Wow, what an interesting game!
This game does an amazing job of spinning a rather complex weave of mysteries while staying focused and delivering the story they set out to tell, all without becoming too bogged down in extra frills in the process. Truly a very impressive workshop in game design and concise story telling.
While I think this game's strongest asset is its ability to avoid overstaying its welcome, to call it a short game would be absolutely incorrect. This game will keep a player busy for at least a solid 10 hours if they explore the entire world and every scene, possibly more like 20 depending on how fast you read/play through the game and discover all the secrets and routes to be found.
There are not many truly perverted fetishes in this game, potential B/S incest excepted, although there is included here a bit of light BDSM, some voyeurism including peeping on a couple of lesbians, a potential threesome, and plenty of anal. The sex here is mostly limited to "sleep creeping" on the various females of the town, as well as the occasional rut with one of them, using the standard 3 hole menu, so don't expect a lot of wild stuff if that's what you're into.
The renders are all quite good, very high quality stuff without bloated file sizes either, very commendable. The girls themselves are all quite attractive, they have real personality to them and feel like distinct people living in a real world, rather than interchangeable dolls with different skins. This extends to the sex, as some girls will be more interested in certain acts than others, despite the "standard" 3 hole menu there is not the cookie cutter ORAL->PIV->ANAL pipeline we're so used to, e.g. some girls will jump straight to anal and others will prefer to avoid it altogether unless coaxed heavily with magic.
The magic system itself is rather barebones, but what is here is plenty to make you feel like a burgeoning sorcerer. There are only a few set paths you can take each girl down, or sometimes just one set path, so the mind control elements don't feel particularly fleshed out or detailed beyond that, but what is there is decent and comes across as subtle manipulation rather than brute force domination or "drugging" them with magic.
The real "magic" of this game, however, is in the re-playability which is built right in. You are expected to fail on your first attempt at this game. You can succeed on a brand new game, but it is quite hard and requires following an almost set path with little time wasted and you will miss lots of content along the way. Therefore, the best way and probably the intended way to play this game is to simply embrace failure and stumble through your first playthrough or two as best as you can, seeking out content and uncovering secrets so you can find them faster the next time around. It feels very much like being a time traveling detective, something like Dr. Who meets Sherlock Holmes, but with a bit of high magic and (sexy) pixie dust thrown in for good measure.
At least, that's what it feels like when you start uncovering mysteries instead of stumbling around like a fool. At the beginning, perhaps it's more like Fry from Futurama meets Inspector Gadget... at least you have your trusty pixiesidekick Master Belle to play the role of your Leela/Penny, covering for your mistakes most of the game. Don't despair, however, as after your first playthrough, you will be able to enter NG+ with your old attribute gains and most of your old spells already learned, meaning a lot less game time being wasted on self improvement, which makes all the difference if playing with the recommended 50 day time limit on.
Anyway, without spoiling any of the actual story, I can't say much else, but if you are a fan of mysteries, medieval maidens and mental meddling, give this one a go.
This game does an amazing job of spinning a rather complex weave of mysteries while staying focused and delivering the story they set out to tell, all without becoming too bogged down in extra frills in the process. Truly a very impressive workshop in game design and concise story telling.
While I think this game's strongest asset is its ability to avoid overstaying its welcome, to call it a short game would be absolutely incorrect. This game will keep a player busy for at least a solid 10 hours if they explore the entire world and every scene, possibly more like 20 depending on how fast you read/play through the game and discover all the secrets and routes to be found.
There are not many truly perverted fetishes in this game, potential B/S incest excepted, although there is included here a bit of light BDSM, some voyeurism including peeping on a couple of lesbians, a potential threesome, and plenty of anal. The sex here is mostly limited to "sleep creeping" on the various females of the town, as well as the occasional rut with one of them, using the standard 3 hole menu, so don't expect a lot of wild stuff if that's what you're into.
The renders are all quite good, very high quality stuff without bloated file sizes either, very commendable. The girls themselves are all quite attractive, they have real personality to them and feel like distinct people living in a real world, rather than interchangeable dolls with different skins. This extends to the sex, as some girls will be more interested in certain acts than others, despite the "standard" 3 hole menu there is not the cookie cutter ORAL->PIV->ANAL pipeline we're so used to, e.g. some girls will jump straight to anal and others will prefer to avoid it altogether unless coaxed heavily with magic.
The magic system itself is rather barebones, but what is here is plenty to make you feel like a burgeoning sorcerer. There are only a few set paths you can take each girl down, or sometimes just one set path, so the mind control elements don't feel particularly fleshed out or detailed beyond that, but what is there is decent and comes across as subtle manipulation rather than brute force domination or "drugging" them with magic.
The real "magic" of this game, however, is in the re-playability which is built right in. You are expected to fail on your first attempt at this game. You can succeed on a brand new game, but it is quite hard and requires following an almost set path with little time wasted and you will miss lots of content along the way. Therefore, the best way and probably the intended way to play this game is to simply embrace failure and stumble through your first playthrough or two as best as you can, seeking out content and uncovering secrets so you can find them faster the next time around. It feels very much like being a time traveling detective, something like Dr. Who meets Sherlock Holmes, but with a bit of high magic and (sexy) pixie dust thrown in for good measure.
At least, that's what it feels like when you start uncovering mysteries instead of stumbling around like a fool. At the beginning, perhaps it's more like Fry from Futurama meets Inspector Gadget... at least you have your trusty pixie
Anyway, without spoiling any of the actual story, I can't say much else, but if you are a fan of mysteries, medieval maidens and mental meddling, give this one a go.
