Apologize to ping such a old thread, but I figured if anyone was curious about this game to at least leave some information regarding it and the changes to the Steam version somewhere people could find. (With a bit of my own commentary on it thrown in).
I decided to purchase the Steam release, as the version here doesn't have the added dungeon called "The Lava Dungeon" that was released in 2021 as DLC. This DLC includes a new outfit for the protag to wear, that becomes available like the other outfits in future playthroughs after obtaining it. The DLC itself was kind of a bummer imo. It was certainly a challenge to get through even as powerful as I was by the end of my run in the base game, but the boss is ridiculously easy. A bit anti-climatic to say the least.
With this DLC they redid the portrait artwork of the protag. To me it is a pretty welcome upgrade. They revised all of the outfits and her titty jiggle animation, and for the most part I like these redesigns. My fav was probably the Octopus outfit, where it changes her expression to be in a more "embarassed" state while equipped which is a nice little addition. Although her expression from her default outfit is the same for all the other base game outfits (Swimwear, SM, and Chains), even the unlockable nude option (which you'd think would retain the embarassed expression or something to indicate how she is feeling about being naked lol). Her DLC outfit is the only other to have a unique expression. Around the time this change took place, they also added in a "Cheat Chest" at the start of each run (hidden as a background object you have to interact with a few times to get to appear), that can give you various advantages at the cost of "total score" if you get the "Good Ending" (Honestly doubt anyone cared about that score. I know I didn't and it isn't tied to an achievement as far as I can tell so give me all that gold buddy lol)
While this is all well and good, at the beginning of 2023 they updated the game to replace all of the hand-draw CG for the gallery to AI generated images. I assume in some attempt to make the CG of the protag look more like the redone portrait artwork. I am not the biggest fan of AI, but I'd be willing to look passed it if any of it looked consistent to what is present in the game, and unfortunately that is not the case. None of the boss portrait artwork was altered when they altered the protag's, and none of the CGs look like them now with the AI images. The protag herself isn't spared this, with her accessories, eye color, and hair color/style changing in almost every image. They also did some weird thing of adding a "smaller chest" set of images to the CGs, which due to the nature of whatever AI they used, you can hardly tell on most that was the intent. So the only way to see the original art now is through the version posted here. Something to keep in mind should you wish to play the game yourself.
Some final bits to end off on, I did see a comment from the devs in the Evil Maze II discussions
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about a 3rd entry being developed, but that was back in 2020, and there was no further comment from the devs as far as I can tell about it. It also appears that the devs (or maybe former members?) have founded 2 new "studios" under the names "SM-Mog Studio" and "Revenge Red Eyes". "SM-Mog Studio" only has a singular title called
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released in 2020, and "Revenge Red Eyes" released
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this year, and a seqeul(?) called
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with no date but a full Steam page, (Ngl, Brave Star looks pretty good imo although they admit in the description that the promo video features AI content, but the in-game sprite work was all done by hand). Clicking on the "Developer" and "Publisher" hyperlinks on the store fronts for the above mentioned games points back to ZOV Game Studio's page, so I assume they are somehow connected. Can't say I have ever seen this on Steam before, so not sure if that is common if devs splinter off or decide to found a new studio.
Unfortnuately both "Darklight" and "Goddess Scroll- The Last Starlight" are not here on F95, so I can not atest to if either are worth your time (Will keep an eye on Brave Star though cuz I can dig a side-scrolling platformer with big titty bosses). Going off the "mostly negative" reviews for both, it seems problems that plagued both Evil Maze titles persist (high difficulty, obscure mechanics, unintended bugs like missing/misplaced geometry).
Anyway, thank you for reading my TED talk if you did so, it is appreciated! I paid $20USD and did this little deep dive so no one else has to even if no one asked xD
