RPGM - Completed - Dungeon Explorers [v3.2] [C.M.Cas Games]

[v3.2]

⠀⠀⠀It has been stated by other players many times before, but the gameplay here is truly terrible. Dev rolled out an update recently in which he supposedly rebalanced enemies and I don't know what the fuck he meant by that, but the maps are still filled to the brim by hordes of copy&paste enemies, which was the main concern before and still hasn't been addressed. As an example you walk into a bandit den and there is like 20 enemies in this one small room. They aren't even difficult to beat it's just incredibly boring and tedious. The exploration is a textbook example of how to not do it: vast terrain filled with nothing but copy&paste assets, resources and mobs. Also random af boss battles with no special rewards for beating them.

⠀⠀⠀I don't know about "interesting story", all I saw was primitive writing with horrendous English: words are misspelled, grammar's misused, script is overall messy. Granted I didn't get very far to witness all the plot twists and turns, but I've already invested over 4 hours into this game and haven't seen anything even remotely interesting or original and just couldn't subject myself to this snooze fest any longer.

⠀⠀⠀So, maybe at least the lewds are good? No. A single static image with dry talk, no animations, no sound effects, absolutely ZERO build up or aftermath. And keep in mind that it isn't even hand-drawn art, but an AI generated picture. There are simply no redeeming qualities here.

I cannot in good conscience give this higher rating because of one thing: The absolutely horrendous gameplay. The gameplay is your average RPGM turn based combat, but the issues are:

1) There are WAY too many monsters on the maps (think roughly 50+ in one submap), making navigation an absolute pain. I got to the point where I was just noclipping to avoid the sheer amount of mobs.

2) The mobs scale with YOUR party level. This mechanic while annoying, is still bearable. The issue is, the MC gets a 2x exp passive which cannot be disabled, meaning his level will soon FAR outstrip that of the other party members, meaning the overall enemy level will be far higher than that of your party. This makes grinding exp for them nigh impossible, because if a party member dies in battle, they do NOT get exp.

3) The sheer amount of GRIND. Yes, you are rebuilding a village and grind is expected, but this takes things to a whole new level. There are WAY too many resource points right off the bat, and you have to go around collecting them. Not to mention that while in a dialogue box, enemies can still move, meaning oftentimes, you get boxed into mobs.

The only reason why this isn't one star is because I liked the story, and the correct use of AI art. However, I cannot recommend this game due to the above features. It fails as a game, but is quite successful as a story.

Edit: I just realised that three reviews down. the one by @ReallF makes almost the exact same reasons I did for giving such a rating. Can refer to their review for a more in-depth one. This review was made with the complete 1.1 version, meaning all their reasons still apply.

Recommended if you're into old timey turn-based RPG gameplay, with lots to explore. Although you'll want to set your party up for success with auto-battle to take out all the trash mobs thrown your way.
Not recommended if you're grated by any of the following:
The writing seems machine translated and not exactly shakespeare. I can't get a read on the dev's original language, but the English is quite strained.
CGs are AI generated, though not bad at all. Sound, music, enemy sprites are asset flips that you'll recognize if you've played a lot of RPGM stuff.

Edit: Now that I've actually finished the game, got a few things to add.
Kudos for using AI art successfully, not only for sexy shots, but also to show story scenes and environments. I know that's really hard to do, because AI doesn't really get context, vibes, stuff like that. It was really interesting to see.
As much as I don't like the writing, this game did something pretty unique with its story and ending, which left a good impression.
There's a lot of cool details. Like how the game world changes with time passage, like the way you're told the strategy for beating the final boss, and how the game occasionally turns into a visual novel for short stretches, with fairly meaningful choices to make. All good stuff to break the monotony.
It's not the kind of thing I was really looking for (typically people are on this forum for more smut), but I'm glad I played it, and am looking forward to what this guy cooks up in the future.

The game play is good. The art is good. What made me give the game a high rating is the story. The story is captivating, beautiful, and heart wrenching at same time. A great piece of work in my opinion but was so short. I loved it and wish the Dev best of luck in future endeavors.

What a difficult review to write this one is...
I really enjoyed the story, but the gameplay in this game is so bad that it makes me not like it, let me explain.

The story is really good, since the beginning I felt invested in the MC story. I liked that the MC was ruthless and stopped at nothing to get his revenge.
Yeah the game has a lot of little grammar mistakes, but is to be expected since the dev said english is not their first language.

The art is okay, I don't really mind it being ai cg. Most of the scenes consist of one cg with some text, no animations.
There is no gallery in this version( v0.9 ).
The only real problem I see here it's the lack of event triggers, which can make you miss some of the scenes.
Sadly the bad things overshadow the good things.

This is what almost made me stop playing, the gameplay.
The gameplay in this is horrendous. The zones are infested with enemies, if you want to get to a chest you have take on 20 of the same enemies, only to find 200 gold in the chest.
You can't put 20 enemies in a small room, it makes navigation impossible. At some points I had columns of enemies waiting a turn to punch me in the face. That makes exploring, one of the best aspects of RPGM, not worth it.

Now, here is the real problem, the enemies in this game scale to your overall party lvl. The MC has an ability that makes him gain double exp, which leads to him being much higher lvl than the rest of the party. When you get a new party member they usually are quite low lvl, now you see where this is going. With your party being, for example, lvl 55, 40, 25, 20. The enemies will be around lvl 45, this makes leveling up the new party members almost impossible because they get ko in one hit, and they don't receive xp if they are out. I know you can lower the difficulty, but it shouldn't be necessary if this was well made.

To make matters worse, you spend a lot time leveling up a character you like, spend a lot of gold buying and upgrading their equipment, only for that party member to leave forever and they don't even give the equipment back.
At least give the player the equipment back. And this happens a lot, instead of gaining party members you lose them as you progress trough the game.
The game makes you grind like a champ only to penalize you.

To sum it up.
Gameplay 1/5 - It's so bad it almost ended with my monitor warranty
Plot 4/5 - Really good, but a tad sad
Scenes 3/5 - Okay, but no animations or gallery
Overall 2.5/5

I'm really sorry to the dev for this harsh review, since this is their first game. But man... What was on their mind when they decided to put this much grinding in the game?

Great game if a little too much grind at times. biggest issue has been addressed before but the lack of event triggers and sometimes events not playing. This is the Dev's first big project and for what it turned out to be it's a small issue for such a wonderful game.

I like your game, it is a great imao RPGM game. I like the big open areas and i like if i fight and kill enemies they are dead and i must not fight again and again if i come back . The story is good and the artwork too. I think 5 stars deserved for a game like yours . I have fun and it is not boring. Some time i dont know what to do but than i detect a clue if i talk with a village people. I hope i found all quest . Some fight are hard but slowly i found a way to fight and i and my party survival and late, but not to late i know now how to upgrade a member. Only with the weapons and armor in the forge in my village i think i must be a supporter ( Tier 1-5 ) ? if i not wrong.

As a RPG lover, I must say that I really enjoyed the gameplay until now, v7.
The village upgrade and expansions is cool, but simple. The system of gathering wood and iron is a bit grindy at the start, but makes sense on the narrative. The battles are pretty simple, but I liked the Gift plot, it makes all the characters unique.
The main point of this game is the story. This is not a game for a quickfap for to play skipping the text. If you are playing only for the sex scenes, you can go directly to some hentai site out there. The story is something new, the world construction is very well done, and, while there's some spell mistakes, the plot is excelent.
A five starts, without doubts.

Ai generated static images with some text. Some random story and rpg maker fights. So game have nothing. Probably ai generated 2. And somehow it need 200 word rewie...
Ok lets start. Combat is just it.You have some consumables, some skills. Repetetive and uninteresting. And not why we play H games.
Sex scenes just static image with no sound oralmost no text. AK wanna bang? Lets go.
To be fair I didnt play a lot. 5-10 min for first 2 "sex scenes". Mb it have something going for it after. But I dont belive so.
If you wanna fap, just google some ai generated porn.

This game is so grindy that I got bored to tears. And it's slow. And grindy. Did I already mention the insane pointless unavoidable grind where not even cheating can help you?

Just "go to the forest grab an axe" took a dozen minutes, composed only of killing monsters or cutting stuff in your way. Trying to explore the forest further means more and more and more and more pointless combat, and difficulty to backtrack to town. Not to mention the time it takes to chop down trees which almost always result in a fight/encounter once you're done because monsters move on you. There's a forgotten temple in the forest with strong fairies, almost got sealed in the sealed room because there were almost five of them blocking the path out...

There's no game over, but I don't know what's the penalty if you die (if any, and no justification whatsoever either), and escaping mobs made a sound which implies there might be a penalty too (and escaping is entirely useless, specially if the monster is blocking the way). Exploration aspects were nice in town, in the forest I even found the fox asking for the temple fruits, but...

...The grind ruins that aspect entirely. You can't move three tiles without being blocked by monsters. Careful navigation can't avoid all encounters. The fights are largely repetitive, slow and boring, auto or no auto. You take no less than twenty seconds per encounter, after all, and that if you beat your enemies in a single turn.

I give two stars not because the game itself is bad, it seems nice that every NPC has a portrait (sex scenes however are short, so there's that), but because it bored me to tears. And it's slow. Absolutely do not talk to the stone monument in the middle of the village, that is SO SLOW that even fast-forwarding with Z will take you a couple minutes. And speaking in fast forward, some dialogues have so many pauses that they take eons to go through.

The game was not fun; it was fundamentally boring in such way that nothing added could possibly redeem it; even if it had the best art and music and effects in the world it would be unable to make itself worth the time wasted in the overcrowded maps. Only Opala village in the prologue fight had a remotely decent monster concentration. Version 0.06.

Needs some work and better guidance.
But overall a good story and likeable characters.

The music is good and appropriate for the events.
The fact that you can do auto-battle is awesome!
Would be nice if you could skip the credit screen when you accidently click it the second and more times

I like the fact that after the main missions (in ver 0.6) the girls give you little hints on where to go.

Fairly decent game in terms of character customization (letting you min/max your stats), but the art is sorta bland. I know it's AI art but there are better programs out there that you can use. The story is fine if a bit generic for the jrpg genre.

This is an awesome game, lots of fun and you can become a very tough badass. Plus, the chick are cuties and hot too. Just wishing for a lot more sex in the game. For a first time game developer this dev is showing that he has mega skills and his game/s are only going to get better. A lot of combat and some foes are very tough to beat, but, your strength grows and so do your power. I play hours at a time and just want more.

this review is for v.02. first off i have to mention that i like both ai art and rpg games! so i thought this one was gonna be a hit! well it turns out its just a normal rpg game with adult pics added for a bit of flavor! i cant give this more than 3 stars as its a moderately decent rpg with very limited adult images added (no animation) and a typical generic rpg story! at the beginning you are given a bit of a character creator in the for of choices you have to make that i havent been able to figure out what they affect other than your characters class and possibly what skills you start with! dont get me wrong its and addictive rpg and if your an rpg fan youll enjoy the gameplay! however, its a long grind as you will need to do a lot of leveling up to be able to withstand the ass kicking the monsters will deal to your characters (especially your catgirl rouge partner, shes as tough as a wet paper towel)!

the breakdown:

Good: the game is a solid rpg with nice sprites for the enemies and what seems like a good skill system and a large map (if you can access all the areas on the map in the buildings, current area that i havent got past so far is a large screen full of dungeons and the main town). the story is well written and translation (if it is one) has very few grammatical errors!

Bad: very grindy. you will be needing to bring lots of potions with you to dungeons or run back to the inn to rest (but every time you rest you get high xp value monsters to show up in town. dont forget to go to the towns entrance to add the knight captain to your party). the lewd scenes are simple one image lewd pics with no animation no transitions to another pic in the action, just one image sitting on your screen as you read erotic dialogue! i havent progressed that far yet as im still only around lvl 20 but i havent found another town yet and you cant sell any of your items at the stores in the starting town (this may not be an issue after progressing far enough but as of the point im at theres nowhere to offload goods)! on this same note, ive been collecting wood and other items from the dungeons/ hunting areas and have still not come across a quest to deliver the wood to the village even though thats what i thought the MC and the town princess talked about at the end of the prologue!

Other: ive ran into a redhaired female warrior/mage who will probably be the next party member but currently shes aggressive and you have to fight her. ive only encountered her twice but she kicked my ass both times with high power magic! im assuming that you will team up with her later if certain conditions are met but shes one of the main reasons you will want to grind because she was able to stomp a mudhole i my ass even at lvl 20!
also, going forward, i think the game would be nice with more images for each lewd scene. i dont think ai art has been used to do much animating in lewd games yet but would like to see animated lewd scenes happen too if it becomes possible.
also, i dont mind rpgs with a bit of a grind to em, but if your gonna make us grind we need a healer added to the party lineup! maybe another female who you can add lewd scenes for! its a thought anyway!


i know its still early in development but playing for about 4 hours now and figured id share my opinion! good luck dev!