So, let's talk about the game that is currently selling well...And by that, I mean not that alone, but the entire game itself; I've completed it, and just like 1 person in discussion pointed it out, it's not that "perfect and flawless" and "Kagura always makes masterpieces" thing that I'd have to break to because of my general experience with crap games, since I've played a good amount of them due to...false advertising, but that's not only what I hate them for, due to their common exploitation of genres like memes or sex to sell for money. At no effort.
But putting that aside, it's time to talk about the game itself...Shall we begin with world elements first? From what I've seen and heard about, it's about Italian wars of 18th ceuntry or something, which reminds me of that steampunk vs magic RPG, but in much worse way, and this product is well, reinterpretation of that period, expect unlike that game with technology vs magic attitude, its more of tech vs no tech and rich vs poor, and let's be honest, this version of real life history is rather...schizo, because of how cannons can fit indoors, like castles, let alone firing cannonballs at floor...Then you have dragons that act like taxis with policemen checking their speed traffic, along with dragons having car engines...Which is strange, because logical people would have them being riders, but here they are like cars, but have no doors or something to house people in first place...even though you could reach that well on foot because of how small the "vehicle place" is. Taxis are normally used for transporting over large distances, only sometimes short ones, buses count as well. I could say more about those weird things that could synergize with fantasy, but I've seen only failures, due to nonsensical dialogue, such as characters who say gameplay mechanics without being in-universe to be forgiven for 4th wall breaking.
As for plot, it's a weird mix of fantasy and steampunk modern, expect you play as fox princess who wants to liberate the world from an empire to bring peace...You can do it the forceful way, like any rational person would do in times of war, or use ahem...sexual way, which is more peaceful, but humiliates you as a warrior and a leader. Or use a nun you get later to skip some battles if you really want that. There's plot twists there and there, but all felt more like shortcomings, due to fact they are trying to be shown as failures...expect a solution appears next after.
So, as I've tried to be spoiler-free as possible, the story of this game is rather insulting to real life due to showing expy of real life war as sex heaven, like those unplayable commander women with naked armor-less outfits and large breasts, yet magically powerful, and other things that would be disservice to historians, let alone people who want to know truth. It's full of logic gaps there and there, fantasy apocalypse devices, as well other stuff that don't exist in real life doesn't help either.
Now for gameplay, and that well, is better than most generic RPGM games, but for most part, it wasn't special; you try to equip the most powerful items whenever possible, explore good amount of map to get a head start, scavenge for items, e.t.c. The notable things were harvesting/crafting system, skill learning/equip system, and money bank one, however, neither of those felt particularly special; the crafting items are just stat upgrades with no specials that you really want or need, due to limit in skills you try to take the most powerful ones and abandon the rest, and depending on difficulty and how you play the game, the bank option appears more as an afterthought; losing takes away half of you current money, but large amounts of it(50k+)is already too high for the entire game, aside from consumables on higher difficulties.
As for sexual parts, in case of combat, just status effects that reduce your armor(tearing)or cover you in white liquid that does nothing, but embarrass. And that's it, no more interactions in combat. Pretty bland.
For event based sex, its either lose and be raped, trigger certain events like peaceful options, or certain boss defeats...of which there are too few. Most of them involve men that humiliate the main character. Also note to people who don't like surprises, there's a shemale boss at later stages of the game. And do note, completing the game doesn't unlock events/CGs, you have to trigger them in a save to have them for recollection, which means you HAVE to do things in order to get them all. Which is even more disappointing, since many people dislike rape on defeat aspect, due to fact it breaks the flow of gameplay, unless defeat is supposed to advance the story.
Now, on technical side of things, well, this game is full of them. As expected of a localization company that does no quality check/control, let alone assurance. From Americanized dialogue(mostly not an issue, but depends on how you make the dialogue feel right, here it feels too hoorah and so on), to skill that literally reads "Three Strike(four, due to translation from Italian, but changed to 3 due to in-game effect)", which shows how "careful" they were during the process. And remember, many people couldn't get past chapter 5 till patch because of that! I've also seen some bugs and glitches here and there, but most of them were visual ones, which is an issue, but whatever.
For art, its rather normal for anime artist made games, but considering what the art IS about, well, it did shown gross things that should be in places dedicated for that, like swimsuit military general having sex with soldiers...Which is offensive to real life military as it dehumanizes and washes history for the uneducated part.
Maps themselves are linear for most part, with deviation rewards being weapons/armor from chests that can be upgraded and only found there, to items that mostly you want rather to sell than to keep, and a gimmick that makes certain characters have special abilities, like opening locked doors, or jumping over gaps...but you have to switch to said character via formation, which in combat, may be not as desirable because of battle order system. And annoying to switch to character to character to do just 1 thing.
I've took 6-7 hours to beat this game from start to end, and while it certainly wasn't that short, some of time was wasted finding out things that fortuneteller wasn't able to give accurate descriptions/locations of. On higher difficulties, you probably have to grind. Which doesn't help for strategy department. The fact my reward for completing it was...more gameplay with no changes other than keeping my stats, not even a full gallery, it means I have to waste more time doing something that designers should've fixed in the first place.
In conclusion, this game would've an mediocre and not much disappointment if I was merciful enough, but those issues make it worse. And you should know what is quality and what is called polished crap.
Please play good games. Not ones made to exploit tropes, especially if it tries to ruin real life history. Not the worst, but you should think twice before mindlessly praising or mindlessly hating.
