes nowhere.


    Where’s the sexy content? Where’s the part we’re all here for? Three scenes in over an hour. Three! And when something finally happens, it’s so poorly done and dull that it’s not even worth it.


    It feels more like a simulator for awkward conversations than an erotic game. If I wanted to read this much text, I’d just pick up a boring visual novel from ten years ago. Seriously, if you were looking for pacing, meaningful choices, or at least some action, run away. A tedious, slow, and completely anticlimactic experience.

    Rating: 1/10 — Endless talking with a frustrating payoff.
  2. 2.00 star(s)

    Samken

    Let's get the bandage out of the wound in one well swoop, shall we? This is an AI-art game; if you don't like any aspect of it, you'll not enjoy this game at all. I submitted myself for it, so you don't have to.

    The game's 'art' is so obviously Gen-AI, cause it looks identical to dozens of other soulless Gen-AI games. The disclaimer on the store page is just the saddest, mealy-mouthed attempt at obfuscation; pretending that putting the Gen-AI output into Photoshop, slapping a filter on it or doing a smidgen of touch-up work and pressing 'Save As' is somehow a meaningful step that separates it from the original output...

    Also, this 'studio' has put out 11 games in 2 years. Look at the others, then look at the 'publisher' they're teamed up with. It's all copy-paste Gen-AI slop. This studio is a slop factory.

    With that out of the way, it's not that bad, and there are some salvageable aspects of this project. The heroines are reasonably charming, the story is serviceable, and your choices do have severe consequences here.

    But the game has enough flaws outside AI-usage as well, there's a bunch of russian text still left in the code even when selecting english, some heroines got the short end of the stick, lack of CGs and adult content in general, and the gameplay loop is extremely repetitive, but that's the nature of most time-menagement SLGs, good ones solved this problem by automation though, which is clearly not the case with this one.

    The most unfortunate thing about it is that this game was made to be highly replayable because, again, your choices really do matter here. But gameplay really hurts in even going for a second run, and no New Game+ throbs even more.
  3. 3.00 star(s)

    sanahtlig

    A good game held back by bugs and repetitive design.

    The good:
    • Actions have Consequences: It's possible to mess up. In fact you probably will mess up. Characters will die. But you can still salvage something out of the wreck.
    • Interesting Characters and Dialogs: There's a variety of characters with their own storylines, and also dialogs that interweave with the main plot.
    • Well-animated H-scenes: The animated H-scenes are genuinely hot due to attention to detail. More than just fluid animations, there's dynamic facial expressions, changes of position and speed within the same loop. It's some of the best 2.5D H-animation I've seen.

    The bad:
    • Bugs: There's bugs scattered about. The worst of these corrupt the game state such that you can't save, while also corrupting the auto-save. Sometimes locations don't unlock correctly when loading a saved game, forcing you to reload and replay the previous turn. These issues can be gotten past by progressing forward one or two turns without reloading, but they're like landmines in a game that is already strewn with intentional landmines.
    • Frustrating Save System: The game can only be saved at the start of each turn. If you like to optimize / save scum, get ready to redo things over and over.
    • Flawed Translation: The translation is decent overall but appears to have relied on AI: there are some lines that don't quite make sense.
    • Plot Holes: Some of the events don't quite make sense, in part due to the poor translation but also due to conceptual flaws.
    • Repetitive Design: Most of the game consists of traversing empty maps to talk to characters over and over again. Should've gotten rid of the map movement and done everything with a menu or point-and-click interface. Mastering the mini-games is also repetitive due to questionable design choices that force you to progress through trial and error.
  4. 2.00 star(s)

    Topec

    Ooooh, I sometimes like to download some AI cringe just for this kind of experience. To make sure everything is as usual and nothing has changed. This project might appeal to a complete hentai newbie but nobody else. I honestly don't understand who would like such a project. It's obvious that this is a standard scam, because even in the main menu there are these "wishlist now" ads, clearly hinting that the author is already preparing another 2 slop project at the same time. Honestly, MY RESPECT for this guy because the project is complete crap, but he's making a ton of easy money out of it, out of nowhere. Hat's off to him, bec it's so based and clean.

    The style is bland; it doesn't stand out in any way, like a vanilla-flavored base sprinkled with vanilla on top. The animations are smooth but lacking any real flair. Seriously, they're just basic animations, nothing special.

    The texts are written 100% by AI. Not the kind that you can torture people with, of course, but at a level that's roughly equal to the level where you can simply turn off your brain while reading because it won't be needed in the process. Even if you don't read anything, nothing much will change. Why?

    Because the plot is garbage. Like, I don't even want to discuss it, it's just a classic "rags to riches" story, completely unremarkable except for the hentai parts lol.

    Seriously, the entire game is just WALKING AROUND AND CLICKING ON NPCs TO INCREASE YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH THEM AND ADVANCE YOUR FURTHER. I KNEW this and I WANTED to see this and I SAW it and I'M HAPPY with what I saw because NOTHING CHANGES.
  5. 2.00 star(s)

    jd8097619

    Has potential (and hopefully will get balance patched) but yeah this is a clear case of good concept but mediocre execution. First and foremost the English localisation is truly awful and clearly a ChatGPT style job. Words are spelt correctly and placed in the correct part of the sentence but the text is nonsensical because it clearly didn't understand the context (an example being that a secret passage is referred to as a loophole or that the save menu says "rewrite" instead of "overwrite"). This really is at present basically a fatal flaw to the experience because of the game's format.

    Beyond that though the characters themselves would be fine but there seems to be lots of hidden and poorly-explained conditions all over the place. "Optional" activities are in fact not optional, you'll fail conversation lines and relationships for no reason because the nonsensical writing doesn't really convey what you should be answering for each person.

    The art itself is clearly AI to some degree, though I suspect it's a general gloss over because of how consistent the style is and remains, along with AI animations given how short and repeated they are. Overall though it's pleasant on the eyes and perfectly adequate for what it conveys, reminding me of that Match-3 dating game that was the rage in the mid 2010s as one of the first big "adult" games released on Steam.
  6. 3.00 star(s)

    Magneric

    Interesting game with a nice plot and some kind of gameplay. Unfortunately bugs might ruin your game as it happened to me, and I'm playing the steam version. So unless the release a final patch I do not recommend
  7. 2.00 star(s)

    Dee1414

    This was one hell of a rollercoaster of a game, and I don't mean in a good way. The game starts out meh, then it feels AWESOME and that it has potential, and then when you get to the second half, the player REALLY feels the poor gameplay mechanics that outright ruin the game.

    Where do I start? This is a management game where you need to careful choose your daily/weekly schedules in order to build relationships with BOTH the smushable characters, but also the male bureaucrats in the city that are judging your competency. At first glance, this seems okay, as when you get the first H-scene its like wow, this is great! I'm not entirely against AI but its done poorly so often. That's not the case here. This might be the best use of AI ive seen. Things were all looking bueno until a certain story piece came up, and a light bulb went off in my head that screamed "uhh, what in the fuck?"

    So, this game uses a extensive stat system, but in things like stamina and charisma, but also in terms of how your relationships are measured. Fill the meter, the girls like you more, and therefore more pound town? Right? WRONG MUTHERFUCKERS.

    What this game doesn't really tell you is that choices matter, a lot, but not just CHOICES, it is also whether or you not you completed a hidden condition matters to the point where your dear smushables literally just, like, DIE. They are like "you know this adorably fuckable character that we made you spend 2 hours romancing? Well lets put a literal bag over her head and murder her because you didnt say "pardon" on day x after talking to random dude y after getting this other girl to affection level z".

    There's also these minigames, such as the theatre and trial, where its narrative based where you are supposed to read the text and put in the most sensible answer, but it seems excruciatingly random, and whats more, I'm pretty sure they TOO are at the whims of what choices you make previously. The problem is, and I cant re-iterate this enough, YOU DONT KNOW WHAT ACTUAL CHOICES THE PLAYER DOES OR DOES NOT MAKE TO IMPACT THESE THINGS.

    This might not make sense if you haven't played this game, but it's a critical issue, game breakingly bad.

    I beat the game, only after realizing my playthrough was ruined becuase something (?) I missed, and didnt get the "bad" ending I dont think, but it wasnt good. I unlocked about half of the H-scenes, with a lot of the earlier ones being locked despite maxing out their affection.

    Enough venting, but all in all the devs tried to do TOO much with this and the "choices matter" genre does not pair well with hentai games. I'm sorry, I dont want to waste my in game energy talking to the kingdom administrators, I want to talk to the smushables, but if you DONT talk to them, they, just, like, kill your waifus. Why is this a feature? There is also no full unlock when you beat the game.

    Theres other issues with difficulty spike of mini games, but by the time that happened, I was already frustrated that I kind of given up, because every time you fail a mini game (and its very much guess and check type games), your progress completing this hidden conditions are set back. So its not like you can just keep trying and figuring it out unless you save scum.

    This game could of been a 4 or 5 but man, them devs started really hitting the crack pipe half way through. To any hentai devs out there: if you're half done the game and you suddenly wake up and think "WE SHOULD PUT HIDDEN CRITERIA FOR MY HENTAI GAME THAT'LL RUIN SOMEONE'S PLAYTHROUGH", maybe you guzzle down some melatonin and just go back to bed.
  8. 5.00 star(s)

    saraatda

    OMG I love game so much.



    The story is amazing and super captivating. The characters are beautiful. The scenes are spicy. All by the book. They really did great job. I cannot wait to try more games from this creator.

    Only problem is localization could be better....
  9. 2.00 star(s)

    Zirenaz

    The good:
    The game is beautiful.

    The bad:
    Localization is poorly done, many things in russian even when English is selected.

    The ugly:
    Randomness in events prevents key parts of the game from unlocking at the appropriate time, like the forest where you can earn money and stats, but if you are unlucky with events, it will never unlock
  10. 5.00 star(s)

    Boldano

    Really happy with how this is turning out so far, especially for a first release version. I was surprised to find myself as interested in the writing as I was. The game's original language is Russian, but the English translation is pretty good. There's a couple sentences with typos but the majority of the dialogue feels smooth.

    If the art is AI like the tags say it still looks great and is consistent for each character. Its super clean with no artifacts or deformities, so there's definitely been some extra processing and work done with it rather than just using raw outputs. The design itself is great too with a good variety and a mix of interesting and normal looking characters.


    So far the only thing I would like to see touched on is how the stat system works and how important it is to prioritize each one. Is it important to have certain ones levelled up by certain points in the story for things like character relationship progression? Any kind of explanation on the system at the start of the game would be great.

    Really looking forward to seeing more of this.
  11. 5.00 star(s)

    Creamed Strawberry

    Really good thus far. I am really looking forward to seeing how it plays out. The art is really quite nice, and the animations are of a quality that I don't see often on here. I've put it high up on my list of games to keep an eye on.
  12. 2.00 star(s)

    Forgotted

    They did a nice job making sure the overview was in English, and certainly a very nice job posting links where they ask for everyone’s money, but couldn’t put the game into English or even post notes on how to change it from whatever it is? For that you’ll need to scan/search the forum.

    When in windowed mode, you can’t resize the window.

    You have to click on the “Are you sure” button every time you want to go somewhere. Click...Are you sure?….Click...Are you sure?… I believe you also have to go back outside the castle even when you just want to change rooms.

    If you accidentally double click on some text, you can’t go back to read it.

    You need to go to the bedroom and click on the Plan book in order to rest/sleep.

    The names are terrible and they should allow you to change them.

    Depending on where you are on the map, the characters just look like bodies with over-sized heads.

    You just need to click around to figure out what do do. Sometimes clicking on someone doesn’t do anything.

    I found it to be really boring, mainly just click then lots of reading, then repeat. You plan your day, click next, next, skip a scene w the jester, click next….then go look for somebody to click on for conversation.

    The colors and artwork were nice and AI assisted? Not sure about that… But there weren’t any errors to speak of and hopefully it will be successful for them.
  13. 3.00 star(s)

    HeraldOfEras

    (Posting at the time of v.0.1.1-- Review may change as updates release.)

    The first thing you'll notice about Becoming a King is that the artwork is noticeably AI-assisted. This isn't a major problem in my eyes since the characters look very nice and don't look too different from games with beautiful art like Love Esquire, and the one H scene animation looks surprisingly good, but I worry that the range of expressions and poses the characters can make will be limited as a result.
    I think H-scenes with, say, Estelle should involve some seriously exotic posing and I'll be disappointed if the animations remain standard so the AI can handle it and characters faces are always "Mildly happy" or "Mildly angry" or "Mildly stern."

    The dialogue is serviceable and gets the point across clearly. I think it's originally in Russian and if so the translation is pretty good (Outside the brothel sex scene, where it feels pretty stilted).
    I've basically only just met most of the characters by the end of the current content so I won't go too into them, but I will say I hope more of a voice emerges for each the LIs as we progress and get a better read on their personalities.

    The stat-building management gameplay is what drew me more than anything and for right now it's a bit barebones.
    You have three stats; Stamina, Intellect and Charisma, and ten points of Energy to use when you venture outside your castle.
    You use four points of energy each time you speak to somebody to get some lore or develop your relationship with them, and some of them also act as trainers in the prior three skills for two points of energy a visit.
    When you use all your energy you go back to the castle, rest, and plan out a week of activities à la Princess Maker.

    For Stamina, independent sword practice gives you a +1, Horse Riding gives you a +2. and Sparring gives you a +3.
    I think there's likely going to be a stress/fatigue system later on because the bigger reward activities have no adverse effect on the player compared to the lower reward activities, and characters make reference to the protagonist needing to make sure not to overwork himself or head to the brothel to blow off steam in exchange for a hefty 8 Energy points.
    There's also a slight balance issue with leveling, I think. To get a +6 in a given stat you need to occupy three slots of your week, while the trainers give you a +5 basically as a freebie. You can get a weekly +5 in every stat and still have enough energy left over to go on a date with your favorite waifu.

    For now, your levels don't do much of anything. I think there was a stat-check for when I spoke to Estelle asking for a job, but there wasn't anything to let me know if I was being checked or how high I needed to clear to meet it if I was.
    A simple "I'm well-read and can assist your bookkeeping! [Lvl 5 INT Required]" would be helpful.

    Small additions I think would also be nice:
    - An option to change the protagonist's name -- I always like to see this when it comes up but it's obviously not totally necessary.
    - More artwork during weekly training- For now Stamina, Intellect and Charisma training is all represented by the protagonist reading a book in an armchair. Seeing him racing on a horse or socializing at taverns to match the day's activity would be fun and show the devs care about details.
    - Some kind of feedback animation or sound when you click a dialogue option to let the player know whether they made a good or bad choice.

    The potential of this game is actually really good and I'll follow it's development. The demo is something like an hour long so it's worth giving it a try to see for yourself despite any criticisms in this review.