Welp, got around to playing this one. I'd been holding out hoping that the official TL would be good... but... uh... it's 072 Project... Ugh. Seriously. Fuck those guys...
That said... I DID actually pick up both versions and messed around with them both until I got Mia too before deciding to take up Dazed's version... though honestly, either can work depending on what annoys you most. Or if you prefer uncensored art, in which case, obviously go for the 072 one. The thing is, the 072 translation seems to be better about using correct pronouns and has better consistency with names in various parts... but when it goes off the rails, it
really goes off the rails and makes no sense whatsoever. The biggest early example is Layla/Lyla's nickname, which in Dazed's translation is "Tsundere Demon", while in the 072 one...
Seriously... what the fuck is that even supposed to mean? Also, why put AKA instead of Nickname? Seriously?
Or... the fuck is this shit supposed to be?
So yeah.... while Dazed's translation has more issues around pronouns and deciding whether something is or isn't, it generally doesn't go off the rails into complete and total nonsense at random moments the way 072's translation sometimes does. Which means I personally preferred it because it hurt my brain with less intensity. while 072's hit me with hard spikes out of nowhere when I least expected it.
It also felt like whoever worked on this from 072 took some liberties here and there, like with the cerberus in the west area of the city which mentions the sword that killed Belial. In 072's translation, it's explicitly mentioned by name, even though it's a tad spoilery at that stage of game, depending on how you look at things...
They also swapped the Halphas family title to "Earl" at least most of the time, because not long after, Rose uses the title of Count anyway... For the record for anyone who's too lazy to do some googling. Halphas, the supposed demon from the supposed Lesser Key of Solomon supposedly has the title of Earl... That said, the title in question is equivalent to Count, and more importantly, it doesn't have a feminine form, which makes me thing Avantgarde intentionally used Count... or more likely, intended it to mean Countess when referring to Rose.
ANYway... the point is... pick whichever translation you want. For me, Dazed's was better, but I also don't care about censorship. I have
NO idea what kind of wonder text the 072 translation might have later into the story... but I'm honestly afraid to find out...
Moving on from the matter of translation quality...
I can kind of understand why this game, of all of Avantgarde's games, is particularly popular. As far as I'm aware, only the Amelia game sold better than this one, and even there, just barely. Leaving aside the fact that this game naturally appeals to a wider audience on account of no NTR and the fact that there's a potential harem of three demon girls with tits going from big to huge, the fact of the matter is that this game just flows better than a lot of their other games.
Being focused purely on the weird dynamic between the hero and the demon girls, the scenes are notably more consistent than in other games of theirs. Furthermore, Avantgarde actually did a good job with the harem theme, to a level that many other would be harem-games could learn from. What I mean by that is that the girls properly interact with one another, are present together in multiple scenes, and the harem ending feels like an actual harem ending. Other games like Forsaken Quartet or the one with the fox-girl and the cat-girl split their efforts too much and weren't particularly great at anything as a result of that.
More importantly, the more lighthearted themes of this game mesh much better with the absurd humor that Avantgarde seems to like injecting into their games.
The fact that the shiny stones were spirit poop for example was something I saw coming from a mile away... and it didn't feel as stupid as all the much more forced poop humor that was present in the previous game. The funny stuff feels funny without feeling totally stupid or out of place as it does in stories that are also trying to actually be more serious on some level or another.
That said, the game is far from perfect, and it has some pretty big issues too.
One of them is the fact that, for the most part, the H-stats are entirely pointless, in spite of the fact that the game tries to imply that they're not. The dlsite preview
definitely tries to imply that they're not... but as far as I can tell, the only stat that matters is the "Affection/Affinity/Enjoyment" one, which needs to hit certain milestones for a few scenes. Everything else doesn't matter. Basically, the girl's affection for the MC is purely controlled by your progress in the linear story. Which means that it doesn't matter how much you might grind the scenes in Chapter 2, the Sex scene with Layla/Lyla will remain the exact same one up until you trigger the event where
she becomes MC's girlfriend, and that's only in the last chapter, at which point, she'll massively flip her behavior in that scene regardless of how the other stats are. This applies to all three girls btw.
So yeeeeah... grinding the girls' sex stats? Kind of pointless... The whole "training them with lewdness" to make them stronger is kind of wasted too. This is because
only the events with "training" in the name at the hotel grant stats. Other events only give a spell/skill the first time they happen and nothing else except affection and sex stats if they're repeated. However, what really makes that stuff wasted is the fact that the game degenerates into "hold the Z/Enter key to win" in all battles except boss fights pretty damn fast already... with the most difficulty coming from the fact that it takes
forever to get healing skills...
Though if you DO decide to grind someone's stats high up, grind Layla's Attack stat with oral training. She has the overall best hard-hitting skills out of all the girls, and it doesn't take long to unlock a triple-attack skill that chunks boss HP faster than anything else. Or just cheat a save and blow up everyone's stats. That's also valid. The game's not that interesting in terms of combat so it's not like you'll lose out on much if you do that.
I won't really comment on the story. There's really not much to say about it and a lot of things are extremely predictable...
like the fact that Layla is the demon-girl that caused MC's fetish in the 1st place. The fact that the story takes place in not!Britain alone makes some things obvious... though I'm not sure if this game parodies any real historical events the way some of Avantgarde's previous games do. Too lazy to seriously try figuring it out.
All in all, as far as I'm concerned, while this game is definitely decent, almost good on some levels, it's not to the point where I'd consider it amazing. A good time waster. A nice source of material. However, I don't see myself revisiting it... though it has better odds than other Avantgarde titles. If you're into big tiddy demon-girls, dubious humor and dubious consent that leads to a harem, then give this game a try, it'll be a fun ride while it lasts.