There are a lot of reviews of this game already so I doubt I can say more than has already been said, but I want to put my words out there anyway.
I'm quite torn on this game because on the one hand, it has a really cool setting with a neat concept and a endearing main character with beautiful art. On the other hand, the "Corruption" is not well done in my opinion and the games main focus, being a detective, is wasted and combat is rather easy.
The Positives:
- The custom assets for the world and the music are great. It tries to set itself apart from just a standard RPGM game and I appreciate that.
- Sophie as a character is great and I like her a lot during her investigations and seeing how she solves numerous different problems with her thought processes.
- Despite numerous quests active at once, the game does a good job of making sure you know where to go and makes the city layout easy to understand and also has a map you can check as an item. I never felt "lost" (maybe at one point in the sewers but you can upgrade the night vision goggles to solve that) and it was fun seeing all the houses open up as requests came in and got solved.
- The art is really high quality and I love the design of Sophie, Amelia and the Phantom Thief. They are pretty unique and the steampunk aesthetic works really well for their costumes.
- H events are pretty decent. You'll notice some reused CGs but I think there are a decent enough variety to not get reptitive
- I enjoyed the District design in rewarding exploration and the verticality using the Wire Gun to find loot.
- The ability to explore both routes on the same save file was a nice surprise as it lets you go back to before the route split meaning you don't have to just reload the save file to see both endings. Also full gallery unlock is always good.
- Tomboys are cute
The Negatives
- The "Corruption" really didn't feel like corruption to me. All of it is based on the Reason stat which just doesn't really work because she will go from a intelligent tomboy detective who wants to make a name for herself and do good for the city into a sex craved slut without a satisfying chain of events to make it an enjoyable corruption.
They felt more like random regular sex events and the pacing on her loss of reason did not do it for me. While some events are only accessible at lower reason, they are mostly self contained and you never really get to see Sophies mindset change but more just events where she will be more open about it and then masochistic slut.
Each event loses a portion of reason but there is never any events between reason loss that might justify her new mindset, and it's more just she exposured herself a couple times and got raped once but now reason is below 75 so guess she's up for fucking. Also, she can lose her reason constantly by just masturbating over and over. I didn't test it but I assume you can just masturbate constantly and go straight to 0 without even seeing a dick.
- The game massively underutilises it's Skill system for the Police Route. You are presented 6 skills with 3 levels each and assume levelling them will be important, but I only remember 2 side quests in total where these skills actually mattered.
One is you could use Eloquence or Allure to get an item easier in a side quest, and another was Lockpicking a door (but you could find the key anyway). Otherwise, I don't remember another time while playing where the skills mattered for investigation, or at least whether having a skill levelled actually made an impact on the outcome.
I still have no clue what "Observation 2" actually does and there are no other choices that I can remember that had me use skills to get a better outcome for the quests. I was expecting maybe learning Medicine would help me adminster an injured person and save their life, or Espionage would improve my chances of sneaking and learning some important info. The main use of skills is for the Gang Route and the combat, which is a real shame. I know a few events have alternate scenarios if your reason is low, but playing the game doing all side quests and not grinding for reason loss I did not encounter them until unlocking the gallery.
- 90% of the requests for the police route are just "talk to dude, interact with things, talk again to solve the issue". There are a few times where you do have some control, such as the Locked Chest quest or the Museum Attack, but for the most part you just go in and solve the issue without much thought. I was hoping this game would be focused on its detective work and have some requirement on the player to memorise or think about the case and have different outcomes for quests based on your input, but I only failed 1 quest in the entire game and it was intentional. While I do like the actual interactions Sophie has with the requests she gets, the actual player detective work is just not there.
- You can trviliase combat by just focusing upgrades entirely on the Gauntlet and buying the Catridge equipment for more SP. When the entire Gang Route is focused on combat, it doesn't really do a lot with it. Your only real options are attack or Super Punch with the steam powered gauntlet. The only times I got defeated was intentionally for the CGs, but otherwise I never really struggled with combat or had to think about it. Even the final boss of the Gang Route I just punched away and they died. Felt like more could have been done with it, although I do like the options to avoid combat by talking or seducing them
- Amelia (factory girl) in particular is criminally forgotten about. She appears in the beginning to give you the wire gun and gauntlet, and then for the entire rest of the game sits in her factory with the same dialogue about the debt being paid off and solely exists to give you upgrades. The only time she actually does anything is at the very end of the Gang Route and even then her 2 CGs go from 0 to 100 real quick. For such an important friend to Sophie she basically doesn't exist for most of the game. What a shame cause she has such a nice design.
- No alternate costume for Sophie. At 0 reason I wanted at least the choice to have her wear something that exposured a little more skin but she keeps the same outfit the entire game besides the Long Hair Disguise for one series of events, and two other costumes that are very temporary.
I give this game a lot of negative points but I still enjoyed it and I appreciate both the setting and the main character. Going around watching Sophie solve cases and punching the shit out of Gansters kept me entertained at least to see both endings, plus a few events beyond that. Took me 15 hours to fully explore the game, but I'm pretty sure you can get an ending in 4-5 hours or less if you skip some side quests.
If you do play this though, upgrade Night Vision to 2 ASAP. The sewers are a nightmare to navigate without the vision upgrade.
For the Gang portion of the game, get Lockpicking 2 (in the Gang Hideout) and Medicine 1 (from any plague doctor) when you get the points. Helps a lot, as a lot of loot is locked behind lockpicking and being able to heal makes it much easier to go through lots of enemies.