RPGM - Completed - Black Souls [Final] [Eeny, meeny, miny, moe?]

I was originally iffy of the art style but this has quickly become my favorite series. The worldbuilding is super interesting and hooks you from the start. Combat is somewhat limited by the RPGMaker engine but even then it still has a nice twist which makes it more fun than most other rpgm games.

The most unexpected H-game I've ever played.

Heck, I just play it because I was horny last night without knowing anything!

Now, I just want to be happy... I can't even jerk myself after this.

The combat is quick, easy, but you will get bored quickly. (For some people)

What make it awesome is **THE STORY**

The story of this game is mixed between Grimm's Fairy Tales + Dark Souls.

Yes, everything is dark, confusion, psychology horror.

But not confused as Dark Souls. (Or perhaps it is just only me that understand everything easily)

Damn, I would LIKE to talk about the story more, but I don't wanna spoiled it.

The Characters in this game are not bad. Probably the reason why it's keep my sanity stable before reached to the end. You will meet the familiar characters in fairy tales like Red hood, Snow white, and others. (With more Anime girls personality?)

The Art. Cute Character, Some enemy art was like "Meh", but some was like "Holy Shit". I thought I was playing Fear & Hunger (with less spooky?)

TLDR, The story is better than any games these days, and Disney's movie.

Jesus, This game needs to get to know more by others! It's unique and not cliche. Every decision you made in this game will progress the story, and show the resulted of your action in every ending. and every ending has a meaning and reveal the truth of the story.

If you guys want some H-game where you can using one handed to play this game, sadly you won't be able to do that after this...

BUT! if you want a game with unique story, unexpected, and great storytelling. this game is for you.

It's not that horror, or scary. it just playing with your feeling.
(But prepared for Black Souls 2, I've heard that shit is getting worse after the first one.)

I'll recommend y'all to playing it with guide, if you don't want to get lost and confuse.

Time to give the score! let's see... I've played a lot masterpiece video games...

I'll give this game 8/10. (minus 2 because the combat is too boring, and the story is kinda confused for some people. )

Now, I need to meet my therapist. C'ya in next review.

Black souls have easily become one of my favorite games out of all time. The art is iconic, the story puts non-H games to shame, the gameplay is fun and the characters are all amazing. Do yourself a favor and play this game.

art: unique but nothing special to say apart that

gameplay: feel more like VN game more than a rpg game but the boss is hard and chaglleing

story: way too confuse/complex

sound : the best aspect of the game behind story

it very original

Conclusion: 4/5

For the pirce of 10$ the game offer you 6 to 8 hous of game play. The first few hours you may feel the game is grindy , the artsytle is not your cup tea and the story is confusing. But when you get the hang of it i guarantee you will be amazing by the complex story, unique boss fight and world build . I play this game 3 year ago as a joke and i found one of the best game on f95 site.
So yeah if you interested give it try

Gameplay: despite being yet another RPGM game, the combat is pretty quick and mostly fast, exept with some enemies, with a lot of ways to build your character in order to oneshot even the most annoying of characters. It is still RPGM tho, woith quite a lot of tedious animations that can't be fast forwarded, and most fights result in person with higher number wins. There are also a lot of ways you can get oneshotted by an enemy or boss, without indication of how strong that monster actually is, since all the goons arount the boss room do no damage.

Story: I don'T understand it either, someone out there might have understood it, I don't I do get the basic aspects of it, which is enough for me to feel a bit of attachments with some characters, which does make their scenes sweeter. but if you feel like story is really important and have played 100 different VN's this game will make you feel pain. As many trigger flags just happen, youll miss out on about half the scenes by simply playing the game, and the choices in the game ammount to pretty much sex dungeon or sex friend.

CG: the Artstyle doesn't get better, and its often offputting. There are quite a few characters, but each character has about 2-3 CG's, with different face variants when raped on loved. I really wish each girl was given a few more CG's with some more different variants ex. clothed or not, different positions, vaginal or anal etc.. Another peoblem that impacts the games score since this is a porn game on a porn website, is the lack of porn while playing, most of the scenes happen when in safe areas. This could have been prevented by adding some enemies which on defeat results in a sex scene.

Overall I would say this is a great game, but a below average porn game.

This is not a full review of this game. What this IS, is a review based on the first hour or two into the game. Because although I managed to sit through worse games, this one genuinely nearly put me to sleep. If the game does get better later on, I'm okay with staying oblivious to that fact, because the beginning of this game is some of the least fun I've ever had playing a game.

Reading some of the reviews below that gave this game 5 stars gave me whiplash. Did we play the same game? Did I download the wrong thing?

Furthermore, the only reason I'm giving this game 2 stars and not 1 is because I feel like I'm not seeing something here. Perhaps there's a gem here that's hiding beneath the bile-sewn pile of corpses? A story that does something interesting? Maybe. Possibly. But am I going to look for it, in spite of this game's awful gameplay? Hell no.

And oh boy, does the gameplay suck. In fact, it capital S Sucks. This isn't inherently unique to black souls, but rather to almost every single RPG Maker game that uses this rendition(not that the later ones are much better).

Now, let me use this opportunity to talk shit about the engine used for this game. RPG Maker and all of its descendants are an unholy and incestuous union between brother and sister. A band of children that should've never seen the light of day. RPG Maker is an atrocity to the indie game world. An anathema to creativity. If there is a god out there, and he looks upon his fellow man with any kindling of light, this trend of using one of the most generic, flaccid engines to ever curse this earth will eventually die out.

What's funny is that this engine is pawned off as a tool for creating your own games, but the problem arises when every single one of these games use the same assets, sounds and combat system. The best example is the goofy song that plays in EVERY SINGLE sex scene in an RPG Maker game. You know exactly what song I'm talking about.

I'm all for accessibility to creation, better tools are created for people to make more interesting things that we each can engage with, and experience stories and games that we would have never experienced if it wasn't for these advancements. But man, this shit ain't it.

Following that, let me present you with another thought. The very first game you've ever played, it doesn't matter where you found it, what the game itself was or what sort of drivel storyline it contained, was still superior to 99% of RPG Maker games. (Quick preface. There are good games on RPG Maker, but they are good IN SPITE of using said engine, not BECAUSE of it.)

Rant over.

Now, sifting ourselves out of the tub of shit that is RPG Maker, let's turn our heads towards the elements introduced by the game itself.

Turns work something akin to some older turn based RPGs where your turn is decided on a so called "turn bar". The bar increases for everyone, but some increase it faster than others, therefor they gain more turns than their opponents. This is a fine enough mechanic. I have no issues with it. The problem is that it is, again, built on a pile of crumbling horseshit.

I genuinely have almost nothing to say about the other elements of the game, but here's a very quick rundown:

There's the soul system. It's effectively xp that's being withheld from you until you rest. All you get is just a regular level. There's no stats to choose from, nothing. I guess it works, if you have very low standards. It's boring, but it works.

You can kill the NPCs. There's no real incentive to it and it doesn't seem to do anything even if you do decide to do it.

You have the limited healing flask item, but this game is piss easy and moreover, you get a shit ton of healing items just having random mobs run into you.

When you find a bonfire, you feel relieved not because you're stressed about losing your progress, but because you realize that you don't need to redo a poorly constructed, randomly asset dropped map with a ground overlay that looks like an optical illusion intended to give you brain damage. Seriously, what in the unholy fuck is that overlay?

I didn't engage with a single porn scene because the game didn't entice me one bit to even try to see what happens, so I don't have an opinion on that aspect of the game. Having said that, from the looks of it, the artwork, while coarse, seems to be the most effortful part of this game.

The story beats themselves and the writing seem fine enough, and the beginning even managed to intrigue me for a brief moment. But the problem is that they're not worth bothering through a barebones RPG Maker game. The games that succeed usually neuter the original mechanics of the engine and re-code the engine into something usable. This game doesn't do that.

So, when all's said and done, this game sucks. When your game centers 95% of its content on the combat, and the combat is abysmal, you get a shit game, no matter what's hiding beneath. Maybe there's a good story here, maybe there's good character writing to come, but I won't suffer through to find out.

I would rather play Dark Souls 2 again, than this game. And that's a frightening thought.

Gameplay loop is awesome but the progressions and scenes unlocking are hella tricky. Definitely worth a blind first playthrough though since the story is pretty engaging.

Also pro gamer tip: Don't rape any strong-looking characters they will kick your ass.

A horror-hentai experience like no other. Be patient, explore and don't be afraid to do terrible things. Go in with no spoilers, trust me. Very unique artstyle as well. Reminds me a lot of Koishi Komeiji's Heart-Throbbing Adventure.

Gave it a try for the second time but shut down after 10 minutes, when I remembered why I stopped in the first place:

- Maps are absolutely ugly. I never seen a dev putting in so little effort. You start out in a forest and there are just random standard RTP assets all over the place. Yes, there is a window mapped into the floor in the forest. Random assets that belong to furniture and other stuff.

- Even on difficulty 0 (out of 9) you'll die over and over again. Not because the fights are challenging (it's RPGM and not action based), but because everything during fights is chaotic. You start with tons of stats, some abilities, and everywhere lies shit to collect. Your inventory will be full of trash after 10 minutes, and there's a hundred things to keep track of, consumables that you need to take on the regular and so on.

- If you defeated a female enemy, you can't have sex with her.

An excellent game, especially for being the developer's second, although at first it might seem like a simple dark souls porn parody, it managed to create a solid game accompanied by an incredible story and which gave rise to a sequel that managed to expand everything what the first one offered and improve it

addicting. save often. difficulty is adjustable via npc any time during the game. don't be afraid to use the guide every now and then to save the girls you're most interested in. you will be so invested in the game that you will enjoy the MSPaint ero scenes.

Fan-fucking tastic.

I held off this game for the longest time despite hearing very good things(and memes) about it, decided to give it another shot. I've played all of the soulsborne games and this is heavily inspired by that, but it manages to bring it's own unique element.

The art is harsh but it's really part of the artistic flair of the game because it's really... grim

The combat is meh it's alright, but the narrative and storytelling is where it really shines. It's like Dark Souls but instead of the gameplay being a focal part of the game the thematic aspects of the game become the highlight, and you're going through the game to find out what's going on

I genuinely believe if this wasn't a H-game it would be a lot more mainstream being on steam and be as popular as Fear and Hunger. I liked this game even more than F&H.

Could use a bit of polish but I heard that's exactly what BS2 is and I'm excited to play that.

Im going to Alice.

What the hell is this game?

It's a bit grindy, but you will be rewarded with a many places you can explore and many characters you can meet.

The story is even more difficult to understand, since it has many layers of comprehension, but also it still does not really answers questions you may have after beating Red Riding Woods.

The easiest thing you can understand, is that the world is dying and you can do whatever you want. Love, kill, rape, steal. But... this is not all, of course.
Discover the truth by yourself. And find Alice.

The horny part is a lot more versatile and better than Eeny's previous game. Now you can watch even underaged boy being loved, "great"...
This game surely lacks some incest...

4 White and Sticky things out of 5

Black Souls is a dark-fantasy RPGM game that follows an undead guy (kinda like the souls games) who's on a quest to clear up the fog corrupting the country. To do this, he must defeat or form a covenant with the four princesses and defeat princess Cinderella, the source of the fog. Well, there's more to the story than that, but I can't talk about it too much without spoiling the game.

Anyways, in porn games, the sexual content is usually one of the most important factors to the game's quality. But given the artstyle, I'd say the sexual content leans more towards the artistic-side than porn-side of things. So I'm not going to judge this game based on it's sexual content, and you shouldn't expect this to be about banging chicks sex left and right. Last chance to leave, Vanilla male MC Harem VN players.

Combat
For most RPGM games, combat is often poorly done despite it being the focal point of the game. You've probably seen it yourself. Fodder enemies constantly slowing you down, large amounts of grinding, and the best move in a fight always being 'highest-damage attack'. But Black Souls is able to evade these common pitfalls to create a combat system that is fun yet still challenging. For starters, most basic enemies can be killed in one or two turns, including ones with stats higher than yours. That being said, even the enemies below your level can kill you if you get too careless.

The critical flaw with most RPGM combat systems is that they lack decision making. It's just hitting the enemy with the highest-damage attack over and over again because nothing else is effective. Black Souls on the other hand, encourages you to experiment around with your options. Most bosses have far higher stats than yours when you first encounter them. However, just about every single boss has some kind of weakness to exploit. If a boss is slow, try defending against their attacks, and make sure to experiment with different debuffs to see which ones work and which don't. Some bosses can be completely neutered with the right knowledge.

Black Souls also negates typical RPGM level grinding with the Souls mechanic. Instead of gaing Gold and EXP when you win a fight, you gain souls, which acts as both currency and experience points. Leveling up is also done by expending souls manually, which coincidentally means you don't need to juggle party members in fights to manage who gets EXP. If you know what I'm talking about, you'll be glad to hear it.

Roleplaying and Expression
What's strange about a lot of RPGM games is that they don't have much of a 'roleplaying' aspect to it. They almost always give you a blank character that just follows the plot and never give you decisions or even dialogue choices. But once again, Black Souls gives you important decisions that you can make that effect the plot.

Whenever you meet someone, you're almost always given the option to talk to, kill or rape them, assuming they haven't attacked you from the get-go. You could be good, evil, or somewhere in between. You're free to express your character how you want. However, evil actions tend to have consequences, and good ones may not always be rewarded.

I'd also like to note that I usually don't feel bad about killing the good guy NPCs in video games, but it just felt vile to do so in this game.

Real Open-world
Some 'open worlds' in gaming are nothing more than a linear game with a world map. An open world isn't just the ability to visit a place when you want to, it's also about not being on a rail. Black Souls doesn't force you to follow a specific route to complete the game. There's very few times a specific condition is needed to access an area, as most locked doors can be opened with master keys. You can even go where the enemies are way above your level, and if you manage to avoid them, you might just find some powerful loot lying around.

Lack of Settings
Though for all that praise, the game doesn't have a settings menu. I know it's an older version of RPGM, but with how loud the game is, you're probably going to turn down the volume on your computer. It's just not professional to lack a settings menu.

Lax Ending Requirements
Without going into spoilers, there's 4 endings. The first ending (B) requires you to simply kill cinderella, the second (A) is the same but you need all heroines, and the others pretty much have you complete a side quest. The problem is that there are no 'routes' you go down to get certain endings. Basically, as long as you don't kill every person you meet, you can easily reach an endgame where all four endings are available.

Too many sins? Talk to the sin remover. Not enough sins? Well, they're pretty easy to get. Can't kill the heroines since you recruited them all? Go to posiedon hotel. The only ending you might get locked out of is A, since some heroines may be unable to be recruited depending on what happens.

Personally, I think if a game gives multiple endings, the ending given should reflect the choices made throughout the game, not just a few decisions at the end.

Summary
Now I haven't played very many RPGM games, and probably even fewer non-porn ones, but Black Souls is definitely one of the best out there. It doesn't turn the RPGM engine into something else either, it stays true to being and RPG. I give it a 4.5/5, but we'll round that up to 5.

Got every Ending, this game has no busyness being this good.
NOT A FAPPING GAME
But an amazing rpg game with erotic content.

If you like minmaxing builds and smarting out your way through bosses this is the game for you.

I don't understand what people see in this game

It's a very beloved game in the community, i'd believe it if it utilized it's potential, but it doesnt.

Gameplay:
It's rpgm, come on, you know what it's like
The way that it tries to differ itself from others is by "removing" levelling as a feature and replacing it with souls, which is both money and exp, with the addition of consumable items
You get new abilities by going around and doing side quests, and you repeat
The intriguing part about is it's 'kill and rape' feature, but sadly, like everything in this game, it doesnt go anywhere
You fight, you kill them and.... that's all, no world wide effects aside from getting a scene and locking yourself in a certain ending
Completely wasted, you could've had those killingss affect the world in general, characters and npcs commenting on it, and much more.

Story:
Heres the thing that people will cite when i ask them why this game is so good, and i still can't see it, because they're wrong
The premise is intriguing, a bunch of fairy tales being a bit darker than your disney movie, but not as dark as the originals, sitting in this fine line between them
But i hate how CRIMINALLY this was underutilized, basically, you have to go around and kill several creatures to obtain their stories, and you get it in the form of an item, a book
Why can't you read these? Like i'd give so much insight as to why they might've ended up like that, give worldbuilding and more
This alone makes me dock a few points of the game, i hate it when devs just dont think things through
The "twist" at the end is basically impossible to actually guess, unless you did ending c, which it blatantly reveals
It's impossible to guess because the narrative of who 'mary sue' only starts to show up at the end, and you're so fucking tired of fighting through enemies and going through the very long map you just dont give a shit anymore and want to finish the game

Characters:
Quite unique, both in personality and deign, though alot of them are inspired, it still has enough originallty


Art/scenes:
I gotta say, the art has a very unique charm to it, but it is NOT for a porn game.
The scenes dont end up being bad becaues of it, but it looks offputting
But looking at the art of the creator, it's really good and unique looking, and i'd love to see it in a different enviorment



At the end of it all, i can't see what makes this game so good, it's alright, it had potential, but that's where it ends, but this game has every persson in this community by the balls as one of the GOATS when it couldn't be further from the truth
i'd give it a 3.5/5

Played a few hours and killed the first boss.

1. Bad map design. Out of place clutter and objects everywhere like pub signs in the middle of nowhere.
2. Enemies that respawn instantly and waste your time. Very hard to avoid fights.
3. Too much crappy loot everywhere and hard to find decent weapon.
4. Boring mechanics and gameplay. I guess normal thing for rpgm? I'm new to this kind of games.
5. Confusing prologue and uninteresting story and setting. I'm used to more trad rpgs not something like this.

Tried to like it but its just not fun for me.

First of all, the game is called "Black souls" and it has a lot of inspiration from Dark souls, as you might expect, basically speaking the combat is very Final Fantasy style but even if you don't know it (my case) it is easy to master,

The game is in 3 languages, Japanese, which is the original, and the Spanish and English versions, both made by fans.

Let's talk about the gameplay

Let's assume that it is an rpg maker game just like mogeko castle (from the first reviews) so the movement is very similar,
As I mentioned before, it has a Final Fantasy style turn-based combat in which each participant in the battle has an action bar that fills up. When it fills up, it's your turn. The faster it fills, the faster it fills.

By killing enemies you gain souls that are the currency and are used to level up which slightly increases all your stats. There are also colored souls that increase specific stats, be it blue, defense, red, attack, etc.

There are around 13 weapons in the game but each one is a completely different style from the other, for example the moonlight greatsword (which part of what Dark Souls was inspired by they didn't catch xD) regenerates MP and HP and the storm ruler does not. They never miss an attack and on top of that, taking them to +10 gives them a very powerful additional skill or passive.


Regarding the beginning of the game, the 3 initial classes are knights.
thief and magician choose the one you want each one has 1 skin and there is an additional skin with certain conditions at the end of the game you can change skin and class at any time it is not decisive,
Then they have initial gifts that basically don't matter, take the key if you want, I don't recommend the ring, it's pretty bad.

Don't skip the prologue (the boss of this one can be killed and it is relevant if you do it or not)

Before finishing on the gameplay, it must be said that in combat you can summon what costs a turn but it is a great advantage to have someone on your side, which brings me to the next point.

Let's talk about heroines

I didn't mention it before but
Black souls has romance, there are 12 heroines, each with their own ending apart from the special endings.

There is a little bit of everything, the truth is, there is a succubus, a saint, Little Red Riding Hood (I will clarify it in history) etc.

You can deactivate the risque scenes or activate them at any time during the game, you can see the ones you missed later, I recommend only leaving your favorite ones.

The game has a karma system in the form of sins, killing npc's or doing worse things raises the sin, but don't be afraid to raise it, you can eliminate the sin with an npc above the initial area in a simple way, unlocking a heroine requires having 4 sin So not everything is bad, by the way they are called heroines but be wary of even your shadow in this game, finally you can level up the heroines with your souls, raise them to more than 99, unlock their ending.

Let's talk about the artistic section

The drawings of the game are made by hand and although their quality is not extraordinary, they convey what they want very well.
The music, as is usual in RPG maker games, is very simple and pretty for the most part.
It has the advantage that you can repeat the game endings from the reminiscence room without having to do it again.

Let's talk about the story

Honestly the best of the game and by far in my opinion

You are chosen as the main character of a bloody fairy tale, in the lost empire the continent where everything happens a long time ago
A fog appeared out of nowhere that transformed all the inhabitants into indescribable horrors, a place where the stories created by a very famous writer came true, whether it was the Wizard of Oz, the Ugly Duckling or Alice in Wonderland, nothing is impossible here,
On this earth the story of one more undead takes place
Your history

Your objective will be to defeat the 4 demonic princesses and eliminate the fog, whatever you decide along the way, whether to ally with them is up to you or maybe not?

Black Souls is the only title in this website, where I felt like I could be truly evil, without having to worry about game mechanics (meaning the evil path hampers your progress in the game, and playing the good guy is an obvious benefit).

Let me paint a picture for you:

What happens in roommate (cohabitations) games if you are evil? "Rape/kill is bad player", your progression is now stunted, buy her flowers XXX times. Or straight game over.

What about party based Rpg's? "Don't rape/kill your party members player", cause 9 out of 10 scenes are on the good path. "Don't you know they are precious player?" Rage … Blood pressure.... Hemorrhagic stroke.

Visual novels maybe? "No, rape/kill bad player!". Here's the Bad Ending for you. Restart!

Sure they let you be a little evil, and then they are like: "There will be consequences player". Oh yeah? Where are the consequences for being good developper? It's fiction you limited puppetters, dare to be bold once in your mechanical lives! I know better than to punch my real life neighbor, when he has the gall of "politely" saying "good morning". Sarcastic prick. Let me choose evil in a virtual world!

For me 50% of the appeal behind Black Souls, was allowing me to be evil ALL the time, and do whatever the hell I wanted ALL the time. Sure, some stupidly high level assholes kept trying to catch me, but I just patiently waited for my chance to brutally murder them. So yeah, my prison was full of "lust drainers", and the world was very empty NPC wise. The rabbit thought it could scare me by saying i woudn't level up. The rabbit no longer exists (it never did, but you know). I finished my first run, maintaining the same mindset. It's unheard of.

The other 50% amounts to Black Souls having the same feeling as Dark Souls, and is a great tribute to a great game (ambience, characters, exploration etc..). People have a problem with imitation, but in this case it definitely is a form of flattery. Now I will say that turn-based combat, removes from the equation, something that is very important in Dark Souls: SKILL (and a significant portion of the learning curve). That's my only complaint(actually, I have a problem with one of the fairy tales you need to get for the library, but that's too specific). Black Souls is a numbers game, and the first "black knight" is gonna kill you unless you level up. Nothing can be done there. In Dark Souls your range of performance is significantly increased.

What more do you want? Perspective? All right, something like Bound by Love (Steam designation) also rewards you for being evil, but the kicker for me is choosing evil, not starting with an evil premise.

This is a 9/10, and if you like Dark Souls, and are not a stranger to turn-based combat, this becomes an instant recommendation. I wish more games would just let you do what you want, without the consequences being tied to game progression.

P.S - The "fairy piñata situation" was first seen here by me.

I'm not going to pretend that this game has good mechanics, it doesn't, nor that it has good visuals, it definitively doesn't. Its H-scenes are grotesque, but at least the game gives you an option to turn it off, which I used.

The map building is passable, but not good compared to the best rpgm games. Custom character art/designs are minimal aside from the main characters, most other visuals are ripped from rpgm libraries.

Any other game with this level of quality would've gotten 1-2 stars from me.

So why give it 5 stars? It and its sequel has a better plot than any other game I've played, not just H-game but any game, and I've spent my entire life playing games. I love blacksouls, I am going to Alice. I'd give anything to experience the plot for the first time again.

Turn H-scenes off though. I wasn't joking when I said it's unironically disgusting.