This is the weirdest 5 star I've ever given, because I really don't like this game on a personal level.
The Other Big Body Control Game, City of Secrets centers around a not-mage named Emma, and the various things that want to control her body and generally sexually harass people. Unlike Town of Magic, City runs on the RPGMaker engine, and checks the box I like to see in RPGMaker games: it does not look like it was made in RPGMaker.
Like Town, City presents itself in a hybrid VN/RPG style, where many of your interactions and activities in the town take place during certain days and times of days, with most activities (not dungeon delving) advancing the time of day. City, however, goes much deeper into the mechanics of the game; there's tracking for your corruption, soul fragmentation, and even reputation at school. Reputation is nearly exclusively for town interactions, and Corruption can be affected in many ways, while Soul Fragmentation generally just counts down over time. Reputation and Corruption both also have effects ingame, so it's good to see it's not just an empty meter on top of the screen.
The combat in the game is interesting, to say the least; there's two kinds of encounters: Traps and enemies. Traps are generally sprung on you if you can't avoid them (every trap is avoidable), leading you into a button pressing event to break free before it affects you and advances a certain type of corruption. The corruption can affect your choices in game, and even open new dialogue at times. Also, they're generally pretty sexual. Enemies are roaming the overworld, and are exclusively turn based encounters with not a lot going for them. You do receive level ups from them, but the vast majority of your stats will be gained in town doing repeatable training events; the best thing about level ups is the restoration of health and Aura. These training events are either free (at school) or cost a fairly trival amount of money (if you do the work event every part of a day, you can do three days, at least, of training in the town.)
At the end of the day, combat could probably be comfortably removed from the game and not affect quality too much at the moment, but it does slow down the gameplay loops slightly and give you more time to take part in th e events as you level enough to breeze past fights and beat bosses. The bosses, however, are much more about playing a dodging game than truly fighting the boss.
Which brings me to the events, and they are well done. City has a consistent and well drawn art style, which really shouldn't be the high bar it is, and work has gone into both CGs and pixel animations to create an enjoyable experience. While City is not a true battle fuck, every trap has or will have one of these animations, and many town events do as well. The writing is actually also well done, making this a rare intersection of good writing and good art. Event writing is flushed out without feeling like it drags on (and there's a button to quickly skip through text), and the world feels immersive, if a little creepy.
That's the reason this review is a little weird for me. The world of City of Secrets is barely concealing how sexual it is, even outside of the dungeons, and there's a couple of running sideplots that deal with these sexual encounters. The crux of the writing in City, however, is how good of a student and person Emma is, and how exciting and embarrassing it would be for the one occupying her body to ruin that. I'm going to be honest, I don't go in for humiliation, nor the kind of corruption that City is trying to sell me (Where are my black-dressed, smirking girls on the arms of a villain?). There's one or two largely good natured people in Emmas orbit, but the majority of the secondary characters tend to want to 'expose her slutty side'.
Despite how much I dislike the themes, I have to admit that City does them well. It's able to excute Emma being uncomfortable with having her body used without dipping into being tortuous, doesn't rush the corruption but does allow it to flow naturally, and makes an earnest effort to make the enemies possessing Emma distinct characters from each other in how they handle using her body.
Developmentally, the dev has managed to avoid feature bloat very nicely, keeping smooth progression through the story without neglecting previous parts of the game or the sidequests. It's not the fastest dev cycle, but it's worth the wait. They've also included anti-frustration features in explaining how to get certain events or advance the story.
It's not a perfect game; I still maintain there's better ways to slow the player down than repetitive, dull combat for example. Going to train a stat 1-3 times a day for a few days before the next dungeon isn't the most engaging gameplay. Some key features are still not implemented, especially combat side, and the art may not work for some people.
The story is done well, there's effective attempts to make the events varied, and what flaws there are in execution are outnumbered by what City does well. If you like Town of Magic, you're going to like this; you'll also probably like it if you're into Star Knightess Aura. It's not my cup of tea, but I tip my hat to a job well down.
