Alright buckle up before reading this
This game is in my top 3 for hentai games. Keep that in mind. I love this game even though I haven't played the previous games. This is how I feel about the game in my honest opinion after playing through it 2 times. I truly hope somehow Gabe sees this and I do not mean for this to be mean in any way. I just need to put this review out so others see this and know what they are getting into by downloading this game.
Current version at the time of review: 3.14
My Positives
-The art is fucking amazing. Go with the international version where the art is made my SethXZoe, and you're gonna love all the scenes with his art. It's really the selling point for playing the game and most likely the only reason you're looking to play to begin with.
-Captivating story that actually is fun to follow.
-The characters are unique, have their own unique personalities and styles and are easy to get attached to. My personal top 3 characters are Laquadia, Lynevere and Beatrix (take a guess why ).
-The little amount of voice acting in the game is great, especially Laquadia's VA, I was surprised when I heard it and I was depressed when I stopped hearing it.
-World building and setup for the future of the story is amazing, especially once you get to the issue with Lynevere and a certain promise you can make to her, I'm excited to see where that goes.
My Negatives
-Takes a long time for updates, which is one of the major turn offs for this game, as you will see in the thread. This game has almost taken a decade to make and it even runs on an old engine. If you care most about the story you will feel depressed looking at the weekly updates on Gabe's blog. If you care most about the art being upgraded IE a scene that get's drawn in SethXZoe's style, it's a little more hopeful. Fact of the matter is you will wait up to 2 months for a single update and even if you track all the weekly updates from Gabe it feels like you're gonna get a lot and you get hyped, but when the update drops you get through the content in 10 minutes.
-Beyond bland combat, won't leave an impact on you and you will try your hardest to rush through fights. This isn't even that bad considering most RPGM games are just like this. If you are a fan of RPGMs you'll be used to this.
-Grinding is hell so you're better off opening a save editor to enjoy the game more. Again, similar to most RPGM games.
-So many art styles that it seems like a waste of money commissioning them since SethXZoe is the best.
-Old engine, you need the mod in order to change basic settings
-tent/bed scenes are repetitive and are the same sprite animations, gets old after a while
-renegade and heroic decisions feel pointless
-MC doesn't get nearly as much action with the women as the monsters do
-You fuck your dog
-The questing system is horrible, we need a better way of knowing WHAT to do, WHEN to do it, and WHERE to go to do it. Currently, as of 3.14 if you don't have the guide and follow it perfectly, you will get extremely lost. I did a walkthrough and had times where I had to go back on my channel and look at where I left off and what mission I had to do next because I had no idea what was going on.
-Mirror of memories aka the scene replayer is really sloppy, it's just crystal balls scattered around and you have to guess which one is a certain character's scene.
-Side quests are boring and isn't worth the effort unless there is a scene to be gained.
My Hopes
-I hope we get more consistent updates to the story and more SethXZoe scenes, although since it has to do with money I can't say "Just get more money"
-New engine
-Cleaner Scene replay, probably like most RPGM games that have the character's sprite, then options for their scenes when you click on them possibly. At the very least I don't want to have to guess who I'm clicking on.
-More voice acting, seriously even if it's just all of Laquadia's voice lines acted that goes a long way, having an Hgame with voice acting already sets it above others.
-Let the MC fuck more than the monsters, a lot of scenes for me (especially the osira one) felt odd because a monster is included when they don't really need to be, and it feels like we finally get a scene with our MC solo fucking the woman but he's.... just there.
-Have Heroic and Renegade paths actually effect the story, if you plan on having multiple endings there needs to be a point where your choice ACTUALLY matters.
-Spend less time making collectable cards and lewd boxes and focus more on the actual art for the game and the story, I guarantee you nobody gets hyped for picking up the hundredth card of tentacles crawling down someone's mouth. We get hyped for scenes and good story.
-Finally, please please PLEASE listen to your fans who fund this game with their donations and patreon subs. I don't know about the drama too well but I hear that Gabe prefers to include monster rape because it's her own fetish, rather than listening to the people who keep this game funded and have the MC get more spotlight. Everyone here knows that a dev should always listen to the fans and even if they don't see their criticisms as valid, acknowledge them. Talk to us, at the very least say you plan on doing this, you wanna go in this direction with the game, etc. Please talk to us and don't shut us out when we make valid criticisms.
I made this review because I started playing in November 2021 and I didn't realize how slow the progress was on this game, I wish I didn't play so I could wait for the game to be 100% done and do 1 solid full walkthrough, but that's not possible now. Each update I come back and make an update video where I struggle to recall what even happened in the last and where we are in the story. To top it off, each update video I do either only has 1 new scene, a bunch of new random cards nobody cares about, or enough story content for a 10 minute playthrough. This game will not finish at this rate. I do not wanna see an Hgame that I have in my top 3 die in such an embarrassing way. As of now we're on version 3.14 and I can only give this a 3 star rating. It can easily hit 4 stars if some those negatives get stomped out, some of them being really minor.
Update: It's 12/21/22, the version is now 3.17.
My biggest question has been answered. Gabe told me that SethXZoe works on his own schedule, meaning god only knows when an update will hit with an international scene being added. If you mainly care for artwork, you already know that the international version is the best one, and in all honesty, it's the only style that should be in the game. The problem is going many months without a new scene, and whenever an update does drop it's about 20 minutes worth of main story content and a large part of Gabe's time goes into mini games, and collectibles which should be something they focus on once the game is actually complete imo. I'm dropping the game to a 2 star simply because of the lack of main story progression since 3.14. I truly enjoy the story so I would recommend anyone curious to wait until the game is fully done, and if you're only interested in the artwork then just go to rule 34 and look at it there. Playing through the game just to see the amazing art is not worth it when there are still scenes missing for the international style and the inconsistent international updates.
Update: It's 3/1/2023, the version is now 3.18.
It took 3 months for the next update however I will add 1 star on because Gabe has obviously changed. At the beginning of 2023 Gabe announced that they will finish the game this year, and after that announcement, each weekly update has had more content and is more clear about what they want to do with the game. Whether you believe the game will finish within the year or not, our first update gave us many new pieces of art from the Laquadia scene (best girl btw) and now we just need the main story to progress faster. 70% of my love for this game comes from the art itself and whenever a new scene comes out it's almost always in Sparrow's artstyle which I'm not a big fan of. Waiting many months on end for SethXZoe to update the international version of a scene is painful however it is ALWAYS worth it, he takes a regular scene and makes it magical, and I believe his style is perfect for the game. I hope the next time I update this I have more good things to say, but I definitely believe Gabe is ready to complete this project now.
Update: It's 6/15/23 and we're on version 3.19
I forgot to do an update when it actually came out but I won't be changing the rating whatsoever. Gabe boldly proclaimed that the game would be seeing its finale by the end of this year and halfway through the year we haven't made a single step forward in the story. Instead, we're getting updates to things at random which you would expect to see when the game is actually finished. Level design updates, side quests and triggers, stuff like that is not what I expected when we were told it would be done this year. It's disappointing, and knowing we have 6 months left I believe the ending will be incredibly rushed if it even ends this year. Although the ending might be terrible, the majority of people here are only interested in the art, so let me cover that. There has been no update for SethXZoe's international style in god knows how many months, and it's disappointing that so many artists are commissioned for the game when it should only be him on it. I considered commissioning the guy myself for my own personal art since I love it so much however he's essentially a ghost online, his twitter is abandoned, his Pixiv is abandoned, and that's about it. Gabe announced that several characters will be getting bad endings for the end of the month update which is good and I look forward to since every scene done is a future SethXZoe piece. Bad endings have been lackluster for me personally, since it's basically the ultimate cuck fantasy watching your women get raped in front of you by monsters and disgusting ass beasts and shit and that's not my fetish at all. The only "Bad end" I loved was when Laquadia becomes my woman. I assume these scenes will be fantastic for those who like it though so that's the main reason I'm not deducting 1 star, a scene is a scene after all and at this point my expectations are so low that I'm impressed by the large amount of scenes we have been getting. The game is still good, great story and characters, and it's only amplified more by Seth's art so I do hope that within July or August we get more International scenes because we are LOOOONG overdue for them (Queen Celestia).
Update: It's 11/5/23 and we're on version 3.21. Let me remind you that in January of 2023 Gabe promised the finale of the game at the end of the year. With 2 months left in the year, we've barely made any progress at all in the main story, with probably 20 minutes worth of side quests, some beast scenes have been added (not in SethxZoe's style) and a monster board. Gabe has decided to focus on things such as: Texture revamps, room revamps, layout revamps, and other extremely unimportant minor changes. I have inhaled copium for several years because despite Gabe showing us they are completely distracted I still wanted to believe something would come from the wait. Each time they said they were going to be ready with content I thought maybe this time was the one! I was so wrong. For our next update we will be getting 2 scenes in SethxZoe's international style which I am beyond excited for however I can no longer cut Gabe slack and pretend this game has a future simply because we get incredible art after 8-9 months. At this point I have no clue what is happening anymore in the main story and I would have to start the game over in order to refresh myself on the story. This is truly sad when I actually believe the game has incredible potential. The story is amazing when there actually is one. I just can't tell anymore if Gabe actually cares about this game, I assumed a game with such cool characters and lore would have a creator that is always invested in it, constantly trying to make it better and keep fans on the edge of their seats, but I guess Gabe is not that kind of dev. I am still excited for the 2 scenes, I'm hoping that it's the Queen Celestia and the newest cowprint Laquadia scene, but it will likely be Celestia and Slender Slut. I'm bumping the game down to 2 stars.
Update: Time for the end of the year update, it’s 12/23/23 and we’re now on version 3.22. The promise of releasing the full game by the end of the year was not kept. That’s honestly the only change storywise. If you look in the thread now the majority of people are just asking what the hell they need to do or where they need to go. It takes so long to get main story content that nobody remembers what was happening. This year more time was dedicated to changing and adding textures, buildings, backgrounds, and reworking. The only good thing I can say about this year was the fact that we got the new Laquadia scene at the BEGINNING of 2023 (which was super hot and fantastic), and then with this new update a couple days ago we finally got the Queen Celestia scene in the international version (SethXZoe’s style) which is fucking incredible and surpassed all my expectations. We also got a Cecily scene in his style which was very nice. That being said, as much as I begged for the Celestia scene it doesn’t justify the fact that we have still made basically no progress in the main story. I doubt the declaration that was made at the start of 2023 will ever be brought up again and I’m sure we’re all feeling let down. I will keep the rating at 2 stars still though because I have a tiny shred of hope as well as I need to see the new Laquadia scene in Seth’s style now. That’s it for 2023 yall, a good year for the art, but abysmal for actual content. I pray 2024 is somewhat better.