RPGM - Completed - Ekdix: Dreams and Memories [v1.02] [Izure Ayame ka Kakitsubata]

Ekdix is a hard game to fully explain my thoughts on because it sucks in a few important areas and yet I also enjoyed playing it.

This'll be a very long review because I have a lot to mention about this game, but I'll try and condense it at the end.

This game does some weird things with the normal RPGmaker gameplay, so I think it deserves more attention than it will get just from looking at the screenshots.

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PORN

I'll start by saying I think the porn in this game isn't good, at least to me. Almost every one of the 60 or so scenes is just the main character, the once male Yuuri being either raped, coerced into sexual acts or otherwise just non consensual acts that aren't satisfying. While this is a plot point (your main character was an asshole as a man, and brought into a world as a women where they treat women like shit), it's not that fun to actually watch or engage with.

Maybe they were going for the whole "he's getting what he deserves" but I didn't find it appealing. They end up reusing a lot of CGs for different events and you'll see the same poses multiple times. The actual scenarios as well will often progress very quickly like "You have no ID, if you want into the city let me fuck you"

The beginning of the game especially is pretty malicious with how the main character is treated, and I found it more just annoying than arousing. Even with the scenes where the person isn't manipulating her, they just felt kinda weak in terms of why the scene is happening and how quickly Yuuri would accept whatever they wanted.

"Lewdness Level" also felt a bit underwhelming, as even though in some of the last scenes she is happy to be wanted by a man and goes as far as asking a guy in the final city for outdoor sex, it also doesn't really affect her character in the overall story or ending. Without spoiling too much, I didn't find any "lewd" ending and despite being fucked and molested 50 or so times, it doesn't make her lewd or corrupted or anything. It just kinda happens and all you get from it is that Yuuri is fine being a women at the end.

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STORY

I'll also say that I didn't really find the whole character arc of the MC going from an asshole man to an accepting women that well executed. The whole games story is just the MC trying to get revenge for being raped in the beginning of the game. At the start you go through multiple towns just trying to get identification so she can travel without being molested by guards taking advantage of the fact, but you still get take advantage of even after you have your identifcation trying to go through more towns for information on the group that raped Yuuri at the beginning of the game.

The evil group starts taking action and the finale of the story is dealing with them and their leader. It's a very straight forward story with some random tangents thrown in like meeting the Holy Knight Lutz who becomes important later, or one of the groups assassins who tries to kill you.

For me at least the endings slightly annoyed me, but I can accept that the story didn't need to be more complicated than it was.

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GAMEPLAY

The gameplay though does some pretty unusual things. It's still very much standard turn based RPGMaker combat, but normally in these types of games you level up and then the next level takes more experience so that you need to fight more difficult enemies that give more XP and early enemies have less impact on levelling.

In Ekdix, the developer said fuck that. Instead, every enemy gives a fixed amount of XP and every single level has the same requirement. To compensate, enemies just scale more and more with every stat going higher and higher, every enemy with more and more health, equipment giving more and more stats etc.

You might have noticed in the screenshots the "Level 13,435". This is NOTHING compared to the endgame. I'm not joking when I say that after 100%ing the game, I was at level 742,865. This might sound like I grinded a lot, but you really don't because later and later enemies give so much experience you can jump 100+ levels every time you defeat a basic enemy. You can beat the game at level 150,000 if you wanted to, but there is an optional series of endgame challenges that require significantly higher level and have their own means to get more levels.

It's a really surprising system since it kinda goes againat the traditional levelling system you always see and I don't really know how they managed to balance some of the bosses in this game when killing basic enemies can raise you so many levels at once.

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CORE GAMEPLAY LOOP

Your core gameplay loop will be going to a town, accepting side quests/getting scenes and then moving on to a nearby dungeon where you fight enemies and run through chests/pots to get items. You solve whatever puzzle or challenge you need to so you can progress, and then fight the main boss which lets you move on to the next area.

This repeats as you progress the story by entering the next town, talking with NPCs and clearing the next dungeon for access to another town or city. I don't remember exactly how many times you do this, but I'd say around 10 or so times.

It's a sort of "looter rpg" in a sense as rooms are filled with tons of chests and things to get equipment and items from. Running through these chests and killing enemies is important since every boss has it's own "Level Reccomendation" and will usually kick your ass if you haven't prepared enough. In addition, a lot of the mandatory dungeons have an "Optional Boss" that is significantly stronger than you at the time, so you have to come back later with gear from the next town. Trying to beat them when you encounter them normally is pretty lethal and you'll probably die in 1 turn.

(The optional boss questline is fun to follow if you always come back to them when you reach the level requirement, as there is a good reward for finding and beating all 8 of them)

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EQUIPMENT

I do quite like how expansive the equipment system is, although I think they added way too many equipment variations. I tried to look through the Item Catalogue and I didn't reach the end after 5 minutes of scrolling down.

Your equipment consists of a Weapon, Clothes (which change the standing CG and are usually rewards from side quests), an Inner Armor Piece, an Outer Armor Piece, 3 Auxiliary Equipment, 2 Special Slots and 4 Orb Slots for magic spells. Every single region has it's own set of each of these pieces except the orbs (which you can only buy with gold)

This means you will find multiple types of weapons (usually dealing specific elemental damage types), multiple types of Inner and Outer pieces (each granting their own set of unique skills to use) and multiple types of Auxiliary equipment (which grant their own sets of basic skills based on the type of equipment it is). That huge bunch of items is multiplied by 10 or so times as every region has the same type of equipment but scaled for the new levels of the enemies so what you'll find is any equipment from one dungeon is just outclassed completely by the next dungeon.

While the equipment looks the same, both the stats and also the skills they can grant will improve as you find the higher tier versions from later dungeons. Some equipment can grant up to 10+ skills at once to use, which is important due to a significant detail about skills. And yes the equipment has the same levelling thing so you will get huge increases in stats as you progres the game, going from just thousands of attack or defense to almost reaching 10 million in every stat.

Some auxiliary and inner/upper equipment also have special bonuses tied to them, such as a chance to reflect attacks or debuff resistance. It's usually random if you get a normal piece of equipment or a special one, but these can be a nice extra bonus to add to your aresenal and some of them are extremely strong (looking at you critical hit rate)

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SKILLS

Skills in the game have long cooldowns, some of which are over 15 turns long. This means that having a wide variety of skills is very much needed for some of the harder bosses in the game, although basic enemies were a breeze for me most of the time. Some of the stronger optional bosses and the eventual 5 Superbosses will not be so kind to you, and will force you to use multiple different skills each turn. It's a nice change from some games where you can spam the same skill over and over to win without much issue.

Some skills have a special attribute that they have "No Turn Cost" so you can use them without actually letting the enemy attack at the cost of having a long cooldown. These include some personal buff skills that grant powerful bonuses for a few turns. These skills become invaluable later as you can start a turn buffing yourself up massively and using all the no turn end skills in one turn to do massive damage.

I enjoyed quite a bit trying to see what skills I liked the most and setting up a big combo of skills at once. Buying Orbs from the town shops is also very important, as Magic Skills are very useful and open up way more elements for you to use so you can exploit enemy weaknesses, and get additional bonuses like applying debuffs or stealing health.

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ELEMENTAL SYSTEM

Every single enemy (with rare exceptions) has Elements they are strong against and Elements they are weak against. Your weapons and skills all deal a specific element which can include Striking, Stabbing, Water, Fire, Dark etc. The resistance on enemies is actually pretty significant, and using a bad element can cut your damage almost by half. Alternatively you can get a significant damage boost using a good element, so working around this elemental system particularly for bosses is encouraged.

You don't know what elements a boss is weak to unless you fight it but using a skill that an enemy is weak to will reveal that underneath it's sprite permanently so you can always challenge a boss to find it's weak element then come back with different skills/magic.

This system does add a level of complexity I like to the combat as it can be very difficult to beat some of the bosses and side quest fights without exploiting weaknesses due to how much damage they can do to you. If you fight them at the time you are intended to fight them, then a lot of the bosses can provide a good challenge requiring good skill usage and sometimes item use.

Of course, you can ignore some challenging fights just by skipping anything optional and coming back 2-3 regions later but I chose to try and fight opponents either when I got the reccomended level or I cleared the next town and came back afterwards. Since they are optional you can just clear every major area and then come back to steamroll them, which is unfortunate but also part of the choice you can make if you wish to.

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SIDE QUESTS

Side quests are a nice break from killing and looting, however many do end up as somewhat repetitive, maybe 60% of them. There's a total of 50 in the game, and many of them are found by just interacting with NPCs in each town/city. The problem is that many of these NPCs give the exact same task just for that area.

For example, almost every town will have one person who tells you "Please kill 10 of this enemy type in the next dungeon". Another person will say "Please go into the next dungeon and bring me this item". When this is repeated 8 or so times each, it gets a bit annoying.

I will excuse the Brave side quests though because those were actually fun. Each of the major towns has a character who is a descendant of The Brave who defeated the demon king long ago, and they ask you to fight them. Their boss battles are significantly harder than the area you're at so you usually have to come back after clearing the next area.

A lot of them made me work to defeat them and defeating all 8 of the Brave descendants allows you to open up the Grave you find at the beginning of the game (along with the requirement to complete most of the side quests and raise the "Reliability" stat). To avoid spoilers, I won't mention what is is there yet.

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There's also a couple of unique side quests like the Minigames which are a side activity to do ranging from breaking barrels in a time limit or completing a race course.

One of these however...fuck Side Quest Number 19. Having to run through 5 rooms picking a 50/50 chest five times in a row to win is absolutely stupid, and idk how they thought that would be at all fun to do. Who actually wants to run through doors over and over hoping for essentially a 1/35 chance of winning?

I just cheated that side quest because I kept losing over and over again and it was not worth my time to get it legitamately.

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SOME ISSUES WITH EQUIPMENT

One problem you will encounter is that due to how the equipment system is, it can be hard to actually settle on a set of skills and a build until the endgame. It's very common that you'll find some nice equipment you like, beat the boss and then realise that you can buy equipment with outright better stats for less than 500 gold in the next town.

Since all equipment is heavily tied to the area you find it, replacing equipment is extremely common and you will need to do some inventory management as you sell a lot of useless stuff due to how quickly equipment gets phased out.

This can definitely be a frustration, although it does also make finding new equipment important and ensure you never just settle on using the same equipment all the time. Sometimes you will have to equip something with skills you might not want due to how much stronger it makes you.

I also wish it was possible to earn weaker orbs through a source besides gold as it makes it hard to experiment with magic skills when a single orb can cost a majority of the gold you earn in one region. Once you leave one region you can just buy an outright better orb in the next town, so your previous purchase feels wasteful. (I used the Light and Dark Orbs a lot, due to healing and lifesteal which were quite handy at times)

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ENDGAME

Note: Partial Spoilers

I think the biggest credit I can give this game is the 5 optional "Superbosses" that you can fight at the endgame. By the end of the game you can go straight to the lair of the evil group to beat the final boss and get an ending. Instead however, you can travel across the continent and find islands that are normally inaccessible until you find the Boat available once you got through enough of the story. These islands and normally inaccessible areas can contain entirely new dungeons and also unique boss fights that go far above what the final boss can do.

Each of these bosses gets stronger than the last, and you are essentially fighting some of the strongest beings to exist in the world. These fights require the best equipment and orbs you can find, demanding a very high level that usually requires exploring the optional dungeons found outside the main story only accessible by the boat. Beating these fights gives you unique equipment with extremely powerful bonuses that you can then use to fight the stronger superbosses elsewhere. When you think one superboss was the end, you'll find another just waiting somewhere else entirely out of the way and completely missable.

Killing all 8 of the hidden optional bosses in the main dungeons throughout the game allows you to repair an Airship, which opens up a few more areas that you can never reach by boat. This was a pretty nice reward for remembering to come back and find these opponents, as you can easily just ignore them if you want to.

While the game doesn't explicitely tell you, the Superbosses do have an order you are intended to kill them in:

You are expected to fight the first superboss at around level 120,000 in the "Land of the Gods", and then following that looking for the one that was sealed away in a place only accessible by Airship.
After that, exploring the Lair of the Dragons which has a reccomended level of 250,000 and ends with the 3rd superboss.
The second last superboss requires you to have found the 8 pieces of the Brave and bring them to the Grave at the start of the game. They will not hold back and will be extremely difficult if you haven't killed the 3 prior superbosses.

The ultimate challenge of the endgame is clearing the "Challengers Castle" which contains increasingly difficult fights culminating in the strongest entity in the world. This entity is so powerful that it's basically mandatory to go back and defeat all four of the other superbosses to get their unique equipment and the levels needed to take them on. My first attempt againast the final boss in this area ended with them killing me in 3 turns, but I had a lot of fun planning both my skills and the fight itself so I could slowly wittle their health down as I struggled to survive.

This experience might be different depending on how much you grind levels in the endgame optional areas, but this was just my experience. All but one of the superbosses were a struggle to kill and the only reason that 1 was not too hard was because I fought them later than I was supposed to.

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There is also a "Loop" mechanic where after beating the game you get tokens for doing stuff during the game and can then get bonuses in a new game plus, but you don't need to engage with it at all to actually 100% the game and I just sort of ignored it.

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FINAL CONDENSED CONCLUSION

This game has a bunch of flaws, but I enjoyed the gameplay it provided particularly at the endgame. It kinda fails as a porn game, but there was a lot of work put into the variety of equipment and the bosses you fight especially with how absurd the levelling system is.

I like the wide variety of skills you can get, as well as how different equipment gives you access to different skills as you progress. The long turn cooldown of skills forces you to use multiple skills which I definitely prefer over spamming the same skill every turn.

My favorite part of the game is the endgame and I had fun trying to beat the most difficult bosses the game had to offer. I also like that most areas tell you what level to expect to fight stuff at, so you know whether you are intended to fight them now or later.

If you do play this game, I would definitely reccomend attempting the optional content by going back to any optional bosses you find when you reach the level it reccomends, and exploring the world once you leave "Holy City Kuria" and learn where the evil groups base is. For NPC fights, you can usually fight them after clearing the respective dungeon of that town.

RPGM - Completed - Ekdix: Dreams and Memories [v1.02] [Izure Ayame ka Kakitsubata]

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