RPGM - Abandoned - Equellum/Fabula: Carmen Cygni [v0.4.1.0] [Gaikiken]

  1. 3.00 star(s)

    Violated Princess

    I had hope for this project, a lot of hope but shame on me for putting my faith before my better judgment and actually expecting good updates as time went. I've been following this project since nearly day 1 of its announcement at the third or fourth build. Playing the latest build I'm pretty much forced now to judge this as project without aim. The dev doesn't seem to know what they want to do with this or how to put this together.

    Good:
    Standing art and some of the drawn scenes. There's no mistaking if you like overgrown genitalia this game isn't hurting for it in the very least but to actually see it used is pretty much a fever dream at this point.

    Bad:
    World design, make no mistake this is one of the messiest world map designs I've ever come across and I've played some absolutely rotten games. While I understand this isn't ready yet (Nor will it probably ever be) there's just too much scene shifting to really keep my focus and my interest.
    Camera control in the 3D-esque avoidance sequence. This was an awesome idea on paper but executed incredibly poorly when it came to actual foot-to-ground, the place where this is required and implemented actually makes this section much, much harder than it ever needs to be and does nothing but frustrate the player.
    Character interaction, stop me if I'm wrong here but this is supposed to be an H-focused title due to the absolute massive cock hanging out of the MC's attire at all times but the amount of H content and the willingness from pretty much anybody is confusingly low, they don't even lead you on or put a "This section is still under construction" and it absolutely drains the will for anyone playing for actual H content to want to continue.

    Overall this project had a lot of spice and excitement behind it, I'm giving it three out of five stars for the uniqueness of the game but that's being very generous. Maybe worth a look but don't go in expecting a masterpiece, you won't find it here.
  2. 5.00 star(s)

    Harleking31

    The game is absolutely fantastic, I totally want to see more of it. The art is phenomenal, the story is great, the characters are Fantastic and the gameplay in and out of battle is solid. Provided Walkthrough was most helpful. The thread was also helpful and the updates given by users with access to the discord are good.
  3. 1.00 star(s)

    imelman

    Written for 0.4.0.5 patch, at the time of moment, normally I make reviews only if the game's released for understandable reasons to reserving final thoughts, but when a game really pissed me off during gameplay, I make an exception.

    Well, well...this game is something I wanted to try earlier, like months ago, but didn't really try until now...And my recent desire to actually play it for real has finally manifested, expect this "game", if I am being honest, is something that I would at very least generally rate at 2/5, because of you know, art itself, excluding the uncanny valley and how distracting it is gameplay wise and design wise, would get once you actually process the whole thing. And said whole thing is a very, very disappointing one, considering its premise that despite being absurd, could be at very least humorous of a good sort, having good gameplay or at very least something good, but I am here to tell everything in detail in why you shouldn't play this game and why it gives a bad impression of future updates for a in development title.

    First off, let's talk about story, or the synopsis of it because of how non-sensual it is. This is a story about some humanoid centaur, with modern attitude and dialect, transported into another modern world as a exchange student, yada yada. Then, after bunch of introductions to its denizens and things with them, you discover that the castle has another pocket dimension inside, and then you get first gameplay choice that can lead to game over, fairly annoying gimmick in games, but at very least you can save, so whatever - then your centaur discovers that this world has a warrior with OP stats, which one shots everything even though you already practically invincible to anything but 1 enemy late-game. And then the story advances with desire of you know, godhood, another dimensions, regaining memories of said warrior before that warrior ends up being defeated and turning into a lesser version of itself, meeting various locals and so on, the story ends up making no practical sense I can barely remember anything important outside of certain that would make sense and logic in story things instantly being nonsensical by how plot it describes.

    Now for the gameplay. It is literally basic RPGMaker combat, with some gimmicks like weakness to elements that stuns them once you hit them with said elements certain amount of times according to their shield display, but generally you won't even trigger it unless you hit really pitiful amounts of damage, but considering you and your party is overpowered for the entire game, you won't do anything creative with it at all. Not helped by OP party member you get early on(said becomes downgraded but even then wont matter because you wont encounter anything that is of challenge)Effectively I had to rely on its writing and puzzles to get anything good, and those aren't much better...

    Now on writing. I already told how story doesn't even make sense with centaurs in modern world without you know, even trying to make sense with it and acting like normal humans rather than people with unique situations that are actually explore on works focused on non-normal humans for most part, but the writing later on starts to give away more and more edgelord/cringelord content, like really unfunny humor, jokes, "weebery", literal references, and for some reason, trying to pass all this mess as something serious or relatable, but I can't see how mixing stuff left and right without cohesion, let alone reasonable writing can make a good product.

    The sexual art in general. Sadly, the sexual content in this game is mostly limited to events and no gallery to view them in any moment, not helped by how uncanny they are thanks to fact the horse girl you play as always has them on show, that completely throws coordination off during gameplay, and by gameplay, I mean the mansion part specifically, but it is still distracting for most part aside for people with a fetish, but even said horse characters could be made much better with a better design that doesn't distract as much.

    The spritework, a subclass of artwork. Well, for some reason, the characters sprites and their actual stills have a distinct difference from each other, the stills show the characters, but their game sprites show normal humans, and the images barely resemble them, at all. This makes them even less relatable, since in any proper game in order to easily identify them from the crowd, you give proper effort to sprites to show what character they are, not paste a generic character and then say "well that looks like the character I want to represent" despite NOT looking like said character at all.

    The game's pacing, story, gameplay, directions wise is very, very reliant on a guide, since the game, nor the characters show exactly what you need to do, thankfully there's a guide that tells what to do if you get stuck, however it doesn't help with arguably with the worst part of the entire game...

    The mansion level, the one where you have to avoid getting caught at all. By far, the worst thing I have ever played not only from puzzle perspective, but also from design view! If you ever get caught at ANY point, you'll be sent back to start, not even a checkpoint, so keep a save ready. And even if you do get from the maids in the first area, well, this is only the beginning - the real challenge comes in the area to the east, where on top of changing from top down view that is easy to understand to third person that is EXTREMELY clunky at what you can see and you cannot rotate manually and only via movement, you have to avoid 3 maids, should be an easy task right? Wrong. The maids can see not only the front of their view, but also 1 blocks adjacent to them, that makes the whole puzzle extremely prone to trial and error neither being your fault. You have to hope that the 3rd maid moves either right or left, since the first 2 already can see you 1 block away from their views, making it even harder. And that takes about 1 minute right when you spawn, giving you only 1 opportunity per such cycle in order to move forward, and then you progress the level and you have to backtrack though that area again, you have to repeat that process. And you have to backtrack like 6 times before you unlock the final door.

    How long it took? Well, it took a whole 1 hour, just to get over a single chapter of the game, 30 minutes doing backtracking, and 30 minutes wasting time on said puzzle, not to mention the wasted time when the maids catch you. By far, the thing that worse than anything the game ever has, not the cringeworthy, unfunny writing, nonsensical story, poor integration of gameplay sprites, not the boring gameplay, but the whole mansion level. And that should say a lot.

    So...is the game worth your time? After taking 4 hours of having to endure what the game has to offer in you know, fashion that gives good promise for future patches, good gameplay basis, good story basis, or just anything good if you can't do them? I'd rather not advise you playing it at all, due to how disappointing it is, but also more importantly, the mansion level outright being the point where I turn what I could otherwise say a boring game with terrible gameplay, a serious lack of content and a bland, uninspired story along with unfunny humor, into arguably the worst game that has a puzzle section so terrible, you want to blow your brains out.

    If it was a visual novel, engine be damned, I would probably accept it somehow despite the story being up to no good. It would suit the game better, if I am being honest. Unless they do add gameplay features, but considering what I experienced...I don't have much hope. And even if I do, its very unlikely.
  4. 5.00 star(s)

    bloodcorn

    I absolutely love both the story and the characters to roz-chan's adorable but determined self to finding out hidlr's past to even helen and mizuho to even carmen, I honestly just love them all and can't wait to see where you take both these characters and story
  5. 1.00 star(s)

    Deleted member 440241

    I hope you like giant balls, because it's a miracle any character with a dick can walk. Grotesque cancerous ballsacks straight from an episode of South Park aside, this game was a solid 3 for most of the time I was playing it. Nothing particularly bad about it other than the unfinished state making content sparse and difficult to find, but also nothing particularly good about it to make me really enjoy the game. Then I got to the haunted mansion level and at that point the bad level design immediately dropped the rating down to 1 star. Forgoing the standard top down 2D of RPGM the haunted mansion is the second area to utilize a more over the shoulder 3D design. It also has giant walls blocking your view, which is a huge negative in a level where entering enemy line of site means getting dragged back to the start of the level instead of a fight. Add in a gimmicky sideways area (that doesn't always work properly) just to screw with players controls, and numerous locked rooms hindering exploration and this is probably the single worst designed level in any game I've ever played.
  6. 1.00 star(s)

    user500

    It's rare that I find a story in a game like this that's so unbelievably boring. I think it's great when porn can work in good plot into it, but this one is so long winded and as out of place with the setting as it is for a game that's 90% reading though it, I can not stand it.

    The art is fine but seeing that recently the main character underwent a bit of a design change this late in the games life is real jarring , and makes me believe that everyone will probably undergo a change at some point, which would suck if at some time a character will just be vastly different then when they first appeared in game.
  7. 5.00 star(s)

    keff

    some of the best art i've seen in a game like this, and it's all uncensored. dialogue is funny and written well. there's a lot of giant horse cocks. the only thing (besides lack of content) that really bothers me is that the game is really bad at explaining how to progress with the side characters
  8. 5.00 star(s)

    Risax

    Although it's just the demo, I really like the character design and art that has been shown. I can't say much about the story yet, but the protagonist and her two companions are great so fur. Plus, we just need more games with futanari protagonists.
  9. 5.00 star(s)

    PoyntFury

    Quick and dirty, let's do this.

    The art is stellar, some of the best art I've seen in a game for a while. There's only one cg, a masturbation scene with the main character, but it looks phenomenal. The standing sprites look great, and they carry emotion over rather well, which is surprising, given that one of the characters never opens her eyes.

    The story isn't fleshed out just yet, but what there is, at this point, is enough to get you interested if you like having stories in your sex games.

    The controls, being an RPG maker game, are what you'd expect. No twists to them yet, and that's a good thing.

    So far, with only one sex scene that's directly tied to the story, I have no way of knowing whether the rest will be locked behind a grind or not. When that is made clear, I will address it here.

    For now, this is an easy five stars for me.
  10. 5.00 star(s)

    NotSoFatLizard

    Looks really promising! The art is great and the characters have a lot of personality. Its a demo so there isn't much currently but its done a good job setting up for the future and leaving you interested.
  11. 5.00 star(s)

    Ladykiller

    The game looks AWESOME so far! The artwork is just amazing, the system play very well, and I personally love the futa/shemale protagonist and wish there were more games with futa/shemale protagonist to them! Keep up the awesome work Gaikiken and can't wait to see what's next!