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

this is more like an experiment

we know that shimobara is not just any developer, but neither are they people who stay satisfied with something simple.

The game itself is pretty good. Although I'm not completely convinced by the combat system, it's not a bad thing either. There are quite a few hours of entertainment.
His biggest problem might be the eroge content which is... normal.

The main problem is rather that when you compare it with his previous works, you expected more.

At the end of the day I feel like they made a game more than anything to test new mechanics, see how well they worked, and give away something to sell in the meantime.

In the end, it's a good corruption eroge.
But it probably doesn't feel better than Ambrosia or Celesphonia.

Ohh Boy, i´m slighty disappointed

The Gameplay instead of the classic RPG Maker gameplay is good, some people hating the dice block style but is fresh at least.

The translation is very good watching their origin, and the art it´s nice, but the story and the sexual scenes are a backstep comparing with Celesphonia, and i love that game, in special the lacking of good hypnosis scenes is a desilusional for me.

But well it´s good in general but i´m expecting something better with this game.

I really like the previous games these devs made and it felt like they were only getting better after Celesphonia, but tbh, this one feels like a step backwards. It's still enjoyable but it felt kinda uninspiring compared to their previous works. They basically went with the same setting as
Ambrosia, and somethings felt left out, like how NPCs not reacting to how you look compared to the previous games.
It's still an overall fun game for people who enjoy the corruption genre, so I can't rate it that badly but I hope they can find a way to give us new experiences, instead of just a reskin with slight differences.

Okay so other people compare it to the dev's previous work, and that's fair. However I'm going to rate this game as is without comparing to the previous works.

Gameplay wise, I personally disliked the dice RNG that is part of the battle. However I know they tried to be different from the usual RPGM games so I guess B for effort.

H content - it was pretty solid, there were plenty of places to go, I normally hate H content that is gathered through defeat scenes but in this game it wasn't as tedious (as I didn't have to go back and beat the enemy afterwards).

I also liked the different outfits.

There wasn't much variation in terms of the positions and the harassments, but having harassment mechanic itself is a plus for me.

The only thing I didn't really like was where the penis entered the puss, it's like it entered through the lower abdomen.

so that's a B+

Translation was mostly good, I didn't have any problem understanding the content, there were some untranslated bits here and there, but nothing that makes the game more difficult to play.

TL;DR
Gameplay - B
H content - B+
Translation - A

final grade 4.5/5

I will rate it 5 because compared to the recent RPGM works that's been uploaded to F95, this one was by far the most enjoyable.

another banger from this dev. all of the same type of content that we know and love.

i wasnt a huge fan of the rng and board game mechanics but quickly got used to them and enjoy them. im not the biggest fan of combat in games so its nice that this makes it really easy to progress with little grind. theres also items you can buy to help with the rng. money is very easy to come by in this game so you can easily buy a bunch

Is it as good as Anthesis? No. Is it at least decent? ehh i guess.
All the games from shimboshaira have some mixed art, for one both bar scenes in this game look great, but the millionaires scene looks terrible. Compared to the other games this one waste literally zero time, it just goes "well, here's all our previous system with some added dice roll together have fun, get fucked". And so i did, at a rate way quicker than the other games. So there's lots of content as well, but like i said, the artist still isn't getting it after 4 games.

Probably my Favourite Hentai Game so far.

+ Many Rape Scenes
+ Great corruption system seeing the nun getting more and more lewd
+ Sexy Outfits
+ Many Sex Scenes non con and con
+ Raped from Goblins and held captive
------------------------------------------------

- Could be more Exhibitionist scenes

-- It is after version 1.0 but it seems like some things are still not done, found a building that looks like there would be a gloryhole event but nothing happens there. And the public bathouse seems like you could enter a area but it says "under construction" and even when you do the quest for the construction workers they never seem to repair it.

-- The Outfits are awesome but more slutty outfits would be awesome.

-- No animated sex scenes it's always "just" pictures.

Okay, okay.
In a lot of ways it should deserve a 5/5. But it's hard for me to justify more than 3/5. This game feels like a very safe attempt for the studio with no real creativity in it, and the few creativity there is ends up being super annoying instead of fun.

Indeed, it is hard not to notice how similar this game is to their previous title.
While Celesphonia was fairly similar to Ambrosia in some way, it had a totally different setting which helped make it look like a different game.
But this game just feels like Ambrosia v2. This is a "can I copy your homework" situation but they didn't bother changing enough.

If that was just that, I would have given it a 4/5. But then there is the RNG/TTRPG part of the game which seems to be their attempt at creativity (hint: it isn't really creative, but anyway). And I hate it. I don't play porn game to be repeatedly fcked by RNG. Especially, locking whole scenes behind RNG event which might or might never trigger depending on your luck should be a crime.

Shimobashira doesn't just make the second-best RPGM-games, they make conceptually second-best games.

Which makes this pretty hard to score. You would only recommend this to someone who wants to play more Corruption-games.

On the whole, it is a complete game, with a lot of art, a strong theme, good game-design and decent writing. And we only get a few of those a year.

But on the other hand, it still uses stock-combat, and -enemy-designs, the characters are bland, the MC is bland, especially in her design, There's a lot of grinding to the gameplay, and a lot of the side-content is low-effort. The hypnosis-content was especially disappointing, featuring next to nothing that usually makes it satisfying.

...And it's incredibly similar to their previous hit-game. I'm not an expert on these games, but I don't think I saw a single scene or scenario that was not also present in their previous games, which is a bad sign, given the lack of characterization for the MC. It just stinks of them playing it overly safe and maybe running out of ideas?

To get into the minor differences, this game has a bit nicer world- and audio-design, and a dice-based dungeon-system that I kinda prefer to the forced RPG-battles. The world-design also gives you a lot of different ways to complete the goal of paying off your debt, which I kinda prefer for games that encourage multiple playthroughs.

Overall, this is far above the average quality for this site, but also noticeably weak and lazy in a lot of areas. More of the same, compared to their previous work, which ends up feeling kind of dissappointing, because there was a lot that could have been improved on.

Also, the translation is one of the best MTLs I've seen. How far we've come.

im kinda dissapointed that the game isnt as good as ambrosia or celesphonia, but its still really good

the main drawback of this game for me its the dice system and it doesnt really have dungeons wich is a big dissapointment coming from the previous two games.
I really hope this is an inbetween game and the next game they release is better than the previous ones.

After 5 hrs of playing, I conclude that this game just need animated scenes to be perfect.

+
The art is clean and well drawn
Characters are well made
Changing clothes and hair also changes scenes
Voiced
Interesting dungeon mechanics
-> The dice system combined with not one way map makes replayability an option
Battle is decent
Big map
Plenty of easy to follow quests
Side quests that are also engaging
Corruption and leveling of job system
The combat is balanced on normal mode
Finishing the main quest doesn't lock you out and instead gives you a free mode

-
Dice system lacks auto picking
No animated scenes
Translation


One of the best RPGM games out there

Played right after release with MTool, this translation is much better HUH.

As for game - an excellent lewd work from excellent dev. It might seem like a "Ambrosia" copy-paste, but I don't mind.

Well paced corruption RPGM game with a lot of scenes, it's enought for 5 of 5 score.

More of the same concerning Ambrosia and Celesphonia, which isn't a bad thing. From the get-go this feels a little more grindy to get stats going, though, and similarly to the other two games there's a lot of extra stats and tracked things that feel like they don't actually do anything meaningful - like in Celes oral/vaginal/etc experience determined the text for in-combat molestation and nothing more, but as far as I've seen this doesn't have any and it's still being tracked. The gallery is pretty full, but in the same breath it feels a little weaker then the circle's other two games - better than average, still.

Combat gameplay wise there's nothing special to say, really. Similarly to lewd stuff, there feels like there's tacked on stuff; you can custom build two other party members... but the game also gives you two named NPCs (and a few other friends you can cycle in) to run around with, who actually have dialog and scenes and such, so I question the point. It's also a boardgame set up, which is apparently in vogue and is a little tedious to go through but a hell of a lot better then running through empty hallways.

Still, it's good. I recommend you play on relaxed mode, with no timelimit; the game gives you plenty of rope it seems with it, and actively encourages you to do spicy things to give you more time in the base game, but it feels a little unnecessary. If and when this gets a Kagura translation, I am playing on the MTL version, which is surprisingly solid and coherent.

I was a big fan of Ambrosia and it's corruption system and I was excited to see how the developers were going to evolve from their previous work.

Unfortunately, I was disappointed to see that this game is nothin more than a copy of Ambrosia. Which objectively isn't a bad thing, Ambrosia was great and this game is just more of it so if you dont mind playing the same game again go for it.

But to me , the fact the developers just remade the game with the only difference being the really tedious TTRPG style dungeon crawling mechanic (more on that in a moment) left a bad taste in my mouth. Like they could have done literally any plot and their corruption system would have carried the game for me. But the lack of creativity brought what should have been no less than a 4 star down to a 3 star.

The TTRPG dungeon crawling was really the final nail in the coffin for me. Adding a shitty RNG aspect that made it tedious to even move around the map made me almost avoid adventuring and exploring altogether. Which is a really bad sign for a RPGM game where adventuring and exploring are the two staple features.

Overall, this game isn't bad by any stretch of the imagination. But the complete absence in originality and creativity by the developers completely culled any chance of this game being one of my favorites. Though the AI translator deserves a big shoutout, the game was mostly coherent.

+Almost good sandbox, much of unexpected scene.
+much things to do.
+has clothes and shame system.
+good quest hint
+many ending.

-bit lame in exploration but it is worth to play.
-hope they give a more sex content

*Note: I played the Japanese version beforehand

TL;DR - 7.5 / 10 - Could be better, but still enjoyable.

Design / Graphic - 8 / 10
I noticed no improvement from their previous title. But I don't mean it in a bad way since it's already great from the start.

Story - 7 / 10
To be honest, I'm kind of disappointed in the story. It feels like they reused their previous idea for Ambrosia: the same old debt-trap. That's the only spoiler (and you can read it from the game description) I'll mention here.

Gameplay - 7 / 10
Again, I'm kind of disappointed *too* in the gameplay. It's indeed different from their previous titles, but I'm not really a fan of RNG (moreover, in a porn game). And the map made it hard to control the game so it's been a downgrade for me. The battle was nothing note-worthy. The rest of the game mechanic is the only part that I can enjoy for gameplay.

CG - 8 / 10
It's the same as their previous titles: you got 3 stage of corruption, in which all of those are perfectly paced (imo). The CG in this title is as much as their previous one, and it's quite enjoyable.