Maybe logically I should be giving this game a much lower rating. But it just kept me coming back to keep playing it to the point I beat both routes in hard mode (accessible by starting a new save after inputting up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A and Enter in the main menu), and I kept enjoying it more as I played, so there you go.
Let's start by saying everything I loved.
I've played a couple "game over" type H-games at this point, and this is no doubt my favorite and most memorable. The presentation is the best part of this game. It's the first one I can say actually kinda feels like a genuine attempt to make a video game rather than just an excuse for H-scenes, in fact, most of the time I found myself more invested in the game than the H-scenes. I've even played it a lot with no intention of seeing one.
The visuals impressed me when I first started the game, such visually pleasing pixel art for an H-game.
The world is nothing too deep but still cool and I enjoyed exploring it and talking to the characters. The atmosphere in this game is done especially well, possibly its best aspect, with both the visuals and audio / music giving a creepy eerie dangerous feeling to most areas that was super effective and memorable. Also that fishing minigame was NOT necessary in the slightest and I love that it exists, even if it's mechanically tedious.
I also love how the two routes were done, while they share enemies, they feel incredibly different in every single way possible other than that(seriously a lot of ways, I'm not gonna name them all tho). Even the shared enemies appear in different ways at different points. And Nyx showing up as a minor NPC in Sasha's route is cute I guess, even if I'm still confused as to which route chronologically happens first.
Lastly, obviously, the H-scenes were great yeah, possibly the best I've seen from this type of game. I wouldn't have played the game if I hadn't seen some beforehand and liked them. Good looking, and very satisfying audio. Contrary to most people I also do like the way they're triggered(from a porn point of view, gameplay's a different conversation). I might have more to say but let's just sum it up with saying that everything about the porn in this game was quite hot to me.
But now let's get into what I disliked.
Oh my god I did not like the combat most of the time, particularly with melee weapons. Genuinely near-impossible and luck based to fight enemies with melee weapons, and usage of ranged weapons is obviously limited somewhat.
This problem is even worse with the bossfights, which I hated. Every boss other than Ogre (and Kunoichi in my first normal mode playthrough) I had to find a way to cheese because they're so incredibly goddamn tedious and difficult (tbf I never gave Mizuki a try without letting the hands defeat her so exclude that boss). Hell, most of the time I also used cheese methods for normal enemies, like hitting them from behind an obstacle. The only boss I'd say was good is Ogre. Not perfect but I felt that it was pretty fun and fair, especially in normal mode. Kunoichi while possible without cheese is ridiculously difficult and unforgiving for a first boss, your only window to safely attack is while she's doing that slow swing attack. And, as with every other boss or enemy, attacking normally is luck based because enemy attacks are so fast they can come out while you're still in the animation of hitting them. There is no way to dodge them, there is no way to see them coming, they are sudden and instant. Enemies can also dash across the screen in the blink of an eye, you have to be on your toes and use your tools carefully and with precision.
There are times when this can absolutely work in the game's favor: particularly, when you have ammo for your gun with Sasha / SP for your magic with Nyx. Here, not letting the enemies get close enough to attack is the point, and it's absolutely fun and thrilling to try to kill them without them getting to you! This is when I enjoyed the combat. Maybe this WAS the whole point of the game, but I don't think there was enough ammo / time to recover SP for every enemy, and sometimes the spaces were just too small to try and create any distance. A lot of the time you just gotta go in with a melee weapon and pray you survive. Even if you do, there's no way to avoid losing some HP and SP. But again, this is much worse with the bossfights, because there is no bossfight you can reasonably win by just keeping your distance. You have to go in and risk getting hit by a sudden attack, which will kill you after a couple times(or sometimes just one time, in hard mode). I think this is unreasonable and unfun which is why I cheesed almost every boss in some way, which is basically skipping the bossfight. You just don't have enough ammo with Sasha to kill a boss, and... well with Nyx honestly the bossfight problem wasn't as bad, Kunoichi was tedious but beatable with a certain strategy, Ogre was good, the Basilisk horde and Nagi were the ones I had to "cheese" (I just used the super OP spray that makes you invisible, it breaks everything because it's so OP so I consider it cheese lol, but at least it felt a bit more intended?)
Anyways, another part about the combat is the grab system. While it WAS frustrating a lot of the time, to be fair, the problem can be alleviated by keeping your clothes repaired, and if they break, your SP somewhat reserved. It took me a while to realize escaping depends on the state of your clothes. If the game told you that I wouldn't have much issue with it tbh, early into my first playthrough (Nyx's route) I decided it was probably impossible to escape from enemies without attacking and treated my SP like a second healthbar almost, and never used sewing kits, which did hurt the experience.
I do want to mention that a lot of the time, avoiding enemies instead of fighting them is an option, which I appreciate and it made the game SO much less tedious than it could've been. It's not exactly easy either, it's still risky which I like.
Finally, a part that also sucked was finding what I needed to do. A lot of the time I was super lost so I just watched a vid. Definitely think the game needs to be less confusing.
Overall I think I enjoyed the game more as I kept playing it and started to understand it and get good at it. Maybe I would give it 2.5-3 stars for when you start playing, but now that I'm a bit better at it and understand it, I can give it like 4-5 stars. But for the standards of fucking H-games, that's overall like a 8-9/10. I can't stress enough how much this impressed me for an H-game. This is a game I can find some entertainment in playing even without the hentai elements, having quite a decent amount of content for a demo, and said hentai elements are very hot if I do want to engage with them. What more could I reasonably ask for? The combat may not be perfect, but for an H-game it's quite interesting and engaging in just how hard it is, and it could've been worse. Honestly, the biggest complaint might be that there's not enough of it. For a game with such a learning curve, it runs out of content quickly- it's unfinished, of course, so it's justified, but it still hurts the experience- and i'm also not sure if it IS going to be finished.
Which route is better? Nyx has combat that's less frustrating and it's generally the easier route, so good for a first playthrough, but I find Sasha's usually more challenging, thrilling and fun to replay (though I generally find Nyx and her scenes hotter so it's quite the predicament lmao)
So yeah, out of the couple H-games I've played (all "game over" type) this is the best one, and will probably continue to be my favorite H-game for a while. And if it ever receives another update I will excitedly be there for it, though I'm doubting it will. Maybe I'll just replay what I have in the meantime, do some challenge run or something lmao. I don't know if the other game by Kosmic is an H-game but maybe I'll look into it too, eventually.
Do I recommend this game? If you're willing to face difficulty, sometimes it being quite frustrating, and you're willing to either get lost for a million years sometimes or give in to just watching a video to see what you need to do. Then yes, I would. I'll say it again, an experienced player is gonna have more fun playing than a new player. Maybe I'd give it 5 stars if the combat was more fair and didn't encourage me to cheese it, and if game was as good when you start as it is when you're experienced (...and if it wasn't terribly unfinished with uncertainty concerning if it's going to be finished and when and how).