Almost an interesting idea, but MAN does this fall flat on its face hard. I know it's super early, but some of the problems that are already present are not going to be fixable, even in future patches. The framework that is already there has serious problems and the whole project will be very negatively affected by it. Came in hopeful for something interesting, but was sorely disappointed.
Pros:
- Decent art, most of the characters are good looking. Decent animations.
- Has voice acting, makes the whole thing seem more professional and higher effort.
- Izzy. Actually one of the ONLY likeable characters in the game. Sure, she's a bit of a walking trope with her 'Hmph' and her bored and deadpan demeanor, but she's one of the only characters that feels like there's a certain charm to them and the banter between her and the main character feels like just that, actual banter. They talk to each other, not at each other. And her getting slowly more attached to him as you hang out with her more is a very nice thing to see. A very loveable shortstack, and honestly the best girl by a WIDE margin, not just because she's hot but because she actually feels like someone that ins't a complete dickwad to the main character.
- You're not forced to fuck characters you don't want to. You can turn the witch down, and even when you hang out with characters to build relationships you can still turn down sex itself if you're trying to stay loyal to Celeste.
-The fact that you can walk in on animations of the other characters fucking around the tavern in different areas, very good touch.
Cons:
- That piss stain yellow that the main characer's and Celeste's outfits are. Ugh.
- The game play is bland and repetitive. Just talk to 2 people every day and watch a ton of cut scenes. No mini games, no real game play of any kind. It doesn't feel like living in a tavern, it feels like a walking simulator with some very clunky stairs.
- The stairs. It shouldn't be three buttons just to choose to go up or down. You need to interact with the stairs, choose up or down, then confirm. Simplify this but just having it be the up or down keys to use the stairs for God's sake.
- Music is... not the best. Not the worst, but it does get boring really fast.
- Characters typically aren't likeable. There's a huge difference between a character being a bad guy and being unlikable. There's no redeeming qualities in most everyone at the tavern. The sorceress in particular is flat as a board and has some real forum-grade philosophy bullshit that is eye rolling at best.
- The plan makes no sense. The drow guy had the main characters captured and in chains. His nonsense rambling about how he didn't want to hasily kill them was retarded in the extreme. Sure, I get the whole sowing dout thing... but he literally had them unarmed and in chains. Just kill them and he wins. The story shouldn't be happening at all, and only is because the drow's choices are dumb.
- Choices don't matter. This REALLY pissed me off. I refused the witch's advances and offers the whole time, never slept with anyone but Celeste... and she STILL fucks other people in the story even then. Even after getting her to confess her feelings for the main character and get into a relationship with him, literally the next day she's upstairs getting fucked by someone else and screaming about how good it is while the whole tavern listens. Zero respect for the player's choice to try and have a relationship with her, zero way to prevent her from being a whore. I know it's an NTR game, but come the fuck on, this is just stupid.
- Weapons grade gaslighting. Especially from the witch character. I know she's supposed to be manipulative, but she's just genuinely not fun to be around and to read her dialogue. If you don't agree with her clearly manipulative intentions and don't let her get away with using you, she gets all pissy and bitchy at you for having a backbone, and ironically enough says that you won't just randomly fuck her because you don't have a backbone. Because yeah, that's totally how it works, the only way for you to have a backbone is to bend over backwards for her and do whatever she wants whenever she wants without any regard for other people. Uh-huh. Sure thing. But honestly the biggest thing with her dialogue that pisses me off is how it feels like it's the writer trying to shame you for not going along with it. The dialogue just feels bitter and nasty, and not in a way that feels like it's the character saying things because she was denied, but feels more like a moral judgement from the writer onto the player for... not being a literal whore for a clearly manipulative and deceitful person? Stupid.
- Celeste. She is NOT a good person, and it's frustrating how she's portrayed. Honestly Percival should just dump her toxic ass and run off with Izzy. She has feelings for Percy, loves him, wants to be with him... but the second any temptation is thrown in her face she'll throw Percy out the window just to indulge in whatever she wants. She's not faithful, loyal, or even remotely reasonable about anything. The second she has a disagreement with the main character she gets all huffy and annoyed, refusing to even acknowledge when he has a very valid point. She's wanting to have her cake and eat it too, and has some really stupid mental gymnastics to try and give a half-assed justification of why it's fine for her to do it. She's WAY too easy to talk into doing clearly bad things by clearly bad people. She's not even naive, she's just fucking dumb. It's extremely hard to feel anything but frustration at an NTR game that has a female love interest like this. She's not being corrupted, she's just a dumb whore with no real care towards the guy that she claims to be in love with and is fine with cheating on him even after confessing her feelings.
- The whole 'controlling' and 'insecure' bullshit. I swear to God, it's like some people are offended by the very thought of someone having clear boundaries and healthy limits to what is actually acceptable, and that sometimes it's not the person with the boundaries that is at fault in situations. Don't want to see your love interest fucked senseless by a bunch of strangers? Well you must be a big, dumb, mean poopy head then, you literal bigot. I swear to God, it's like the dialoge was taken right out of a Reddit debate or something. The main character has every right to feel uncomfortable and even upset that Celeste is doing the things she's doing. She says to just trust her... but clearly she's not trustworthy when she instantly gets up to EXACTLY what he was worried about in the first place.
- The game SORELY needs an option for the main character to just say fuck it to keeping Celeste around and break things off with her for her bad behavior and disrespectful attitude to him, thier relationship and his feelings. Fuck that bitch.
TLDR:
Somewhat interesting concept but game play is bare bones, the music boring, and the writing is not very good. Characters fall flat, aren't likeable, and the gaslighting and nonsense that others spew out at the main character doesn't make the villains seem like competent manipulators, it makes the stoyr mode of the game grating to play. Was really hoping this one would suprise me and beat the low ratings, but it's not the fact that it's a super early version of the game that makes it bad, it's the writing and the characters. More fleshed out gameplay would be better, but the overall story would still suck, I'm afraid. Disappointed.
Pros:
- Decent art, most of the characters are good looking. Decent animations.
- Has voice acting, makes the whole thing seem more professional and higher effort.
- Izzy. Actually one of the ONLY likeable characters in the game. Sure, she's a bit of a walking trope with her 'Hmph' and her bored and deadpan demeanor, but she's one of the only characters that feels like there's a certain charm to them and the banter between her and the main character feels like just that, actual banter. They talk to each other, not at each other. And her getting slowly more attached to him as you hang out with her more is a very nice thing to see. A very loveable shortstack, and honestly the best girl by a WIDE margin, not just because she's hot but because she actually feels like someone that ins't a complete dickwad to the main character.
- You're not forced to fuck characters you don't want to. You can turn the witch down, and even when you hang out with characters to build relationships you can still turn down sex itself if you're trying to stay loyal to Celeste.
-The fact that you can walk in on animations of the other characters fucking around the tavern in different areas, very good touch.
Cons:
- That piss stain yellow that the main characer's and Celeste's outfits are. Ugh.
- The game play is bland and repetitive. Just talk to 2 people every day and watch a ton of cut scenes. No mini games, no real game play of any kind. It doesn't feel like living in a tavern, it feels like a walking simulator with some very clunky stairs.
- The stairs. It shouldn't be three buttons just to choose to go up or down. You need to interact with the stairs, choose up or down, then confirm. Simplify this but just having it be the up or down keys to use the stairs for God's sake.
- Music is... not the best. Not the worst, but it does get boring really fast.
- Characters typically aren't likeable. There's a huge difference between a character being a bad guy and being unlikable. There's no redeeming qualities in most everyone at the tavern. The sorceress in particular is flat as a board and has some real forum-grade philosophy bullshit that is eye rolling at best.
- The plan makes no sense. The drow guy had the main characters captured and in chains. His nonsense rambling about how he didn't want to hasily kill them was retarded in the extreme. Sure, I get the whole sowing dout thing... but he literally had them unarmed and in chains. Just kill them and he wins. The story shouldn't be happening at all, and only is because the drow's choices are dumb.
- Choices don't matter. This REALLY pissed me off. I refused the witch's advances and offers the whole time, never slept with anyone but Celeste... and she STILL fucks other people in the story even then. Even after getting her to confess her feelings for the main character and get into a relationship with him, literally the next day she's upstairs getting fucked by someone else and screaming about how good it is while the whole tavern listens. Zero respect for the player's choice to try and have a relationship with her, zero way to prevent her from being a whore. I know it's an NTR game, but come the fuck on, this is just stupid.
- Weapons grade gaslighting. Especially from the witch character. I know she's supposed to be manipulative, but she's just genuinely not fun to be around and to read her dialogue. If you don't agree with her clearly manipulative intentions and don't let her get away with using you, she gets all pissy and bitchy at you for having a backbone, and ironically enough says that you won't just randomly fuck her because you don't have a backbone. Because yeah, that's totally how it works, the only way for you to have a backbone is to bend over backwards for her and do whatever she wants whenever she wants without any regard for other people. Uh-huh. Sure thing. But honestly the biggest thing with her dialogue that pisses me off is how it feels like it's the writer trying to shame you for not going along with it. The dialogue just feels bitter and nasty, and not in a way that feels like it's the character saying things because she was denied, but feels more like a moral judgement from the writer onto the player for... not being a literal whore for a clearly manipulative and deceitful person? Stupid.
- Celeste. She is NOT a good person, and it's frustrating how she's portrayed. Honestly Percival should just dump her toxic ass and run off with Izzy. She has feelings for Percy, loves him, wants to be with him... but the second any temptation is thrown in her face she'll throw Percy out the window just to indulge in whatever she wants. She's not faithful, loyal, or even remotely reasonable about anything. The second she has a disagreement with the main character she gets all huffy and annoyed, refusing to even acknowledge when he has a very valid point. She's wanting to have her cake and eat it too, and has some really stupid mental gymnastics to try and give a half-assed justification of why it's fine for her to do it. She's WAY too easy to talk into doing clearly bad things by clearly bad people. She's not even naive, she's just fucking dumb. It's extremely hard to feel anything but frustration at an NTR game that has a female love interest like this. She's not being corrupted, she's just a dumb whore with no real care towards the guy that she claims to be in love with and is fine with cheating on him even after confessing her feelings.
- The whole 'controlling' and 'insecure' bullshit. I swear to God, it's like some people are offended by the very thought of someone having clear boundaries and healthy limits to what is actually acceptable, and that sometimes it's not the person with the boundaries that is at fault in situations. Don't want to see your love interest fucked senseless by a bunch of strangers? Well you must be a big, dumb, mean poopy head then, you literal bigot. I swear to God, it's like the dialoge was taken right out of a Reddit debate or something. The main character has every right to feel uncomfortable and even upset that Celeste is doing the things she's doing. She says to just trust her... but clearly she's not trustworthy when she instantly gets up to EXACTLY what he was worried about in the first place.
- The game SORELY needs an option for the main character to just say fuck it to keeping Celeste around and break things off with her for her bad behavior and disrespectful attitude to him, thier relationship and his feelings. Fuck that bitch.
TLDR:
Somewhat interesting concept but game play is bare bones, the music boring, and the writing is not very good. Characters fall flat, aren't likeable, and the gaslighting and nonsense that others spew out at the main character doesn't make the villains seem like competent manipulators, it makes the stoyr mode of the game grating to play. Was really hoping this one would suprise me and beat the low ratings, but it's not the fact that it's a super early version of the game that makes it bad, it's the writing and the characters. More fleshed out gameplay would be better, but the overall story would still suck, I'm afraid. Disappointed.