RPGM - Abandoned - Harem [c8m7] [Ker]

Rambling incomplete review for Harem version c8m6.1

I only managed to tolerate this game up to what I believe was near the end of Chapter 3.

Graphically it's your standard RPGM Vx Ace using 3D Custom Girl for the H-scenes. So not a feast for the eyes but serviceable.

The story and writing I personally found average at best. The MC is given divine sexy mind control and Viagra powers to build his harem. You have an overbearing empire, a mysterious cult and shades of Cortez and Quetzalcoatl working in the background. The writing appeared to be trying to take a more serious approach but just wasn't good enough to pull it off in my opinion. It's only been a week since I last played it and I can only remember the names of a few of girls. So safe to say the characters weren't very memorable. Lastly the Light and Dark path options didn't really seem that different to me. The 'Light path' way being playing mindgames to coerce your slaves into doing what you want. And Dark path simply using your power to brute force their obediance. In the end it's still coercion.

Combat. Ugh. This is the thing that really took away my will to play this game and I'm generally OK with RPGM games. The enemies in the game are a mix of hand placed visible encounters and the dreaded combat encounter every X number of steps/seconds variety. Maps can be one or the other or sometimes both. Enemies scale to your level so as to provide a constant challenge or so they say. But...

1. Enemies always attack first every turn and then your party get's their actions.
2. Almost all enemies have multiple attacks. i.e. Two enemies will get 3 or 4 attacks a turn.
3. Almost all enemies have an attack that hits the whole party. Although all the ones I saw did about the same total damage as their single attack.
4. Almost all enemies have debuff/status effect attacks. Frequently capable of hitting the whole party. Blind and poison being a favorite. At least the poison was pretty weak.
5. All enemies have pretty high HP.

Sounds rough? That's the thing, it's not and that what makes it tedious. Early on you get a herbalist girl(who's name I honestly forgot) that using a healing potion ability for a paltry 5 TP and effectively infinite healing. Not only does it heal but also adds a 4 or 5 turn regeneration effect. So every fight just becomes a boring slog of MC and fighter girls hit enemies while bard girl sings/buffs and the herbalist conjures healing potions as you grind them down one by one. I had one character get KO'd maybe a half dozen times out of hundred+ battles and never anything close to the whole party getting wiped out. The KO's were either from the RNG putting the majority attacks on one character or me getting bored and not paying attention to my party's health.

edit> One of the other things that adds to boredom is the 'sameness' of the enemies you encounter. A monster using a bear graphic is just as likely to inflict poison as say a snake or spider. None of them feel unique or require any special tactics/strategy. It just becomes an excerise in mindless button mashing.

So in summary nothing in this game really appealed to me and the tedious combat was the final nail in the coffin.

Been a supporter of this game for a long time. Story and content is great and only gets better you'll enjoy this game if your into Harem games. Who does not like collecting women and having all sorts of sex with them. Also with the rework of the combat system, I am finding it much more fun.

Quick TLDR
Pros
-harem
-femsub
-mindbreak
-moral choices that reflect the girls' decisions.

Cons
-combat lacks strategy
-outdated overall design
-Story mostly bland porn plot meshes
-unavoidable ntr and swinging situations
-logic overrated in mc decision making causing story to decline

The game's overall design lacks a certain polish:


Patreon funded storytelling has spoiled us away from substandard pornplots.

There's a "harem whoring/sharing" issue. I believe he got alot of flack for turning a harem game into an unavoidable ntr game so many of the cuck themes in the original were removed. Weirdly, I faintly noticed some were added.


In the original game, the event would allow you the option to not whore out your slave to begin with.


The theme I've described becomes increasingly consistent throughout the game. The narration must be driven in one direction, therefor instead of just making logical decisions, they need to solve all their problems by fucking basically everything.

There's alot of situations in the story I think most people would be able to solve very easily but as a result of poor writing, must be done in exactly one way and when you get to these points in the story, you'll begin to feel frustration.

Overall I'd say the ideas put into this game were exceptional at one time but are considered barely above pornhub now. Everything, from redundant sprites, game engine, cg art design are dated. In a game like this, the only rescue that can come in is from the story/script which has already felt like a letdown.

Wasn't all that great from the start but it showed promise, promise that it squandered, there's a clear and extreme drop in quality after chapter 4 ends, prior to this it had major grammar issues, bad text composition, boring combat, and lacking art, but it also had interesting characters and a consistent/interesting narrative.

After chapter 4 ends however, all of the prior issues aside from maybe art get worse and the two compelling arguments for playing(characters/story) turn into cons, neither the story nor the characters exist as their own thing anymore, characters will suddenly behave certain ways purely because the narrative wants them to regardless of how out of character or unreasonable in context it may be. (example of unreasonable: it's literaly impossible for some of the character to have known the stuff that they did)

(example of characters no longer being their own thing: MC suddenly having values completely counter to what he had the entire first half of the game and becoming a whiny/petty/hypocritical holier than thou type character, that can judge people as good or bad for doing specific things without any good reason or evidence, it all just happens to work out since his claims become true after he's already decided on how to deal with the people he's deemed bad)

Story/character-wise it was solid through chapter 3, started to get messy in 4, stopped being good/coherent from 5 onward) (grammar wise it was always bad but it got much worse after chapter 4 going from looking like atleast somewhat edits it, to this person is clearly not used to writing in English, in terms of quality.

Excellent game. One of the few adult games I've come across with so much thought and effort put into creating a world for the characters to inhabit and developing these characters in ways that actually get you attached to them and invested in what becomes of them. Extensive RPG Story with adult themes mixed in. Hours of great game play.

I sorted "rpg" games by rating, and was simply shocked to see the three dozen games rated above this one. Admittedly I have not played all of those games, but I have played more than half of them, and the vast majority of them can not compare in any logical, objective sense.
Given that I played Harem before almost all of these other games, I thought perhaps my perception was just askew in hind-sight. So I decided to go back and replay this to see if my memory was accurate - if anything, seeing it again after having so many other, higher rated, rpgs only makes me see the quality of Harem all the more.
I was no fan of the art, but compared to many games, it is great. Further, given the utterly massive number of images there are, a more high-res form of image would be extremely difficult.
The story has some flaws, but again it is far more compelling and complex than the vast majority of games, and it is gigantic already.
The behavior/choices of the MC have actual weight, not only to the narrative but, rather amazingly, to the behavior and personalities of all the PCs and even NPCs.
The characters absolutely shine. Almost all of them (and there are tons) are well defined, uniquely lovable, and most surprisingly for a "harem"/slave game - all have agency as individuals.
My only initial complaint was the game-play and skill mechanics, but that is currently being addressed in current updates.
There is a level of philosophical introspection that resonates through the darker more "perverse" narrative elements, which for me is the really impressive factor. It manages to supply an lot of sexually dominant fetish scenes while bringing into the mind the more human (or even humane) aspects of sexual submission/domination. This is something I never expected to perceive in a NSFW game, and indeed I have not seen anything else similar thus far.
There are several "under-rated" games on this site, in my opinion, but this one is probably the most so.

I am a huge fan of RPG Maker games,and this is was one of the first games that really started my love for this type of game. this is a truly awesome game that i have spent over 70 hours in thus far,and i am sure i will spend more time in it as it continues to get developed. the story is extremely strong,letting you truly live out the role you want as a nice guy who cares for his slaves first, or a guy who only cares about his goals and is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve them. there are LOTS of slaves to acquire,each with her own backstory and means of acquiring, and none of them are as simple as "go to the market and buy her. done". Each one has her own intriguing story, and a good amount of them have stories beyond that and develop as you go through the game, and there are also TONS of enjoyable and well written sidequests. the combat is nice,there isn't a lot of grinding at all,and the fact you can completely adjust the difficulty to your liking is a very nice bonus. Overall, this game is highly recommended

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me 10 times...and...what?

The story is way too convenient on many occasions but after the 4th chapter, it all becomes very frustrating. Characters ignore obvious pieces of information, player has no choice in matters that could easily resolve problems, characters leaving (even if temporarily, like for half the f***ing game) for nonsensical reasons, having the good suffer for no reason and letting the bad get away over and over and over and over again and again and again and AGAIN because "reasons", it's just frustrating having to grind and do this and that to achieve something that could've been achieved hours ago given the chance, I have absolutely no idea where the story's headed and at this point (ch6) I am fed up with it to the point I just don't give one anymore.

Game mechanics are just as frustrating, like stumbling into the same group of enemies every god-damn step on the way from A to B to progress the story, which quickly becomes an annoyance especially since these encounters just randomly happen and continue to happen infinitely. Could be considered a 'bad design choice' at the start but it's been years and nothing changed. Character classes are boring, the more interesting ones are often inaccessible, enemies are repetitive and boring with 1-2 attacks tops, boss-fights are pretty much non-existent as they're glorified mobs, the game suffers in every department and makes less sense with each update.

It has potential but it's hindered by terrible choices every turn.

One of the two rpgm games that i have played and i liked it (the other one is The Coceter Chronicles)...

Pros
-Many women
-Sex scenes that depend of the choices you made during your playthrough
-sidequests that reward you with weapons women sex scenes
-Captivating story
-Many sex scenes
-good dialogue during sex scenes

Cons
-lack of animation

for me one of the best games to play

I have taken issue with a couple of things as I mentioned in the forums but I love a good RPG and it is a good RPG despite the few problem I have.

None of my issues are with the design or gameplay it's just a personal choice matter and I can't fault someone else on something that's my issue.

The story is pretty decent even if some parts of it don't sit right with me it's still been well worth playing through.

The biggest point for me though has to be the characters.

There are a lot of women you meet and bring into your harem yet despite the number they all have their own unique traits and personalities and they are all likeable.

It takes some patience in writing to get that many characters to all stand out on their own. Granted some stand out more than others like Terra and Joan. Joan isn't a major character but you won't forget her once you met her.

All in all it's a well built RPG with plenty of content and it's well worth a playthrough.

Great game. Admittedly I haven't played it since about the 7th release so I'm waiting for the final version or at least a few days off.

Now for some detail.
The game is huge. Plenty of things to do and massive amounts of replayability as there are three main ways to play, good, evil, and Neutral.
I have found this honestly rather annoying at times trying to be neutral by flipping between evil and good choices (this failed for two reasons, some bad options lock you out of good events and every good/bad event has different values).

The main negative is the art style. Personally, after playing village of nightmare I don't mind it but I can completely understand why it's a huge turn off for some.

If you are looking for a game with a huge non-linear story then this is the game for you.