Review for
Demon Boy Saga v0.67:
Summary: As of 0.67, this game is a lot of work for very little reward. I'm still hoping it ends up being a good game, but after 2 1/2 years, it's a complete disappointment in both story progression and content. It might be a stretch, but version 0.67 is the very first version that has enough content to make it worth the effort of downloading.
Story: 2.5/5 - Just another average incest story, but as a bonus, it also has a bunch of plot holes.
Writing: 3/5 - It's not terrible, but it's not great, either. The English is occasionally awkward, but it's not riddled with errors.
Renders: 3/5 - The renders are OK, but don't seem particularly detailed or high-resolution. They are quite grainy/noisy. However, the models for the girls are very pretty and help make up for it.
Animations: 4/5 - What I've seen is good although the resolution of the animations is very low [Edit: I noticed that some animations have been very noticeably improved]. Unfortunately, there aren't many animations available, but there are occasionally some animations that are paywalled for supporters.
Gameplay: 1/5 -
- The sandbox is tedious. It just pisses me off every time I play. E.g., 5 clicks to get from the MC's bedroom to the map. The world map should be available from anywhere and the home button should go directly to the MC's bedroom. [Edit: the dev pointed that players can click the house icon to open the local map, then click the green box to go to the entryway, then click the exit hotspot to get the world map. That makes it 3 clicks instead of 5, which is still 2 clicks too many, and it doesn't fix the same problem at the university.]
- The UI is messy and ugly. UI elements frequently overlap. Sometimes, the game displays white menu text on very-light-colored background. Interior navigation is inconsistent.
- The game is unnecessarily grindy and very boring. Making money is extremely slow as the MC can earn only $10/day. Most important events can occur only one day each week. Individual updates seem to be designed to force players into a boring grind just to extend play time. E.g., for update 0.61, players had to grind through 6 weeks of game time just to get: one 10-second conversation each week; in week 3, players can see one animation and 2 renders of a girl in her underwear; in week 6, there is a contrived sex scene that is a complete let-down because it gets interrupted.
- The hint system (called "iHelp") is intentionally vague, intentionally misleading, inconsistent, and always buggy. Adding the version to the end of each character's storyline is confusing. It's enough to just say "end of current content for this character." Having multiple quests for a character is also confusing as it's not clear whether they are independent or not.
- Playing individual updates is very unsatisfying because there's so little progression in any quests. Honestly, you could play only one update per year and feel the same because there's so little actual content and story progression.
- Saves were broken multiple times earlier in development (last time at 0.55). If it happens again, I won't bother restarting.
Content: 1/5 - After 2.5 years of development and updates, there's only the one short sex scene with the MC where he doesn't even get to finish, one handjob, and one blowjob dream sequence where again, he doesn't finish, a rubbing scene. There's two NTR scenes that I opted to avoid. I don't know what's in them, but I wouldn't expect much. The game has been dragging its feet on both content and meaningful story progression from around 0.3 where I started playing all the way through 0.66. Players continue playing hoping to get some decent content, but every time, there's very little content to see. This game is following the playbook of sub-par subscription-supported adult games.
Bugs: 1/5 - This game has had quite a few bugs that block quest progression or force a restart/reload, but the worst is the iHelp quest/hint system. I haven't seen even one single release where this quest system wasn't bugged in some way. It has a way to indicate when the player has reached the end of the story content for each character, but there's always
at least one character where iHelp doesn't tell you when you've reached the end of the content, so you grind away for a while, then you start searching the forums only to find out there's no more content available.