RPGM - Completed - Once Ever After [v1.0] [Sierra Lee]

This game isn't heavy in H-scenes by comparison to other games but as an actual JRPG I thought it was surprisingly good. The writing and worldbuilding are fun, interesting, and unique while also heavily being a parody on the entire 'heroine corruption' genre.
Gameplay's pretty straightforward RPGM stuff with class changing but it's done pretty well.

one of the few western eroges with actual care and effort put into them. very high quality all the way through. the plot takes a bit to get going and the humor doesn't always land, but that's not really a big deal.

This is one of the games I started for the H-scenes and ended playing for the plot. I love multiverse plots and this one is funny and well crafted. Game is around 18h if you go for completion and, sincerely, I found it quite well made.

I don't recommend it if you're going for the H-scenes. They're quite scarce.

This is a review for v1.0

Story 5/5
As stated in many of the other reviews, the writing in this game is amazing. It's definitely one of the best story's I've experienced while playing an eroge. It has a unique spin on a familiar concept, good character development, and lots of extra side quests/stories to flesh out the world. In general the world building is really good. The story is definitely the strongest aspect of the game.

Gameplay 3/5
Standard RPGM stuff. For me it was mostly tolerable, but near the end I started getting really tired of the grind. There are a couple mechanics added to try to make you think a little during combat, but you figure out the formula pretty quickly (especially if you've played other RPGM games). In general the combat is very unremarkable.
However there is a lot of post game and side quest content. The arena is also quite fun, since its a good measure of how much stronger you've gotten as the story progresses.

H Content 2/5
The art is good, but the scenes are few and far between. I also found the CGs to all be very vanilla and kind of same-ish. In many cases I found myself even speeding through a lot of the H scenes so I could get back to the actual plot. Definitely wish there were more scenes and more variety.

Overall I would give it a 4/5 mostly because I really liked the story.
TLDR:
-play it for the story
-bland RPGM gameplay
-lots of post game and side quests
-sparse and vanilla H content

How someone could rate this genuine masterpiece under 5 stars baffles me to a degree I have never felt before in my life. This game is amazing, play it. It's literally free what do u have to lose. Not to mention, it's hilarious.

A game that has great writing and game mechanics.

The porn is simply pics and are not that numerous but this is more a game than a porn.
You can expect 40hrs of gameplay with no grind, a fun and interesting story and an engaging game mechanics (multiple class to upgrade).

It's just a grindy game in general and nothing to even reward the grind. I've played for 2 or 3 hours and have only seen about 3 scenes. With how the plot of the game is, you can tell that the creator isn't even trying to make a game that is suitable for the genre and niche audience. Don't waste your time as I have o7

The game is great! Super unique story and the art is A+++. The H scenes are spread out, but I didn't mind at all, they had significant story relevance. My only complaint is a bug that is keeping me from completing the Red Arena.

I didn't find the game too grindy at all. I don't think I ever once had to grind to progress. Maybe a little at the very beginning.

Came to the game after finishing Ouroboros. Well, disappointing, confusing, unpolished. I wonder if the dev still has the plan to make it more engaging and alive than just beating thousands of MOBs. Again the dev is good with multiverse, that's why +1 star. But otherwise it just lacks interesting gameloop and plot.

P.S. I died because after the fight I was still poisoned and my HP reduced to 1.

I just finished the game and well, I am somewhat disappointed. I won't talk about talk about the gameplay as it is still being refined. The premise and the character arcs are great but, the plot was limited compared to the game's premise. A good analogy for those who watch anime is to think of Once Ever is think of Attack on Titan but it ended at Season 3. The conflict that appeared at the start is resolved but bigger ones have appeared, and yet the story ends abruptly.

Unique use of stereotypes in traditional porn to create a more interesting story with the main character trying to deviate from said stereotypes. Does not give many early H scenes and REALLY needs a gallery option to view old scenes. Also needs to tone down the grind a good bit for both money and AP. Great scenes so far tho, you just gotta work a bit for them

This game is without a doubt, legit - prolong unique story with pretty decent animation and game play. The problem however, is that it takes itself seriously as a game, leading to a Final Fantasy-esque grind to forward the plot. In over 6 hours playing this game I only saw two scenes. I don't think this game deserves the hate it gets (you can tell a lot of love was put into it), but it felt more like JRPG with porn sprinkled in than a porn game.

Although I'm a fan of Sierra Lee's work I did not enjoy this game at all.

Gameplay and writing wise it has all the standard things Sierra likes to put in her RPGM games. Puzzle maps , character progression , blah blah blah.

There are two main issues with it though:

a) Too few CGs for a game with a lot of grinding , with almost half of them being the same position (cowgirl)

b)
The game advertises itself as "making fun of typical erotic RPGM game tropes". That's an understatement. It's preachy about it and it's doing it in a bad way. A "joke" that repeats itself during every grinding intermission.
I don't even know what the moral of the story is. Make war , not love? Cock from outside your hometown is always better? Dumb bimbos bad , smart bimbos good? How to groom small (wolf) girls ? It's a mess.
Even if you are in it for the de-bimbofication it ends up being dissapointing cause you end up slutting it up anyway (just after some hours of killing things) . The de-curruption mechanism doesn't make any sense : Concensual sex in Bungtown is bad and degrading , but whoring yourself to get into some sewers is good and empowering.

Pity , the ideas all all there (library/drinking event hunting , how awesome is that!) for a 5 star game but the hateboner for typical curruption RPGs are fucking it up.

For reference, this is both my first review on this website and my first time posting on this website. I have beaten the main story and some of the optional post-game content. I'll keep this brief.

The story is fantastic. It demolishes expectations by taking a new spin on classic fables.

The gameplay, however, is the biggest issue with the game in its current version. First and foremost, the difficulty of the enemies, bosses and randoms alike, are well out of balance. Considering that the most valued resources are gold and ability points, I find it strange that the rates at which you get these are astronomically low.

Despite the fact that the scenes are few and far between, they are so well written and drawn that it felt more like a reward for the hard work rather than an expectation of gameplay. I, personally, did not mind.

For me, this game gets 4 stars. The character's statistical development and creature parameters need to be altered to make the game playable without requiring endless hours of grinding. This could be accomplished by increasing the number of ability points gained as the game progresses (the most I've seen for a single non-boss fight is 15 while abilities can cost upwards of 250) and the amount of money procured with each battle (I've never had more than $3000, which was promptly spent on an artifact found later in the game).

This is another quality RPGmaker porn game, that you don't masturbate, to by Sierra Lee.

If you are a fan of those then this is one of her better works. If you aren't into that then... Well dang. You aren't gonna like it.

With a strong Chrono Trigger like world that feels pretty great to explore. Characters are solid, dialogue is fun and the drama is believable. The combat, classes and so forth is fairly interesting.

Keep in mind you can't have class change without letting the player grind. It's a fairly hard rule. It just don't work otherwise. And this game has the avenues for grinding.

In the games current state... It is both unfinished and finished. The frame work of the game is done and a theoretical 1/6 to 1/3 of the erotic content has yet to be installed. There is also a lot of polish yet to be done on this thing.

Not enough scenes to justify the grind. Which is a shame cause the premise is such a missed opportunity, and the art is fantastic. It reminds me a bit of Noxian Nights in that the game can be super difficult at times, but with more grind early and a lot lacking in scene quantity and quality.

I really wanted to give this a higher score, I really do.

Sierra lee is a very good storyteller, but what she isn't, is a good game designer. If you came to wank, you're shit outta luck because every scene is separated by 30 minutes to an hour of mindless grinding.

Ok, so you're not here to wank. Chances are you still wouldn't enjoy this. Don't get me wrong, the premise is very interesting and the story is much better than your average RPGM game, but having to fight 20-30 enemies before you get any progression is just awful. You can't even avoid these enemies either, because they follow you and you need the XP to beat some unavoidable fights.

And by unavoidable, I mean unavoidable, invisible boss fights that you can't escape from. There was a point where I was engaged in the story and forgot to save and bam, invisible and unavoidable boss fight that wiped my team on the first round because I didn't forsee that I need to heal for it. Because there's no autosave mechanic I had to backtrack around 15 minutes to my last save.

tl;dr: Great story, but shit game mechanics prevent me from enjoying it. Don't play it for the scenes.

TL;DR: Amazing storytelling, low lewd, ok gameplay

Sierra Lee has, once again, surpassed my expectations. Which is saying something, as I've been following all her projects for a good long time, I know what they can do, and they still surprise me. And they are one of the few devs who I can say I actually went out of my way to give money because their games are just that good.

Bear in mind, at the time of review, the game is not properly finished, and though the story, mechanics and whatnot are all 100% done, there are some incomplete graphics. This doesn't bother me one bit, because its RPGM, its not exactly about looking flashy. On the other hand, the maps that have been polished look gorgeous.

GRAPHICS: For an RPGMaker game, this one is beautiful. A real treat to look at. For an overcrowded engine filled with cookie-cutter worlds, default assets, and uninspired design, this game sits pretty on its throne. The overworlds (that are currently done) are beautiful, easily some of the best ever put to RPGM, and the fully animated and unique battle sprites are a treat to behold. I love it.

ART: Sierra Lee commissioned Crescentia (of Projekt Wolfenstalh fame/infamy) to do the artwork for this game. Now, I can't speak for everyone in this regard, but I have long loved Crescentia's artwork, and seeing it here, in an actually finished game is glorious. The designs for everyone fit perfectly, and the lewd scenes are masterful.

SOUND: Its pretty typical RPG fare. Its not bad, but neither is it amazing. Very few songs overstay themselves, but if you'd rather not hear the battle tune over and over while you get through the grindier bits, you'll not be losing much by just muting the game.

GAMEPLAY: Sierra Lee is, ultimately, a storyteller. And a damn good one. I'd even venture to say one of the best I've seen in recent days, and absolutely one of the best, if not THE BEST western h-game storyteller. What she is not, however is a game designer. And while something like RPGM gives a flexible vessel to create an interactive story, its nothing grand. At the very least, like Ouroboros and The Last Sovereign before it, the game balances out it story with its actual RPG elements. It ain't flashy, it ain't grand, it can drag if you don't know what you're doing, and is generally the weakest part of this, and for that matter, all of Sierra Lee's game's, but its not bad at all.

CHARACTERS: The characters are all some variation of Little Red Riding Hood, or some other fairy tale in some cases. They all feel real and believable within the rules of the world. Its expertly done, and wonderful to see each of these characters explore and grow and interact with each other as they travel between the "tales" that make up the world. They subvert your expectations, go in interesting directions, and play off of and subvert the typical porn game tropes in the most wonderful of ways.

PLOT: Given that the marketing seemed to err on the lewd side, as well as Crescentia's art at the forefront, I was expecting a lighthearted, lewd adventure. And yet again, Sierra Lee does what she does best. Subverting expectations and plot devices. While I can't speak for the conclusion (yet), 20+ hours in, and this game is yet another masterpiece on her belt. The story never quite goes where you think its going, yet its still seemlessly pulls you from one place to the next, playing around with Sierra's typical brand of genre subversion and meta analysis. I guess it might not be for everyone, and it is definately not for someone looking for a quick wank, but I love it so much.

CONCLUSION: In case it wasn't plainly obvious, I'm a simp for Sieraa Lee's games. They are, first and foremost, a story. A beautiful, well-crafted story that plays with tropes and expectations in unexpected and exciting ways, with this delectable smattering of just the right amount of lewd to go with it. I ABSOLUTELY, 100% RECCOMEND THIS (and the rest of their games too). Its wonderful.

The story is pretty creative. The writing is good. The art is good. Some unfinished parts at the time of this review but I don't hold it against the dev.

So what went wrong?
The game hits a certain point where it drags, the fights feel tedious and the play time is overwhelmingly doing the fights. The time you spend enjoying the actual story or art is a small portion of the time you spend this.

Using RPGM is a rocky road for many developers and this is one developer that relied to much on that system to create their game. The grind and boredom that set in after about 2 hours of interesting gameplay and story brought this game to nothing more than another bargin bin RPGM game. I don't like saying that because the creators are clearly talented and capable of so much more.

TLDR: Promising, but ultimately poorly designed game.