This review is for the 1-13-2023 'Chapter 3' version of the game.
I'm usually not a huge fan of NTR stuff. I like the fetish itself but 9 times out of 10 it's usually done in the most boring, bland, generic way possible - "super chad persuades/coerces heroine to cheat on her boyfriend, with her quickly coming to like it." While Netoria Tactics has some of that in it the game also takes a more mechanical approach to NTR that helps put it way above most NTR games, plus there're other males after the heroine beyond the coercive thief. All that said, there are definitely a couple of problems that really hold this game back.
To get it out of the way, the combat is essentially a very basic, rudementry Fire Emblem clone, with this game having been created in SRPG Studio. The only thing that really stuck out to me is that there doesn't seem to be a lot of special abilities, so most of combat is just standard physical attacks. Balance seems fine. I'm not really here for a deep tactical gameplay experience, so none of this really bothered me. It all works and it works well, which is enough for me. The game does offer a 'story mode' that allows you to skip combat but I'd recommend against using that -- a good chunk of the game's sexual content comes in the form of the female party members getting harassed by the male party members (plus some sexual abilities later on) during combat which you won't get to see in story mode.
On battle maps there's a NTR mechanic. It works like this: if the hero (Carwyn) is away from the heroine (Gwenivier) but one of the other male party members (Owain the thief, Emrys the knight, and Mordrid the mage) is near her then there's a chance at the start of a turn that they'll grope her. This is a brilliant way of incorporating NTR into a game and is the main reason why I stuck with the game -- it ultimately leaves it up to the player to decide if they want Gwen to be NTR'd but Gwen also has a buff that raises the stats of adjacent characters, so you may sometimes find it better to allow her to be groped even if you don't want it, which makes it less binary. Gwenivier also has a purity stat that goes down as she's groped and once it goes down enough the groping can progress, which is also tied to relationship scenes between Gwen and one of those three males that'll happen in between battles once they've groped her enough. Eventually Carwyn will get the option to transform into a female and be subjected to the same mechanics. If you get Gwenivier's purity low enough you can change her class to something more lewd (first erotic dancer, then whore) that'll give her sexual abilities during battles.
All that said, while I love the battle NTR mechanic in concept its execution leaves a lot to be desired. The biggest problem for me is how woefully underwritten the groping events are (one is just Gwen going "Mnm"). Adding a small description of the action (i.e. the guy's fingers sinking into the girl's large breasts, or maybe a bit about the girl grinding against the guy as she's groped when she's lewder), the female's reaction, and the guy's reaction would greatly improve these events. Likewise, Gwen's sexual abilities are also disappointingly tiny (and include no cumshot/climax). I also have some issues with the art but I'll get to that later. Lastly for this topic, how much exactly (or even how in general) the groping events improve the girl's relationship with the guy beyond her purity stat seems entirely opaque. I might've just forgot but I don't think the game explains how many times a guy has to grope Gwen to get their next relationship scene. It also seems like you get locked into a route after a guy gropes Gwen enough, which means a lot of people will probably get locked into Owain's content since you get him first and don't get the next guy until a handful of battles.
In between battles there's a camp map that you move around as Carwyn on and can talk to characters. If Gwen's fallen far enough then she and a guy will be missing from it and you'll hear some dialogue of her being NTR'd. My problem with this is that there's an option to see events from Gwen's perspective... but you can't see these ones. I don't know if that's a bug, if it's working as intended, or if it'll be added in a later update, but I definitely feel like if you have that option on you should be seeing these events in full. Beyond that, I also feel like this area is ripe for potential optional lewd events but so far there's really nothing to do. Being able to switch control between Gwenivier and female Carwyn and 'service' the other male members of the party (possibly giving them a buff or maybe even removing some sort of 'unfocused' debuff) would greatly add to the game. Controlling Gwen and getting to check on her relationship with one of the guys (and maybe repeat past events) would also be an improvement.
As for the writing, it's good. No Engrish or MTL crap here. The dialogue is written well and every character has a clear, consistent personality. In terms of the NTR, you have the thief Owain who'll coerce Gwen (essentially he'll threaten to leave the party unless he can play with her body), the knight Emrys who seems to genuinely care for Gwen and wants to get closer to her, and the shady mage Mordrid who uses hypno magic on Gwenivier. For me, Owain falls a bit too much into the 'sex god chad' NTR trope that I find trite, I'd've preferred him being a bit uglier and more repulsive, but that's personal preference. For female Carwyn, she doesn't get individual routes, instead all three guys gang up on her and basically threaten to rape Gwenivier unless they can instead play with Carwyn's female body. The genderbend stuff is handled pretty well, Carwyn doesn't become a slut when transformed but instead still thinks of himself as a male, finding the groping gross and only going along with it for Gwen's sake. Near the end of the current content another female character (Vivian) joins the party who is very interested in Carwyn; she doesn't have much content now but will in later updates, including NTR events. So far I'd say my only real problem with the writing is that the NTR lacks bite because while Gwenivier is clearly in love with Carwyn, Carwyn seems to have no interest in Gwenivier. If you complete the game's current final battle you can go to a recollection map that has spaces saved for Gwen & Carwyn events, so maybe this gets remedied in the future. Group events for Gwen would also be great.
Finally, there's the art. I think it's well made and in general looks great. There's no animations but I don't care about that at all (in fact, I think the expectation that every amateur porn game must have animations for every scene is ridiculous). My only problems with the art is that there isn't much of it and it's reused somewhat poorly. Don't get me wrong, I'd much rather have a ton of events with reused art than few events all with unique art. No, the issue here is that the generic groping art is reused for both Gwenivier and female Carwyn... yet it doesn't even really match either of them (look at the clothes the female is wearing in the groping pictures -- it's definitely not what Gwen's wearing and it doesn't really match Carwyn's clothes either). Given that the recollection room map seems to have spaces for all future events already in place I'm guessing the developer had the art made beforehand and is just using what they have. It's not really a huge problem for me but I can definitely see others finding it lazy. Having unique groping art for both females would be a definite improvement (and it wouldn't even have to be fully unique - re-use the same body but have different clothes layers for Gwen & Carwyn to put on top of the base body layer).
Overall, despite my gripes and the areas I think could be improved, I really like the game. It's still in development so hopefully some of the problems I've pointed out can be worked on. If you like NTR, genderbend stuff, and like games with actual mechanics then you should definitely try out Netoria Tactics. I'll probably update my review once the final version is released.
