RPGM - Para Ark 2 [v1.0.6] [ST Hot Dog King]

para ark 2... well, part 2 is good, but its not really better than part 1. which is a bloody shame, because the game had all the potential to be so much better.

TLDR: is still a good game regardless of my rambling, with better looks and more QoL and you definitely should at least try it, especially if you're into the tags.
but i've a lot on my mind after completing the game with a save 25h and 15min long (version 1.0.6). and most of it due to my unavoidable comparisons with part 1, so buckle up.

the good
1. the first thing you notice - prettier and higher res CGs with proper animations for various activities (it comes with a but later)
2. resource management is way less fiddly and grindy than before, with more automation in mind. and all the upgrades arent really essential, though will somewhat help.
3. squad breeding is easier. offsprings now take mother's current level into account and you dont have to grind levels for each new one from lvl1. (though it is too comes with a but)
4. the game recieved quite a hefty battle fuck expansion. lots of skills and mechanics
5. the good old ost from part 1 with addition of some new soundtracks

the bad.
and its the main one that i cant break down into simple points.
characters lost all their uniqueness. there's little to no difference valuable difference in their native combat skills and they often repeat each other, especially original characters, except for very little chosen few.
not only that, but they also became absurdly irrelevant. why do traditional combat, when you can fuck the soul outta your enemies. and not only can, but you're persistently encouraged to, because there's womb absorption skill, that is a heal source that cant be ignored. as well as some other quite strong debuffs and synergistic sex attack skills.
on top of that, every single one character has the same sex skills, everyone can be or cannot be futa, and in the end the only difference character-wise is the jpg of a character that you see on the right of the screen. additional nail in the coffin that their "full body avatars" also lost in uniqueness coz all the girls are of the same height and sizes(ish), have only 2 stances that are slightly modified for each one. aaand some of them were changed to look like just some cosplayers. (mosky girl will be the easiest example that you'll see early, then the ant girl iirc)
the other reason why traditional combat doesnt seem viable anymore in part 2, is because via battle fuck as you get more and more exp to your "working" body parts, and the more exp you get, the more stats you precieve. the stat boost is so huge, that armor and weapons, and even like 10lvl diff looks mildly irrelevant, because you'll still win without an issue, it would just take a bit longer, than if you had proper gear.
you dont even need to play as a squad (4 slots from the start are available), with an exception of 2 fights where your char can be insta killed full hp, and you gotta have someone on standby for revival.
another issue that i wouldnt mention, werent sex skills so.. you might say mandatory. each sex skill applied comes with an anim and a QTE (can be disabled to save time) and these anims will drag out each fight, which is especially noticable in fights 4v5. but it is only slightly annoying, nothing major.

this one is a nitpick, but on like a 6th hour it became an eyesore.
in girl on girl fights there's no animations girl A on girl B per sex attack, there's only girl A on enemy doll, or girl B on ally doll, meaning recieving character is always displayed as "some" female body. i understands that things like that were meant to cut time and cost on asset creation but at least show some love for the MC.
though granted there are anims for chosen few male enemies, where it is a proper male A on girl A, without doll shenanigans.

side note
story-wise it feels like a good continuation of part 1. there are 2 endings, but they seemed to me rather inconsequential no matter the choice. my speculation is that the dev is aiming for part 3.

now with that being out from my mind, ima go try that dev's other games.

1.02 Review...

Good, played it for ~11 hours.

Incentive to go to each planet and populate them was pretty good but got a little boring when I noticed that each of the "viewing events" started to repeat after some while.

My only gameplay complaint is that in Para Ark 1 I actually felt the need to use my teams actual fighting abilities to get through, but in this one you really dont need to. You could just sex fight your way through everything and win no problem (I know this is actually amazing and probably most people would rather do that, but some of the variants had actually pretty cool abilities/effects that I never needed to use or were just weaker then doing sex attacks).

All variants/spawns have their actual models included in many more of the sex battle animations (compared to Para Ark 1 showing a generic female body part in many of the animations), which is amazing but the developer certainly had to compromise and made sure each variant fit one a few form factors to make it work. Para Ark 1 had really cool standing model art for many of the variants but in this one you will see all of them having the same sort of ~3 forms/stances. Hope to see the unique designs in upcoming games even if we lose out on some of the sex attacks.

Looking forward to whatever the next game is.

[This Review is written from 0.4.2 beta, things may change on future]
i know its too early to judge the game yet, but i will do it as feedback, and because i know a portion of the people barely play the game itself, but are here for the sex content too

still grindy but a lot more manageable and more "idle" than the previous game, you setup stuff on the planet and leave them there, don't worry with as they are added automatically for your inventory as you play the game, you can even automatize crafting of certain materials
the combat is not hard at all, on normal mode you can literally beat the demo without having a ally once, but one thing it's upgrade from the previous game, is the pregnancy system
while before you were forced to have pregnancy eventually (assuming you don't use the no pregnancy cheat included) and manage a lot of items related to pregnancy, grinding for them
on this game is pretty simple: Got pregnant? you birth right on spot for a new ally, or you literally consume the semen to heal yourself, no more worrying if you are pregnant or not, because assuming you don't want newer aliens, you still have reason to use sex attacks to sustain yourself

"Reason to use sex attacks" is a problem though, the game have too much repetitive scenes, and i'm not telling there should be 90 scenes for each enemy, its the fact that specifically alien content is lackluster
just like the previous game, its have a lot of generic animations, no matter what enemy sexually attack you (or vice versa), you gonna have the same giant flying penis coming out of nowhere as placeholder, insects? red sausage tentacle, parasites? Big red sausage, literally tentacles? Sausage
this also applies for female aliens, and i'm no nitpicking, you realize that during the very first enemy you find, the mosky
about futa and yuri content, while they do use characters properly for futa and yuri animations, many instances also applies with generic placeholders
for weirdest is the incosistency of your character's body, your character looks perfectly petite fine until the scene decides to expands them transformed into exo-planets
(for that point, it's okay, the game is on beta and it the dev is focused on gamepaly over scenes, this is good actually, but hopefully they don't make it like the first game with only placeholders and more placeholders)

for short: Gameplay loop definitely is more manageable, sandbox with more freedom in comparison to the first game, there's also a difficulty slider in case you don't like grinding, that while don't itself reduce it, it makes enemies hit weaker and die easier with lesser equipments
but if you are here for sex scenes, there is no gallery, not for combat-sex things from the version i am rating this (0.4.2) hopefully the dev don't make this a placeholder fest like the first game on the final update, but again, it's too early to judge, game is on beta and all we can do is wait

ver.:0.3 review
I can already tell where this game is headed. For some reason ST Hot Dog King refuses to learn from his mistakes or for that matter listen to his fans and makes essentially worse and worse games. His first game Para Ark being his best game so far and a superior game to this too.

Para Ark 2 is overcomplicated, grindier than any of his previous games so far, with unnecessary systems that provide 0 satisfying gameplay and only serve to function of padding the content further and increasing play time. The visual style got worse too, instead of the patchy but properly drawn animations now we get pretty basic live2d animations without any regards to quality. But not only that, somehow even the story and writing got worse compared to his previous game Worm Nest Plague.

The only good thing that happened is that the companion characters got more focus compared to the prequel, with them being unique and properly adding effectively to the combat.

Everything else is essentially inferior to Para Ark 1. If you like the tags go and play that. Maybe wait for this to get content and play it with cheats to counter the ridiculous grind you have to do to progress...

ver.: 1.0 edit: Literally barely did anything improve. The game got a little less grindy, due to the fact the combat got simplified to a trivial level. The fact that you are essentially forced to do combat and it's just ability spamming with annoying cut-ins is ridiculous, ZERO game design sense.

This compared to the other works plays much more into the hyper inflation fetish which is not really my thing to be honest and even if it were the way it is done is just weak. It is also much more heavily forced on the player. Forced fetishes are simply not cool. The whole thing is just weak. It does not deserve more than what I originally rated it for.

There are many new ideas which could potentially be engaging, like the population mechanic or the breeding and skill levelling but it is so overly simplified it is just another thing you can do and grind in the game for essentially nothing. sadge

The handling has been developed to be too complex, which somewhat spoils the fun of playing. I often got stuck because the logical connection was incorrect. The insects could have been worked on a little more in the design and seemed a little too clumsy.

Version 0.1

This is a sequel to the last game, we again have very messed up H-scenes, breeding your own army, farming resources, etc.
This time however, you can create harvesters much more easily and you build energy generators and item collectors, and this time you can build your own factories which create raw items automatically over time. This drastically reduces the grind and makes material collecting trivial.

Ship combat is also improved, no longer do you need to time your shots, you just aim and hit fire, and the ship upgrades are very easy to craft, there's even a shop at galaxy 2.

Looks great, let's see what future updates will bring.

Edit:

v1.0.2

The story gets kinda, interesting, you are fighting bosses, make sure you have purchased at least 30 death revival potions otherwise the bosses will eradicate you hahaha. You are purchasing a better ship, crafting better armor and weapons and items, oh and no more sh*tty grind, just auto farm items from the factories. The gameplay is well made.


And also, when birthing new creatures, they now use the level of the mother instead of being level 1, this is a great addition to encourage you to not stick with 4 character until the end of the game.

The enemies get harder and harder, make sure you prepare well, there's some choices in the end, after beating the game the gallery is unlocked, including all of the enemy in-combat H-scenes, and being able to fight the bosses again, and a small fan service with the mascot of the dev lmao.

There's this strange mechanic of, sacrificing one party member to populate some planet and then you gain some kind of special coins which are given to the friendly gigantic planet-size girl in outer space, but the rewards are kinda, useless and not worth it.

Certified 5/5 Masterpiece. It's not for everyone due to, well, the mind fuckingly insane and disturbing H-scenes, but I don't really mind those.

Cant wait to see where this game goes, love the mechanics and the general feel of the game. Small nitpick from me would be to make the gathering little harder by not giving planets energy or make it really rare to have one so it doesnt snowball in first 10 minutes if you know what you doing.