Introduction:
It's that time of year again as another KeganiLab game has been released and I am going to use my "Sage Time" for another lengthy review (over 2500 words). The basic story is that you work for the guild and you owe a debt of 10000 gold, you are already in a relationship with Mel, the heroine but have not progressed beyond kissing. The Succubi are causing trouble and making everyone in the town horny (More Succubi NTR BS, Yay!) and you need to defeat them in the dungeon (looks like it's not fulfilled, even more Terrible game flashbacks, Yay! See my other reviews for context). The numbers at the top of your screen (from the left) are as follows: current day, current Gold, Mel favorability, current Contribution, Lust level and Lewd mark level. Bruno is the guild master and is the guy trying to steal Mel from you. This game is really bad, read on to find out why. In this review I will talk about the major parts of the game: Gameplay, NTR Dungeon, H-Scenes, Endings, Sex training and the games' World.
I am going to start with the H-scenes:
The typical DLSite NTR game where 90% of the game is just the NTR with everything else thrown to the wayside. Prostitution (read the bugs and special notes section) is the secondary focus, apart from that Bruno has nearly all of the H-scenes in the game. The players' H-Scenes are accessible after buying the Spend time with heroine option from Bruno (see gameplay section). The player only has 2 total a non creampie and creampie sex (both just variants and with short repeat version of the same CG), an alternate (with short version) if you don't take Mel's Virginity (seems to be the main determiner of the ending). The player cannot have anal sex or have a blowjob with Mel (not shown in the CGs anyway). The only other one is a Brest forplay training (one base CG with 3 variants), a footjob scene which requires you engage in NTR to unlock and a bath scene (trains Vagina stat, raises favorability with Mel). The exhibitionism play leads to sex with random people, not the Player. The Player has no animations at all, and the entire system has been scaled down to a point where it's basically pointless. They are only used around the town or during peeping. They come in 2 forms; The first is fully coloured and the second is just a dark silhouette. There is around 10 total animations. The biggest issue with the peeping, is that you cannot tell where you need to click. This could be resolved by allowing you to the see pink pop up text but (like everything else), requires way too much grind to be see anything useful. The player overall has less H content, than the last games (I have played from Villager NTR ADV onwards).
Pregnancy:
The pregnancy system here is worse than the last game, the only time you see Mel pregnant is in the harem bath (Player) and during the "birthing" which is just a single CG and fade to black (with 3 dialog variants for the Player, Bruno and Others). I'm guessing that due to the multi outfit system, KeganiLab just choose not make pregnancy character pose art, due to the fact the the dev likes to force these things out every year, even at the cost of little details like this being half done (or even less than that). Does nothing apart from contribute to the H-stats, has no effect on gameplay. The pregnancy is repeatable (no pregnancy H-scene is in this game at all) but its's a complete failure. This system is still worse than a modded illusion (and other) games (Koikatsu, AI-Girl).
Town Map:
The interaction with the town is mostly limited to the icons in the the top left of your screen and with Mel on the map or Bruno's Bath and Room. The town background is pretty enough. Some of the plants, bushes and a washing line are animated, so there's that. There is no town related backstory or lore present here.
Mel's Menu:
Mel's menu gives you the following options: Talk (only when you reach the required favorability value). Kiss: increases your favorability and trains the Mouth stat. Touch her Brests: Trains the Brest stat. Exposure: Trains the Exposure stat. Help Mel: Trains a skill and gives you a small amount of contribution. Treat the lewd crest: reduces the lewd crest value. Add a lewd crest: increases the lewd crest value. All the options (except kiss and add/treat lewd crest) require setup.
Gameplay:
Speaking of the seven icons, this is a good moment to talk about the first part of the gameplay, the system menus. The first icon is for the NTR Dungeon (see section below). Skills are second. The Sill list: Special Attack, Special eyes, Herbology, Peeping, Lockpick, Trap evasion. All skills require Gold to upgrade up to a max value of 999. Third icon is to advance time. Forth is the H-stats, these are only fully visible after you train the Players' Special Eye skill (see sexual training section). Fifth: Deals with Bruno. The full list consists of these options: Spend night with Mel (see H-Scenes section). Buy contribution points: exchange Gold for contribution. Standard, Brests and Anal prostitution options: Starts a prostitution event at night. Unlock Dungeon: Access the next map level, Unlock harem: adds more girls to the players' harem bath. Lastly: Repay Debt: pay 10000 to complete the game and get an ending (see ending section). Sixth system icon is Mel's clothing (read outfit section below). The seventh icon is the Player's Harem Bath: main role of this is to raise the Cheating stat of Mel.
Sexual training and H-stats:
The best way of describing the sexual training (and the whole game really) is welcome to Stat Grind City. Page one of the H-stats screen shows the stats you can train. These are (Mouth, Brests, Butt, Vagina, Exposure, Cuckold, Cheating) and these stats have an overall max limit of 2800 (except cheating). These stats can be increased by following ways (by Bruno in the NTR Dungeon, prostitution and town events and from the Player via interaction with Mel, read Mel's Menu above.). The growth limit seems completely pointless, since all the limit will do is lock you out of certain content on your current run. In another game this may force you into multiple playthroughs, here once you pay the debt, the entire gallery can be unlocked anyway. The next two pages of the H-stats show bar graphs of these stats: Kisses, Felatio, Pregnancy, Sex, Creampies and Anal. Stats are tracked for the Player, Bruno and Others. The last page gives you Lewd mark details. The main positive with the new system is that Bruno does not have any relationship points with Mel, your not on a clock here. This system is an interesting design, however it feels a bit rushed, not intuitive and overall poorly executed and I wish that you could lock the stats so you can have more control (especially cheating and cuckold stats).
NTR Dungeon and Combat:
The NTR Dungeon as I am going to name it and that should probably be this games actual title, and sums up the only real purpose the Dungeon has (I will talk about the combat in it's own section below). The NTR Dungeon has 10 total maps each going up to 5 levels. You have to pay contribution to unlock the higher levels, which is absurd, it should be automatic after completion of each level of all the maps. As a bonus it also makes it easier for Bruno to NTR you and you have pay more contribution in the NTR Dungeon to help avoid it. To access them you have to complete the level of the maps before moving on to the next level one. The map exploration consists of 20 floors, on the maps you fight enemies, gather lust reducing potions and can unlock chests, you have shops where you can buy clothing or sell extras for money if you have any. Finally you have the rest tent, that acts as one part of the NTR in the NTR Dungeon, you can reduce Mel's lust level by letting Bruno have his way with her, the content of this changes based on the current lust level. As for the Player, you cannot do anything yourself here. Overall The NTR Dungeon does not give you enough money and contribution to be worthwhile, if you are going to engage in low level NTR, you are better doing it via something you have more control over.
Combat System:
The turn based RPG combat system by itself (without the NTR BS) is actually pretty good, the fact you can upgrade your skills via the harem bath, is very a interesting concept. This system is not used properly and is too good for this game. Not good enough to make this game worth playing by itself though. We might see this combat system in a better future game (not placing my bets on either of those things happening). You have 5 options in combat: attack, defend, special attack, stop Bruno H (only on that turn most of the time) and Stop the enemy and deals damage. The player has no HP and if you take to long to win the enemy flees (even bosses). If you follow Bruno's orders you gain a few contribution points, if don't you loose a few. My advice here is to just spam attacks and follow Bruno's orders when they are his order. You gain just +2 favor with Mel when you win a battle. The in-battle NTR: Mel will be sexually harassed in battle by Bruno and he will remove her clothing in order to expose her genitals, Mel's clothing can be ripped by enemy attacks. Mel has climax gauge when filled adds 1 climax to the climax count. Bruno has a bonus gauge that makes it easier for him to make Mel climax and increase her overall lust level. If the lust level hits 999 in battle Bruno will have sex with her right there, and/or he will have sex with her once you get back to town. (What was KeganiLab even thinking when designing this dungeon and combat system? If only the Player could just kick Bruno out of the party...)
Equipable outfit system:
You acquire the outfits via the NTR Dungeon, some you have to buy with gold, others are random drops. The higher level areas of the NTR Dungeon give you the upgraded versions of each clothing item. Panties are rare drops and the the legwear are items you find chests. Your choices of outfits are reflected in combat and character pose art only. There are 8 unique outfits used in scenes (Prostitution, Brest train, expose train, bunny girl, beach bikini, Succubi clothes, and the 2 shown on the latter pages of the H-stats). These are not equipable in the main game, sadly. For me they should be obtainable. Clothing are the only items you keep from the NTR Dungeon. Overall I would say this system works pretty well.
Endings:
Pay your debt (10000 Gold) There are 3 endings to this game: Ending 1: the Player Marries Mel, compared to the last game this is a proper wedding ceremony with a CG, and has significantly more dialog than the last game, feels like a proper ending. Ending 2: Bruno marries Mel (NTR end). The third ending is called a bad end, but really is just a generic end that allows you to new game +, regardless of your current game state. Clearing the game also allows you to open the full gallery, both these options are accessed from the players harem bath.
Possible bugs and special notes:
I do not know if this a bug, but once you just to apply the lust crest enough to be able to start prostitution, and train the brests and anus enough then you can earn unlimited money since you just click the buttons without limit. The fact you can do this saves this game from being completely unplayable trash, pray to the Succubi that this does not get patched or rebalanced (see the edit section below). Bruno's birthing scene would not trigger for me and even after the marriage partner on the H-stats screen changed to Bruno I still got the good end, from my perspective these bugs? Are a positive. I would recommend staying with version 1.00 (and asking for a new download link if you need it). While I was writing this review, a 1.10 patch has been released. At least the Player does not have an unrealistically tiny dick in this game. The player does get 6 little talk and beach date scenes, but ultimately it's just not enough. The bottom line here is that the Player needs significantly more content (both H and non H).
Edit (13/4/2024): As of version 1.20 (and above) the unlimited prostitution button press has been patched. Making this game unplayable without save file editing or cheating. The only other thing is that from the players' harem bath, you can now break the limit. Just like everything else in this game, this requires an insane amount of grinding. Since you have to spend Mel's favorability to do it. The only positive this has is that it could help you if you got locked out of being able to have creampie sex with Mel (only if you took Mel's virginity first). As per usual, the updates have done nothing to improve the game at all.
Final Overview:
I had low expectations when I started playing this, but this game is worse than I thought it would be, the dev removed gameplay mechanics that I really liked in the last 2 games. This game is just poorly designed and given what KaganiLab has drawn inspiration from for this, no surprise there. Apart from the NTR everything else in this game is half baked at best. The overall grind in this game is horrific. Unless you save file edit, unlike the last games, there will be some NTR, in the form of sexual harassment (or more) in the NTR Dungeon, or via prostitution to get money in the town. The NTR Dungeon really doesn't offer you anything positive. As long as you take Mel's virginity nothing else really matters too much. In reality, the NTR has to be fully avoidable and there is no reason for it not to be. As long as KeganiLab is making money (the announced DL Site price for this game is around $20), these half baked games are keep on coming (and so will my reviews). At the of the day this game is seriously terrible and I would not recommend it.
Review Score: 0.1/10
.
