Others - Parasite Infection 2 [v1.18] [ParasiteInfection]

So to my surprise, I wasn't bothered by the AI CG that much. In fact if I were to rate that alone, I'd say 4/5 stars (and I hate AI CG!)

But anyway, I'm giving this a poor 2/5 stars because it just makes all the same mistakes as the first one did:

• Poor choice of engine, the dev has to spend time just re-inventing wheels, and ends up with ones worse than the others already available (ren'py...) leading to bugs and less dev time to spend on the user experience
• Writing that frequently puts more effort into not-sexy stuff than it does the sexy stuff.
• Overcomplication of gameplay mechanics, I found myself spending more time spamming things to control the dangerous meters than actually playing the game for the smut.
• Ditching carefully written smut and replacing it with "freeform" options that amount to something along the lines of "x did y to their z"
• Poor storyline and choice structure. You can't really tell that things are happening, and often can't tell why things are happening.
• Minimal character interactions. Actually, this is better than the original game but if the bar was almost on the floor in the first place it's not hard to surpass it.

Honestly I'd love to have the niche this game is set in filled, but this game leaves a lot to be desired. There are great MC games that should be reviewed and referenced for improving PI games, but really this one's so invested into Godot it may just be too late and the necessary improvements will either have to wait for PI3 or may not happen ever at this point.

This sequel falls far from the original in many, many ways. And that's saying something considering the degeneration of the writing in the later parts of the first game.

While I understand the financial motivations to switching to generated imagery rather than paying a fairly high-cost artist, the replacements are most charitably described as "unrelated to the text". Whatever your opinion on AI-generated images over artwork, the fact that the images barely even connect to what's going on in the story makes me feel that it would have been better off as a text-only product.

No matter who or what has done the images for the game, the writing is the primary focus of the game. This new game matches more the waning quality of the later sections of the first game rather than the stronger initial parts. All the strong intrigue and sense of danger has faded for a simple power trip that can be gotten better from other games (albeit without the exact niche fetishes of this game and its predecessor). I'm not a fan, but if you enjoy that more, then you may find something to enjoy.

Lastly, the performance has been... lackluster. I understand it's early days on a new engine, but somehow the game hitches and lags worse than Twine (which is essentially a wiki webpage running a game).

Overall the experience left me feeling like I wanted my money back despite paying nothing.

Apart from the unfortunate plethora of visual and gameplay bugs, Parasite Infection 2 feels like a natural sequel to the first game, meaning if you didn't fuck with the first game, you're probably not going to like this one either. For a series with a pretty narrow niche, its very well done and even better written. This being a very new game, I have my hopes that bugs will be sqashed going into future updates, but considering the previous game is considered "finished" yet even the second chapter has some glaring issues and missing visuals (see my note about the tribbing scene below), I'm thinking about holding my breath this time around too.
Regarding the AI CG's (seemingly) replacing the older, hand-drawn ones, so far my opinion of them have been rather mixed. The older CG's were gorgeous and very detailed, but that created the issue of many CG's being reused for scenes where, for example, you had a different parasite color than what the CG's allowed for, simply due to there not being much in the terms of variance (the tribbing CG in Chapter 2, for example, had no variations whatsoever; parasite infested, Antari or otherwise!). Obviously AI allows for infinitely more variations, but right now the main issue that bugs me is that parasites sometimes don't look like parasites, or there are major inconsistencies between infecting one person vs another (I'm looking at you,Canal parasite!).
There is always the discussion to be had about the ethics of using AI CG's at all, and I believe it really is something we as a society will have to sit down and talk over, but I don't think F95 is exactly the soapbox to do it on.

I enjoyed the first Parasite Infection. The web based text game was fun and the art for it was gorgeous. It really tantalized the lizard brain with the lewd elements and parasitic worms :3.

SADLY that is NOT true for the sequel. For whatever reason, I don't know what, they opted using A.I. generative images for everything. including the parasites.
Honestly, it's just slop and it killed the mood for me.
Everything from the designs, characters, visuals...they just suck.
A.I. generated imagery is sloppy and that's putting it as nice as I can.
I miss the original artist touch to the character designs, monsters and lewd bits.
I'm no longer throwing money at the developer until they get some REAL artists on their team.

I was just going to give it a 2-star rating. But that would be too generous.
REAL ARTISTS for REAL ART.

Nice. Hope to see more! Arrosing fetish done nicely.
Could improve the sissification, sometimes the choices/order isn't clear, so fix that or allow removal/replace parasite with a "better" one.
Needs some more reluctance and shyness, and be way longer. But it's EA so all is forgiven! =)

Gotta be one of the best html games I've played. Many unique mechanics. I really don't mind the AI art, works really well for TS and genderbend..
Played thru it a couple times.. quite a lot of possibilities for each character. Looking forward to future updates.

I'm seeing a lot of hate comments about the art, that's a real shame. I've gone thru majority of the transformations and it really did not affect my immersion.

I've had to many issues trying to run this game with random crashes. I the AI art also is very off putting to look at compared to the last game, While I know it would be expensive to pay for a bunch of art I'd rather that and having it saved for specific characters/moments vs the AI slop. Personally I cannot recommend the game in the current state as I feel the writing also has gotten worse compared to the first game.

The art is really what kills it here. You have a great niche kink, passable gameplay that could use some tweaks but isn't totally awful, but every single visual just falls flat on its face and defeats the whole point. The art only really does the absolute bare minimum of the kink, and using AI you're never going to get a scene that actually works with a kink like this. If you want a tentacle throat fuck you need a tentacle throat fuck, not just kind of a vague girl on her knees with a blue blob at her face. And the mindbreak scenes are literally just every single gooner image online. As someone who is very into this it just totally shits the bed with the visuals being the most bland uninspired slop you can make. This just simply is not the kink from a visual standpoint. If you can't actually do visuals just make it text based, this is nothing.

Good start, I enjoy the more personal touch for this first chapter, although I am hoping that the management and power fantasy aspect that we had in the first game will increase as we move on.

Right now, other than a few lines, it really does feel like we are just corrupting a handful of people.

The Art is nice, the changes are well reflected on the character screen, including more drastic ones like feminisation

The writing is sexy and to the point.

The UI needs some more work, especially explaining the effects of specific parasites and different color variants,

The Sequel to parasite infection. its... Ok?

ive played the game for a few hours testing the limits, poking and prodding where i could and while understanding that this is completely early access, and is aiming for a more Linear style of presentation... it feels very lackluster

For various reasons, and not to hold it over the its prior iteration because i understand we're trying for something new here.

There's less choice and freedom, it's more so preset interactions and this wouldn't be terrible if it wasn't for the fact that instead of elaboration for each engagement it seems to just end with the finalization of, you infected this person with so and such parasite, before sending you back to the next line of choices, to push the game forward, there doesn't seem to be any sort of explicable changes you get to see besides the character art, no textual elaboration, just one and dones, which counters the sort of content we had prior

The ai art, it isnt bad, it isn't risky and sexualized... its sorta just ok? its clean no multi-fingers, poor shadows, or odd renders, the parasites themselves when in the work, are nice to see, thought provoking, and are good to look at. the game over scenes using the ai, are probably the most, explicit and creative becoming, when you get mindbroken,

Just feels like using ai art, there was a lot of missed chances to go wild and be creative, even with the first game, he commissioned from Modeseven some very unique designs for each of the bio suits, and i understand this is ai art, but each of the suits seem kind of similar, just different colors, which is completely disheartening

The UI is okay, i haven't had any issues with it, feels very tight, but works, compared to the last game

The story is consistent, simple. and again the game is still in early access so it's to be expected.

Overall review. its Simply ok, i don't expect anyone to lose there heads over it yet, it certainly isnt exactly an improvement from the first games gameplay loop, nor as exciting, but im sure it brings its own spice to the table to interest players, and isn't worth not trying for your own interpretation

The ai art is serviceable its consistent and has been mostly cleaned, however some of the UX could use some work. Half way through the game I forgot which parasites did what and there was no way to check.

The author has significantly improved the game's graphics. Probably uses AI. The demo is linear. It has no branches or choices that affect the gameplay. But the author has the drive to progress in the production of this game. I wish the author of the game productive ideas and success in creating the game.

Review of 1.07.

Decent start to this sequel. I enjoyed the previous version of the game but it very much seemed like a testbed for mechanics and ideas so hopefully this will be more fully fleshed out.

The art style is consistent in my opinion (although AI, so some will automatically not like it).

The gameplay is okay. I think at the moment it's a little unbalanced in various ways and there's little explanation of some of the things that are happening.

The UI is okay but there are some overlapping issues and it feels a little clunky, maybe just not used to it at the moment.

Overall mediocre in my opinion, but a known developer who has been consistent in the past so hopeful that it will improve.

I have played both this and the first instalment, and i have to say that the improvement is noticeable, the mechanics are easily understood, intuitive and i can with relative ease see where it will be expanded in the future.

On the matter of art, while i loved the art from the first one i don't begrudge the use of AI, both because the author expressed why they can no longer use the previous art and even with AI i can see the effort invested for it to remain consistent and good looking,

Best of luck to the author and my thanks to him for continuing to be the best source for this specific fetish i can't wait to see how it develops from here