Others - Completed - Blood Root [v1.1.3.3] [stDoppel]

Enjoyable combat, delightful music with a side of ero. Gameplay-wise, its a grind and dizzying to move around the map to get items; however, its enjoyable once you've gotten couple of key items/skill like High Jump and Boosted High Jump. Combat is a delight, sometimes annoying with some enemies' hitbox so specific ( I am looking at you plants!!!!), but doesn't disappoint with the boss fights. Always fun to re-try a fight to test out other builds.

Story-wise, reminds me somewhat of Booodborne and other similar games. As for the lewd parts, its more of a side thing for enjoyment than anything else. If you want more of the lewdness, better look at Night of Revenge instead.

Played it long ago in Japanese trying to translate stuff with google. I did it with the casual mode rings because I had no idea what those were, just that they had good stats.
Playing it now normally it was hell. I tried to play most of the game without those rings but it's just impossible to beat most bosses without tons of grinding. And even so, with the rings and a high level, you'll die.
The first time you fight a boss it'll have a regular moveset. Plenty of combos that will conveniently knock you down or lift you midair so you are hit by another (or several) other skills.
You can rematch them and then they'll use more skills or spam their ultimates. Rematching yields blood and the first rematch also a special item like their theme weapon or a ring.
Since they all are very fast you won't have time to purify your erosion, that takes like 2 full seconds of standing still pressing up.
Erosion itself is... I don't know... the game tries so many things at once that they become more a burden than a challenge. Everytime you are hit by most attacks you build up 10 - 20% erosion, even more if you are grabbed. It decreases 1% per second so it's ridiculous to wait for it to go away. That means if you don't perfectly dodge all attacks and the usual bunch of enemies trying to grab you, you'll end up with so much erosion that you'll deplete over half of your MP, besides the actual HP damage. So you gotta take care of 3 stats at once. BP recovers fast so even if you used a weapon that uses it you won't need to worry about it. WP on the other hand takes you to grab the gray seeds all over the place. If you don't spam the skills it'd be ok, but some use up so much you'll run out instantly even maxed.
The weapons are varied so you can play any style you want. The rings also let you customize your playstyle, if you wanna play more evasive, defensive/offensive, special skills focused etc.
The clothes are just for the portrait in the menu so you are better off just going for stats for your build.
I haven't found any way to reset what you spent your levels on so you might want to think if the weapons you are using need those stats since they scale the same way as DS.
Dodge rolls here work in a strange way, since they don't seem to be actual evasion. Or maybe the iframes are so short they are barely noticeable. I always would end up taking some damage/erosion. The only way to not to get any was to just dodge away from any attack. And since certain bosses end up using skills that cover your entire screen, you won't have any way to avoid the damage. Looking at the very last boss in the game. A huge explosion beam thing covering the screen from the center to almost both edges but you still get smaller ones on top of you. It feels more like they tried to add bullet hell into the DS/metroidvania mix.
Some upgrades and secret entrances are too well hidden, that could be ok if you like exploring every corner. The map is awful though even when the dev said they would improve it. That means to find some you'll have to hit and roll into every wall. Usually they are at some deadend, vertical shaft but others are in the ceiling and you need a quick weapon that hits above your head for it while you high jump.
If you've read other reviews you already know the hentai is just accessory. There is no convenient plot that turn the protagonist into a slut. Most is just nudity when your armor breaks or when you use certain attacks (I recommend the red scythe special attack due to its range) to finish a humanoid enemy. There is sex though but it's futa. Once you get access to the base and you buy the futa accessory you can get into a room and have 1 single pixel scene per ally, some involving actual sex and not just bondage, the fetish the entire game is built about with enemy grabs.
Still, even being so frustrating and ragequiting often, it's a very good game. Gotta git gud and have godlike reflexes and luck.

A real strong blend of castlevania level design with dark souls battle mechanics. It clearly focuses on actual gameplay and does its best to emulate the oppressive feeling of difficulty you get in dark souls within a 2D space.

It's very grindy and the map might as well be a sketch on a napkin.

Don't bother playing for porn, this game only offers the bare minimum of sex like it was an afterthought.

I came looking for silver, and I found gold instead. Sure it's not really focused on the p part, but I have been finding the game very enjoyable and the challenge too. The first succubus boss, Mary, really sets you up for the rest of the game, you learn through hardship on how to better dodge attacks in general, and made me fall in love with using the dagger, until I unlocked the broadsword, and later on the greataxe. Str+Def ftw

If you like metroidvanias, it is a really solid game. One of the better ones I've played, outside of the obvious Metroids, Castlevania and Hollow Knights. At the very least comparable to Night of Revenge.

Very solid movement and combat (I'm pretty sure I did some sequence breaks by accident before getting double jump), nice sprites to look, a good variety of weapons (although it falls on the trap of making heavy weapons REALLY slow, with a long wind up, so most of those are useless compared to faster weapons), a solid magic and subweapon system (more on the subweapons side, to be honest) and bigass map to explore. Also a nice dress system with each piece actually having stats (and some of them special effects), so it's not just eye candy.

If you want to get more than half of the gear and subweapons, you'll have to grind though, and the map is... not exactly the best. It's not unusable, but compared to some games with actually decent maps, it may as well be.

Porn? Oh, yes, this game is suposed to have that... Well, there IS, and unlike what the description says, it does have some penetrative sex... but it's NOT the focus on the game.

The enemies can break your dress, but you DON'T want to be in that state, as you lose a LOT of defense and, more importantly, you only can use the dagger in that state, instead of the rest of your weapons (given, the dagger at the very beggining is a solid weapon, a better boss killer than the rest of the early weapons, but it's not as good against normal enemies and you'll eventually get BETTER weapons, including better daggers that you won't be able to use undressed).

Besides that, some enemies and most bosses have grabs with sex, and eventually your character can equip a futa dick and fuck some of the npcs that eventually arrive in the base (after finishing the game I got three of the fuckable npcs, not sure if there is a fourth, it may)

If you are just looking for sex, this game probably won't do it for you. If you want a GOOD metroidvania, I can't recommend it enough. This game's a treat. Just some advice, do get the "easy mode" rings. IT's not so much easy mode as anti-frustration mode, the game will still KICK your ass if you are not good enough.

TLDR: more metroidvania and darksouls than it is porn, in fact, there is very little porn. If you want a challenge with some h sprinkled on top give it a try.

Gameplay: 5/5
Lots of different types of weapons and skill to chose from, and good amount of them is viable too depending on your preferred play style. Control feels quite smooth. Somewhat good amount of enemy variety, boss are fucking hard, especially the optional rematches; basically darksouls but metroidvania (which I personally love, but it is targeted at a more niche audience). Somewhat grindy but you can make it up with skill if you are a masochist.

Map design: 3.5/5
Not too bad but not amazing either. There are lots of rooms to explore but somewhat easy to get loss and stuck on. There is a map but it's more of a general outline. There are walkthrough japanese siteyou can translate with good if you need some guidance or 100% the game.

Graphics: 4/5
Somewhat old feel of castle/metroidvania graphics, runs pretty smooth, I personally like it but it may not resonant with some people.

Story: 3/5
Simple and linear story, not too much world building or lore. Passing grade.

Porn: 1.5/5
Mostly pixel animation and some cut in scene, the art style is not bad but H is not the focus in this game.

Conclusion: just read to TLDR
1/5 for a eroge orientated player
3.5-4/5 for gameplay orientated player
5/5 for a metroidvania & darksoul masochist <- me

Pros:
+actually nice character design
+multiple weapon/magic options
+(relatively) large wardrobe (with stats, not just cosmetic)
+story actually exists

Cons:
-grind, eternal grind
-map is utter ass, memorize where you've been/where you're going or suffer eternal wandering
-to expand on map issue, in game you only have an incredibly basic sketch of the greater area (and for each area you need to find the map first), with pretty much no landmarks to show, it 100% relies on the player to memorize what is where to actually progress properly in the game


+/- about 3/4 of the weapons/clothing is enemy drops, so, go forth and exterminate in hope of getting a drop(at least you also get XP for all that)

If you like metroidvanias I do recommend it..just, as others already mentioned, don't expect much focus on porn

I 100% recommend for players to get the offense/defense rings from the skeleton/corpse on the very start of the game, otherwise the first....half an hour/hour of the game will be a pure grind frustration

Trying to be objective...the game tethers between average and good.
IF you find yourself with hours of free spend and got nothing better to do, then yes, most certainly a "good" game.

If however you're someone who wants the most of the time put into the game, facts are you may not enjoy the amount of grind and map memorization needed to go through the game

(Should the dev at a future time decide to implement a more fleshed out/detailed map, it would firmly catapult it straight into the center of "good" category imo)