**UPDATED REVIEW AS OF 1.01**
This game has some decent spooky atmosphere ngl. While I wish the combat felt better to do (not being to aim at my feet chief among them), I do enjoy this spin on the Survival Horror H-Game. The environmental design, lighting, and sound design juggles spooky squelch and sexy squelch very well, and the Silent Hill influence (or I guess, that one Abstract Daddy level, specifically) is fit in fairly well aesthetics wise.
I will still hold one thing to be true, I think Moeymoey has DECISIVELY improved in every aspect between this and Breeders. But even that being said, this isn't a slouch in the animation department due to the sheer variety of creatures, outfits, and so on, that can happen in-game.
I think this is a must play... with a strong caveat:
like many classic survival horror games, especially in the earliest of times, it can be a bit of a clunker with regards to combat, navigation, and overall quality-of-life.
It's still got lag spikes in certain spots, likely due to the game loading in entire environments or character models/animations and the sort. And, again, not being able to aim at my feet, alongside the odd shooting mechanics and no sprint button (even in exchange for stamina). Combat as a whole isn't all that good, but not the worst like I had initially believed. If anything, it doesn't feel slapdash, but overcooked without some compensatory mechanics to balance player disempowerment with engaging combat/stealth options. It really tries to push stealth/evading combat moreso than dealing with any threats in how fast you can get knocked up, and knocked out by any given enemy. In my opinion, this both works, and doesn't. It works as intended and I enjoy the tension it brings, even with excess HP potions. You can lose health THAT fast if you're not careful. On the other hand, I want to enjoy seeing the animations, and being able to continue on my merry way, or engaging with the fairly limited shooting mechanics that are there, and not feeling constantly punished for doing so, even if said punishment is lewd and interesting animation-wise.
if you're seasoned in survival horror (i.e. better than I am) then you'll likely enjoy the challenge this game presents, no unlimited-HP-potions required or outfit protection required.
The puzzles are also fairly simple and fun to do, but nice to see, and clues aren't as opaque as I expected. If anything, the only issue I believe I have is the lack of a map. That combined with no-sprint means backtracking relies ALOT on memory and the game telling me when I'm ready to leave an area or not.
Now that I've mentioned issues I've had, some of which do carry over from my previous review, that begs the question: How do I feel about this overall?
For me, at least,
These issues don't ruin the experience, and I genuinely believe the release stands among works like Infection Lab, Parasite in City, Bioasshard, and Project Elimination as a must-play hentai game that goes beyond the usual "just skip to the gallery" yummy-slop.
(Though if the combat really does bother you, or you're tired of losing leggings/skirt to monsters, can always toggle the main menu options. It doesn't prevent insta-death monsters like the Werewolf Variant so... yeah)
The spooky dead-space/silent hill 3 vibes (thanks to lighting/sound), spookily lewd lore, and variety of monster designs more than compensate its simplistic visuals/animation style/setting fidelity.
I look back on my older reviews and I do believe I've judged it a bit harshly in my overall view of it. I do think its atmosphere, lewd moments/ideas/lore, and overall vibe of playing a girl evading horny monsters with a dead space/silent hill horror twist really works.
Moeymoey did something strikingly rare, and afaik, did it alone!
My one hope now that I've tried the full game, on release, is that he carries over the horror/silent hill vibes into Breeders, along with the freaky lore & monster designs (with animations to boot!).
*OLD REVIEW*
Lots of potential, but very clunky,
Especially after playing the latest "Breeders" concept demo by the same dev. I do think there's potential here but I genuinely think this game is in need of an upgrade mechanics wise to what Breeders was attempting, for a more enjoyable and stable (and even scary/moody) experience.
Above all else, I think this game needs a good trimming of the fat, and a rework of its combat/H-gameplay.
The ideas here are good, rife with potential for spooks and cooms alike, but they're so slapdash in execution that it gets into the "its not fun to play as a game, let alone an H-Game" territory. I get disempowerment is part of horror, especially survival horror, but this doesn't feel intentionally disempowering, it feels unintentionally clunky.
good potential here, but I think a rework or a shift in gameplay design is needed to bring the best out of this game. Otherwise it'll just be lacking compared to other H-games, like Infection Lab or Bioasshard in terms of survival horror fixed-camera spooks or arcadey horror shoot-bang fun respectively.
To the creator, should they ever come across this
seriously suggest trying out SIGNALIS, and see about implementing those aesthetics or camera angles, and shooting system. You have the ligthing down, I can see this game filling that Silent Hill + Sci-Fi H-Game niche if the cards are played right
(assuming that's what you're going for anyway)
Anywho, best of luck to the dev, and to anyone else, consider trying this out, but keep your expectations level for the time being.