Review for Haremon v0.2.3.1
Well to be concise, the game concept is basically "Pokemon meets Monster girls", which in of its own is not original per se, but the developer(s) does a good job in presenting it with a new narrative that follows a format of proper quests, instead of the usual free-roaming from Pokemon. So to begin with, I will talk first about the characters and the relationship system, then I'll proceed to talk about the fights, later the dungeons and finally the art.
In first place, the characters are all somewhat quirky, I put it this way since they are introduced by the dev to explore common tropes or stereotypes in Japanese media, such as anime, manga, games and LNs, so they are not necessarily original individuals, just concrete archetypes at this current stage of development. I won't go into detail about how they interact or display themselves, nor who they are specifically, so journey on your own to discover if the game does peak your interest. So, these individuals are presented with the quests and as for how the relationships develop, they do require some decision-making throughout the story and some visiting, although that only constitutes for the human cast and sometimes for the monster girls, which in the majority require the acquisitions of said relationship points, through the visit of a dungeon (more on this later) and falling in certain tiles within it such as, events (luck based and may help improve/worsen relationships or give items), camp (multi-use event), and lastly the relationship tile which serves to improve the relationship directly through some truth or dare games with the girls.
Now that the relationship system has been covered it, we can go and discuss the Pokemon-esque aspect of the game, the fights. The fights on their own, don't necessarily go for the traditional formula of Pokemon fights, instead, they choose to employ, outside of the possible moves system for the Haremons (with their respective characteristics and statuses) a QTE system to go along, which not only determines the success of attacks it also accounts for how well does one defend against enemy attacks. The QTE system, worsens the experience with the fights since it devolves the RPG aspect of the fight and makes it tedious, foregoing classic RPG strategies and making them cumbersome by having you be constantly on edge remembering the input for blocking the enemy attacks, as well, as having to make yourself follow a tempo just to make even the most basic attacks or the more powerful ones, thus stalling the whole thing to a snails pace, this does not only affect the time it requires to finish a fight, it also diminishes the succes of any action, since the time-frame for the input tends to be short, really short making a neccesity to have panther reflexes to complete. Aside from those issues, it seems the exp system to further your Haremons is not in place either, making the fights worthless on their own at the moment, other than that, the item system is also lacking, in two aspects, first, there's no item shop, second, the acquisitions of items can sometimes be made through luck, being the case events within dungeons, thus making item usage seem finite and extremely precious. The last point in regards to the fights is the capture system for which Haremons are captured, while it doesn't use pokeballs to capture them, it follows the same principal to do so, incapacitating the Haremon in question, only difference being that you need to strip them of their clothing and then use a serum as a lotion to capture them.
Dungeons, are the playground for the quests, the space in which you follow the quest and do the fighting. The dungeons involve moving through a board with hexagonal spaces, spaces that I had previously described in the relationship system to be containers of events, of varying types (events, relationship, camp and bosses). The movement through a dungeon is dependent on two things, food and turns. Turns are stringent, in determining your movement, since they only allow you to move once and have attached to them a percentage system for an enemy encounter, though turns are not determinant of the success for conquering the dungeon nor do they factor in for its clearance. Food, on the other hand, is the pretty determinant as a condition for clearance of the dungeon since if you ran out of food you immediately lose and food consumption is tied per turn and you have a fixed amount of it at the start of the dungeon (you may replenish some through some tile events). Sadly if you wish to traverse a dungeon you have to commit from start to end, since exiting a dungeon during a quest or even free-roaming is not permitted until victory or defeat are achieved.
Finally the art, one of the crowning points of the game. The art for the characters (sprites) is pretty on point, following an anime/manga aesthetic that serves to distinguish and bring out the personality to them, though currently there's not much in place for the HCG (sexy images). Backgrounds are nothing memorable to write about, but still pleasing to the eye. The UI and it's elements blend well with the game's world.
I will conclude by saying the game has a lot of potential so don't be discouraged by the rating I gave, try it out at a later date or succumb to your curiosity.
