That's what I meant by "likely fall on deaf ears". I don't have a positive bias towards JRPGs, a lot of them have overly repetitive gameplay and are given a pass by enthusiasts for that style - I try and look at them objectively and compare them to similar western or any games.
I wouldn't say that it falls on deaf ears. More like it's just a difference in preferences. Much like how a lot of people liking something doesn't automatically make it good... you disliking something doesn't automatically make it bad. Not to mention that as I said, grind isn't an objectively bad thing and plenty of people like that sort of gameplay loop in a variety of ways. If grind was universally, objectively bad, games like Diablo 2 wouldn't have inspired games like Path of Exile, nor would there have been so much of a demand for sequels etc. So on and so forth, and these are specifically Western examples of grind heavy games.
If we go into the Asian side of things... uh... we'd be here a LONG ass time... Especially since as far as I can tell, there's something in the well known Asian cultures that makes people over there really love grinding.
The day to day conversations are mostly unchanged - she says the exact same lines when going to dinner every night at ramen or cafe. This isn't neccesarily a problem, but when the normal game loop sees you doing those events again and again and AGAIN it really sticks out.
By mechanically bad I mean the combat isn't inherently fun. An example of an rpg game with fun combat would be the original "Wicked Rouge", where you have various stances and abilities. Here, there's this convoluted mess of cards and fragments and abilities - and the gameplay ramps up in an unintutive progression (you go from being able to 1-2 hit everything with spirit liberation to getting insta-killed). Your gf never seems to do any damage, and the background info on weapons is scant at best - the guide describes the crowbar as being enhanced with anti-spirit properties, yet half the enemies in the game seem to only take damage from magic first, of which most of the spells drain your entire pool.
One could fairly say this is just an issue with my game knowledge and I need to learn more, to which I'd respond isn't wrong, yet it's reflective of poor design. A good game ramps up abilities and enemies so the player organically comes to understand combat and the abilities used.
Ah, I can see what you mean with the routine dialogue, though it's not really that big of a deal to me. It's a pretty inevitable limitation tbh. Plenty of other H-games have similar problems on different scales. Even so called masterpieces like the widely praised Karryn's Prison have parts that are extremely repetitive in terms of how characters talk when they interact with Karryn, it just likely feels like less of a problem because it's a LI doing it to the MC... but it's still really the same thing. Dialogue variation is hard.
As for the combat, I personally found it fairly fun. The catalyst system is head and shoulders above what most games made in any RPGM engine ever bother to do. My only complaint is that there aren't that many good combinations, and basically nothing beats the Fire+Ice combo in terms of ridiculous stat scaling. So instead of mixing and matching catalysts as you get better ones with improved stats, you're pretty much always looking for specific combos to improve.
That said, I do feel that the difficulty in figuring out the system and producing an effective combat style that keeps up with level increases for the enemies is intended. You have to remember that this is a NTR game, and MC's ability to fight, as well as Kana's whether onscreen or off-screen, is directly tied to Lawrence's ability to do things to her to further his corruption. It SHOULD be difficult to figure out a way to consistently keep Kana safe... though realistically speaking, once you figure out how to manipulate the system, it becomes pretty easy to keep things going smoothly.
Basically, it's expected that you have to figure things out the hard way, and until you do, MC will get his ass kicked and Kana will get molested and whatnot.
As for the card system, it's actually much simpler than it looks. Even without any named card recipes, the thing that matters the most is Kana's raw stats when it comes to her being of-screen, and once you figure out how stats are inherited by mixed cards, it becomes too easy to make her overpowered...
ANYway, I do agree that the system isn't perfect, nor as great as it could be, but I'd hardly consider it bad. Not when there's WAY too many RPGM games out there that just give you cookie cutter skill selections and rapidly turn into a "press the Z button until everything dies" loops of monotony.
Recollection room meaning I was shocked when I first visited the "nighttime dream store" location and learned a majority of the cutscenes would be visited in a dream state - just like a regular recollection room! For a game that prides itself on "Unlike traditional NTR games that narrate from a female perspective, players utilize various methods like heartbeat monitoring, phone calls, surveillance cameras, and questioning bystanders to gather information, aiming to protect their girlfriend from a nefarious boss. ", it sure shows a lot of scenes to the player through an FMC/third party observer perspective, not that of the mc. I would have thought a lot more of the game would be the type of scenes you get when you have cameras set up in the rest rooms and see the antagonist and the gf.
Obviously there's a polish and effort here not seen in many rpgm games, which is why I'm taking the time to critique it. I think it COULD be good, but the combat system and daily gameplay loop need tweaking.
When it comes to the H-content, I went in and checked to see what the split is due to my curiosity, and here's how it goes.
There are 21 scenes that can only be seen via camera in the day-time section.
There's 1 scene that essentially happens while Kana is on a date with the MC.
There's 3 scenes that the MC partially peeps on without realizing that it's Kana.
There's 1 scene where MC basically sees Kana getting fucked without realizing that she's getting fucked.
There's 13 scenes that the MC sees as porn movies without recognizing that it's Kana getting fucked by L, two of them variants that he can partially peep on.
There are 6 scenes (times 3 for varying dick sizes) that involve the MC and Kana together.
There are 24 scenes that appear in the dream sequence.
So, out of a total of 69 scenes (not counting all the dick size variation scenes for the MC or the ending specific stuff), only 24 show up in the dream sequence thing.
As such, while there's quite a few scenes that are basically presented to the player to keep things simple, the majority of the stuff has to be found the hard way, so to speak. Thus, I wouldn't really say that what they present in the game description's is a lie.
Obviously, it could be better, but I still wouldn't say that it's bad, and again, whether something counts as good or bad, it should be by comparing it with the average standard... and the average standard is so below what Nebel achieves that it's seriously not funny.
