...I would have given this a higher rating because the game *does* have a lot of content. But its flaws are just too much.
(review for version 0.2.6.4c)
The good parts of this game:
+ lots of content
+ decent gameplay
+ RPG mechanics that work well enough
+ lots and lots of items
The bad parts...
- stolen art (almost all the pixel art, background art and even the login screen art were lifted straight from Maple Story)
- inconsistent art (mainly when it comes to the porn)
- disjointed writing
- blueballing (no vaginal sexscenes for early romanceable characters like Admin, Lucy or Oz "until later versions"... even though this game has been a thing for four years now)
- character creation is almost meaningless (you either play as the standard 'Hero', or you play as a custom character whose sprite doesn't even show up in-game in a story-free gamemode)
..
Writing - 2/5
IMO the writing would be enjoyable if it wasn't all over the place. It's also kinda sloppy.
Another review described it as "early Newgrounds energy", and frankly that's spot-on. It really does have the kind of over-the-top edginess that you'll see in oldschool Newgrounds stuff. Lots of crude skits about drugs, sex, homicide, and getting kicked in the balls. So nostalgia points from me on that one.
But the writing itself isn't actually good. MC is acting like a retard with almost no impulse control or self-awareness? Cool. That's actually a legit premise. But during the romance scenes? Then he's suddendly this kind caring understanding guy in a way that... just doesn't mesh with his regular personality. Yes, yes - characters can be multifaceted, and obnoxious characters can have a caring side. And this can be written well (case in point: Rance). But our 'Hero' here isn't written well at all.
The format and pacing of the writing could also use some improvement. For example, you'll see spoken text and the character's thoughts on screen at the same time. Even though unspoken text/thoughts are marked with asterisks (like this: *wonder what he's thinking*), it's still a little confusing. Keeping spoken text and character thoughts in separate dialogue steps would make for smoother reading. (for that matter, more dialogue steps, with fewer lines on screen per step would also improve legibility)
Another thing I have to point out are the tons of spelling- and grammar mistakes. Things like 'waist' instead of 'waste'. The game has an unusually good report function for this, yes - but the mistakes are still everywhere. There's even inconsistencies in name spelling, like characters occasionally saying 'Illinia' instead of 'Ellinia'.
Game mechanics - 3/5
Overall decent. Would have been 4/5 if not for two things...
One flaw is that things are either not explained properly, or through infodump tutorials where you'll miss half the details. For example, you can switch between hiding the dialogue box and character sprite by pressing the 'H' key - but you won't find out until you've already reached Victoria Island.
Likewise, it's possible to roll back dialogue by pressing the left-arrow key. I only found out about this by accident, and AFAIK it wasn't explained in any of the tutorial sections I've seen so far (after a few days of playing and getting to level 32). I could've missed it - but judging from the other reviews, there's clearly a lot of people who aren't aware that you can roll back dialogue.
The other flaw is that character customization is basically pointless. You can't play the main storyline (or in fact, any storyline) with a custom character. And playing as a custom character will lock you out of all the porn, too.
In fact, the one and only benefit of customizing your character is that you'll be able to use female-specific items if you make your character a girl. That's it.
The fact that you don't see your sprite in-game (or in fact anywhere but the login menu) wouldn't even have been so bad if it wasn't for the fact that this game rips off Maple Story in the most blatant way it possibly could...
Seriously. Character creation was lifted straight from Maple Story (like so many other things in this game), but then the devs decided that making a 2D platformer was too much of a hassle. So they turned it into a point-'n-click game instead, while keeping Maple Story-style character creation as a funny little leftover.
Other than that, the gameplay itself is mostly OK. It's insanely grind-y on its default settings. But you can fix most of that by pressing the 'K' key and setting EXP gain from 'low' to 'mid' or 'high'. You'll still need to grind, but it'll be much easier to level. (and you'll NEED to level, because you'll frequently find yourself underpowered in this game)
The selection of items is broad and mostly OK, but... this too has been lifted straight from Maple Story.
Plagiarism - 5/5
Man, the chutzpah of these guys...
Background art, level art, sprite art - hell, even a lot of names and layouts were just lifted straight from Maple Story. Just google 'Maple Story worldmap' or any of the Maple Story wikis. So much of it is either straight copypaste jobs, or copypasting with some enhancements.
Now, I got nothing against ripping art from existing games. Hell, it's fun, and I've done it myself more than once back in the good old days.
...but ripping art from a major RPG and actually getting money for it by way of Patreon? How the hell are these guys even still in business?
I'm not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure that the parody clause won't protect straight-up art theft. And the fact that there's money involved means that this is the sort of thing that corporations won't just let slide once they catch wind of it.
Seriously, this project is one cease-or-desist order away from being killed off. If you like this game, better hope and pray that Wizet and Nexon aren't as litigation-happy as Nintendo...
Porn - 2.5/5
There's some decent porn in this game. But only some.
Basically, this game has two kinds of porn. One that features romanceable recurring characters. And another one that features throwaway characters in town events.
The porn with the throwaway characters is easy to access. Almost all towns have a maple signpost that can be interacted with, and through this signpost you can access the town's available throwaway character porn events.
And these are literally just porn events. The story to them is minimal and has no impact on any of the major plots in the game. The characters they feature don't have a sprite, and the sexscenes you'll see are just stock sexscenes that are recycled throughout the game.
At least they're animated, though. And they're basically the only way you can get vaginal sex in this game if you don't feel like cheating or sinking weeks into this game.
...which brings us to the romanceable characters.
I already mentioned this earlier, but my major gripe here is that you can't actually go all the way with several romanceable characters you'll meet early on. Characters like Admin, Lucy and Oz will give you blowjobs and titjobs - but once you feel like doing some actual penetration, the game will happily tell you that this content won't be available until a later update...
This is especially glaring with Oz because she's a teen prostitute Sugar Baby who will actually give you a menu of all the things you can do with her. There's half a dozen options on the list, except actual sex. So this is clearly intentional. And it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out to nudge people into becoming patrons. "See? This project is still being worked on. Now pay up and pray that we might finally stop blueballing you in the next update~"
Not gonna lie, I don't like it when a porngame tries to blueball me. And it's not like people will lose interest in a game if they can go all the way with romanceable characters early on. Just look at Zombie's Retreat.
Other aspects 4/5
Bastard Games & Entertainment claims that they wrote their own engine for this game, and their patreon page says that they have plans to publish this as an alternative for RPG Maker, Wolf, and other game maker programs.
That's pretty impressive, and I like that kind of effort. What's more, the engine seems to work well enough, so this is definitely promising.
So, props to them for that one!
..
All in all, this one gets a 2/5 from me.
The engine is interesting, and I don't even mind that it rips off Maple Story. But the writing and execution of this game are generally sloppy, and the same is true for the porn. Quantity cannot make up for a lack of quality.
And it's probably just a matter of time before this project is killed off once Wizet or Nexon become aware of it.