RPGM - Completed - Dropped into the Modern World- Surviving the Red-Light District [v1.0] [BBQ Lover]

First of, let me say I don't usually write reviews but I felt compelled due to negative reviews this got.
Second, this was supposed to be a mini game BBQ wrote in between main releases, that being said taking around 10h (or less) and with a satisfying amount of content, the game is way better than most average full releases we see around.

Now as for why I enjoyed and highly rated the actual game, its set in modern day Japan, with places and references from actual places in Tokyo and some peeking in its subculture, besides it also having a gazillion food dishes and recipes that defy the most elaborate cooking simulators. Its quite obvious this was testament from when the author was living in that area of Japan, and how much food was part of it. So being someone also interested in modern day Japan and looking to move to exact area of Tokyo, this context is very good to me.

The gameplay loop is also quite chill, if not a bit hard to get money at first, but easy later if take advantage of all the features the game gives you. The format of the story was pretty good to, you have protected virginity until the very last part of the game, where it literally "climaxes", but even before then you can enjoy quite a lot of teasing and some peak butt-slut-virgin content. So the pacing itself is quite good.

Art is as usual great from Nebel's artist, however due to this artist being unavailable they had to hire a third party artist to do the standing portraits, so we have some graphic inconsistencies which can be distracting, imo the biggest minus of this game but not that big a deal.
Also worth mentioning I've played this in japanese way before the western release, but soon looking forward to replay it again in english.

I wanted to give this game a chance because I liked previous BBQ daisuki games in the end it turned out to be a BIG WASTE OF TIME.
I am a fan of previous BBQ Daisuki works but this one just ain't good.
In a nutshell this game is a Illegal Migrant worker simulator in Japan (based on the author's experiences, I think he is Chinese [he might be there legally though].

Heroine isekais from fantasy world to modern day Japan/Kabukicho and has to work various jobs in order to eat in order to get strong enough to kill the monster that she isekaied with and return home to her world.

7-15 HCGS recycled a lot in game. Granted plus points for some scenes having some variation based on costume worn.

90% of the game is just random dialogue of workers in Japan making some jokes about random stuff here and there. There is still a good few references to previous protagonists of BBQ daisuki games which is great if you are a fan (but they are just that REFERENCES they do not play a part in the game just interactible NPCS that say one line).

Gameplay loops is so FCKED (not in a good way). Work, eat, sleep (BEST TO NOT SLEEP and stay awake for whole days so you can work again in order to not strengthen the final boss). There is no combat, it's basically a stat check (MP) and one shots the mooks or you get fcked. The mooks are also RNG when they spawn in the map (not random encounter but random spawning). It just ain't fcking FUN. No saving grace unless you are INTERESTED IN PLAYING A ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT SIMULATOR IN JAPAN.

Translation is not fcking good. While you can understand the whole plot here and there, some things are not properly translated (a fcking disgrace for an official translation from Saikey). I think they just AI TLed this shit. Some game mechanics don't make sense with the translation.

As for AI CG concerns NO THE H CG IS NOT AI. DLSITE WILL NOT ALLOW GAMES TO lie about being AI generated in their CGS. THE AI CG is the background such as the Kabukicho background pictures. All H Art are drawn by an artist (that is the reason why there is a lot of repeating H scenes because it is not AI art but budgetary issues from the dev).

I hope their next game is better and this was a disappointing next game from them after the quality that is Nebel.

Take a HINT AND DON'T waste your time on this game like I and the others have (there are many different H games much more worth your time than this).

I am legitimately surprised by Saikey's ability to pick up decent-looking but bottom-of-barrel gameplay H-games to localize.

This game is just fundamentally bad. There is almost no breadcrumb so you're just left with unclear goals and no idea how to get them. They don't even tell you which districts you'd want to visit. Even if you figured it out, navigation is just bad with menus that doesn't really contextualize where you'd want to go next. At the same time, they lock a lot of areas behind random conversations from entering certain areas and finishing the menu of a restaurant.

I could go on about how the game's design, loop, and implementations clashes with their goal and each others. But suffice to say it's BAD.

Would've been fine if the lewds are good. It's not. You're just stuck doing odd jobs and then randomly get assaulted in certain areas, until you finally got to thr prostitution jobs. Thing is, they don't even have much penetrative scenes - most of the scenes are just assault, oral, and anal. Really, looking at the content and art, I'd say it's fair to say the game has maybe 6 actual H-scenes worth of content and art with how repetitive all of it was.

It's bad. Really bad. I don't know how Saikey did it, but they just continue to scrape the bottom of the barrel.

I love BBQ in general, and I think they do come up with interesting mechanics. But this one really only has the art to go for it.

Personally the gameplay is painful and unfun. The devs did mention this was just one of the mini side projects so maybe they were experimenting, but I really hope they optimize a lot more before re-using in their main titles.

My recommendation would be just download a save if you enjoy BBQ style art

Painful to play. The basic gameplay loop is both grindy AND boring. Just navigating the map is overly complicated for the lack of content it provides. the H scenes are mostly recycling the same 3cgs with anal/vag variants.

if you are a fan of BBQLover save yourself some time and sanity and cheat to get 100k to fully unlock the recollection room