RPGM - Completed - MH:Skybride [Final] [ZzZz]

The game has a very interesting concept, which is to transform a part of Dragon Quest 5 into an NTR theme, and it does so quite effectively. However, the game suffers from design flaws that prevent it from being fully enjoyable.

The hit percentage system is poorly designed, causing you to miss a lot when trying to land hits. There are enemies that move off-screen or disappear entirely, boring dungeons, too much resource grinding, too many secondary characters, and some of the main characters don't get the proper development as a result. The weapon upgrade system is also not enjoyable.

All of this could be overlooked if the game didn't have a terrible difficulty spike at the end. On top of that, the pixel art doesn't come close to the quality of other games in this category. I would recommend playing it if you have a lot of free time and the patience to deal with unnecessary frustration. With some fixes and better art, this game could be greatly improved.

Gameplay:
Battles are better than the normal RPGM turn based, and feature a pseudo FF tactics/Fire emblem vibe, however is wildly unpolished. Serviceable, but needs work. Never felt like there was much strategy involved and was more or less smooshing my units against theirs. Particularly frustrating were the bats, which were comically underlevelled, but insisted on seeking me out anytime they were on teh map with me and starting a fight, only to do zero damage and get oneshot.

Theres also a "pokemon style" capture the enemy mechanic that isnt really clear how it works, and im not sure what the utility is for capturing every enemy given the limited additional mechanics they introduce. Would have rathered a larger cast of human characters (or even monster-people)

I had a recurring bug where some enemies were just invisible. Given that the characters never mentioned this and i could target them with no issue provided i lined up my moves im fairly certain its not intentional.

Theres a TASK screen to unlock content, but it leaves a lot to be desired. I failed one units "loyalty" task, but I am not sure why or how far back I woudl need to go to stop it happennning. I am also not sure how much "choice" i have for each of the main hero girls. Would have been nicer for the game to spell out what I should/shouldnt be doing for each outcome.

Some outcomes rely on visiting a location at a certain time, which is frustrating when you can only forward time at certain locations. Not actually sure if some objectives have a timer for completion, the game certainly doesnt tell you.

I enjoyed the management side of the game, but it felt undercooked. I got to chapter 4 which appears to be close to the ending, and still struggled to understand what the positions were truly doing. Should I be committing my characters to "training" what exactly the harem points actually "do" among other things.

Story is actually fairly reasonable, but given the lack of a walkthrough and in game hints, makes it hard to work out what order you shoudl be doing things and why. I would rather never have to use a walkthrough and just have the game have a hint function, but it is what it is.

The art is entirely pixel and text based. The management side states that theres a brothel and you can move some of the cast there, I never got to "see"this content so it makes what appears to be a reasonably compelling feature fall a bit flat.