(I paid for and supported some of this game's development, so here are my lengthy critical thoughts on it)
~ 3.5 stars out of 5 ~
It's a really conflicting experience playing Queen Trainer.
Akabur's quality, humour and style are there, but there's a disconnect between the elements of the game. I think he just got caught a bit in the weeds of scope creep over those 3 years of dev time and the main plot / purpose of the game ran away from him a bit. What's there is fun and even got some audible laughs out of me, the art is quality hand drawn and inked as you'd expect too. That said, the over reliance on chibi art really lets the game down. To my knowledge Jasmine is the only character with a proper paper doll body portrait, and you'll go hours before you actually come across a full CG that isn't a small vignette from Jasmine's quest line.
From a porn perspective, there's unfortunately not a lot of reward for what is a typical Akabur life/romance/corruption sim grind game loop. The game struggles to build its erotic scenes and set pieces in meaningful ways because of this. Intimate late night leash walks with Iris from Princess Trainer are now replaced with goofy workout style chibi art of her flashing her breasts. It's funny and zany as you'd expect from Akabur, but often at the expense of being sexy and engaging.
There are also just too many characters. It was ambitious to have this many marriageable female characters, but in doing so, again the development is spread too thin and you never really get that deep in your relationship to them as a player. The story with Jasmine also seems completely separate from everything else you do in the game, especially since her and the rest of the female cast never really interact at all. It really feels like Akabur chose to focus making all the side content for the game and in doing so, neglected the main story/purpose for you to be doing things.
The new systems like the weather changes and seasonal events work well and feel like a fun, cozy foundation for the game. I particularly love the attention to detail of every character having their own opinions and reactions to what's happening outside. However, superfluous features like weather, seasons, or an entire sub quest line about gardening all feel like things that could have been cut to make a more focused game. I mean, entire locations like the tea shop, the massage parlour, the fortune teller, and the honey bee lounge - although side content - all are without art of any kind, and the entire quest line about the teen girl you train almost completely consists of a head shot of her for its lengthy duration. Why can't I look at my characters full body outside of chibi art? Why can't we dress them up in absurd outfits like every other Akabur game?
It's just frustrating; I enjoyed the game quite a bit and I love Akabur's work, it just really feels like an unfocused project and unfortunately that leaves you wanting - especially with the lack of full size artwork to look forward to unlocking. Maybe this game will get a Gold Edition, maybe not. Princess Trainer was reasonably rough too until Gold Edition rounded it out to what it is now, but even that game had the sense to narrow your harem down to just 3 women. Going for this many characters with this many variable outcomes was a stretch to say the least.
It bares repeating that this is by no means a bad effort or a lazy project; I can see where the love and work went into this game, it unfortunately just struggles to decide what it wants to be, a princess Jasmine trainer or a harem builder, and in doing so, neither element feels as rewarding as you want it to.
Little things like typos, bugs, the main menu not having a LOAD button, these are all fixable, but I think going forward Akabur would be better served by restraining his ideas a bit in scope and restructuring the development-to-release window he works under. Deadlines keep you in check, and Star Channel 34 having an episodic structure I think was a good thing for his process.
In short, plenty of fun, laughs and things do in this one, just keep in mind that the eroticism takes a bit of a back seat here in favour of some humour and life sim elements. Go into it with adjusted expectations from his previous titles and you will have an enjoyable playthrough.