RPGM - Completed - Menasphere of Inverted Dreams [v1.08] [Crazy Nirin]

A paint by the numbers H-RPG game that comes off very hollow. The characters are tropy and the whole thing comes off as this soulless "oh look how much fun/ look at the wacky adventure" without any sort of hook or defining characteristic to set it apart from the sea of H-RPGs. Scenes happen like clockwork every couple of minutes, there is no real player agency or thought... just a very mediocre on rails experience that felt more like reading a pre-baked script very lightly edited with bland seasonings. The RPG gameplay is the same you can find in any other H-RPG just with the edges sanded off, nothing awful but nothing all that good either.

It's surprisingly good for a H-game, they put a lot of work into it. However, it's not everyone's cup of tea. Any pros can also be cons.
- Areas have many layers and are very customized with special mechanics. Though, it could be too long and complicated. People may not come to a H-game for a real adventure.
- The buffs and debuffs are VERY significant, and resistance/weakness multipliers are VERY apparent. The skill tree matters a lot, and so does the equipment. Each character can be respec for specific roles to clear each area faster. Though, each battle could be a chore if you want an easier game.
- The story is well put together and feels like a legit mainstream RPG with twists and turns, even though it starts generic. Though, some people may not come to an H-game to read
- Characters are likable and memorable. The banter is fun enough. Though, some people may not like how it takes half the game to have sex with the girls for real. And vanilla sex only? Disgusting! (jk)

I played on Customize and double experience to avoid some battles. Overall, it's one of the better-made H-games out there. I would love to see this game to be more popular so we can get more works from this dev.

It's okay. It has good points. Maybe this is a 2.5 or even 3, but I couldn't bring myself to finish it, so I'm rounding down.

The characters aren't bad. The story is at least somewhat interesting - the ending probably would've redeemed it a bit, but I didn't get that far. The banter is ok but there's enough wordplay and other jokes that the MTL just cannot handle it. That's not really the game's fault, but it definitely brings the overall experience down.

The combat system is above average. An attempt was made. It's certainly better than the average slog, but the bar for combat in these games is extremely low. There's a skill system, multiple characters, and therefore you can have specializations. Best of all, 3 of the characters have unique mechanics. It's clear at least some real effort was put into this by the dev.

It's just not good enough. Battles are still boring. I started on normal and switched to hard. Even that wasn't especially difficult. I feel like the game wanted me to reset skills between dungeons, given the hints. Especially because all enemies in an area only one use status effect (afaik), and there are skills to negate status effects. So I think they want you to reset your tree frequently to prevent that. Doing that is extremely annoying so I never did it. If there's a clear, correct answer (resist Pain in the ruins, Darkness in the forest), there's no thinking involved, so it's just grunt work.

Equipment is obtained through a gacha. This is by far the most obnoxious mechanic. You get items and "appraise" to get 0, 1, 2, or 3 star equipment, randomly, with better items giving higher star items. Then you can combine duplicates to strengthen them. Different weapons have different abilities, so you can use them to further customize your characters. Or you could, if it wasn't an awful mess of RNG. If you want your healer to switch to a pure damage dealer, you better hope you get enough copies of the +dmg -heal item. If you don't, tough. Give up on your customization plans.

Actually appraising them is also obnoxious because the game pauses to show you each 0-star item you got. On the whole the menus are really annoying to deal with, because scrolling through them pauses for a bit to show a background image. I don't know why. This is a minor gripe but it got on my nerves.

The dungeons are creative, but way too big. They're a slog to get through. There are interesting ideas. They're well done. They're just way too big. There aren't enough story elements to break things up, so it just comes off as another slog, another time waster. This isn't a pay-to-win online gacha game, so it should stop acting like it.

it's actually good. the beginning may irk some people (i personally loved their banters) but give it some playtime. as I'm writing this, I'm about to fight the Pianist boss (I'm avoiding spoilers in case you can't tell) and it's not just your mindless combat where you just improve your atk. if at that point the game hasn't sold you yet, I dunno what else to tell you.

character banters are great, even the sidequests are not just simply fetch quest. devs really put a lot of thought in this game even if the main story is pretty boring at first glance.

oh, and the music is a banger where I am right now. i could listen to it for hours and not be bored of it. i just need to decrpyt the ogg_ files into actually readable ogg.

Gameplay good enough to count as a proper RPG, with nontrivial combat and skill trees and equipment and (basic) crafting.

On the technical side, it uses a surprising amount of fancy exploration mechanics. In general that's pretty nice - there's minigames where you have to find interactables by sound, etc. In my opinion, this game does too much with z-levels - it feels like some designer learned that modern RPGMAKER lets you have multiple heights of walkways all across a level, and was so delighted they decided to do it on every single level.

Mostly, though, the game sells on its character dialogue - all the characters in the game are absolute freaks (affectionate), and their interactions are very fun to see. It's the sort of game in which one does all the sidequests because they're no less interesting than the main plot.

The translation is a bit raw in places, but is perfectly serviceable. If one has the motivation, one can fix stuff yourself and submit an MR to the git repo.

Reviewing v1.03

There's a lot to like and practically nothing to complain about. Characters, story, gameplay, music, etc. are all universally good.

This is an unironically good and well-rounded game, with a good story that actually manages to make sex and character relationships relevant. The meta-narrative is especially strong with this one.

The translation preserves all important story beats and the many, many character interactions with each other and the environment. Skits, inn scenes, field commentary, and more really sells the cast of characters. I also laughed a lot, so bonus points there.

All in all, one of the better h-games I've played in recent memory.

EDIT: After beating the game, this is one of the best h-games I've played recently. The game just keeps getting better, and doesn't stop until the end. No post-game is big sad, but literally everything else is great.

Final playtime just under 24 hours on customize difficulty.