RPGM - Completed - Ethereal Sunder [v1.0] [EtherealSunderDev]

This game is well made and it does corruption fairly well. I think the story is well paced and interesting enough, as is the development of the main character as she gradually discovers her lusty side. I was hoping for some breast growth but I guess the MC just fits that loli kink that is so popular.

I had fun with the resource management, minigames grind and combat dodging, just wish the game is a little more complete. The sandbox, sex scenes, teasing, story entities, music all just felt a bit lacking, it is enjoyable at a solid ground but I guess it does appeal to a certain taste that people are looking for.

Longest edging session ive ever had 10/10 would edge again


..... Wachu mean i need 200 words? Ok fine ill give a proper review

This game so far is refreshing since the Protagonist is an elf that secluded herself in a forest so she doesn't know anything about sex let alone kissing. Corrupting her through your actions is entirely optional and doing a virgin non corrupt run is actually doable and doesn't punish you for going that route since you can abuse the mechanic to stay below certain lewd levels.

The CG and art is immaculate and really stands out from cookie cutter artstyles of so many ERORPGM. The character poses and angles of scenes albeit some have classic and generic angles are still hot as hell with how the artist drew it. I can go on a rant about shading and lining and light correction/blending and color contrast but just know that this game is a solid 10/10 on that aspect.

Such a shame the MTL translation isnt edited so theres obvious grammar mistakes but if youve trained in the DAO/ART of MTL its actually cute compared to the usual monstrosities you read of your MTL xianxia or LN. If youre paying attention to the story you can easily subvert the shitty MTL.

So far a solid 10/10 that is dragged down by the shitty MTL. easily one of the top tier stuff you can find in this website if youre a fan of corruption genre.

To the other reviews giving this a 4 star FITE ME! jk im not gonna say this game is perfect. Some of the game aspects the other reviews are pointing out is the negatives i actually noticed so hopefully the dev can take note of it for their next game.

EDIT: After replaying the game again and actually not holding skip i noticed that the horrible grammar becomes non existent on the 2nd half of the game which just leaves me confused if this game actually had an editor or something since how does the game transition from shitty MTL to spotless dialogues as you play through?

Overall an excellent game. Good art, many CG's and a slow progression of the 'corruption' aspect for those (like me) who enjoy that.

Surprisingly good writing as well, with a fairly compelling MC who's 'consensual corruption' doesn't destroy her personality.

The one determent here is how a certain amount of grinding is required, not only to unlock scenes, but also to get strong enough to advantage the plot. It dampens the experience somewhat, but not enough to ruin anyway.

4/5

Overall a very solid game. The Art is clean the writing is fun and our Main characters Corruption is a well done process from conceited arrogant elf loli to... still arrogant but very much sex addcited elf loli.

The gameplay is alright. Nothing amazing, nothing boring either. You might need to get into a situation where you gotta grind mana for a while tho.

H-Scenes are well done. For my taste it's overall a bit vanilla, but not in a bad way. I would have liked to see more scenes (aswell as a max lewdity variation for some of the earlier scenes) but given the length of the game, it's not like the amount of scenes is unreasonable small.

Looking forward to future games of the developer.

Nice game with beautiful art and no censorship. It a bit grindy at some parts, before you will get ultimate auto-kill skill, that eliminate mere enermies without entering fight scene. But step by step main heroine corruption progression is well done.

I went into the "completed" 1.0v of the game unaware of any of the drama surrounding this title, so this review is mostly from that point of view. TL;DR: If you enjoy the Japanese style rpgmaker single heroine type of game and like loli then you'll probably get something out of this game. If not there's hardly anything worth appreciating as I'll elaborate further down.

★ ★ ★ Presentation ★ ★ ★
This is a default rpgmaker, single heroine, turn based rpg type of game. It mostly uses the basic RPGmaker tileset, default menus and conventions that you can expect from these titles. It does have some nice touches here and there that add some character but overall it's all serviceable and unmemorable.

★ ★ Gameplay ★ ★
This game is low difficulty, grindy and very stingy with resources. Just a bad combination overall, the only reason this is two stars instead of one is because there are some corruption mechanics that tie okayish with the porn, side jobs, side activities and random distractions that other devs don't bother adding. A shame that doing them feels kind of bad as you can only get mana for your stat ups and gold is mostly useless as there is no real use for it aside from a couple of quest related events. I usually feel bad for cheating and circumventing a dev's hard work but in this case I felt zero shame to just remove the tedium and be done with it.

★ ★ ★ Sound ★ ★ ★
Default RPGmaker music/sound effects, but it does add some sex sfx and random bits of yelping and moaning which I appreciated. Other than that it does its job and it's somewhat on the low effort side of things.

★ Writing ★
Just thinking about the writing in this game gives me a headache, usually there are two flavors of bad dialogue in porn games: You have the bad English, bad grammar, borderline nonsensical sort of writing and the overly verbose, sterile, unnatural writing. This game lands somewhere on the latter. it's like the dev wrote each character's dialogue as if it was done for a first grade elementary English text book, it has a bunch of thugs using unnecessarily long formal phrases (which is completely out of character given the setting), stiff and outdated wording, bad pace, etc. I have nothing good to say about the writing in this game, when it's bad English at least it can come off as funny and endearing in some cases.

★ ★ ★ ★ Visuals ★ ★ ★ ★
Undisputedly the best part about this game, It looks good/pleasing and the artist has a good eye for eroticism. My only complaint would be that the main character's design is not uniform across the scenes, but that's just a minor gripe of mine.

★ ★ Porn ★ ★
I appreciate the corruption mechanics (or at least the attempt) and the variety of scenes despite the small amount of them present. In the end I couldn't stand the writing and for me that's a huge thing in games because otherwise I would just skip the middle man and watch CG sets instead, it would be one thing if that was my only complaint but somewhere in the middle is like the dev got tired with the game and just scrambled to get it over with and this made it so the build up and corruption amounted to nothing as the heroine just goes "Welp guess I like sex stuff now" with no build up or anything. You could probably sneak a wank or two if loli is your thing but for me it's not something I actively seek so it just felt flat.

-Final Thoughts-
Just skimming through some stuff, I gathered that the dev and the artist had some creative differences and scrambled to end the game asap. On one hand I feel for the dev since artists are always a pain in the ass to work with, on the other hand the visual art is the only thing that's good about this game. I have ZERO respect for the "idea guy" dev that brings nothing of value so I'll probably just skip whatever this guy does next, wish him the best tho and I hope he polishes his skills further.

I've been obsessed with this game over the past few days! I can't get enough! I like the option to avoid all fights except the boss fights, which removes the repetitive grind turn-based fights usually have. It's pretty easy to max out your power early in the game as well, which makes it even easier. The sex scenes are super hot, I love watching an innocent fairy be slowly corrupted by sexual pleasure. I also really like when the character is randomly harassed in the street, it adds a hot little interruption to moving around the map. Overall the only issue is that the game isn't finished yet!

This is one of those rare games that just feels like it hits everything it's trying to do. It's about a petite elf like girl slowly being corrupted or not depending on the players choices. The art and writing are very good, the game design is not too bad but is thankfully pretty skippable, and the creator updates the game at a steady and consistent pace.

It's not the greatest porn game of all time and it's still not finished, but it's very much worth your time.

Great art and decent world building ruined by gameplay that is a complete slog. The game demands constant grinding and the minigames while inventive, encourage save scumming due to bad rng and game breaking glitches. The resource system needs balancing as there is literally no reason to accept mana over gold once you gain the option to trade it at the bar.

What pisses me off the most is the author hamfisting excuses for the protag to never solve her problems with force. The fights are piss easy and offer no challenge which makes the situations where she refuses to fight back against those weaker than her absolutely infuriating.

Great art with tedious writing and lackluster gameplay.

The introduction, something that is meant to grab the gamers attention, was one of the most boring, tedious and pedantic writing I've experienced in a while. Over explaining, lines upon lines of text and hand-holding really put me off this one.

The first H-scene was probably one of the worst written ones I've experienced in H-RPG gaming, poor writing and word slop is a massive turn-off.

Unfortunately, the wait isn't worth it as the rest of the game so far suffers from the same issues as above stated.

I want to like this game.

Ethereal Sunder isn’t breaking the rpgmaker h-game mold in any significant way. A plot about a naïve girl heading into a den of scum and villainy to retrieve some magical mcguffin is about as boilerplate as one can get in this industry. What I do respect with this attempt is strictly the choice in character design for the protagonist; while lolis are common across the pond, seeing them being attempted in a patreon-funded project takes some balls. I can only hope that the site doesn’t catch wind of such proclivities any time soon.

This is where my praise hits a brick wall. While the art is nice, and the dialogue is serviceable, the meat of the game is an absolute slog. The progression of the plot is roadblocked by the need to gather mana, which is required for stat upgrades, combat skill consumption, and to bypass a literal roadblock later in the game. On paper, this doesn’t sound so bad, as it gives an incentive to scout out the town for sidequests and secrets. It’s when you have to deal with combat where the entire game falls apart.

The dungeon segments are such a bore that the devs have currently put in place a bandaid option to skip most encounters (boss fights are still required, however). There’s a rock-paper-scissors element system in place, vaguely similar to the one used in Karryn’s Prison. However, there is no nuance at all here, and no h-scenes are linked to combat either, making the entire endeavor even more pointless. I’m not saying that combat sex has to be in all rpgmaker h-games, but if you’re going to omit such an easy thrill, then you got to compensate somehow here.

As the lewd content goes, it’s your usual slow corruption affair. Not much non-consensual content, but that’s to be expected while working under the heavy hand of Patreon’s ridiculously-strict TOS on such subject material (this is strictly conjecture, as they're already toeing the line by having a loli anyway). The only issue at the moment in this regard is how little sex there actually is at the time of this writing; there is only one penetrative scene in the game, and you can only get it by purposefully failing an event late in the main plot line.

The devs do monthly updates, and progress has been slow and steady, so these issues will (hopefully) be rectified in another year or so. I would suggest anyone interested in the game to wait on playing it about that long as well; there is not enough h-content to justify trudging through how bog-standard the rest of the game currently is.

EDIT: v18 has introduced some actual sex scenes, but my rating shall stay the same for the time being. The actual plot of the game has not progressed in months, and the combat is still terrible.

As said in earlier reviews, this might be the best corruption game known to F95zone.

Maybe the engine(RPGM) is common among H-games of all sorts, but this one, among all others, brings:
*Good storytelling on it's own, one of the games i enjoyed reading;
*Really good artwork of both regular and H-scenes;
*Variety of in-game events/minigames to compete in and complete them;
*Different progression system of a Main Character, no longer farming 1000 pieces of equipment;
*Innovative approach on mana consumption, now it has a severe impact on our character.

Overall, i liked this gem of a gamedev, wishing author the best outcomes in his far and close future.

cute character
slowburn
good writing (for a game like this)
nice music
regular updates

not that much content yet
somewhat repetitive
the mansion event is not fun
linux version is/was bugged first event

A damn solid game with a consistent as well as receptive dev and a protagonist of utmost beauty.

There are primarily only three things I care about: Content, Character Design (and by extension, character writing) and Porn quality itself. So let's go through each one.

Content:

• Consistent monthly updates
• Satisfying update size (no churning out infinite bugfixes)
• Currently slightly meagre amount of erotic content BUT each time your corruption levels up all of previous interactions attain updates and new scenes to match the corruption level.
• Various interactions with visions of more.
• Interesting worldbuilding, especially the magic system. I was unexpectedly drawn to it.
• Great characters outside the protagonist; all of them having distinct personalities that result in different situations and tones (You've got the masochist, the molester, the theatrical twins and so on).
• An interface that showcases the characters thoughts on the last sexual encounter, giving more insight into her development.
• Somewhat fun triangle-based combat.

Porn:

• High quality art.
• Great mix of femdom and submissive content.
• Good variety of situations and acts that fittingly showcase the protagonists best parts, and allows for accompanying writing.
• Corruption feels satisfying, gradual and well-paced as of now.
• Occasional animated sequences.
• More interactions unlocked with higher corruption, e.g. being groped can let the protagonist lead men away for prostitution.
• Excellent dirty talk and inner dialogue during scenes, further accentuated with plethora of facial expressions.
• At times, genuinely hilarious - like the Twins scenes.
• Distinct characters with personalized sexual content and interests. This makes it so that sexual encounters aren't just monotone, but follow a consistent narrative and sexual development with each person.

Character:
Now what I would say is the best part of this game and experience.

• Extremely adorable protagonist that ticks a lot of boxes (lolibaba appeal, bottom heavy with a tiny chest, well-dressed, hikimayu-like eyebrows, bountiful facial expressions, strong body language, divine legs and hands)
• Personality creates a lot of amusing reactions and inner conflicts. She's a narcissist, bossy, slight tsundere undertones, willful, snobby, noble, keen and sexually ignorant as well as curious. All of these traits come into play seamlessly, highlighting all of her best parts and creating gap moe, both in cuter interactions or in her descent into sexual deviancy.
• Well-written. From her interactions to her inner dialogues - it is all satisfying to read.
• Great as a lead as she can keep the game interesting and even informative at times outside erotic scenes.
• A natural at soft femdom but can also be adorably submissive, overall a great switch.
• You can track her corruption and thoughts on the last sexual encounter.
• Natural and smooth transition through corruption stages, rarely feels like too big of a jump has been made. I even welcome the bolder moments when she tries to surprise others and even herself.

The Bad: Fixed in 0.13.5

• Grindy and time-consuming. Needs a feature that let's you skip day cycles more easily or at least reduce the grind (the only way to progress time is to replay scenes or play minigames).
• Overwhelming dungeons flooding with encounters. These kind of levels always downgrade the enjoyment from the sheer amount of time or effort they require when that isn't what you came here for. Just feels like time padding but does serve as a reminder that the protagonist is a powerful mage.

The game is shaping up nicely and I am eagerly anticipating each update. It's one of those you can revisit every 3-5 months and leave satisfied.
Unfortunately, the aforementioned drawbacks do drop it down a whole star for me when normally it would potentially be 5/5 enjoyment wise as it has fulfilled my 3 main categories (and is looking to deliver even more). Very optimistic.

Edit: The wonderfully receptive dev has graced us with an update that has solved all flaws mentioned in this review and thus it warrants 5 stars from here on. Just make sure to read the blog changelogs to know about it.

EDIT: I'll leave the old review but given the changes made, I think this warrants another look. The story and art have progressed quite a bit and both are (still) extremely competent.

What changed is the facilitation of the gameplay. There's a passive mode now that gets rid of the random battles and once you advance, the general gameplay becomes easier to manage. You don't need to rely on the (still poorly balanced) minigames and instead focus on the story and invariable corruption. This is where the games shines.

Some advice when you start. The game is hardest at the very start. Most important is Mana, so play minigames to get money and sleep at the Inn, also keep selling apples for mana and invest ALL of it into leveling up.

Once you do, it will all get easier.


Old review based on 0.11:

Great innovative concept. I loved it.

For a bit.

But then I realized that the "challenge" is geared to make you grind, not to challenge you. To get anywhere you need to do mini games a hundred million times and the dungeons still aren't fun - imagine that.

The pay off is somewhere on the horizon, but the slow corruption is still very much in its infancy, so you get nothing for your endless soul destroying mini game adventure.

There's is a great game in there. Somewhere. Unfortunately, it's just scaled to be time consuming before all else. You could save edit to make it manageable without sinking the equivalent of 12 Seasons of Dancing with Stars into it, but then you'd realize how little actual content there currently is beyond the grind...

Make your game fun, if you want people to play it.

[v0.11]
Even with the game having obvious faults, this is the most enjoyable and interesting "standard" heroine-game I've played in a long time.

The setup of the game and the story is very standard, with the "pure" heroine being stranded in a "corrupted" and dangerous place while being pressured to do dirty things to survive. The writing or assets for the scenario are nothing out of the ordinary for this type of RPGM-game.

However, what the game absolutely nails is it's MC. The characterization for Eilayda is built on standard tropes, with her being haughty, naive, sheltered X000-year old fairy-girl, but the game does a distinctly good job of never making those qualities detrimental to her character. She isn't made too stupid naive, or arrogant to be in a nominal position of power (or walk and chew gum at the same time), and she reacts to the plot and other characters fairly realistically, having an internal dialogue of trying to understand their motives and moderate her response accordingly. The end result is that she feels like a likeable, believable protagonist. The bar is very low for good H-game heroines, and Eilayda clears it with meters to spare. Sometimes, that's a sign that the story is going to do something pretty brutal to the MC next, but I'm sort of hoping that isn't the case in the finished version...

The game does a decent job of having interesting gameplay-systems, with many custom minigames made within the limits of the RPGM-engine. It also makes an attempt at having an original character-building system, in having the heroine's mana be used as both "exp." and a combat-resource, while also limiting your healing. However... this might also be an example of why these systems might not be that great of an idea...

As much as I enjoy the heroine and the concept, I have to agree that the game is very grindy. The amount of content in the current version is still pretty low, and there is enough things to do for one daily cycle of minigames to do, as you slowly grind up more mana and daily gold to clear just the second dungeon. The game makes the choice to stricktly limit your healing to once-per day, with no repeatable healing-spell, and then designs the dungeons to have combat that is stricktly detrimental to you, that needs to be cleared over multiple runs through. In short, the grind is pretty annoying, and the slow-corruption doesn't have enough tools or events in yet to make it interesting. (Not that I dislike the the slow pacing of the corruption itself) And, of course, the current version lacks a major payoff for all the grind, and it will no doubt be more annoying the second time.

On the art-front the game isn't doing anything amazing, though the quality is still good overall. Only the main character having unique art, without particularly many frills like extra facial expressions. As I said before, the amount of scenes is currently kind of low, and besides the welcome hints of MC-sadism, there isn't anything particularly unique about them.

In short, the game is mostly held up by how much you like the MC, who's a pretty likeable character, especially for the archetype. It's unfortunate that the game doesn't seem to be heading toward breaking the mold of heroine games, but if you don't mind the sameyness with many games that have come before, this is a well-above average iteration.

A nice slow going corruption, cute female protagonist and a really not too shaby story. It's a clear yes for me and I'm always looking forward to the next update. The battle system is a bit odd at first but it's getting regularly updated and improved.

A lot of the low reviews seem like they didn't read the mana system and are just bad at the game as I have no idea how you could run out of HP potions. Or they talk about some bugs that I have never seem so idk if they were fixed what they are on about.

The actual game, by which I mean the porn in the porn game is great. Nothing fancy like animation but the art, pacing, situations and writing are all great. Not to mention the " petite" protaganest if you know what I mean. We don't get all that many of these kind of games that are actually decent so you are goddamn right it is a 5/5

Some might say the updates are slow, I would say they are amaturs who don't know the meaning of a game actually having slow updates. Other might complain about "stock" enemy art or some other kind of nonsense, I say who gives a damn, don't waste dev time on useless art like that and focus on the good porn part. I saw some talk about it being "grindy," again I don't know who these people are but the "grind" in this game is a few minutes at worst and comes with your choise of mini game.

Now for combat, yes that is a weak part of the game. It is typical borning turnbased stuff, but I have seen far worse and im not here looking for the next RPG maker inovator in fun combat, you just push through it easy enough and move on. (I am a big fan of having H content in / during combat though, so if the dev wants to add a bit of that in, then the game would be even better)

It's crazy that this game is not rated 5 stars. It has the potential to be one of the best RPGM corruption games ever made. The art, the lewd scenes, the overall structure of the game and the corruption progress are all superb, all very nicely done. Althought it's still at an early stage(development started only 7 months ago after all) you can clearly see that it's gonna be brimming with content in a very short time, considering the developer's work pace - he releases a new build every month with atleast one h-scene(it's usually more than one). Really hard not to recommend.