Not really, because as a novel game, there isn't much "gameplay" to be honest, the RPG aspects felt like something added only so that it could differ from other ren'py projects, but at least the creator knew this would not be much of an interesting feature and has made it optional, since it doesn't really give you any reward or punishments like an NTRPG would as i said, so most wouldn't waste time with it to get to the point.That sounds more like complaining that a game doesn't appeal to your specific fetish than a legitimate complaint about the gameplay.
Most of your criticism is based on expectations that simply have nothing to do with what the game is trying to be. You’re judging the project as if it were obligated to cater to specific niches and fetishes, when the developer never intended that. What you label as “missing” isn’t a flaw — it’s a deliberate design choice.Not really, because as a novel game, there isn't much "gameplay" to be honest, the RPG aspects felt like something added only so that it could differ from other ren'py projects, but at least the creator knew this would not be much of an interesting feature and has made it optional, since it doesn't really give you any reward or punishments like an NTRPG would as i said, so most wouldn't waste time with it to get to the point.
As i have previously mentioned, you're just revisiting the same anime plot but now with a few basic sex scenes that doesn't go beyond your usual lovey-dovey romance. There is already an official DanMachi "Infinite Combate" game out there that pretty much does this, except for the sex scenes of course, so that's why i'm saying this one doesn't appeal much. I've only FF everything to see if the scenes was worth the reading, but they're very simplistic.
Another thing is the "prostitution" tag with a brothel in-game, a perfect setting for NTS/sharing/corruption themes which could add ACTUAL gameplay with management that would be related to a sex game, like collecting the materials you find on a dungeon to improve the brothel, but all of that was a big waste of potential of what this game COULD have been.
I completely get your point, and I agree with you.Since we're talking about a parody here...
1. "Demanding multiple divergent routes or a fully reinvented story goes against the game’s core purpose"
Which is exactly what a parody would do. I would expect overly exaggerated funny elements, ridiculous writing (in a good way), and sex scenes that goes beyond shy couples on a first date, but all we get is the same story, written by a different author through his new perspective, without really being an abridged version with humor or a heavily sexual parody.
Failed as a parody = check.
2. "The absence of NTR doesn’t remove depth; it simply avoids pushing the game toward a niche it was never meant to target."
NTR is not a niche, it's vastly one of the most popular genres here, and if you make a quick search about it, you will realize that.
If the game doesn't appeal to any specific fetishes, like NTR, Pissing/Scat, Femdom, Foot, Pregnancy, Futa, then IT IS a game without any real depth or a specific audience, maybe except for the DanMachi fanbase itself, making it a niche game as well.
Failed to appeal to a large variety of an audience = check.
3. "The Harem Path was added later only because players complained about being locked into a single heroine"
This only proves how much flawed the game previously was even before of me saying it, and exactly what players wanted from it, and how listening to feedback is important to improve the project. By attempting to invalidade every point i have made here, you're basically saying that this game cannot be improved simply because you're also following a personal belief that it should have remained as it was, limited, flawed and all.
Failed as harem game = no, but barely, because this time feedback was heard.
4. "Calling the RPG 'weak' misses the point entirely: it’s a small extra, not the backbone of the experience"
If it's weak then why shouldn't i call it out? again, you're seriously attempting to justify all the game's flaws as if it should be admired for what it is like the Tower of Pisa for being leaned over. No, it doesn't work like that, we point out the game's mistakes, so then the creator can learn from it and improve his own game, and by doing what you are now, you're just encouraging him by saying that it's okay for him to do half-assed jobs every time and never really improve his work.
Failed as an RPG = check.
5. "The brothel exists because it’s part of DanMachi’s world. Treating its presence as automatic justification for NTR/sharing/corruption assumes every prostitution setting must serve those fetishes — which simply isn’t true"
Again, this is a GAME, and also a parody, and has SEXUAL CONTENT. There is freedom for the creator to change anything from the source material and exploit it in a clever way.
Prostituition is only one thing, and it's about a person, mostly a woman, selling out her body for money or other favors, and this is EXACTLY what would one expect from a game, a sexual one, with this specific tag on, and mostly one with a brothel.
Failed as a game with sexual content = check.
Conclusion:
This game clearly fails at almost everything it attempts to do. It lacks interesting sexual scenes, doesn't appeal to any specific audience with bold fetishes or even popular ones, it has no fun gameplay mechanics and wastes plenty of potential by playing far too safe and heavily relying on its source material.
Read the other reviews for having a better understanding of what this game lacks and how it could have improved, because half the people are complaining about the failing as an RPG game or not having appealing sex scenes.
I was even generous enough to give a 3 out of 5(2.5 would have more accurate if i could) because at least Winterfire has put some effort on the writting, and some of the art is kinda good too, but that's all about this game offers.
In my experience, silence is more insulting. I've always valued any feedback, harsh or not, it's how I managed to grow over the years: ( https://f95zone.to/sam/latest_alpha/#/cat=games/page=1/notags=1525/creator=Winterfire )I appreciate for you taking my coments as a constructive criticism regardless of me probably sounding a bit too harsh instead of taking it as a personal insult, something some creators here cannot really do, and by doing that, you are already a level above them.
I understand that this is all your personal view and interpretation as a parody, and you are free to do your work however you please even if people disagrees, but i have only said all that because there IS potential on your game in many ways with room for new features that could have improved this game beyond a simple parody into a full project, thus reaching a much larger audience and resulting in more of your future projects.
If not, i wouldn't even have spent my time writing all of my thoughts about it.
Again, i hope you can learn from this game and use that experience to make your next ones even better.
I would have liked to reply sooner, but I couldn't, but here goes.Since we're talking about a parody here...
1. "Demanding multiple divergent routes or a fully reinvented story goes against the game’s core purpose"
Which is exactly what a parody would do. I would expect overly exaggerated funny elements, ridiculous writing (in a good way), and sex scenes that goes beyond shy couples on a first date, but all we get is the same story, written by a different author through his new perspective, without really being an abridged version with humor or a heavily sexual parody.
Failed as a parody = check.
2. "The absence of NTR doesn’t remove depth; it simply avoids pushing the game toward a niche it was never meant to target."
NTR is not a niche, it's vastly one of the most popular genres here, and if you make a quick search about it, you will realize that.
If the game doesn't appeal to any specific fetishes, like NTR, Pissing/Scat, Femdom, Foot, Pregnancy, Futa, then IT IS a game without any real depth or a specific audience, maybe except for the DanMachi fanbase itself, making it a niche game as well.
Failed to appeal to a large variety of an audience = check.
3. "The Harem Path was added later only because players complained about being locked into a single heroine"
This only proves how much flawed the game previously was even before of me saying it, and exactly what players wanted from it, and how listening to feedback is important to improve the project. By attempting to invalidade every point i have made here, you're basically saying that this game cannot be improved simply because you're also following a personal belief that it should have remained as it was, limited, flawed and all.
Failed as harem game = no, but barely, because this time feedback was heard.
4. "Calling the RPG 'weak' misses the point entirely: it’s a small extra, not the backbone of the experience"
If it's weak then why shouldn't i call it out? again, you're seriously attempting to justify all the game's flaws as if it should be admired for what it is like the Tower of Pisa for being leaned over. No, it doesn't work like that, we point out the game's mistakes, so then the creator can learn from it and improve his own game, and by doing what you are now, you're just encouraging him by saying that it's okay for him to do half-assed jobs every time and never really improve his work.
Failed as an RPG = check.
5. "The brothel exists because it’s part of DanMachi’s world. Treating its presence as automatic justification for NTR/sharing/corruption assumes every prostitution setting must serve those fetishes — which simply isn’t true"
Again, this is a GAME, and also a parody, and has SEXUAL CONTENT. There is freedom for the creator to change anything from the source material and exploit it in a clever way.
Prostituition is only one thing, and it's about a person, mostly a woman, selling out her body for money or other favors, and this is EXACTLY what would one expect from a game, a sexual one, with this specific tag on, and mostly one with a brothel.
Failed as a game with sexual content = check.
Conclusion:
This game clearly fails at almost everything it attempts to do. It lacks interesting sexual scenes, doesn't appeal to any specific audience with bold fetishes or even popular ones, it has no fun gameplay mechanics and wastes plenty of potential by playing far too safe and heavily relying on its source material.
Read the other reviews for having a better understanding of what this game lacks and how it could have been improved, because half the people are complaining about the failing as an RPG game or not having appealing sex scenes.
I was even generous enough to give a 3 out of 5(2.5 would have more accurate if i could) because at least Winterfire has put some effort on the writting, and some of the art is kinda good too, but that's all about this game offers.
That’s not how development works. Otherwise every game with updates, patches or expansions was “flawed.”“If players asked for a feature, then the game was bad before.”
isn’t a valid argument. It’s a personal assumption.“It’s a game with sexual content, so prostitution MUST be sexualized in X way”
Look, honestly, I didn't even intend to reply again—I'm not the type who likes to prolong discussions that clearly aren't going anywhere. But I'll get everything definitively settled to avoid any misunderstanding.I honestly don't wish to press this any further because apparently you fail to understand something which even Winterfire himself has already did.
"But the RPG system is optional, side content, and deliberately simple. Criticizing an optional light RPG for not being a full RPG is like criticizing a VN for not having Elden Ring-level combat. It’s a category mistake."
Everything i have mentioned was central to the game, or at least it was supposed to be, because once you do put all these tags on your game and even teases people about it with preview images, you're making them believe the game has something related to them or even has it as its main focus.
Is it really the player's fault for getting baited, or the creator for promising one thing and delivering another? that's up to a debate.
Just because the Persona series has dating aspects as something optional instead of a full dating sim level, it means it cannot be criticized or expected to be better? again, that's not how it works, if creators wishes to make better games, they must know where to improve, or else they would just be stuck harping on the same note forever not understanding how or where they're doing wrong.
No matter how much you attempt to justify it, the RPG aspects did not please everyone and this is not a complaint of my own, read the other reviews to see that i am not the only one here, and besides... the "prostitution" tag WAS misleading at best.
"it proves the developer listens to feedback, which is a positive, not a flaw.
Adding new routes because players wanted them does not retroactively make the original vision “wrong.” It means the game evolved. That’s what active development is."
Yet, here you are, attempting to invalidate all my feedback as if i am simply demanding things that do not, or should not exist in this game just because it has to stay limited by the creator's view and must remain like that. Quite contradicting, isn't it?
The game has its flaws, which has been pointed out by many people here, not only me, and what i simply did was to give suggestions on how those flaws could have been fixed, AKA feedback.
So, the sex scenes were a lackluster, the RPG mechanics did not please everyone and also it lacked real prostitution? BOOM!, the NTR/sharing/corruption path is your way to go to fix that.
By adding my suggestions, the game would remain as it is, but also having:
Everything would match perfectly with the game's initial proposal and context, but being further expanded while still maintaining everything it had before. It's not me wanting the game to fit my personal preferences, it's simply me giving ideas to add on top of the existing ones.
- Brothel management, giving the player a brand new fun gameplay mechanic in between the RPG and VN.
- A clever excuse to add even more sexual content, plus expanding the tags with further fetishes for a bigger audience.
- A motivation for both the creator and players to not overlook the RPG aspects, as you collect the money and materials found on the dungeons, those could be used to spend at the brothel as a customer, or to further upgrade it as the manager. A perfect synergy with many aspects linked together.
- RPG done right with sexual content included. The NTR aspects is probably one of the fewest ways that RPG could be incorporated properly into a sexual game, that's why most games like this has a female protagonist, because once she gets defeated, she gets raped, thus giving you the sexual content, or as male protagonist, which is the case of Legacy of Hestia, you get cucked with the main heroine being fucked. Don't like NTR? well, skip it, the RPG is optional after all.
Now, it's entirely up to the creator to listen to my feedback or not, even though this project has been already finished, but i hope it can help him to better understand what really makes a game interesting when working with his future projects.
If the discussion is about tags, then there's really not much to question.If it's about tags, that's beyond me. Even if I had a single footjob scene or anal scene, in a game where 99% of the other scenes focus on other content, then I'd still need the tag. Technically, I should have put the "harem" tag as well, but I never did to avoid people complaining too much (Although people still complained about lack of Harem despite not tagging it as such).
That being said, there's no need to argue with each other, as I've said before, I value the opinions of everybody as a Developer with multiple projects. Realistically, I'll never be able to make everyone happy, but seeing different points of view makes it possible for me to consider things that can at least get other people to enjoy my projects more, even if that gains me an extra player that in the past didn't like my projects, that's already a victory for me.
Why did you make this only doable on Normal and Hard Mode? What about Story Mode???Problem is that the brothel thing is more of a "secret" which is doable only on normal or hard difficulty (and you have to be strong enough to beat up Aisha), I do not think many people are going to get that.
Story mode doesn't have money (outside of the narrative) and doesn't really have breaks (UI screen where you can pick where to go, in this case the brothel), so it wasn't really compatible with Story Mode unless I did a very heavy rewrite, which was out of scope since the Brothel was just an element to unlock the Harem Mode, which is also heavily tied to gameplay elements.Why did you make this only doable on Normal and Hard Mode? What about Story Mode???
1 harem route is only for 4 of the girls maybe 5. 2 you can only get harem ending on normal and hardIm confused about the harem route , do i need to reject all to get this route and is it possible doing it in story mode or i have to play in normal mode . lastly how do you know which route you are one?
Don't get hitched to any one girl. Turn them all down or just act like Bell from the anime which is so dumb he couldn't take a hint even if you bashed his skull in with it.Im confused about the harem route , do i need to reject all to get this route and is it possible doing it in story mode or i have to play in normal mode . lastly how do you know which route you are one?