RPGM - Maids & Masters [v0.16] [The Mithril Hourglass]

I was writing a more detailed analysis but it ended up ridiculously long... so if you want more details, you'd better play it.. (yes, it had gotten even longer)

I've reached the end of the current content.. some positive and negative things without going into too much detail... I'm aware that certain points are intentional since the characters themselves mention such things being a problem during the story itself.

- Melissa, the developer's favorite... very bossy and cock-blocking, killjoy, wants the MC all to herself in a harem game, is always interrupting the MC when some girl hits on him, and even ends up hitting the MC, Melissa is the head maid... but she has a mortal hatred of receiving orders from her master... but she loves giving orders to everyone, the MC, the maids, and hitting the MC when he doesn't behave.

- mc... a guy with a childish personality... impatient, vengeful, has no patience to read a book or wait for someone to arrive, not even when it's for his own good, discovers important things about the past of certain LIS maid's but remains silent instead of saying something that could change the story for the better. A guy who is too lazy to think and prefers that others think for him, unless it's to act like a teenager entering puberty.

and the MC's kinks are pretty standard, the MC is perverted even in critical moments of the story, but when a girl hits on him, a girl with a lot of kinks, he refuses all of her kinks, even though the girl says in CAP letters that she "WANTS" such kinks, the MC decides to be a Gentleman... a bit hypocritical on the MC's part

lots of puzzles, with an interesting story but you get stuck on the puzzle, and you're dying to see what comes next in the story but you can't continue because the game doesn't give you any hints, there's no guide, and you get stuck in the game getting frustrated.

missions without location hints... without directions or markings... and poor movement around the map due to the excess of trees. Without a map with markings.

generic +18 scenes, short, poorly rendered, HS2 graphics poorly rendered in general, there is lesbian content that I like, but the game never shows it, it only mentions it in the characters' comments, and when something like that is going to happen the MC just leaves.
when something lesbian is finally going to happen between two rival maids who hated each other, the game doesn't even show it.

There's incest, but the MC doesn't explore that side much... and when it seems like something is going to happen, Melissa shows up.
Random NPCs enjoy life much more in the background of the story.

Bianca's brother hitting on the MC's maids and being an antagonist.

RPGM fights take a long time even if the player has already defeated the same mob several times... for example, some succubuses in a village... it takes a long time to kill them... not because it's difficult... it just takes a long time because it does little damage to them... and even if you kill about 40 of them... there's no option to skip the fight.

a game more focused on story and RPG gameplay than on +18 content or even romance.
with options to choose from at FEW moments during the story, but NEVER to make the MC act like a man.

there are more topics that I would mention but that I can't think of at the moment.

at the moment I'm in doubt whether or not to follow the game due to the MC's personality and the personality of the main LIS

Version [v0.15]

Took me 26 hours or so for as much completion as I could get and I won't lie I got pretty bored with combat since I fought everything for valuable xp so my fault, boss fights were good enough though so everything else I just spammed attack and skills with my infinite supply of consumables which is VERY nice to have as a legitimate thing within game. Love it when games allow the abuse of mechanics for smoother and/or more fun gameplay even if it ain't much I do appreciate that.

There aren't many reviews but at a glance they fall into two separate camps where the 5 stars love the worldbuilding and interactions which make almost every other rpg maker game (and many other games) I've played look like child's play and that applies even more so to the adult games. The 3 and less stars can't get passed the limiting factors of RPG Maker and I can respect that as I can feel that and there's not much I believe hreserves can do about that. Fair enough of an opinion to have, but as you can see I fall mostly into the first camp.

Combat is serviceable and can even be fun to find combos with party members and enemies aren't rng as you can see them walking around and they don't respawn either which is incredibly refreshing, but if you play like I do and/or get really invested into the plot then the intermittent combat like the Wilds sections can feel like slogs and kill the pacing (not that the pacing is bad but rather I can't be fucked to kill more wolves when I'm trying to collect all the hidden loot and racing to recruit more hot and busty maids)

That brings me to the reason I'm writing the review and can appreciate well made rpg maker games, MTool or I guess any other rpg maker tool. Don't wanna deal with the combat or wanna see fun little details like affection/rep changing with dialog choices (and save a cumulative hour or five of reloading saves normally) then you really do have options.
The sex scenes aren't the best but they're FAR from the worst and I can appreciate them, but they ain't the selling point of the game. The story and writing supersedes the sex scenes in effort and quality though it is there if you don't mind pretty simple and short occasional sex scenes in between pretty long stretches of plot stuff (unless you choose to replay most sex scenes by talking to the girls almost at any time you want) and if you enjoy standard honey select 2 animations with good models and scenes consisting of usually a couple set up still images with usually a single position with a shift in speed before climax still images. It's a pretty consistent pattern for most of the current content, but it does seem to be improving in terms of the amount of images and animations per single scene which can only improve the currently serviceable sex scenes.

If that's not enough or the game really isn't gripping you then fair enough but I hope that any perspective players or players reading this after trying it and not getting into it because of the combat or traveling or whatever rpg maker-ism then I sincerely hope you give MTool or something like it a try. If you can appreciate the story then I believe not doing so would be a disservice to the quality of the writing and details in this game. If nothing else, this game didn't make me feel stupid for obsessively interacting with everything and everybody.

Solid worldbuilding and interesting characters, held hostage by RPG Maker.
Writing "I really wanted to like this game" on a review is a tired cliché at this point, but that's the truth. Game about building a harem of maids at your beck and call, how can you screw that up? By using a terrible engine.
I played a fair share of RPGM games and despite my gripes with it, most of them were enjoyable to me. Maids & Masters however manages to implement every possible annoyance the engine offers:

• trite combat
• vast and empty locations
• no conversation rollback
• no conversation history
• inability to save or load during conversation
• extremely slow Skip Text function

All that results in a game that demands a hefty time investment, and unfortunately the sexual content doesn't deliver - it's very sparse, mostly vanilla HS renders. A lot of it is animated, so that's a plus.
Add to that side-content that you might miss completely and even Tolkien-tier writing wouldn't save this. Which is a shame, as like I said, the writing ranges from competent to very good. Each character is distinct and unique, and the world is interesting to the point I've read every book on lore in-game.
Unfortunately, all of that good writing is buried under hours of RPGM slog.

Maids & Masters is very much a niche game in the RPGMaker lineup. First of all it is an RPGMaker game and uses the traditional turn based combat that such games usually use. It's also choices matter type of game that tracks the optional content you participate in similarly to games like The Last Sovereign or Harem Collector.

The combat of the game, while standard is well made. As far as I've played, the combat of the game is low stated. Meaning that each combat tends to be meaningful and slow. While this might be a problem in others games, because enemies don't respawn and there hasn't been a random combat system I've seen it works to the games favor. Each combat won is progress on the map as well as precious experience points. As for the party members, each member is highly modular with equipment heavily changing stats while all having their own unique combat niches.

Story wise the game starts off strong with a grand mystery while still having a lot of levity and fun. I've come to enjoy the core maid characters and even Master (that's the MC's name no really) quite a lot. The maids are well written with their own personality quirks that balance each other out. The MC also has a damn unique personality of being essentially horny but also deceptively cunning (Master, I will eternally find that funny). Overall I enjoy the character interactions as the game isn't afraid to be serious while containing moments of joviality or just plain silliness.

Finally the world building is very nice. The game doesn't railroad the player into learning about the how the magic system (theurgy in world) works and instead gives supplementary information that the Player has the option to read and figure out. The actual lore texts are pretty intresting and was clearly well thought out. Personal favorites are how pacts evolved in universe for me. It also helps that all the world building has been diagetic within the world, with all the lore explanations coming from in universe sources.

In summary, Maids & Masters is a niche RPGMaker game where singular choices do have significant gameplay impact as well as a well made if standard combat system. For those who enjoy this sort of content, you will find the game highly enjoyable.

Great game to play .
Pros:
Renders
Great Animations
Great Sex Scenes
So many good-looking Character Models
Character Customization
Good Story
Writing
Good pacing
So much content
Good Character development
Every girl has their own personality
Thankyou for all the hard work in making it.

Best gameplay with cool story to back it up! Don't know why people are rating it so low !!Just my opinion if protagonist name change was available it would have been epic. The art is epic should give credits to him which has enhance the story to the par.

cool rpg maker game and the dev seems to be quite a nice guy. Responds to nearly every comment. The game itself is well written and being continually developed despite the relatively small following and income hes generating

Large selection of attractive female characters with different body types and personalities, and a developer who is very clearly invested in and passionate about his project. I imagine RPGM might turn some players off, but I never had a problem with it myself. Thumbs up.

Not much of an adult game outside of the fact that there are a couple of very quick/lousy sex scenes, and a rather badly/lazily implimented mix of adult/dark subjects(not the fun kind of adult/dark). Gameplaywise it's on the clunkier side of RPG maker games and has giant hard to navigate maps that only serve to exacerbate the problem(world doesn't feel big it just feels cluncky), atleast the game doesn't use random/respawing enemies, since that would've probably rendered it completely unplayable. What about when the game isn't trying to use dark themes, well it ranges from kinda boring but ok, to just outright insufferable due to the character writing just not being all that great, most of the maids and the MC too to some extent are honestly just unselfaware assholes(heck some of their toxic asshole moments are meant to come off as humor(maids) or heroic(mc)), and the few that aren't don't have much in terms of interactions.(Note: while they're not assholes all the time, their asshole moments tend to take place casually, just whenever, so they're not a heat of the moment kind of thing it's just who they are)

The world building has some superficial creativity writingwise, in that there's a "unique" feeling magic system, mostly just flavor honestly when it comes to how it plays gamplaywise or how it seemingly impacts the story it's not really all that unique, but it feels very different and new for the first few minutes, heck probably longer if you haven't played many RPG maker games, beyond that it's a fairly generic corrupt fantasy world that just happens to have a maid/butler theme, it's full of tropes that somewhat manage to give it life and a ton of lazy sanctimonious messaging involving terrible poorly made strawmen that manage to take what life the tropes gave it away.

Tldr;
If edgy drama is enough for you to find a game fun "maybe" you'll like it, if your looking for H-content or just a game with fun gameplay, I don't recommend this. The characters/story don't really make it stand out much in any positive way, and the unique-ish setting feel goes away fairly quick.

No Animations. Which is rather dumb, considering the dev uses Honey Select for the scenes. You can't enlarge the picture or else you end up with a pixelated mess. So you're stuck watching the tiny scenes in a tiny window, while most of your screen is free real estate that the game doesn't and can't really use.
The writing is loooong and most of it is just random blah, blah.... jokes, occasional flirts and that kind of things. After painfully long jokes and flirts, you get like 1 or 2 sentences on what you have to do next.
The world is gigantic. Like enormous. For no reason at all. Takes ages to get anywhere.
Fighting system is standard RPGMaker stuff but I don't really have a problem with that. People like to slander it but I think it can be done well, if the dev knows what he's doing.
However considering this game has all the problems I mentioned, you might as well just play a regular RPGMaker game with better map design. The H-scenes are definitely not worth it.

Summary:

Interesting plot, fun characters, lots of details in the world to discover, and plentiful (if basic) sex available. Enjoyable if you want to play an actual RPG with sex. Highly recommended.

Story:

Takes place in a very different world, and immediately starts demonstrating what that means. The background is deep and contains quite a bit of lore, using it to propel the story forward and provide needed context for the major dramatic moments. It’s an original story.

Initially there aren’t many decisions to make, as the focus is on exploring the richly-developed surroundings and reading all the exposition you want in the library. The story develops fairly rapidly and draws you in as more characters and some actual decisions have to be made.

Characters:

The maids are the stars of the story, along with the intrepid MC as their master. Written with depth and distinct voices, the maids share their backstories during play and not through walls of exposition. They all have varying views of each other and the MC, and those differences come through in their small arcs. The emotional weight some of the characters convey is pretty impressive.

As to the MC, he’s a bit all over the place in terms of who he is. Thankfully he’s not a gigachad or completely immature teenager, so playing as he wanders around isn’t painful or cringe-inducing. For story reasons you can’t customize his name, and for practical reasons (I imagine) you can’t customize him. He’s not unsightly – a pleasant relief.

Sex:

The scenes are mostly dialogue with very basic animation. The writing is the main part, although the visuals are still fun and done with some care. Getting to sex is simple and repeatable, with a wide variety of maids to choose from.

The maids are cute with pretty good expressions (not a given when using Honey Select). They definitely stand out from each other visually and by preferences. While the sex is pretty vanilla, kudos for actually working in some non-typical orientations without making them cringe-worthy or “cured” by application of the MC’s rod of wonder.

Environment:

The graphics are typical RPGM, adding custom Honey Select avatars for the different characters. Not much is changed from the basic icon set, but it really doesn’t need changing. One nice touch is the ability to customize the MC’s home to some extent. Also, seasons are represented, so there’s a sense of the passage of time as well.

The music is pretty basic. It gets the job done, and covers the main categories (fighting, exploring, creepy, domestic), but doesn’t stand out. Anyone who’s run into the Reverse Lamia in another game can probably still remember her title music: it’s a small detail that can really add depth when done carefully.

Playability:

It’s an RPGM game, with all that entails: if you’ve played one of them, you can play any of them. One of the delights of the game is the wonderful level of detail in the different settings. If you’ve wandered through an RPGM game before just looking for something – anything – to interact with, you won’t have that issue here. It’s fun to wander around, and the snarky commentary on things found adds character. What’s more, you don’t have to find everything to progress the story; it’s a bonus, not an exercise in repetitive wall-clicking. Per an earlier review, the maps are fully-fleshed out now.

Two issues: First, canceling an action or dialogue can have an independent effect versus choosing one of the given options. This should be made clear, as it isn’t standard for RPGM games and I played quite awhile before discovering this mechanic. Second, the map is large and somewhat forbidding, with so many places that confusion can set in as to which unlabeled area is which. A third issue, keeping all of the maids’ information straight, is a smaller issue that the developer mentioned will be remedied soon.

Tl;dr: Well-written and scrupulously-crafted RPG with enough sexy elements to warrant attention. Not a quick play, with hours of exploring and interacting. Highly recommended.

Harem of cute maids, and a really captivating story and lore. Something I really look forward to. I can't wait to see how this game plays out with the harem. Hopefully there would be heavy corruption stuff.

Yes, the renders are not the best and the game is still early, but I am willing to overlook such instances to have a good time. Please keep it up dev, I'm looking forward to this.

I really want to vote higher. I love the lore, I like the characters, I enjoy the worldbuilding...

The problem is the gameplay. Mostly a walking simulator in big empty maps with grueling unfun RPGM combat. So... typical RPGM. It is rare to find a good RPGM game and this isn't one of them.

I would have still given it a 3 star, but I just found myself unable to continue playing rather quickly. My experience was poor so I rate this as poor (2 star)