RPGM - Completed - Into the Nightmare [v1.03] [Tsukinomizu Project / Kagura Games]

It's the final game in my journey to play all Tsukinomizu games (of those translated so far, anyway).
This is the turning point in their work, still made in VX Ace, yet both looking and playing like modern MV/MZ titles.

UI is custom and neat; Art is crisp and pretty, despite the resolution restrictions; there are a bunch of good visual effects during combat.

Sex scenes are fairly standard for the circle - tentacles, futa, even more tentacles, occasional sex machine, and some watersports. However, as the only game properly released outside Japan, it's actually uncensored.

Gameplay is solid.
Tsukinomizu finally managed to keep themselves from dumping 30 different characters on you, instead they give you 4 characters and then give them 30 Guardian Stones (which are basically skillsets attached on top of your base characters) and physical/magical equipment lines. It definitely cuts down on equipment management time and its easier to come up with teams.
TP system is replaced with arousal gauge, which makes you vulnerable to H attacks but gives special skills...their efficiency varies a lot though. You have skills that pair characters but they are quite hard to use IMO and half of them are underpowered.

Translation is Kagura's professional TL, haven't seen any mistakes or untranslated text.

Story is surprisingly slice-of-life. Plot exists but it is fairly low-stakes and much more of the game is dedicated to you running around dealing with random stuff. Character development is solid (thanks once again to a lower party size but also not dumping you semi-solo like Naedoko games do).

I do have one minor complaint (or a rant, even) about the story though that stems from me playing literally everything else before this one.

Highest quality RPGM ive ever had the pleasure of playing in this site

The translation is immaculate as in its perfect and not once did i catch a mistranslation or wrong grammar sentence. there is also no gamebreaking bugs ive ever encountered that softlocks you from progressing. Honestly from a technical analysis this game is perfect.

Moving on to the art and story side of the game its also high quality and damn near perfect but sadly its not a magnum opus level of art or story.

The story is pretty lighthearted and contains basically no guro or hardcore stuff which is an absolute plus for me but maybe somewhat off a negative for people into that

The art is uncensored and gallon draining with variety of scenarios ranging from side questing, defeat cutscene, exploration bonus, and boss encounters.

All good points aside Ill start with what i deem to be the biggest flaw of the game, the length and the difficulty. The difficulty is artifically inflated and makes the game into a grind when every boss and enemy does the same thing and you beat them the same way as every other boss. Theres no innovation from Boss A to Boss Z which kills off any initiative to actually engage with the combat.

Also the length of the game is too long, it will take you a minimum of 100 hours to even reach the ending if you grind out the normal way hence i recommend just playing this game on easy mode since the grind is not worth it past the mid game.

Honestly if not for the weak story and character engagement this would have been one if not the best EroRPGM of all time that perhaps may have rivalled even the Rance series but all in all its good in of itself

Despite having my favorite kinks, a very wide roster of fuckable critters, a cute art style, likeable heroines and a decent story and worldbuilding, I couldn't bring myself to finish this one. It's too bad because I can tell a lot of passion went into this, but the gameplay experience is just so dragged out and uninteresting. Events basically requiring a walkthrough to find them and grindy JRPG combat (where raising the difficulty does nothing to increase tactical depth but absolutely increases the grind) really ruined my enjoyment and in the end I just unlocked the gallery, which sucks since you don't get to experience events in their proper context. The game also has some limited mid battle fuck/harassment content that you miss out on that way. Maybe for someone who has more patience/time to spare it's a great game, but I never felt there was much to master with the combat mechanics, so to me it wasn't very rewarding.

It's got an abundance of great hentai though, much of it including tentacles, larvae and similar creatures. ❤ Missing a real preg system, but given that I didn't actually care to play the game maybe it's for the better.

If you have played other tsukinomizu games you know what this dev likes. Its all yuri, tentacles, insects and allat but for a long ass time. I played for 10 hours and wasn't even close to unlocking half the CGs so I stopped since I realized it wasn't really up my alley. There is alot of dialogue (in short bursts) and the 4 MCs all yuri each other as part of combat which is funny.

I would recommend if you really like the art style or have a good bit of time. I started because it was on the battle fuck list but it was kinda boring in that aspect.

Great game, great fetishes, good art and pretty good story, definitely would recommend for tentacle lovers.
Got a little boring and repetitive sometimes but the girls are really cute.
Had a really good dark undertone which is what took it from a 2/5 to 4/5 because it really enhanced the scenes.
The repercussions after sex arent there so a little low stakes but made it fun to mess around

RPGM Based Game
---{ Graphics (CG´s) }---
☐ One of the best ever made
☑ They are really good
☐ Nothing special
☐ Looks boring
☐ Damn thats trash
(Animated? ☐ Yes / ☑ No / ☐ Not everything)

---{ Gameplay }---
☐ Very fun to play
☐ Some special features
☑ It's just RPGM gameplay
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just get a Full Save

---{ Audio }---
☐ Eargasm
☑ Good
☐ Nothing special
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf

---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Too easy
☐ Easy
☑ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls
(☑ Can be changed)

---{ Story }---
☐ It'll replace your life
☑ Lovely
☐ Good
☐ Average
☐ Some lore
☐ No Story
(☐ Wasn't good enough to read it all)

---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☐ Average
☑ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond
(☐ Got a Full save Mid Game)

---{ Bugs }---
☑ Never heard of
☐ Didnt see some
☐ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs

---{ H-Content }---
☐ Almost too much
☑ A lot
☐ 50/50
☐ Could be more
☐ Not enough
☐ Even children could play

---{ Do i keep the game? }---
☐ Yes
☑ No (i´m finished)

Last words:The game is a lot of fun to play. I spent more than 30 hours with the game and it never got boring. The story is a bit boring at times but 80% of it is really well written and thought out with a lot of love. There are some fetishes that not everyone will like.

Quite entertaining, even though there is some grinding necessary towards the end. Some decend images, even though nothing spectacular. Especially the enemy design gets repetative and just isn't my cup of tea.
Story kept me more or less motivated.

Overall: Recommended 4/5

It's surprisingly kind of... bland? Don't get me wrong; it has plenty of production values, if still just an RPGmaker game, but unless you're really gaga over tentacle/insect/etc then it's a somewhat fancy RPGmaker game that has quite a bit of scenes, but they're 2-3 CGs each and the characters from the get-go are pretty blasé about sex, so there is no real corruption and everyone shrugs off getting jumped and pumped by tentacles every two minutes.

It isn't bad by any means, but it relies on the player being into a pretty lengthy, basic RPGmaker game that happens to have porn as a setting, and even the interconnected arousal and mid-battle sex is all wholly ignorable, with the latter coming up for like a second before being brushed past. It's unfortunate.

Very long, well polished fun game with unique elements and a good story.

Pros:

• Fun combat system with element implementation and paired up abilities.
• Variety of combat styles and gear choices.
• Clothing damage in combat.
• Beautiful artwork.
• Variety of fantastic fighting music.
• Implemented a feature to help get you back on track after you haven't played for a bit(the two red heads in base).

Neutrals:

• Challenging gameplay(last boss of bonus dream world is insane).

Cons:

• Lack of males involved in scenes(almost all lesbian/futa and creatures).
• Combat text is very fast and cannot be understood before disappearing, often times not knowing what your enemy just did to you.
• Lots of status effects, would be nice to have a hover-over information on them.
• It's an RPGM game, so the erotic images are all pretty static.

I would recommend playing it.

Good game loaded with many different fetishes, fetch quests and collectibles. The story is outlandish with some introspective beats (the turnip and descendant dragon dream worlds are sort of depressing).

Some times it's not clear what you're meant to do and you're sort of left trying different combinations of locations and things. The battle system is fine but a little confusing (fire beats frost but frost beats... earth?).

All in all it's a decent game. Lots of H-scenes. Some of the story is depressing though.

Very long game, but very good. Scenes are really good, art is really good. Story is actually decent. Combat system is pretty unique due to the guardian stones which makes you actually have to think before some fights. No penalty for fight loss (Good). Has some really depraved scenes which si good. Unfortunately when i played, some of the gallery descriptions were still in japanese, making it hard to find out how to unlokc them, but everything else is very good. 8.1/10

A very well made, and in-depth game, that though very long and bordering on grinding is worth the effort. With 4 main characters you switch through, and learn about as you go on, all with different powers and stories it provides plenty of entertainment along the way. Definitely grindy if you want to get everything, but with the difficulty of some of the later Dream Worlds/Dungeons its worth the effort.

PROs:

• Deep story and lore
• Lots of varied sex scenes, both in combat and outside combat as you wander around maps
• Variety of sex, though it leans more towards tentacle and dick girl sex - there is some M/F scenes and group scenes but not as many as others
• Combat takes some thought, both for equipment and for Gems which provide specific spell sets and abilities - all have their strengths and weaknesses
• Clothes ripping, pretty standard in combat
• Watch your comrades get raped in battle, and lose them, or save them - your choice!
• Defeat scenes for bosses show up, even if you win
• Replayability
• Lots of interesting side characters

CONs:

• With the length can feel grindy
• Lots of scenes to collect, that can take time due to conditions
• Some conditions, like the Turnip Level, isn't as explicit as it could be on what you need to do
• With so much it can be overwhelming

Overall I can rarely get to a 5 but this game delivers, both with hours of entertainment but a variety of characters, and sex scenes. Didn't get too far into the Red Haired Lab guy who needed help, only got one scene from him, but might have missed more, but plenty of other scenes with others.

Art + Combat + Sex Scenes + Story + Length = 5

There are two mortal sins lewd JRPGs commit, and Into the Nightmare avoids both.

The first sin is locking lewd scenes behind obviously stupid choices or defeat scenes. ItN has a story that organically incorporates lewdity and in those rare cases when your character behaves like a stupid slut it doesn't bother asking the player.

The second sin is combat that is either a boring filler or a grindfest. The difficulty is dialed just right: the mooks generally don't pose a challenge, but have enough variety that fighting them isn't boring, the bosses can pose a challenge, but retrying the battle with a refreshed team and adjusting your active skills usually ensures a win. The dungeons themselves are quite varied, with some puzzles thrown in so you don't just beeline to the next boss fight.

Sex scenes are quite varied, even though the number of images per scene is usually low. There're some usual weird Japanese fetishes in there, but nothing too dramatic.

The Facts

*Play as Yatsuha, a Sayo Private School student and inheritor of the Dragon Fist, who teams up with three other girls from the same school with their own powers to fight nightmares. There will be segments where you control the others, usually just for scenes from their POV.
*Explore dungeons with sex traps, fight enemies in RPGM combat that will rip your clothes off and molest/rape you if given the chance.
*Wander around town for scenes that unlock as you progress through the story and fulfill other conditions.
*Scenes are a sequence of CG with dialogue/narration, no animation, some sex sound effects, no voices (we’ll get to that in the bad).
*Scenes are heavy on tentacles, bugs, monsters, machines, dickgirls (both enemies and from your party growing dicks), fairly depraved stuff. But the tone is lighthearted with the girls accepting everything pretty easily. Non-lesbian human sex is limited.
*Non-defeat pregnancy and birth is specific to a dungeon, but there’s enough images to enjoy.

The Good

+Your characters are likable and distinct enough in both appearance and personality, and are given unique scene storylines that both inform and are informed by their differences.
+Most of the dungeons have an aesthetic deserving of the moniker ‘Dream World’, with writing that adds to that atmosphere. Music and sound design is also good.
+Dungeon enemy density is reasonable, and they don't chase you. There's a key item to disable combat with underleveled enemies and I don't remember escape failing. You can also return to base for a full restore frequently without penalty save for runback time, further shortened by the presence of teleporters.
+Room to experiment with multiple builds for your party, thanks to the Guardian Stones that have skills attached to them in particular.
+Upgrading your equipment is pretty satisfying, particularly when you get a nice drop from a non-mandatory fight, and the crafting system at base gives you something to look forward to.
+Grinding doesn’t seem heavy on normal. With the double NJ accessory and drop rate increase spirit permanently equipped, I defeated each enemy once, and beat the final boss with 400k+ NJ with no losses.
+The defeat scenes are automatically unlocked on victory, and the game doesn't focus on them overmuch.
+Personally enjoyed how your party is explicitly two lesbian couples who even learn combo moves between them (even if they fool around with guys quite a lot if you go for all scenes).

The Bad

-Writing and story did get some laughs, but it doesn’t quite hit poignant highs.
-An in-battle indicator of enemy strengths and weaknesses would have improved the experience over trying to memorize them. They aren't even logged in the Monster Notebook.
-Boss battles become equip the right resists, cast (de)buffs, and beat down an HP sponge while using party heals.
-Some of the unlock conditions for scenes aren't very clear/accurate.
-There's an option to turn on/off voice clips in battle for attacks and battle molestation.. but all scenes only have sex sound effects and no voices, no moans? Disappointing choice considering there's a fair amount of clips, unique to each character at that.

The Verdict

4.5/5: If you want to play a high-quality classical RPGM as some lesbians who fuck tentacles and like it, this is your game.

Very solid game that is worth playing. I think it is just missing a few features that would make it an epic game.

The Great

• Highly polished well balanced RPG with varied enemies, dungeons and quests.
• Very well done art
• Very Long game (probably >12 hours)
• Good looking girls
• Some really hot scenes, especially in the baths
  

The Average

• I know everything is above board and everyone is >18, but Yue looks a bit young.
• Game gets repetitive over time. Every boss is mostly determined by the amount of HP you have to grind through.
• Scenes are heavily focused upon tentacle/slime/insects. Not my thing, but some folk may love this stuff.
• Lots of Dickgirl stuff. Again, not my thing, but others might love it.

Could be Better

• Exhibitionism elements are very underwhelming, other than the above mentioned bath scenes.
• No clothing change.
• Elements of corruption seem to exist, but they don't really carry through into game play or anyone's reaction.

Nearly perfect tentacle game. Great art, great characters, great kinks. For the true tentacle and lesbian fan. Uh the only thing slightly disappointing is it could have used some more sex sound effects as they are a little repetitive.

Good :
-Good amount of content for an RPGM game
-Good RPG gameplay

Meh:
-The art style didn't do it for me but I understand that that's a bit subjective.
-Very few scenes with actual penetrative tentacle sex.

Bad:
-Very small amount of group sex scenes with all the girls (1 or 2 out of 50+ sex scenes). Big miss imo in a game where you are playing a group of girls.

Good games with rich lore.

+ Gameplay
basic RPGM gameplay with attributes of the attack. So yeah, you have to optimize the attribute before boss fight so that you minimize the damage intake and maximize the damage output.
The game do not encourage grinding since the exp you gain for beating mob is minimal. You would have beat hundreds of mobs just to get 1 lvl. Instead, just optimize gear and fight bosses to gain lvl.
One issue is that the there are no IU for compare gears, especially the stone. You need to get to the item screen, select the stone, go back to check the girl stat and skills and repeat.

+ Story
Has the vibe of Persona 4. The idea of getting into weird world and fight monster and stuff. It is very fascinating at some point, but then, it is like the author ran out of steam, they just drop the entire "endless" world and tie everything up in a generic world. At that point, the world description is very bizarre and interesting with the idea of abandon modern city. It is a shame that that idea is deployed midway and stopped mentioned later. But I commend the author for that idea.
Either way, it has a very similar, yet strange vibe of persona 4.

+ Art/Hentai
Beautiful. I spilled a lot of milk.
Theme is mostly yuri, monsters, gangbang with shota, pregnant and monster birth, voyeur and exhibition ... The right scenes is deployed with the suitable stereotypes of girl for maximal exciting.
The general theme is cheerful, since no matter how hard the girls screw up, they are rescued at the end of the day.
It is a shame that Kiri does not have seen.

Lastly, I want to thanks the game author, uploader and translator.

Let's start with short explanation why do I even play those games: I enjoy dungeon crawl grind with some sex scenes as a reward. This game delivers exactly this.

Characters are well designed, plot is surprisingly good (and it all ties together at the end into nice story instead of spiralling out of control), game mechanics allows very flexible builds and do not lock you into fixed team structure - you can change classes to give heroines different skills which is crucial for dealing with different bosses.

Sex scenes are rather on non-vanilla side - theres handful of lesbian sex scenes, rest are tentacles, urination, futa, gangbangs, public exhibitions. Interestingly in this world casual lesbian relations are something normal and we do not have any male cast even in secondary roles. Scenes aren't dark, heroines are enjoying everything and there are no traumas or other unpleasant consequences. Big plus for main characters with prior sexual experience so we do not have silly "from virgin to cockmonger" tropes. Images are static but descriptions are made well, we don't have to scroll through wall of moans.

Overall 10/10, totally worth it if you enjoy RPGM grinds to relax after work.

The game is really complete, in terms of fight or story, the art is really good and there is tons of scene.
The game is long but really cool to play, all 4 girls have many scene !
The game is all about tentacle creature so there is many scene featuring tentacle but also bath scene, masturbation etc...
There is some trap around the world triggering some scene too, both gameplay and H side of the game are cool !