Ren'Py - Parasite Black [v0.170] [Damned Studios]

Good potential, but frustrating realization. Sex scenes are good, but compared to other game events - very rare, so it don't do much. Gore-stuff - looks fine. Yet it looks hella strange that even being a PiMp, your character make a girl fall in love with him. Every relationship here is nice'z friendly, and i wouldn't even metioned it if not a DaRk FaNtAsY setting with blood, ripped guts and other fine looking stuff. What else? Combat system - a full garbage. Delete it, abandon it, throw it away - RNG is ALWAYS suck cause it's always made by a lazy dev's who don't wanna waste their brain cells on something complex, so instead of t hat they just hit da playa with a boring JPG-file casino, where your 85% chances to hit turning into Miss-miss-miss. Bruh.
Almost forgot about a braindead time-wasting map management. Okay, in da city it is fine, BUT when you comes out to travel between locations - it turns into a huge boring chore, cause it is empty scenes you already saw or a boring/annoying fight with a 4 lizards or whatever. And it doin real emotional damage when you walk through it just to see one text-event with a damn orc that will send you traveling another circle. I mean. Seriously? ZERO respect for not just a players who tried it but for da whole time conception.

Great game, love dark fantasy rpg games

Now they only need to tweak the combat system (feels like when you attack at 85%~ hit chance, its actually 60%), Update all the old art, implement perks and meaby some better sounds/music for (combat/epic moments in the story) and then we are golden.

Ps. Bought the game on steam

Very good game, hope for more sharing or swinging scenes. Shoud be more choices that make impact in this game.
Characters and NPC are written good.
Love the art style and animations.
Story is excellent hope the dev will flesh it out even more.
UI and combat could be better but still its good.

I played the 0.153 version, and I've actually really enjoyed it. I'm usually not a big fan of VN or Ren'Py games, since to me at least, they tend to get boring even before halfway through the story. However this game, to my surprise, has managed to keep me captivated, and here I thought I would only play it for only a day or so haha.

Pros:
Story: Honestly it's pretty good if you ask me, though there's definitely a lot more that needs to and will be added. Honestly I was surprised that I even managed to reach the last quest, though that just means I enjoyed it to the point where time went by quickly.
Artwork: *Chef's kiss* Both the Art and animation are some of the best I've seen, and honestly I’m excited to see what’s more to come. The backgrounds, the characters, they all look fantastic, especially for “certain ” scenes.
Characters: While some are your typical NPC’s, there are some characters where they didn’t feel 2 dimensional. I really liked how some of them had some personality to them, hell I even had a couple chuckles and shock from some of them.
Sound: By the Gods, the soundtrack and atmospheric sounds definitely help with aiding the story. To be frank, it really does help build suspense, or bring the atmosphere to the environments..

Cons:
Combat: It can get a bit repetitive at times, especially when trying to get to from one location to another, so I think the devs should add a skip battle system, or at least give the player the option when their character reaches a certain level.
Content: I understand drawing and animating take time, so i’m not too upset from the lack of some content. I know more will be added, and patience is key, however there is still a lot that needs to be added. Personally, I’m excited for more *Ahem* Regina content .

TL;DR It’s definitely one of the best Ren’Py/VN games I have ever played, and this is coming from a person who usually gets bored when playing them. It ain’t finished, it ain’t perfect, but it’s definitely an unpolished gem I would recommend to anyone curious enough to play it.

Review of v0.154...

3 1/2 Stars

I knew nothing about this game going into it other than I liked the artwork in the previews. The story is okay so far. Basically a medieval Venom.

The writing is very good. I only noticed a few typos. However there are massive lore dumps. You will easily spend ten minutes reading a conversation with a character talking about the lore of the game. I appreciate the attention to detail to wanting to give the game a rich backstory, but it would have been better to save the lore dumps for codex entries so the player can read up on it when they want to.

Like I said I really like the art. However there are inconsistencies when the characters are portrayed in different situations. The art is still good, but sometimes they look like completely different characters. And apparently there is only one tit size in this world and that's fantasy large. Sigh.

The battles are repetitive and get old fast. Aside from the mandatory battles you will have to do at least 1 to 3 battles while travelling from one place to another, and you will travel a lot.

I'm not familiar with the development of this game, but from what I've read in other reviews they've been working on it for 2+ years and this is as far as they've gotten with the more recent updates being underwhelming. I'm willing to give them a little slack because I know creating art like this takes time, but there are only five locations right now and I think ten more planned on the map. If it took them this long to get this far I'm not hopeful for the game to be completed.

And also apparently every new version breaks your save making you have to play from the beginning every time. There is no reason to have this problem.

For all it's faults I did like the game, but like I said if they've only gotten this far in over two years and with all the other areas they seem to have planned I wouldn't be surprised if they abandon Parasite Black. I hope they don't, but I think their reach is exceeding their grasp.

Miss, miss, miss and more miss... As much as I appreciate the drawings and animations and this fantasy VN work, I would advise the developer not to be so RNG-obsessed. If the combat is like this early in the game, it's frankly unbearable for long hours. The constant misses of attacks on enemies make the game unplayable. I wish success in the development process of this game, but I hope the developer remembers the purpose of such games. I honestly don't think anyone would want a challenging turn-based combat system. If I personally want to play something turn-based, there are already plenty of AAA games.

Potential to be a 5* star game but has been trending down. The first two years of development were rapid, with tons of new content that was high quality. The main story line has not advanced in a year now, with development instead focused on tinkering with existing game mechanics and adding unnecessary grind features.

Adding side quests for the adventure guild was a good decision. Making it so you have to do several battles every time you travel somewhere was terrible. No one likes grind features, so why add one in 3 years into development?
For those having trouble with the battles - they are very easy. Just upgrade your strength and you can one shot everything.

The addition of a new character (traveling merchant) also seems excessive to me. When a game is several years into development, adding new characters without advancing the plot line is not a good sign towards game completion. As it stands now, I do not think this game will ever be completed. If you look at the map, there are dozens of planned cities/villages when only 4 locations on the map are even remotely complete now.

Good game, just want more progress in combat and character stories
And luckily the game does updates, not the fastest per say but still good amount of updates.
Also as I said the combat is still early in development from playing the game same for equipment but slowly it is improving in different ways.
That's all for now

A game that reset with each new update, introducing systems that worsens the game mechanics and makes simple resource obtaining a nightmare. Previous drop rates of resorces from enemies has gone to shit. WIth this new update map system has become worse, Infection drop rate from fighting is not happening, RNG has become worse, and even after so many updates Dev doesn't know how to make previous saves compatible. FK this game and Fk me for wasting my attention and time on this game that turned from gem to trash with each new update.

V0.152

Pretty good game overall. This fantasy story's something we've seen before, where an expendable group of soldiers are sent on a dangerous mission, and only the MC and friend escapes with superpowers. Of course, in the realm of hentai, the cost of this power is you're very horny.

Reading that, expect an overarching story, and plenty of different characters to breed. Artwork's nice and overall was a very good experience. I'll probably wait from this point until a full release. 4/5

Arguably one of the top five games in this site. Dialogs, art, story, and just the sheer possibilities it entails. There are entire cities yet to be explored and the whole story while very well told, is still in it's early stages. I can't wait for more.

One of the most fantastic fantasy game I've seen on this site. The world is fleshed out and makes me excited to learn more about it. The characters have distinct personalities and models, setting each one apart. And the sex scenes are fully animated, well-drawn and voiced (although they're background noises rather than the lines). And the fetishes! Not just regular women or fantasy races, but a futanari, a trans woman and a femboy. Definitely recommend it.

TL;DR I think the final, polished version of this game will be one of the best adult games ever made.

+ Great writing
+ Great art
+ Uncensored
+ Big focus on breeding/pregnancy

= Updates are a bit slow and light on content. Not necessarily a bad thing when the quality is high, but it's always a concern that games like this will never actually be finished for whatever reason the longer development takes.

- While most of the art is outstanding, there are a not insignificant amount of scenes of way lower quality, often even with the same character. Hopefully they get reworked before the final release.
- Quite a few typos.
- Saves seem to break between versions. I don't take that into account for the rating but it is incredibly annoying.

Really buggy early release but could be a good game.
I went to the lake, killed the slimelark and am stuck at the lake.
Clicking the travel icon shows some travel tutorial message and goes back to the lake

The game needs a guide or clarified dialogue to keep the game moving

Really amazing game. What's get me exited is the size of the map that I wish I will have the chance to explore it one day. It's really a rare thing to try a game where it has a nice questline with lewd elements.

This is great. Combines both the power fantasy of prototype (or venom im told, which is a good point, it talks. but i just like prototype more), with your usual hypersexual adventure one. Put all that in medieval times with some dark fantasy and there you go.

no, seriously, i dont ever do reviews, but this one just deserves to be talked about. The unique transformed designs are very nice and so is the art that goes with it.

all thats really missing is literally just more of it and maybe some combat revision. But lets be honest, thats not why we are here. As for the smut, its good. especially the newer stuff. They just get better with time.

Still waiting for the more of the mom and the sis. If youre like me, the incest tag may be what got you there. But as of now, its not worth it. you get no escalation yet.

I stayed for the story though. its pretty damn cool

Ok imma be honest. This is a real gem of the dark erotica, there is simple so much to say so I will be quick for anyone that is just reading for a simple rating that could summarize if he (or she) should play this, well If you arent scare of gore and heavy themes, you should definetly play this game.

Story: Its good and original, its a nice fresh air compared of the 90% games of here with male protagonist, you have a; medieval dark fantasy, alien themes and venom, yeah, venom, you can tell that the idea is heavily based of symbiotes like venom but more invasive... I love it, and you have a gymbro, if you are a gymrat like me you would enjoy the idea of a supportive bro.

Characters: You have a vast cast of girls that are likable... mostly, it covers a lot of kinks too and you can tell that it could end in an harem route with justifiable reasons.

Gameplay: This could be mostly the negative part of the game, the fighting feels repetitive and there is no upgrade or tree of skills at the moment so the combat is just plain.

Scenes: Yeah totally fap material but there is not enough scenes for each girl at the momeny so one will just have to wait.

Overall this is a 4.7 / 5 stars
Things that should improve is the combat system and maybe more choices, sometime it feels disconnected form certain important characters like Markus that it seems he is having problems lately.

Parasite Black is a great game if you like RPG games with some erotic stuff thrown in. For me it belongs to top 5% of game on this site.

Actually it would still remain great even with all sex stuff taken out. It would be still a good RPG with choices that matter, pretty handdrawn graphics and combats that are interesting and neither too hard or too easy.

The story is not worse than many big famous RPG games. To be precise I would say the story is worse than Witcher or Gothic but not worse than Baldur's Gate, Eye of the Beholder or Knights of Xentar. Sorry for some ancient examples, I am quite old

It's quite a typical fantasy story of a young man living in a hard times, going from zero to hero who has to save the world and rescue the princess have sex with as many gals as possible. But it's well presented and interesting. He's also some kind of mutant with special powers and curses which adds some nice twists to the gameplay, making it less worn out.

The game is now at rather early stage but I guess by just looking at the map that it going to be a big game. There is a lot of locations and while you cannot visit most of the yet, you will still get several hours of gamplay.

As I said, I like the graphics, it's pretty. It's not these same 3D models used again and again but something unique, a bit similar to classical paintings. The animation is worse but I had no problem with it.

Try it out guys and girls (any here?). It's worth it!

An excellent game. I am biased towards 2d art and there aren't that many good games with such art. So, I am very glad that this game has a decent enough story with great art to back it up. Though, it can be a little tricky to find certain character, the built-in walkthrough helps a lot. Would love to have more content with some character but I'm that will happen eventually.
Good luck to the dev for the future.

If you're a part of the harem anti-ntr crowd like me I just wanna give you guys a positive note: so far Lostraven has kept his promise on not including ntr. While there is netorase, it's completely optional. To my pleasant surprise even lesbian was made optional. So I'm just saying the game is safe, don't worry if you wanna try it out.

OK, so now I guess I'll be an analytical nerd about this game:



What did I like about the game?

1. The general plot seems interesting
2. the focus seems to be mostly on maledom harem
3. the fact that netorase and lesbian seems avoidable
4. the writing is done in an interesting way
5. graphically beautiful and artistic

What did I not like?

1. combat seems EXTREMELY repetitive. It's the same bland fight each time we head out. Turn 1, strong attack first enemy, weaken the other enemy. Turn 2, strong attack and normal attack the first enemy, it dies. Turn 3, strong attack and normal attack the surviving enemy. Turn 4 normal attack the enemy with 1 of the characters, game set. It's a dominant strategy that will never fail or result in anyone getting knocked out. I know it's not a finished product though. It would feel rewarding to have some kind of progression tree of some kind. It would be cool to maybe gain abilities and stats of the tree based on killing and fucking (because we're getting used to our new enhanced bodies.)
2. I had borderline no difficulty managing the infection. It's too easy to fight/fuck in the game so the infection level was almost permanently low. Perhaps make it so every time I use the enhanced form my infection goes up? Or make some kind of combat abilities that cost infection? Or if we're going with a progression tree make it so when I upgrade my abilities the daily infection goes up temporarily? And maybe some upgrades to slow it down, or improve the rate fighting/fucking will lower them?
3. A lack of combining combat and story properly. It would be nice to see the characters progress from training to after their infection. For example, when the mc and his "brother" fight in a training battle (your first fight) they're both able to do 25 damage with a normal strike. At the very end of the current version of the game what damage do their enhanced muscular human forms do? 25 damage. This is after the parasites explain they've altered our bodies to have denser muscle mass. They also imply extraordinary regeneration abilities which does not show itself anywhere in the game.
4. Map and time scale. It's implied that it shouldn't take more than a couple hours to get to the desert and hunt demorai. But in the story the emperor and characters are shocked they ran home in less than a week. I think the author could stand to make the map look a bit more scaled for this inconsistency, or make hunting them seem like more of a long term expedition.
5. although the graphics are beautiful it's difficult for me to call them sexy. I really like ahego, but for some reason the faces and scenes feel a little too awkward. I don't know how to describe it.
6. some dialogue feels like it should be in game, but isn't. For example, when Nyx (I think that's her name?) told me she knew what we were, the first thing I wanted to do was give Markus a heads-up. But there's no option to tell him.

Neutral comment
The game suffers from a jack of all trades issue. The game is kinda... excessive in variety that it lacks a certain focus. What does this mean? Well, let's say you don't like furry? Let's say you don't like lesbian? Or netorase? Or orc girls? Or trans/traps/futa? Or voyeurism? Or tentacles? Or anal? Sorry to tell you, but this means.... you're going to miss out on a good chunk of content in the game. While it's all avoidable, that also means the content left is very limited. I'm not complaining there's too much variety, I'm just giving everyone a heads up: there might be a very limited amount you're interested in.

Anyway, personal preferences aside, it's 5/5 stars as a game, and I hope he continues on and keeps making a great game!