RPGM - Completed - Enishia and the Binding Brand [v1.06 Steam] [Shimobashira Workshop]

The corruption aspect on this game is not that well implemented or developed compared to the previous games which is such a shame since you had the perfect setting of a nun getting corrupted.

The story is actually great and and the lore is carefully crafted hence i feel that its such a waste since this game is an experimental project compared to other games of the dev. You can see it with the settings options in the graphics department and the dice roll mechanic how they are newly implemented.

The dice mechanics however is horribly implemented, i swear to god the dice is rigged to make you step into a monster encounter every fucking time.

If you dont believe me, go to the dungeon where you mine iron ore, no matter what you do 8/10 times the dice is gonna land you on the first monster tile. If the dice is completely RNG without magnetism towards landing you on a monster tile then fucking explain why it lands that much on monster tiles?!

I played and completed Darkest Dungeon 1 and i can do a no torch run so im no stranger to RNG fucking me over in the ass but holy shit the RNG in this game feels more rigged than the game all about rigging the RNG against you.

Look, let me make this clear, im not one to cry about a game being a rougelike and souls like as long as theyre honest about it that they want to bukake and fuck me side ways and leave me in the alleways afterwards, im not even gonna complain if its a skill issue on my part but dishonest rigging of the dice such as what this game is doing is fucking bullshit.

If not for the rigged RNG of the dice mechanic id be giving this game a 5 but the rigged RNG is making my blood boil.

Gameplay: 8/10
Art: 6/10
Plot and Writing: 9/10
Overall: 8/10

Very good, the fun is more in the whole scenario which is so damn hot, the game is a bit long, so be ready for long sessions

-Cons:
-Art is alright, but not animated
-There aren't a LOT of sexy scenes/art to look at
-I tried to play the game in a way to stay pure and not give in to corruption, however it didn't feel as rewarding, so I ended up going full corruption after finishing the game, it felt like this wasn't really worked on, as if the game doesn't really expect you to play as a pure nun.

-Pros:
-Really hot setting and overall writing and plot, they have really done a great job with that
-Gameplay is fun, not too grindy, but enough to keep you playing for some good hours, and have you come back to the game

[v1.06 Steam]

I enjoyed the contracts mechanic; I wish there was more effect besides mechanical. The plot of the game is muted in my opinion but it is fun for me since I love playing a character that can be a virgin but slutty, or an absolutely whorish cumdump with stats to show for it.

I wish there was a graphic representation of development of her holes or sensitivity, and stuff but overall as a H game this game is pretty great with a lot of scenarios and repeatable events. The actual board game mechanic feels like a way to inflate gameplay hours, but the combat is... average.

Going back to the story being muted, even with backstory and lore in the books things can feel arbitrary...

I would absolutely recommend if you Liked Ambrosia and wanted a sequel

Edit: I am also pretty annoyed that there are no endings scenes in the CG room, and much less mosnter sex than in ambrosia.

TL;DR:
Shimobashira Workshop's Enishia is preceded by Ambrosia and Magical Girl Celesphonia, of which Celesphonia is better in most regards. Shimobashira continues to create H-content with full player freedom (great) but falls shorter with some worse gameplay choices. With my assumption Enishia is a "testing ground" for future games, it rates a high 3 or a low 4.

Longer version:
Shimobashira continues what I appreciate in giving player freedom for how gameplay and lewd events will occur (with some exceptions). I like to play their games "mostly pure" in the first run and then gallery fill in a second playthrough, and they still excel with that.

Enishia's corruption is a little different from Ambrosia but I think the "setup" is much more lewdly enticing where the player "feels" the deadline approaching to look for more options including the lewd crest contracts. Still, if you know what you're doing, you can easily hit the default deadline without Enishia having to go through anything lewd.

The lewd setups and content are better than Ambrosia, but the gameplay and disrespect for the player's time drop this one for me. Still worth playing, though you'll need to pace yourself out and be much more patient than if you were playing Shimobashira's previous games.

I definitely felt the disconnect between Enishia's combat/dungeon exploring which is clunky and awkward, especially for lewd content, versus Celesphonia's perfect loop of both regular and H-related gameplay.

Like the previous games, Enishia's buildup to H-scenes and use of the RPG-M engine to deliver some animation is still solid and good.

A big conflict in the reviews for this game is the dice-roll RPG combat system. I like parts of it, but I think the worst is that it really disrespects the player's time with loads of extra clicking -- waiting for dicerolls and movements. It's a big step down from how fluid and well-done Celeshonia's combat and dungeon system performed. I think it can work, but needed more refinement.

There is also far too much RNG. RNG of dice rolls, RNG of loot, RNG tables within battles. In Celesphonia I felt like I never had issues getting unlocks or questioning how fights would go. In Enishia I am truly looking at a brick wall when it comes to approaching specific gear without wasting loads of time, and while some unique items are neat to use, I probably won't bother.

Overall, I would call this somewhere between a high 3 and a low 4 -- it's much better than common RPG-M slop you can find on F95, but doesn't hit the highs of their previous work. Worth a play but falls about even with Ambrosia and below Celesphonia for me.

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I played Ambrosia first and loved the corruption in that and the simple/quick basic battle system. Everything flowed fast and effortlessly.

Played Celesphonia next and that one was wayyyy more involved and content filled. The ending was horrible though and you can break the RPG mechanics by mid-game.

Enishia came third and this one was just boring to me. The aloof nun thing is just dumb and I hated the quasi dice rpg / make your own party mechanics. It's an H game with ok art, way too large of a town, out-of-place rpg mechanics. I feel like it doesnt know what it wants to be.

Mechanical improvement over previous games, however it is way too easy even on hardest settings, you have to go out of your way to add more stipulations to your contract since you can beat the game with the first two you can get. Also, the change in personality/disposition of the main character feels way too abrupt when going from base level lewd to the first, but not as much as the previous games.

I played Dazed original translation. Went to the Kagura Games one, realized I didn't like some changes and went back to replay the entire game again. And I still like this game more than Ambrosia. (Game is 4.5/5 but I bumped the rating to 5.)

Pros:

• There is a lot of content. It has as much as Ambrosia and Magical Girl Celesphonia.
• The hentai gallery has two full rooms with multiple variations depending on the corruption level.
• There are multiple ways to achieve the 1 million dollars. You can do the main requests the fortune teller tells you are important to the story, or you can corrupt yourself and try to earn money via dancing and prostitution. You can sell items from the maps you travel on, you can fish, pick herbs, stones, etc.
• The h-scenes are hot and feel like an improvement in art and sound from the last two games.
• I really enjoyed the music.
• The slow burn corruption continues like the previous two games. To get to the true corruption, you have to go out of your way to get it. While it’s hard to keep your lust below 100, it’s easy enough to avoid the corruption ending.
• I love how the sanctity does not contribute to a bad ending in any way. You are allowed to interact with everything that could lose it and while you can’t get points back, it opens up more possibilities like extra contracts.
• I like how fishing is done in this game. The game is fair where you click the button and it stops instantly instead of clicking it and watching it go past the intended area to pull the fish up.
• The main story is good with a lot of plot threads constantly brought up even as you continue further into the game.

Cons:

• The dice is the worst type of system to use in any game that isn’t Mario Party. What could be a simple round of exploration can be suddenly difficult because the RNG is not in your favor. This is what I call fake difficulty because you can take longer to complete a dungeon because you keep rolling bad numbers.
• Once again, there is only one hypnosis scene with multiple variations that does not affect anything else. You can choose to ignore the command and having the symbol doesn’t change at all. You lose it the next day.
• People compare this game to Ambrosia and I agree to an extent. A priestess and a nun are two different archetypes that are usually put into the same category. Flode is a priestess and Erincia is a nun. Both are forced to do something they don’t want to in order to save the people close to them. They have an impossible task given to them and they must do it in a time limit. If the goal is achieved without losing their virginity, you get more lore that leads to the true ending. The main difference is that Flode gets punished gameplay wise for losing her virginity on top of being locked out of the best ending while Erincia losing her virginity does not change her stats and only affects her ending.
• Some h scenes aren’t obvious to get. Rishel’s scene for example requires her to be in your party but not Grant. The game tells you they come in a pair and it would be strange to separate them. It’s also why you can’t advance certain scenes with Grant if Rishel is there.
• Half the items for weapons and armor are locked behind RNG chests. When I beat every optional boss before the final battle, I was only 50% filled. Since there’s no way for some shops to upgrade their inventory, I think this is a really bad way to extend playtime.
• There is no item inventory to check. It’s odd because there is one for enemies, weapons and armor but not for items. When there are spellbooks that can give you spells not found anywhere in the game, I would think that they would show you them. If you’re using a monster unit, you won’t even know what they can learn outside of optional boss skills.
• The character creation, while a nice thing, is very limited. They can’t interact with the main character, Erincia is still treated as if she’s traveling alone and they basically are just there to try different things. Rishel and Grant are there from the beginning and you wouldn’t consider using character creation because they fill the role of warrior and explorer (everything you need to deal in a dungeon. Rishel also has a skill where she can give up 12 MP for an extra dice).
• I was under the impression that failing to pay the debt will result in an auto gameover, but according to the h gallery, you simply get punished with an h-scene that will eventually lock you out of the best ending.

So this game is still great by the Workshop crew. I'm still Magical Celesphonia > Binding Brand > Ambrosia overall. I'll get to the Ambrosia review someday, but this is still a recommendation from me.

Another banger from Shimobashira Workshop, great protag, lots of content, cute clothing options and a LOT of content accessible whilst remaining a virgin.

Combat is extremely dry but surprisingly avoidable as there are a lot of ways to make money so it evens out.

Interesting game that definitely got me into it for the time being. If you've played previous titles from the publisher, it will come off as a bit familiar and predictable for the most part. Which may be good and bad considering the good history. The 30 day limit seems stressful at first but you realize there's plenty of time to pay off the debt and also experience the rest of the world.

The combat system is DnD inspired. So far it doesn't require too much commitment and feels optional to invest into. There's also some cheese methods and option changes if you don't care for it.

H scenes are a bit lacking. Really just a picture with a lot of dialogue to go with it.

Clothing options are always a +++ in my books.

Storyline is fairly good. There's some side stories occurring that ties into the general world.

Overall a good game in the sea of RPGM games available. Feels like the spiritual successor to Ambrosia.

As someone who enjoyed previous Shimobashira Workshop games, this one was subpar by the standards of the company. The protagonist is thoroughly uninteresting and the corruption felt very fast. The scene activities were generic and predictable. The art is good, however. I'd only recommend this if you haven't played a similar RPGM game yet. Otherwise, you've basically already played this game.

Reviewing info: In a nutshell personal feelings/opinion >> “objective/critical” value. How I rate/review and other info is HERE
Review layout: Lazy/minimal format (others)
Review type: Game
Review format: Lewds
PROs
✅ Great art & hot FMC
✅ Fairly fun corruption course/approach
✅ A lot of scenes & kink variety
✅ H status screen is great and title hunting satisfying
✅ Well made dice board gameplay approach
✅ Multiple approaches to beat the game
✅ Scene unlock tool made great
✅ Busy gameplay, making you technically not have to grind for gear/progression.
✅ Quests & objectives well made with quest book. Making it modern to find and do stuff.
✅ Great personality changes on each corruption level
CONs
❌ Some scenes are rather specific to get, where even scene hint makes it difficult to discover
❌ Some translation issue & oddities
❌ Dice board gameplay can be off putting, especially when you have ♥♥♥♥ luck like me rolling “1” 6 times in a row
❌ Ending scenes somewhat subpar
Comments


Gameplay takes this time dice board approach. Which is unique experience, but wouldn’t like to see making them such games too much. With bad RNG luck it can be quite frustrating at times, rolling those 1’s six times in a row…. Constantly landing on turn loss or debuff platforms thus making the dungeon experience guaranteed early retrieval or failure. But at the same time stats and levels have quite heavy role this time. Each doing their own specific things and making you later on in the game quite strong. Although, with ♥♥♥♥♥♥ dice rolls even easiest fight can take eternity. Although dice board style makes hunting for H content more enjoyable as you know what tiles to hunt for. Oh and “new game plus” is like with previous games. You can choose what carries over. (gear/levels & lewd stats)

Lewd content extra comments I would only add that scene unlock tool is great. You can toggle it on/off. Meaning you can unlock all scenes and turning off the tool returns gallery room to it’s previous form. (scenes that were locked get only locked again) Which is great if at some point you might want to get them legit.

Anyhow… overall I think it was a “good game” a strong 7. Just maybe dice board wasn’t my cup of tea. Lewd content wise it’s on par with Ambrosia, but not as good as Celesphonia (for me), but gameplay wise “-1 point” for sure.

Can’t wait for their next game “Serenoxia” … saw few development images/posts. It seems might be Celesphonia tier of fun & quality. (Which is my favorite “Shimobashira Workshop” game & 1 of my all time fav degenerate games)
Total Score: 7/10
Game status:
✅ Finished

Enishia and the Binding Brand [v1.04 Steam]
Beat time: 11 hours (True ending - Hard mode, 30 days debt limit)
A good corruption game in a RPGM format, with a refreshing new combat and exploration and decent erotic content and pacing
SORRY FOR MY POOR ENGLISH

GAMEPLAY:
The game function with the tried and tested Day - Afternoon - night system, every main action you take, being working or exploring consumes a time slot, you only get a couple of time slots per day and some elements of the world change depending of the time of the day, the premise of the game being this looming threat of a monumental debt of 1Million gold pieces to be paid in one month (or 2Million gold in 20 days if you try the succubus mode), this being the main premise of the game and of course your main objective you should go into this game with the idea that you MUST make money, the game offers you ways to extend your time limit, but those come mainly in the way of sacrificing the purity of your MC, so you must try to balance the corruption with your grind.
And yet in reality the task is way to easy, i completed the debt on my first playtrough on Day 17, full virgin run and hard combat difficulty, just by following the main quest you can easily get something like 500k gold from rewards, and this isn't even mentioning the fact thatthe first time you finish the main dungeon you can get Between 500k to 1 Million gold depending on your gamemode, so don't stress out, play at your own pace and you will clear that debt without issues.

COMBAT
The combat System in this game is the loved and classical turn based fantasy genre, but it is quite different from the usual, i can compare it much more easily to Dungeons and Dragons instead of Final Fantasy, just from the numbers alone, enemies in the whole game have hp that ranges between 10 to 90 in most cases, and in the same note damage tends to go on the lower side, with your strong attacks dealing 40 damage in the late game, Hp and Mana are resources that are not replenished so easily, making grinding a hard task and the board system of exploration limiting your control on that regard as well, In this game every single point of extra damage matters a lot, so your gear is the most important part, but you will never reach a point where you simply spam Z and collect Exp for 10 minutes to get stronger, enemies have a clear pattern and strategies to abuse, and a simple encounter can cripple you if you are not carefull, but it is worth noting that at the end of the day the game is heavily balanced in favour of the player, so i recommend changing the difficulty in the settings to hard at least.

EXPLORATION
Since most of the exploration system is based on a board like gameplay dictated by a dice you lack complete control on what you get, but this is only for the first 2 or 3 days of gameplay, you get access to many items and resources to gain little control con this board system to get what you desire, sadly this means this game has practically no exploration nor benefit from it, the most you can maybe get out of checking every house and corner of the map is collecting a special currency that is not even limited and doesn't really offers you nothing special.

GRIND
This game has no Grind necessary, in fact in the whole playtrough i didn't have a single moment where i went to a zone especifically to grind EXP.
I followed my questbook (The quests are quite simple to follow and complete) and they are balanced enough that they never feel unfair, i finished the game with the 3 Main adventure Characters at level 7 and even that might be overkill since the final boss died in 2 turns. my only complain has to be the whole gathering part of the game, since it is not only fully optional it is also useless, you gain so much Gold just from fishing that tryng to collect herbs of minerals is just a waste of time, thankfully apart from 2 specific missions you never need to do it, and in those missions its just a 5 minute ''go there pick that and come back'' trip, all in all never tedious and flows nicely

EROTIC CONTENT
This game is a corruption game, so you know the drill, expose your MC to this many lewd situations so she levels up her lust level and with a higher lust level she gets exposed to even more lewd situation, if your lust level rises you lock yourself out of the good ending; most games in this genre make this mechanic more of a tedious grind, easy to avoid and hard to rise, in this game this is not the case, every job and interaction has a chance of increasing your lewd counter by one, considering that once it reaches 100 you rise to lust level 1 locking yourself out of the true ending this may cause you to worry and be carefull, and this is the only game to nail this formula, at the same time it is very easy to lower your lewd counter and reaching 100 lewd simply offers you the choice to gain a lust level instead of forcing it proves once again how generously easy it is to reach the true ending, so be relaxed, i will recommend you to do the virgin true ending route first, since that gives you the option to fully unlock the gallery anyway, but if you wish to rise your lewd counter you will like to know that it only takes about an hour to rise from 0 lewd to max level lust (and this timeframe may even be lower if you skip dialogue), sadly this game lacks a crucial feature, there is no combat sex, a shame really, but the scenes are very hot and the dialogue is quite nice, the corruption is also gradual an feels good.


CONCLUSION
Enishia and the Binding Brand is a very good game from a developer who already has experience and is clearly perfecting the formula, it respects the players time in all moments, in a normal pace you will never find yourself having to go grind, you will always have something to do, either missions or the main dungeon, either working or advancing the main quest, the game is heavily balanced in favour of the player in all aspects and proves almost no challenge in any regard, the erotic content is hot and very well done and the lore of the game is an uncut gem, it is not a masterpiece but it is a good game, you will enjoy playing it and fapping to it

RATING 4/5 OR B RANK

[v1.04 Steam]

A sandbox it ain't.

Plenty of things to do, except:

• RNG decides most,
• no 'load' function in a RNG-fest game with underexplained activities,
• there's a time limit for both the debts and times of day,
• mine type events,
• mini-quests lack information (time used),
• whatever the "land mostly blank spaces" adventure area was supposed to be.

Potential thrown out by some sicko with gambling issues and lack of convenience.

Its good game but there is + and a lot of -
starting with +
Its a turn based board game you have dice your attack depends on how much you get from the dice
Skills when you kill enemy you get exp like normal you can level up with them or go to guild and talk with npc and get a passive skill or a skill you can use in battle (most of them are trash tbh) but the idea is good
Hscenes were not bad but not that good too
The story is medicore predictable and long to be honest like hella long
There is some if you lose you see hscene kind of hscenes but not that much
The -
LONG SO LONG if you read evrything like me (most of them from are trying to get the hscene i will explain in down)
So you see the board right now there is the normal ones hscene ones and a random one can be anything the problem is when you are trying to get a single hscene to complete hscene collection its rng so it takes time(most of people just skip you can get full save from someone so it doesnt worth the time when you beat the game and if you want to see the skipped ones you didnt get just use the save)
The skills are not that great we can add 2 more companion to our advanture thats okay the problem is that the skills you use like most of skills you use have 2 dice which makes you only use 2 dice if your atk is 15 lets say and beacuse you can only use 2 dice it limits your atk power
its not an issue tho boss are not that hard the game is pretty easy
if you dont want to suffer please use 999 days to pay off debt there is 20 days and 30 days too but please select 999 days you are NOT going to clear it in 30 days if you dont know shit about the quests and which one gives more
ofc you can extend the day with 500 points or hscene to extend the time which doesnt worth just play on 999 days and be peacful only the days you need to pay off debt becomes easier evrything is same dont worry there is no hscene if you dont pay your debt in time so dont worry about that too
the idea is good but i think they couldnt put them in great use in some areas
(Most people can skip this i skipped before too and now i got interested beacuse of the idea)
just try and if it suits your taste contuine7.3/10

Pretty solid. The use of the dice and the exploration board really give the game a tabletop feel, one that is fully welcome by me. I did find the story is kind of non existent, it gives you enough to start with but there isn't really anything else until you reach an ending.

Compared to previous Shimobashira workshop releases this game was rather dissapointing. Not as many H scenes, the story personally wasn't as engaging as the other games. Hope for a better release next time.

A solid H-RPG game.
The game give you the freedom to do whatever you want and still find a way to give a damn to the quests and exploration.
Complete the game as a virgin if you like Hard mode and being a whore is the easy mode, but it will result in different ending (not much different, just the lewd part).
And read the damn conversation, the guide in the Quest option sometimes is hard to understand and a specific end game quest isn't even appear as a quest so no guide.
Conclusion: good gameplay, good H-scenes, good fap. Excellent H-game.
p/s: i hate Finding Charful

An above average H game that doesn't stray too far from the HRPG formula. A naive girl is given a tremendous financial debt, and to earn money she must work for perverts in a corrupt town. The story and characters are very basic, not that I'm complaining too much I'm playing a porn game, not reading the next potential Fate game. H scenes are OK, they cover the usual corruption to degenerate stuff like orgies and public sex. The gameplay itself is above average, I've seen some bad RPGs, and this one makes sure it avoids the RPG bloat you see in a lot of other games.

Overall not too bad or good, but maybe I'm judging this one too hard because of the developer's previous games.

it's an alright game, it's incredibly grindy, the art is good but sometimes kinda looks like ai on some parts, kinda wish there where a lot more scenes with Enishia and snoozie, and them alone just alot more lesbian content with just snoozie and Visee, No dicks just more lesbo shit with Snoozie and Visee. I didn't realize until the end (7 hours) the importance of Contracts/Experiences, Body/Traits, where it actually tells you how to do the lust things. kind of wish it tells you how to do more things because this game doesn't tell you how to do anything, and there's no real guides and googles very limited with this game so your on your own.

What does shark says to nun?
-You are so wet..

It is good.Despite by copycat of one of Magnificent previous game this one has some difference in core - battle looting system.
Which now is DND system with rolling dices.(Dont try to catch certain numbers on them while they are spinning by press in timing,it is not how it work here they are random.)
And my oh my it is super fun to play with that.But stable linear paths on board kinda meeh because later on you could get full control on which tile you will step - With powaah of mooooneyy..Which is sad actually. Collecting loot here is very enjoyable.Many good items which is not often want to drop,but because of many characters in group you may want to try collect them.(Where is my UR bow,wtf man )
Custom party were suprisingly fun part - classes and characters pretty enjoybale toying with.You could add your own ch. Sekai Saionji with knife applying crits or Ankha the beast cat - fits here very well..
Game has lack of challenge only one a little complicated part was..
Story also thrilling - conflict is local which feels like a good detective novel with Colombo clues and other shit in a good way.Was interesting to read it.Sex text tho quite annoying - it all wrote in harsh bully way to pretty soft girl and all over time it became really pissing off.Every time when i read quote "It's Your Fault" in H games im guessin it was added by Nikocado Avocado or similiar degenerate..
Feels like all it made up by malice toxic virgin boYo.
-EAT THIS SLUT!!!!!!!!!

Main girl - all the same as girls in previous Shimobashira's games.Diffrent eyes and hair colours but same core.Mario as is.
Frankly it is excusable.And her backstory kinda sad and was putted effort in,so she is no blank as may seems.STILL she's losses major points of charisma to sub character Glommy Snoozie which i would play to MAIN as she is,damn it was be really interesting.Only one scene with her..Sob sob

Conclusion & Morale.
Cant say nothing very bad at all about it because every aspect of this game was been made tendering with love! This is how it feels to me.
Someone could say that it is no improvements by previous games and that's baaaad.But cmon it is like playing all countles parts of megamans or souls series where base cores unchange and duplicated over and over.Here the same fun attractions - but it didnt do them less bad essentially.Besiiides wihout any hentai lootin here in DND style it's brand new and fun part.

Played Enjoyed Satisfilled.God bless for more.
Despite by happy endings game teach how fatally and stressfull may be signing contracts it may be awaring for you.
Extremely reccomended!
(Completed 3 times.)
[UR]: Gameplay: Addictive x 3 May cure game impotency if you have one.
[SSR]: Music: High-quality x 2 Marvelous.Perfeclty chosen and suited.
[SR]: CG Art: Neat and cute x 2 Girls with puppy eyes.
[R]: Story: Decent x 1 Plain and not bored.
[UC]: Hentai: Overwhelming x 1 Avoidable.
[C]: Sounds: Сutting x 1 Some been turned off.