A phenomenal platformer, souls-like combat, and linemarvel style eroticism. Really stands out among the crowd. Whether you're here for lewd scenes or a genuine Bloodbourne homage, you'll enjoy this game. I was avoiding it for awhile due to the more graphic tags, but every scene is optional regardless of player skill and not in an intrusive game interrupting way that makes you feel you're missing half the content either. Progression and even weapon balance lines up with Bloodbourne. Lots of variety in attacks and play styles, but your starter weapon really scales better than anything else just like its inspiration. Unfortunately I noticed that quirk pretty early on and ended up min-maxing damage instead of exploring the many options for spells, bulky heavy hammers and fast thrusting spears and rapiers.
Overall plays better than most of these platformers, but even with patches there are still a couple quirks like music volume being loud and unable to lower separate from master volume despite the slider in the menu. The game deserves a lot of praise for the simple fact that you can easily rebind your hotkeys and the game can be played one-handed without issue. Some enemy encyclopedia entries, trap enemies, will only unlock if you allow yourself to be caught and let a sex scene activate which will disappoint completionists who also want a clean player log, but you can still enjoy them guilt free in the gallery. Aside from the player log and some lost xp from dying, there's little consequence to sex scenes and losing. There's was only one fight that I found frustrating and that was very late in the game and involved a soft rage timer. I also stubbornly used my usual play style instead of using many mechanics the game hinted at helping in this fight.
Combat is a blast! I played on Normal but if you're already good at these platformers and dodge rolling then I would encourage bumping up to Hard whenever you feel like. Dodging, guarding, and riposting all work the way you're familiar. There's even working enemy poise and delayed swings if you choose though that mechanic is never utilized. Only complaint, I wish there was more variety in riposte options, as many weapons already had different ranges, speeds, and combos. 3 cosmetic clothing options and you get rings for some stat modifications on top of leveling. Well balanced, but if the dev had more time and budget more outfits would have been fun. Understandably the bandit/inquisitor human enemy is copypasted a lot and they only vary in their weapon type and slight difference in attack windows. Aside from them there's a good variety of enemies and traps which aren't too frustrating but varied and reasonably placed.
The plot is generic and kind of sparse. While the translations are good, I found myself skipping through most of the character dialogue and journals as nearly every encounter in the game just ends with NPCs imprisoned in the easily missed dungeon level with no opportunity to intervene sadly. Environmental storytelling and item descriptions are decent, but I wasn't all that clear where Aradia is trying to go aside from wherever her titular "Night of Revenge" leads her. If we were searching for leaders of the church, clues about missing women, or saving the city from a demon outbreak that would be a lot more compelling than the randomly placed flashbacks we get. There's actually some indications that was exactly what the developer had in mind if they had more time to work on it. Again the writing and scenes are fine, but it's mostly your generic sex slave stuff aside from a couple bad ends.
Despite that there's quite a few more niche fetishes and scenes aside from the dozen male humanoid encounters. Really good animations with fluid but weighty movements and many stages for each scene. There was also an underutilized karma system. It would increase based on triggering NPC dialogues and rescuing imprisoned women, but it only unlocks one zone and one dialogue/cutscene option over the entire game. If you were just button mashing through events/cutscenes it would be harder not to unlock them, and despite the name it doesn't really feel like you helped anything by increasing your karma. More could have been done with status effects or consequences for sex scenes like a corruption mechanic to add more variety to gameplay. Usually I hate corruption systems as it can be a grindy time sink that walls off scenes and progression but I think it would work well here. A simple solution is to include a cleanse or reset system by resting at the hub area. I feel like it would give the sex log more consequence and bad endings more impact. Also if you're going to track player virginity give it some kind of mechanical or dialogue significance. Overall, highly recommended.
