I really want to like this game, but it's still very raw, and in a wrong way.
There are a lot of things I can tolerate in WIP projects, but most of these projects tend to focus on porn and offer simple gameplay loops that don't strive to be anything serious.
Jessica's Curse has heavy focus on gameplay with beautiful graphical bells and whistles, but JC may as well stand for "Jesus Christ, how boring". It's stiff, it's repetitive, it's tedious. The thing it focuses on the most, it fails to present properly.
I get that the devs wanted to get funding and baited people with porn, but locking NSFW content behind bad gameplay was a bad decision, especially for a team that has two other titles.
The art direction is very pleasant, but it lacks smoothness that other games with same quality of art have. Every action takes just a bit too long, but, since it's a TBS, there are a bunch of these actions stacked together. It's like running into red light on every intersection. The current solution for that is an option to speed up time during combat, but that compromises the rest of the visuals, because all animations speed up too.
UI is weird. It's minimalist in the worst way possible. Almost all information is hidden from the player, unless you hover over an enemy, teammate, action icon, etc., contributing to stalling time on each of your turns even more.
Receiving damage is obscure, because player's characters don't have constantly visible HP bar. It may as well print anything instead of the damage/lust value.
Gameplay-wise, I'm not a big fan of Darkest Dungeon, but I enjoyed it. DD seeps tension and demands sacrifice, all thanks to its neat balance. Jessica's Curse doesn't have that, at least not yet. The starting characters aren't that distinct and lack skills that would make them more than a bland fighter with an extra skill. Walking through "corridors" is completely pointless, because nothing happens between combats and looting. There are no traps, no light mechanic, no objects of interest except for containers that don't require anything to open them. Just hold D (one in each hand, huh) until you get to another encounter.
All of the above ties into very tedious battles. There is no tension, because the enemies don't deal that much damage, but on top of that they are too spongy. Damage from your characters feels almost random, and you can win by smashing things until they die, ignoring any need or reward for playing smart.
And this ties into sexual content.
Jessica's Curse follows the trope of "you have to lose to get porn", and, on paper, having a Darkest Dungeon -like game, where even if you win, you lose, sounds like a good balance, especially compared to old Japanese VNs and platformers.
But it doesn't work for JC, because of everything mentioned above. The only thing you lose is your time and patience.
There are a lot of things I can tolerate in WIP projects, but most of these projects tend to focus on porn and offer simple gameplay loops that don't strive to be anything serious.
Jessica's Curse has heavy focus on gameplay with beautiful graphical bells and whistles, but JC may as well stand for "Jesus Christ, how boring". It's stiff, it's repetitive, it's tedious. The thing it focuses on the most, it fails to present properly.
I get that the devs wanted to get funding and baited people with porn, but locking NSFW content behind bad gameplay was a bad decision, especially for a team that has two other titles.
The art direction is very pleasant, but it lacks smoothness that other games with same quality of art have. Every action takes just a bit too long, but, since it's a TBS, there are a bunch of these actions stacked together. It's like running into red light on every intersection. The current solution for that is an option to speed up time during combat, but that compromises the rest of the visuals, because all animations speed up too.
UI is weird. It's minimalist in the worst way possible. Almost all information is hidden from the player, unless you hover over an enemy, teammate, action icon, etc., contributing to stalling time on each of your turns even more.
Receiving damage is obscure, because player's characters don't have constantly visible HP bar. It may as well print anything instead of the damage/lust value.
Gameplay-wise, I'm not a big fan of Darkest Dungeon, but I enjoyed it. DD seeps tension and demands sacrifice, all thanks to its neat balance. Jessica's Curse doesn't have that, at least not yet. The starting characters aren't that distinct and lack skills that would make them more than a bland fighter with an extra skill. Walking through "corridors" is completely pointless, because nothing happens between combats and looting. There are no traps, no light mechanic, no objects of interest except for containers that don't require anything to open them. Just hold D (one in each hand, huh) until you get to another encounter.
All of the above ties into very tedious battles. There is no tension, because the enemies don't deal that much damage, but on top of that they are too spongy. Damage from your characters feels almost random, and you can win by smashing things until they die, ignoring any need or reward for playing smart.
And this ties into sexual content.
Jessica's Curse follows the trope of "you have to lose to get porn", and, on paper, having a Darkest Dungeon -like game, where even if you win, you lose, sounds like a good balance, especially compared to old Japanese VNs and platformers.
But it doesn't work for JC, because of everything mentioned above. The only thing you lose is your time and patience.
