In some ways CoR is to porn games what indie games are to AAA games. There's a passion and willingness to follow one's own goals that really sets it apart from most RPG makers games I've played. It is deviously easy to recommend the game to someone : Do you like the idea of a hot female warrior being at the mercy of bigger, uglier and/or older men and do not mind learning the combat system? If you answered yes, this game is for you.
Yet no matter how much I stand by that statement, I can't help but feel that it is a disservice to the game and it's creator to bring it down to that simple question, which is something I'll get back to after discussing the bigger points. Mainly, sex and combat.
Combat
So you've played the introduction. You're told to go in the forest and fight some baddies. You fight the 5 enemies on the way, hit level 2, heal yourself on the Altar, fight the boss and get killed in 3 hits. "One of those games" you tell yourself, as you wonder if you should stop playing or grind.
It's unfortunate how many people look at the slow exp gain and then slap the dreaded grindy on the game. The first boss can be defeated at lvl 1 without taking any damage.
Items are powerful in this game. Ridiculously so. And anyone who wants to up their corruption game will have plenty of money from dancing (and other jobs). I've actually avoided most monsters, only sticking around to fight a few when the experience gains made it worth it.
Lightning bombs trivialize certain bosses. Nets make group encounters a joke (especially a certain forced encounter). Shell potions stack if you refresh their duration on their last turn. And luckily, there's enough things to juggle to make it stressful. How long do you wait to reset your Tame levels in battle? How about your horniness? Do you heal up, attack or Focus while the enemy is stunned?
I really can't stress how much items and quest experience is more than enough to keep Sylia right on the levelling curve of the game. The system is far from perfect. Yet the presence of a combat system easily elevates the game above other games simply pretending to have one.
So what are those imperfections? Sylia's skills are lackluster. Most of them are balanced around their mastered status, which is a mechanic explained in a book given after an explanation of your skills. I assumed that book was the same tutorial and never read it myself until I inadvertently mastered a skill and I could see many others make the same mistake. Unfortunaly being balanced around their mastered state mostly means they don't get used at all : afterall, items get the job done just as well and your best damage tools are also the cheapest.
Overall, I think if Mastery wasn't hidden in a book and items were introduced in the game's beginning, combat would be regarded slightly more highly than it currently is.
Smut
Sex scenes are very hard to criticize. It never feels right to tell a creator to write what they might not care to write, and I want to make it clear that if Maelion has no interest in writing any other scene than "Bombshell is assaulted by ugly man", then it is perfectly okay.
This game has a lot of sex. Every town, every area is simply filled with. It's insane how many different angles have been found and created around that previously mentioned concept. For some people, that is they want. I thought I wouldn't mind it.
But there is so much of it. There's a limit to how much pizza I can eat and by the time I made it to the last major city, I just felt tired of it all. It doesn't matter if it's consensual or not, it doesn't matter if there's blackmail or not. It doesn't matter who initiated sex. Sylia will turn into a sexdoll and just let the other person do their thing. She never takes initiative into the act. She is a permanent victim in the scene, even if she was the one starting it.
Submission is a big theme in this game and an even bigger spectrum in real life. It would have been nice to see Sylia happily and/or hungrily serve someone. Instead it seems like she's about to cry in every scene. As Sylia's corruption grows, the only changing factor is how or why the sex started, never what happens.
I don't have much to say about the artworks. I like them! Mostly ... There's a constant wet effect in all of them, as if Sylia took a massive cum shower before the act. And while sometimes it works, more often than not it's either a bit too over the top or too soon in the scene. More importantly, the normal non-wet model actually looks quite nice and it would have been fun to see it a bit more. And with less "wet" CGs, the ones left would have made their respective scenes feel more unique.
Lastly, the grind word is thrown here a bit and once again I have to refute it. There is definitely a hurdle early on, but it feels less like a grind wall and more like giving you space to play the game. Most events do not go away, and those that do (with the exception of one freak case looking at your blowjob merchant) have low enough requirements to get them before too late. I'd recommend playing the game normally, experience what you can when it's available, and before long your Lust levels will far out-level every scene you encounter. While you can grind the early levels, you can also hunt the available for a smooth but slower progression
I said I'd come back to this
There's a lot of things in this game that I want to praise. Most of them are pretty small, but together they really make the game feel like a project of love and I don't want them to go unnoticed.
First and most importantly of all, thought has been given so that most things story related make sense (in the game world, anyway). Why is Sylia so easily corrupted? Why is she constantly targetted by big ugly men? Those things have an explanation beyond "this is a porn game and she hot".
I'm amazed how many thing can be interacted with that Sylia will comment on. It shows that maps were designed beyond simply bringing the player from point A to point B.
Every map has something hidden in it. More impressive still, an effort was made to put at least 1 event circle on all of them. Not always sexual of course, but always fun to find. Events will tell you what you need to complete them as well as if they can expire (mostly early chapter stuff), which almost makes up for the lack of gallery (Maelion has mentioned difficulties adding one).
I mentioned it before but the game is brimming with content. So many scenes. most of which having variants depending on Tame and Horniness stat and luckily, most of them can be re-experienced any time to see those variants.
The writing, for the most part is enjoyable. The characters are interesting enough to make me care about the story and while there is definitely a few typos, it's minor stuff for the most part.
What is less minor however are the puzzles. I'm not sure if they are simply bad or suffer from more unique problem. From my understanding, Maelion is French. As a French-Canadian myself, I can recognize a lot of unnatural sentences, because of course I can: I have the same problem, no matter how confident I try to be about it. In story segments, this is not a problem, it's actually rather charming at times.
But the puzzles definitely suck. Luckily, almost all over them can be brute-forced. Sadly, I said almost. One in particular tells you to look at blue lights. Which would be fair if the cave wasn't filled with blue crystals. Turns out the blue light was a particularly uninteresting blue pattern on the floor somewhere. Example aside, they just don't feel good. Again, I didn't get most of them, simply tried the few available options until one worked.
The last thing I want to mention is the path choice. I say last thing because I don't know how I feel about it. The Deviant path feels off because there simply isn't enough slutty events for it to make sense for Sylia to take it at that point. On the other hand, Sylia is such a massive slut at the end of the game that the Saint path starts feeling off. Both this system and the Tame and Arrogance one feel like they landed in the failure side of the experiment.
Thankfully, they're not annoying failures as much as disappointing ones. They never feel quite right but never feel punishing. Ultimately they get the same scenes, the saint side simply needs to lose the battle to get them. I think each side having a more unique set of scenes better suited for each path would have a been an interesting approach but at least the current implementation is harmless (and doesn't force a second playthrough on an already big game).
Last thoughts
More than anything, Chronicles of Leridia is a charming game. The only reason I spent so much time writing this is because it's clear how much Maelion loved making this game.
As mentally burnt as I am on this game, I don't regret playing it, and this is why I recommend it despite it's faults. I think most people are gonna get tired of the scenes and slow combat, a lack of variety will that to you. But I'll still eat my fill of pizza whenever the opportunity is there. The leftovers can be left to another day.
R - 
