The game has some issues central to design choices that warrant it being 1 star, even in a demo state.
- firstly, in terms of fixable issues, elements such as the repetitive, buggy mini game-involved with host takeover is a pain. Controlling and moving around in parasite form doesn't feel great (tight platformer jumping sections, trying to find 'gaps' to dash, etc. All with fickle directioning). Additionally, The dialogue and menu controls are non reactive. The reason why these are contributory to a 1 star review is that in a 3 year time span, It doesn't feel like it was internally/close circle play tested.
-- a secondary note to the fixable, the tag set of what you have to be 'into' broadly for the game requires you to be both bisexual and furry just to get through the demo. Then layer the 'primary' tag of pregnancy over the top and your venn diagram gets increasingly more narrow. More of a personal note, but the game would do well to have an option to toggle/skip certain content. i.e. skip the penetration minigame for certain genders, species, etc.
- secondarily, direction. from a narrative flow perspective absolutely nothing makes sense. There is porn logic then there is "huh the specimen is missing! I will go into the containment zone then never mention the strange behaviour or that the specimen is missing again!". The specimen by original description was having trouble bonding with a host, but most characters (minus the guards) bond well enough to be controlled.
- moving on to more core issues. Even on maximum graphics settings on decent graphics card, The game still looks janky. A lot of it comes down to how the engine deals with rendering level of detail possibly? It is just a guess because on low settings, 13GB of VRAM is still being eaten to render Playstation 1 graphics. Might be personal machine issue, but Unreal Engine tends to have a reputation. On engine visuals; at least put in the effort to frame and light sex scenes properly instead of expecting the player to do it for every scene.
The game could be a 3 star game, There is certainly a good game buried in the demo. But I don't forsee it as so many of the issues feel like systemic misunderstandings of game design decisions and road-mapping. A tighter technical demo that ended when you finished the platformer section of the mating-prison probably would have showed more promise as the section that comes after (the retrieval minigame) is the combination of some of the most frustrating elements of the demo.
In conclusion, to me, a demo should be showing off technical and/or narrative direction. But both feel confused in the demo.
Non contributory to the rating, but the logo having 3 stripes in it throws me off into thinking it is the 3rd instalment in a series.
- firstly, in terms of fixable issues, elements such as the repetitive, buggy mini game-involved with host takeover is a pain. Controlling and moving around in parasite form doesn't feel great (tight platformer jumping sections, trying to find 'gaps' to dash, etc. All with fickle directioning). Additionally, The dialogue and menu controls are non reactive. The reason why these are contributory to a 1 star review is that in a 3 year time span, It doesn't feel like it was internally/close circle play tested.
-- a secondary note to the fixable, the tag set of what you have to be 'into' broadly for the game requires you to be both bisexual and furry just to get through the demo. Then layer the 'primary' tag of pregnancy over the top and your venn diagram gets increasingly more narrow. More of a personal note, but the game would do well to have an option to toggle/skip certain content. i.e. skip the penetration minigame for certain genders, species, etc.
- secondarily, direction. from a narrative flow perspective absolutely nothing makes sense. There is porn logic then there is "huh the specimen is missing! I will go into the containment zone then never mention the strange behaviour or that the specimen is missing again!". The specimen by original description was having trouble bonding with a host, but most characters (minus the guards) bond well enough to be controlled.
- moving on to more core issues. Even on maximum graphics settings on decent graphics card, The game still looks janky. A lot of it comes down to how the engine deals with rendering level of detail possibly? It is just a guess because on low settings, 13GB of VRAM is still being eaten to render Playstation 1 graphics. Might be personal machine issue, but Unreal Engine tends to have a reputation. On engine visuals; at least put in the effort to frame and light sex scenes properly instead of expecting the player to do it for every scene.
The game could be a 3 star game, There is certainly a good game buried in the demo. But I don't forsee it as so many of the issues feel like systemic misunderstandings of game design decisions and road-mapping. A tighter technical demo that ended when you finished the platformer section of the mating-prison probably would have showed more promise as the section that comes after (the retrieval minigame) is the combination of some of the most frustrating elements of the demo.
In conclusion, to me, a demo should be showing off technical and/or narrative direction. But both feel confused in the demo.
Non contributory to the rating, but the logo having 3 stripes in it throws me off into thinking it is the 3rd instalment in a series.
