TL; DR Grindy; but a full fledged dungeon crawling RPG; with good (ie. lewd) premise, fully voiced H-scenes and even some character and world building. Particularly good if you want to spend 20hr on a RPG to, say, have a switch of mind from something else. Otherwise, you need to like the art to have your time on this game worthwhile. Or you have run out of better titles to play.
If you are exclusively going through masterpieces, or only titles with high content to time commitment ratios, move on and come back later after you exhausted such titles. If you do wonder whether Fall in Labyrinth is above-average good or mediocre or subpar, below are some more details for you.
I'll also list some tips that counteract the grind demand at the end.
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Quick parameters of the game:
- takes ~20hr to complete the game
- takes 19hr+ to complete the game outside H-scenes
- but not all 19hr are grinds: there exists dialogues and plot
- save points are fixed; game over and lose progress if you die in combat
Pros:
- Full fledged dungeon crawling RPG; well-rounded game mechanics
Combat mechanics is fleshed out. Well balanced. No gameplay or event bugs. Event conditions are generally designed with care. (Though I was unable to unlock one of the side characters. So one quest chain may be a bit broken; the rest work perfect.)
- There exists dialogues and plot: such a good mount of it that I can say there exists world-building
- Fully voiced
Decent-to-good VA
- Decent-to-good art
- Lewd premise
Starting with... getting a proud, upright princess girl acquainted with her place as a slave. Oh, slavery obedience enforced through magic.
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Good if you like Tsundere interaction; separately, good if you like a meek flat-chested small girl
- A full fledged clothing system with 3 clothing components and lots of component options (
but not integrated with H-scenes)
- CG gallery exists
- BGMs are well married to scenes
Cons:
- Extremely grindy
If Fall In Labyrinth had been made in 1999, I'd say the game is a bit grindy. But made in 2019, we are talking about design flaws that stem from either a misjudgement of what constitutes fun and interactive or a misbalance between art budget and scripting budget.
- Grind is mandatory: it is mandatory for combat power early on; it is mandatory for sex scenes (directly and indirectly) later on
- H-scenes have few CGs to support them (but do remember that there is VA to help enhance the experience)
- Relatively few H-scenes
It's not a bad number of scenes. Relative to the amount of grind though, there aren't many. And relative to the proportion of grind you put into the game, what you get out of it in the H-scenes are rather vanilla.
- No auto story text switch
- Low res ish (many other RPGmaker games are worse; possibly most are similar or worse)
- No run/walk lock
More about the game
So that's what Fall in Labyrinth brings. It is a traditional dungeon crawling RPG with H-scenes and a lewd premise. However, it is also a game with a poor balance between dungeon crawling and story content and scenes per today's standard. It is too grindy -- grinding for grind sake. Beyond its flaws, Fall in Labyrinth is also attractive with a good mount of dialogues, storyline, and general world building -- more than can be said for much of its competition.
The game takes 20hr to clear. Most of it is doing the dungeon crawl and non-H related story. If you are looking for a grind, but you say no to the new Diablo IV cuz no H no grind; or, you dont want a large commitment like Eushully's
Ikusa Megami, Fall in Labyrinth may be right in your alley.
The game is best for when you want a switch of mind from something else. 20hr of dungeon crawl will do the switch. There will be sprinkles of H-content and some conversations and some plot to motivate you through it too.
Otherwise, Fall in Labyrinth is not a masterpiece. Very far from it.
The clothing system in Fall in Labyrinth could have added a lot of flavor. The system is quite elaborate with a lot of art assets. But we are talking about RPGmaker. So you dont see clothing effect on character midgets. It would've worked a lot better if there was a character avatar/portray section when walking around like in
Naked Order -- and I trust the devs of Fall in Labyrinth to make a good UI unlike in Naked Order. The art in Fall in Labyrinth would go a thousand miles further than the scant ones in Naked Order too. A few interactions with townsfolk when dressing splendidly
or inappropriately; or seeing how others interact with their slaves after the very initial auction would have gone a long way. As is, about the only effect dressing the girls embarrassingly is a harder grind in dungeon. Ambrosia did exactly that with townsfolks. Given how surgically the NPC interactions and event triggers are placed in this game, I feel the devs of Fall in Labyrinth would've brought more effect with less scripting cost. Atlas, not to be.
With the missing potential, and staring at the tortuous grind, even with some merit in story telling and game mechanics, Fall in Labyrinth should not be near the top of your priority list. Top spots should be occupied by the like of
Lilitale. Grindy titles like
Ordeal of Princess Iris still had better balance between the grind and the H and story content -- by having more of the latter. So grind isn't the death of H-games alone. Lacking story and art in proportion would be. Fall in Labyrinth produces a flawed experience because of that imbalance. Thus, if you haven't played the titles I mentioned so far, as an indication that there are other games that you are likely to find your time spent more worthwhile
(obviously we may like different styles of games), especially if you dont dig the art style in front cover, you should probably come back later. If you run out of better titles though, try Fall in Labyrinth next -- when you have 20hr straight to spare anyway.
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Addendum: Fall in Labyrinth has 4.5ish star as of writing. That's too high. If every above-average game gets 5-star and mediocre games don't get the 3-star that identify them, this whole review system would be useless and would waste time of everyone involved. It seems we initially had a wave of over zealous 5-stars then followed by some 3-stars to balance them. At the end though, if not for the 4.5ish-star, you probably wouldn't have known this title, and wouldn't be considering it. But Fall in Labyrinth is actually worth your consideration. There are, after all, very few masterpieces that stand above the foray. Very few games are 5-star worthy -- again if we give stars without making the system useless. You run out of such games quickly. Fall in Labyrinth, meanwhile, is still above average. So in a round-about way, over-zealous reviews from years ago perhaps served a purpose.
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Below are some
tips that counteract the grind demand of the game. They don't spoil story; but may spoil your own discovery of certain game mechanics -- though even that department I tried to limit. After all, Fall in Labyrinth is more game mechanics heavy in its balance between gameplay, story/writing, and art/scenes.
To use the tips, you still need to play the game: to explore map areas; to interact with NPCs and in-game signs; and to discover game mechanics. I made the tips in a way to avoid spoiling your own discovery. But that does mean the tips cannot fully guide you without your own discovery.
Tips with minor mechanics spoiler:
- You have enough gold to pay back the Money Lender
and make initial sex and fondness progression that you intend to have.
The initial money borrow period is 14 days; since you can rest twice a day. You will naturally be able to 1) return the 6k money; 2) get sex techniques for 1 girl; & with no more grinding other than being able to descend further in Labyrinth 3) buy gifts for another girl. So that should give you an idea of how you can use your money.
- Try to appraise gems after the initial levels -- perhaps when the dungeon gets hard at around floor 4. Some gems provide a large amount of combat power.
Others like Heat Wave, Enhancement/Assault, Heal Wave are good for sustains. Since it is early on, you likely dont want to spend money on unwanted gems. So it's worth save scuming to target the gems that you need. You can appraise "multiple" -- means appraise all. Check what you need. Reload. Familiarize where the gems are in the unapprised item list. S&L. You should be able to get a lot of combat power with ~3k gold vs having to spend ~13k gold on all gems. Hence you save grind by S&L on appraisal. But the bigger saving is in using gems early.
- Don't confuse Girl class with Warrior class. They can carry similar weapons.
- Do try to unlock available side characters before you get past Labyrinth level 9.
As a rule of thumb, if you are well past Labyrinth level 6, say level 8 already, and haven't gotten double fondness 30, you are at risk of grinding too much. If you are gold blocked, consult later tips to fix that and consider increasing fondness asap. Reasons will be explained later but with spoiler tags.
- Don't forget to, from time to time, check Item Encyclopedia reward
with an NPC at the dining hall of Veria Inn. The gold will help.
- Save the initial 9 Energy Enhancers
from Enarith and use them strategically after you have oriented yourself in the game.
Are you planning on submissive climax? Raise horniness with candy/cookie first! The drop rate is such that, in early game, you should use candy/cookie with "do dirty things" basically every time together.
- Fishing exists. Stupid concept yes. But not significantly time consuming in Fall in Labyrinth. You get gold for fishing per day and you can get a gem called Probe which displays enemy weakness (with a down-arrow) and immunity (with blue background)
, which a 4th team member with 4 gem slots can easily take on without sacrificing the feel of combat power in the team. Ofc, you can afford to use it from the get go.
Heavier mechanics spoiling tips:
If you want to immerse yourself into the game, maybe just take the tips earlier, with or without unblocking spoiler tags, at face value and you can discover the rest yourself.
- re: fondness management.
You can do submissive climax exclusively on one girl without too much extra effort; doing it exclusively on 2 girls probably means unnecessary grind. Similarly, exclusively gifting also means unnecessary grind. That is, you should have the gold vs Sex Energy Enhancer item balance to do about half and half. Else something is amiss. Don't forget candies and cookies. And around half and half should get to double fondness 30 quickest -- which means the least grind. The former point you can work out the exact fondness management for yourself. The latter point relating fondness to grind, well, that is the spoiler tip I am giving you. (Heavier spoiler)
Double fondness 30 gates most of the game's events and scenes. (The devs themselves didn't find a way to communicate this either other than break-the-third-walling it. Having the girls "fond of" you serves to limit scene/writing/VA variation in the game's events.) (Heavy spoiler ended) That said, despite of all the benefits of efficiency, roleplaying is always a valid reason to do anything.
- Fondness management follow-up.
Mixing gift and submissive climax has no consequence on CG nor story dialogues until fondness level crosses pre-set thresholds that are made clear in game. Moreover, low fondness CGs can be unlocked at fondness 100. Talk to the demon in the celler under City Hall and you will receive an unlock ticket. You need to use the ticket in your item list to actually unlock. So I suggest doing what you find fitting the story initially. Afterwards, using either spare gold or spare sex energy enhancer to get to fondness 30 asap on both girls. Fondness will later increase through events and eventually you enough enhancer to get to fondness 100 without deliberate grind. There is no difference after fondness 30.
- re: Outmaneuvering Stance.
Girl class comes with an OP move called Outmaneuvering Stance. This cancels all non-spell attacks, especially AOE ones. Combined with added Hate, you can tank high dmg moves at will. I trust that you know to take advantage of the mechanics. The point here is: check that you have the move on your girls. You don't need to be in Girl class to use the move. If you dont have it, maybe level in Girl class just a little before switching back to Warrior; maybe switch weapons.
- re: Arena.
If you are past Labyrinth level 9 and still haven't unlocked Arena (I'd unlock it even earlier); check the guide for conditions. You get a lot of free gold from arena levels. That will free up what you can do. Do save between levels though. The difficulty changes rapidly between rounds.
- re: scenes gated by grind. You avoid grind by recruiting minor characters earliest possible.
Some sex scenes with minor characters require a certain number of battles with them in the front line per scene. So it will suck if by the time you no longer need to go through additional Labyrinth levels -- and by this point you have long past needing to grind for combat power -- you still need to grind for H-scenes. Thus, you want to unlock characters ASAP. That way, as you progress through Labyrinth and the story, you will also unlock sex scenes. Unlocking characters bring about some side-story scenes too. That will provide better balance between story and grind.
(Heavier spoiler)
In order to unlock side characters, however, most events are gated by double fondness 30. So get that! Also if you are not unlocking side quests consecutively, just check the conditions in the guide. Most likely, a permanent place to live is required. After spending on double fondness 30, you dont have immediate need for gold. So feel free to get a House or something. Try to get Tainy before passing Labyrinth level 9 though. I spent a lot of time after but before confronting Beahilda for the first time -- as the guide suggests -- yet still didnt get her to live at the Home. It's possible that a lot of battles with Tainy on front line is required. That again is unnatural because Tainy happens to be the weakest of the whole cast. So earlier is less unnatural when you dont face strong enemies. The events associated with character unlocks will also increase your team's combat power, while the quests give you gold, both of which further reduces the need for grind.
- re: luck/charm
Luck heavily affects item yield. For example, you basically will never get EX items without 150+ luck. Don't force luck stats early on. But in later Labyrinth levels (ie. >=8), double check your team's luck stats. (This comes back to getting side characters early, since luck is combined from all members of your front line.) Some equipment give a lot of luck: some clothe items have high charm and a gem piece give +50.