RPGM - Renryuu: Ascension [v24.09.24] [Naughty Netherpunch]

  1. 5.00 star(s)

    Narakin

    THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILER

    After the main quest and almost finishing all the side content I think this game deserves a review: It's a 5* in his genre: eroge RPG. I'll divide the review in 5 parts, RPG aspect, eroge aspect, pros and cons for each one , and finally suggestions.

    RPG ASPECT

    Renryuu: Ascension actually has a gameplay, which is rare to find amidst eroge games, in it's current state (v22.10.13) you're in for around 60h of content.

    PROS:
    - Kingdom management

    Progressing with your kingdom is fun, you don't feel like a chore and you can feel the impact of the upgrades/constructions, it's very satisfying seeing how your country was and how it's evolving.
    - Side quests

    You have a good amount of side quests, mostly of them actually have a good story and characters, they help the immersion and world-building
    - Resettable skill tree

    It's easy to reset your skill tree and try new talents and gameplay
    - Party-wide EXP

    When you get EXP the whole party gains even the inactive party members, which is amazing, making possible to change your party and skills to try new things.
    - "end game" content
    The game has a "raid" content, which feature dungeons which different gameplay elements, rewarding the player with legendary gear, I'm enjoying grinding them and feel rewarded with those gears.
    - Freedom to move around world map

    And soon as you get to the world map you can move freely around it, there's some main story locked places, but the vast majority is accessible, yes, you may find some high level enemies, and this is nice, the game don't hold your hand and give you a "on rail experience"
    - Marriage system
    You can get married to your waifu! Actually, all of them. I don't know how relevant it'll be in the future, but I've high hopes.

    CONS:
    - Lack of good soundtrack

    The game has soundtrack, but it's forgettable, currently, I've only enjoyed one. I don't think it's enough to lower its rating, but a good soundtrack is amazing for immersion and world-building.
    - Vanguard Squad Combat
    If the Kingdom Management is amazing and one of the selling points for this game, the Vanguard Squad Combat system is its nemesis, it's boring, I don't feel rewarded by doing the combat and it takes too long. Mostly of the time I'm using the academy to level up my vanguard leaders. The positive aspect is the equipment system, leveling the leaders traits, unlocking new leaders and getting better equip for them is a good feature.
    - Skill tree structure
    You don't feel that the talents actually change a lot of things (gameplay-wise) or are impactful, besides, you can tell that there are some outdated trees, compare Tsubaki tree with Ryoko.
    - Confusing triggers
    There are some triggers for side quests and progressing overall that aren't intuitive, sometimes even the walkthrough is obscure, besides, using the walkthrough is a double-edge sword that can't take the fun for some players, so relying on it for progression shouldn't be a given.
    - Lack of clarification
    There are some omitted information, example: Some items increase your critical rate, but don't say by how much. I can't tell which skill is stronger or if they hit the same and the only variable is the element (fire, lighting, etc), and there are some party members that use some variables (Mirel, Chiyo) in combat, but until you see the skill in the talent or start finding the events that increase said variable you've no idea that it exist.

    EROGE ASPECT

    PROS:
    - Almost "vanilla" experience

    The game contains rape and some dark aspect, but they are there for world-building, your interactions with party members are usually light, you can go for a more "dark approach" with the main character, but overall the game stays out of ntr, rape, corruption, and many other tags that are abundant in other games.
    - Pregnancy system
    You can get almost every female character pregnant, and it seems it'll be relevant for future content, at the moment, it's irrelevant, but it's promising.
    - New/few scenes are animated
    Personally I think that nowadays a game must have animated scenes if it wants to be relevant, Renryuu has some animated, especially near the end, which gives me the feeling that when the game started to get more popularity the developer increased the artwork quality


    CONS:

    - Body shape

    Almost all female character have the same body type, big tits, shaved pussy, etc. I think the game has like 3 characters that arent like that. I would like to see more variety in the girls body shape, tits, hips, shaved/hairy, etc..
    - Few choices
    What you have is a good/evil route with some girls, I would appreciate if you actually got locked out of some girls because of your decisions. Example: You can only have sex/relationship with X character IF you sided with Y faction.
    - Main character
    This is also related to the last problem, every single girl in the continent wants your dick, you're the badass that fucks everyone, it feels very naive and off-world this writting for the main character, with my currently hours of gameplay I would actually be impressed if I had to work to actually fuck a girl that isnt a party member, or even yet, don't get her.
    - Non-animated scenes
    If having animated scenes are one of the good points, the older scenes are pretty generic, nothing special, few variation.

    SUGGESTIONS:

    • Currently, the game has a cooking system, but it's not useful, the bonus/recovery it provides arent necessary even for the hardest content. Suggestion: The first time you cook something it gives a permanent bonus, it can be small, party-wide, whatever, but it'll make the player go around hunting recipes and ingredients to cook everything.
    • The game currently has a lot of girls with superficial interactions that you can have sex with, but few sex scenes. Suggestion: Stop with new characters and focus on new side quests, dialogs and sex scenes with the current ones. Jessy is too precious to have so few interactions!
    • The way you play with the main character don't impact the kingdom. Suggestion: I would like to see buildings and/or different sprites for the buildings depending on how you play with the MC (evil routes, good routes, arresting thief guild, etc.)
    • Rework the skill tree in a more non-linear and impactful way, I can't suggest examples due to review rules (I think), but there are many ways to do it.
    • As said prior, the game doesnt focus on soundtracks, I don't know how easy it is to find free samples/libraries to use, but don't under estimate their value for immersion, both for gameplay aspect (villain, city themes, etc.) and eroge aspect (sex scene, girl personality, enviroment, etc.).

    TLDR: 5 star RPG game, 60h+ gameplay, good kingdom management, generic sex scenes.
  2. 4.00 star(s)

    LEGRANDJK

    Good soup. good rpg u can see at the image of the game dont t have great animation (if we can say so ) but the content of the game is clean i recomend heaven if your not in great Relationship with rpg game :)
  3. 4.00 star(s)

    desmosome

    [v22.08.28]

    This is one of the rare gameplay eroges from a western dev. GAMEPLAY! Make sure you understand this. Don't go into this expecting the usual porn VN or even RPGM scene hunting situation. In many ways, the game should remind you of Roundscape if you have played that. There is a bit more focus on challenging content and RPG elements though.

    So assuming you come into this with the right expectations, is it enjoyable? Hell yea! There is a metric crapload of content. I clocked nearly 70 hours. There are plenty of story content and side quests. There are extremely challenging end game dungeons that you can grind for legendary equipment. Basically, if you enjoy character builds, skill trees, team synergies, and other such notions, you will absolutely have fun playing this.

    Now the game isn't without its issues. The game is essentially balanced for the mid game onwards. Early game is pretty wack. Monster types have static levels and the vast majority of areas you can (and should) explore to recruit all the characters ASAP are absolutely overpowered compared to the early game party. Even if you play blind, just doing things as they naturally appear via quests and proximity to the starting capital, you will have to run away from nearly every wandering monster.

    The frustrating thing is, running away doesn't freeze or turn the mob transparent like you'd expect. You can immediately get caught again by the same mob. When running is such a huge part of the game (because you have to or you don't feel like fighting chumps later), it can get quite annoying.

    Also, the MP requirements of some skills you can get quite early are essentially balanced with end game stats in mind. You might see a normal run of the mill attack spell cost like half of your entire early game MP pool. The balance issues gets resolved when you start getting past lvl 20 or so and find the right groove.

    The other issue is the kingdom management part and the exploration part not meshing together in harmony. They are essentially 2 entirely separate systems. There is no time pressure at all in the kingdom management turn systems. You can pass turns to your heart's content to build stuff. The only limiting factor is gold. You collect taxes based on real time passed, so at some point, you need to get out of the kingdom management screen and go back to playing the exploration. Some quests and conditions during the exploration part requires certain buildings and upgrades from the kingdom management part. In that way, you could say that there is a loose tie in between the 2 systems, but it does feel quite disjointed in practice.

    Both the aforementioned issues largely stem from the completely open world approach where the player can go and do whatever they please in any order. It's to be expected, and to be frank, the open world approach is quite a complex beast to tackle as a dev. For the most part, it's been executed admirably.

    Finally, I'll briefly talk about the porn aspect. It's basically a standard feel good harem game. There are a handful of rapey stuff, but if you are hoping to be a tyrant abusing his powers to corrupt and bang bitches, it's just not that type of story. Personally, I'm not really into low stakes lovey dovey stuff, so I skipped through the vast majority of scenes. That said, there is a "gotta catch'em all" aspect to it that is sort of a mini game for me. Trying to impregnate literally every possible thing lol.

    TL/DR
    Play this if you are exited by the prospect of actual RPG gameplay.
  4. 5.00 star(s)

    Eddie Torres

    One of the best games I've ever played I love the mechanics and the characters besides having a lot of content it also has a lot of hours of gameplay I also like that I have important choices and I appreciate very much that I do not have ntr since it is one of the genres that I dislike the most.
  5. 5.00 star(s)

    Viraqua

    This blows Harem Collector out of the water in depth and extent of content alone. The one thing that bums me is the skill level is capped at 99. And it's obviously going to be a while before the time skip is ready considering the amount of kids that have to be added to the game. But I will wait eagerly.
  6. 5.00 star(s)

    ZaxYs

    A great hentai rpg with many features.
    The story is rich and unique. And the side characters have deep stories, the game also have a turn based war like fire emblem. Got many waifus to lay on them.

    The world is big and vast. The story isn't finished but its already long. And some questlines is based on your choices. I love the main character because his personality.

    Recommended!
  7. 5.00 star(s)

    EasyMuthaFuckinE

    Review for v22.01.28

    I have poured 50+ hours in this game and still i have more things to do, more places to explore. This not only reflects the vastness of this game, but also holds you for that much time without you getting bored. The quests are fun and unique. I like how the MC's moral compass is dependent on us the player. The script is well done and the art is beautiful, seriously the art is mesmerizing. For all you Harem loving RPG fans, don't have to search anymore, this is the game for you. This game is as Vanilla as it can be. And i love the way the scenes are presented. We don't segue straight into a scene and i kinda liked this concept. Overall worth putting the time to play this MASTER PIECE. Good luck on the project Dev, eagerly waiting for future updates.
  8. 4.00 star(s)

    MidnightKing

    Review for v22.01.28

    Renryuu Ascension is just simply fun for what it is: A big open world harem RPG combined with light kingdom managing elements. It's very reminiscent of old school MMOs in a way. Lots of traveling around doing random quest bullshit (and I say that in a positive way), but the quest rewards typically end up being a new girl or sex scene instead of a random piece of loot.

    You play as a half dragon half human who sees an opportunity and takes it to become king of an entire country, and move from there. Check out the different kingdoms, explore dungeons, build up your kingdom, tackle quests, and find many many scenes and girls along the way (though I recommend trying to recruit all your companions first). I can't comment on combat as I use the skip combat cheat, but having talent trees that let you tailor your companions to your combat preferences seems pretty sweet. I also really like the vanguard system. I'm a sucker for recruiting and kingdom management in general though so perhaps I'm biased, but It's satisfying to see your castle and kingdom fill up with the people you meet on your adventures.

    The writing is definitely the weakest part of the game, and while I wish it was better, I was able to look past it. What it lacks in depth it makes up for in variety. It's got a ton of content you can sink hours into. I'm pretty sure there is still a ton of plans for future content as well. Definitely not a game for everyone, but worth checking out if you like RPGM games.
  9. 5.00 star(s)

    Chiewii95

    The game is old yet gold, this is very good management based kingdom game with a compelling story, very recommended, I like it. I hope the well being of the team developers and the artists, very beautiful art style too.
  10. 4.00 star(s)

    monk_56

    TL / DR. High quality Harem RPGM game with an interesting plot and enjoyable combat. Art is decent and plentiful. Suffers a little in depth because the scope is so broad.

    Pros:
    ~Ideal type of set-up for players who enjoy Harem tag.
    ~RPGM lends well to base-building and collecting
    ~Combat is enjoyable and the difficulty is scaled appropriately.
    ~Can play as a bit of a Tyrant or a nice dude.
    ~Being partially dragon is a fun character trait for a MC
    ~Lots of fun RPG type missions to accomplish.
    ~Lots of charming and unique characters


    Cons:
    ~Many character arcs are not that fleshed out as a result of their being tons of lewdable characters
    ~Not the most nuanced plot
    ~"Chosen one" plots are generally pretty weak
    ~MC is a bit Rapey
    ~Scene writing is somewhat lacking
  11. 1.00 star(s)

    SparkCarrot

    Open world is the word generally used to describe this mess, this game is a total mess from the writing, to the inconsistent art, quest, mechanics, etc. I think having the freedom to do whatever you want in a video game, means that you need to know something about the world, the mechanics of the game or even having a goal to do. There is nothing about it on this game.

    The game wouldn't explain the mechanics, what would happen is that a random woman character will join in your party at random quests for a random reason, and you probably have to give presents to them in other to get sex, how you know that? because i have played another lewd games and harvest moon games.

    The story is not good, the battle system is as boring as could be but is gonna get worst, not only there is not hints of how to get better weapons, or enough skill point to get better abilities on everybody but in a point of the game, you would start playing a Fire Emblem game without a goal, and without any hint of how to do it.

    But is the art good?, well, there is two types of art, the normal one and the absolutely make not sense with the personality anime stylist one. Some people critic Pokémon Shining pearl and Brilliant diamond for it inconsistent art. Well is kind of the same but worst.
  12. 3.00 star(s)

    yuh boik

    The best way to describe this game is, its skyrim with porn. I would recommend this game because of that but like skyrim its not really that amazing as a game as often screamed.

    The game seems open world where you choose how to complete it, but like skyrim its just a linear story where you can choose which order to do side quests to an extent, with some small choices that have different sex scene variations.

    This leads to a massive cult following despite not being that innovative due to the sense of freedom of doing anything, a very rare trait in porn games, and really where 2 of the 3 stars given come from.

    The Dev works very hard on this, and compared to other paid patreon games he defo deserves more moolah for it, but there are a few glaring issues with it. Its art is the most obvious issue, there are so many different styles (which seem to be getting replaced by one) but the new art isn't even good. Its got the extra shiny over the top issue. Every character looks like a uni character artist students first attempt at a BOSS character, shiny Armour, shiny skin, shiny hair, looking like they're covered in enough oil to fuel the USA, and absurdly stupid outfits with like one arm in a tone of Armour and the other completely bare. The artist he uses really needs to learn the term, beauty in simplicity ffs.

    TLDR, play this game its good, you'll like the skyrim like exploration and freedom which isn't common in porn games, but this game is the perfect example of artists going overkill on shiny skin and outfits making every character look like they're made of metal and their outfits are so bare they leave nothing to discover during sex scenes
  13. 5.00 star(s)

    Punisher Sadist

    It is an excellent RPG game with several choices decisions that can result in different routes. An amazing strategy and hentai/porn game including emotionless, male/femdom, furry, etc.
    Definitely will recommend to anyone.
    (PS: My favourite is his "slave")
  14. 2.00 star(s)

    imelman

    Written for version 21.11.14 at the time of moment, normally I don't make reviews for games in development/unfinished ones, but if a game is rather conflicting compared to what people say, or better yet, managed to make me angry over how bad it is, then it is an exception to the rule.

    All right, I have been looking at this game for a while, and thought, what I could find good out of so much promise and overlook? Well...not so much, I have to disappoint. Many things that supposed to be good end up being bad for the game, ranging from inconsistency in art, inconsistency, lazy writing that tries to be serious but ends up being wish fulfillment for the sex addicted protagonist with a blank personality who got lucky to become a king, and many other issues including rather strange gameplay cycle and details for certain quests requiring a walkthrough and even that doesn't always show what you need while displaying info for older patches!

    But let's start with the game's story, just to explain what this is about. It literally starts with "hero" being blowed by his servant, then after some training see then would be king being assassinated, then coincidence, we take his stuff and now we are the king...no duel, no sabotage, no properly planned overthrow, just he got lucky that the nameless king died and now everyone is after him...Even in quests/choices that would make him less heroic(or less evil), he still looks like a better choice(if evil), or someone who would try to have sex anyway, as a "payment"(if good). Which makes both him and "love interests", if I am being generous, not so relatable. And we get a 6 man squad of chosen men/women to defend the country, quickly joining and mostly not optional companions to serve him both in harem and otherwise, maids, all within the 1st hour of the game! And that's not including rescues from quests that either the man wants to seduce right away, or they seduce him...and he falls right away for them, despite his previous words of refusing by standards. Basically even telling the ones he helped that they owe him sex, like by saving them from danger, even if there's no danger at all, or in one case, blackmails a quest giver into one without repercussions. But anyway, back to the story - you become king, you uncover that there's fragments that allow to control ancient weaponry, countries to compete with, then there's your brother who wants it for himself, and you almost die but survive anyway because you are hero even though he's a sex addicted jerkass who really wants women to give him sex rather than help them and wait for their actual approval. That's how distracting the details are which makes the story and everyone completely unrelatable.

    Anyway, the gameplay; it is your basic RPGMaker combat, plain as it is, expect relying more on consumable items due to fact you pretty much NEED them for the entire game rather than using them when necessary, because you will need them a lot overall, both in combat and outside, even when you get a party member with healing ability, due to how stats and their costs are. And even better, due to its open(but quest locked)nature, you can end up enemies with tens of levels above you if you go where you are supposed to arrive much later. Which is not a good design to let players to go into areas where they'll just die in seconds, and most of experience are from quests, but since many involve going into places that have enemies above your level, and combat is not good for experience either, you pretty much have to explore whole places for any quest that gives experience so you won't get killed quickly in battles. Not helped by fact that stats, both offensive and defensive matter a LOT, meaning buffs/debuffs to offense/defense create a huge impact on combat, both for you and the enemy, making otherwise good to have buffs/bad to have debuffs on allies into pretty much must haves for you in order to make enemies to not hit you for loads of damage, or to stop the enemy taking minimal damage. And certain quests tell you to do X but you don't know there X is, expect it is in location Y, but they only tell vague hints, forcing you to use a walkthrough, but even that doesn't always help and states rewards for older patches.

    But that's the general combat and walking from point A to point B quests that is painfully generic and overdone unless they add something new to it, but not for some actual good things; the revive potions recover the character to 50% of their max health, which is nice, expect the fact enemies deal damage just enough to either kill them next turn unless they have enough armor, then you have all party members, both current and future having all experience from quests you completed, meaning if you recruit them later, they'll be up to your current status, excluding combat and scroll experience that they would otherwise get.

    Then there's minigames, like the kingdom developing one, its fairly simplistic and mostly used for upgrades that allow you to tax people with minimal spending on stuff they need, like by building clinics, defensive structures, and now you can fund less so you can tax more and keep them happy, farm money using arena, fighting enemy countries on overworld map if there's a war going on...But otherwise, this part of the game never really synergies with the main one, due to how different it is and how simplistic its turn-based tactics vanguard minigame it has. Everything about it screams "could be done better".

    Now, one of the dreaded parts, the writing. If you seen the story synopsis of a man who wants women to serve him and get everyone under his bed, well it doesn't give good hopes of what I thought it would be - in fact, it would be much, much better without porn, because it feels just put in because of appeal, even though that doesn't help with game's mediocre, if not outright bad writing. But let me explain how disappointing it is; some designated hero gets lucky with a king's badge and everyone is in awe of him when he reveals that, then he rescues others and has sex with them as a reward no matter how small the tasks are, then there's lots of dialogue where characters annoy with modern dialect, unfunny jokes, salamanders with TNT hammers, typos and modern era casino in a middle of a desert, and many other parts screaming edge like our protagonist being a half-dragon-human-demon who screams a crap ton of edge despite being a cardboard himself who only desires for sex. It makes him very unsympathetic, even in options where he can act nice, it still shows him as someone who would rather take advantage off someone rather than help them honestly. Should be a villain to be honest, because I played a game where a character like that is a playable villain, yet that one was far more relatable and understandable than a sex addicted cardboard.

    Now another bad part; the bugs. There's a fair amount related to quests with switches, namely the one with a police officer and another with a adventurer in your party, both involving switches that once turned, you cannot disable them to open doors, meaning you literally cannot progress them in a normal way, thankfully the game has "riddle keys", but you have to find them first, and those look like a bandaid to a normal solution, and if you end up in them without having any, well...time to reload a save.

    Another that is rather disturbing is the artwork itself. They use default RPGMaker faces, with artwork representing them, expect I seen games that do both much better, and in case of this game, it shows a total lack of art consistency; different artstyles, some characters are anime looking and some are not, some scenes are realistic and some are anime, characters models and their art(not faces)barely resembling them, some characters use a default face and some use their art face and worse yet, have no art for emotions other than default faces, which really shows the laziness. And even better, the elf village in the mid-late game stage, has literally every character with unique art(but still no emotions), while other locations have only some of characters have those. Monster girls are not always shown as humanoids on overworld map, they also appear as monsters which makes them rather confusing to identify until you encounter them, and since certain creatures also share those sprites, it makes them confusing. And another, there's several VX Ace models, like the wizards and the holy priests/guards, and mind you, they are not upscaled for MV, which makes them look pixealized, and this is on top of a quest that involves you dressing as one of them, resulting in high detailed faces being pasted onto a lower definition image...This is rather unsettling and makes everything unable to be taken seriously, or with care to details.

    For sounds, you have the soundtrack, which is basically default RPGMaker, with some custom tracks here and there, and basically nothing unique...And in sex scenes, you only have dialogue, with fertilization scenes but none of them have sound and use default music...and you won't see anything of improvement either.

    So after spending like, 10+ hours overall on this game, not to mention the time sinks and confusing details on certain quests and such, I have been very disappointed by this game, it shows so much promise, yet does them in a half-baked way, with a plot that becomes "better of the evils", even if you act as a prick, a boring, sex addicted "designated hero" protagonist that desires nothing more than sex rather than being a benevolent ruler(which the writing implies but never seen in action), writing that gives hope to be good in being grey only to burn it all into "good vs evil", unmemorable characters, questionable feature bloated gameplay, reliance on a walkthrough for trickier quests, bugs, plain sex scenes(excluding one involving an character drinking a potion that grows a functional part), bad humor, art dissonance, underdeveloped mechanics like kingdom management and so on.

    Honestly this game would be better without sex, due to reasons above and focus on let's say, gameplay, story, or just anything that would be a huge improvement overall, since sex feels shoehorned and not natural, aside from protagonist being a literal addict to it. I don't care if a protagonist is an addict, but when the game wants to have a story and ends up just playing into his wish fulfillment of a harem, it just really hurts more than it is worth. I know its not finished, but considering that's what it wants to be in what I explained, well...not so much hope of it becoming better.
  15. 5.00 star(s)

    Alcador

    There were a few things to improve on but overall the scripts and adventure were pretty decent enough to enjoy it! Highly recommended to those who like Management and RPG mix to it.

    There were a few things to improve on but overall the scripts and adventure were pretty decent enough to enjoy it! Highly recommended to those who like Management and RPG mix to it.

    There were a few things to improve on but overall the scripts and adventure were pretty decent enough to enjoy it! Highly recommended to those who like Management and RPG mix to it.
  16. 5.00 star(s)

    MikoKju

    Love this stuff, Combat is well made, grind stuff is easily cheatable, content is big enough that you can sink several hours into it. One of the best rpgms with combat so far!

    Country management is great too!
  17. 5.00 star(s)

    thehorses2

    Renryu is my favorite game on RPG Maker it is in fact my favorite Game on this site ! Forgive me if Im biased , but it inspired me to make my own game . I can not count how many times Ive fapped on the gorgeous artwork over the years , the storyline of you replacing a dead king by accidentaly being in the right place in the right time is so hillarious I still laugh at it to this day, and yet there are moments of true love,serious challenges and an interesting world that surrounds the player ! The ability to be a politian , then an adventurer and have your own harem all at the same time hit every single fetish in me ! Great work and godspeed my friend !
  18. 4.00 star(s)

    Zorkman

    I wish more people would develop RPGs like this. It is incredibly refreshing to play a game that doesn't hold your hand. Instead, it offers a brief tutorial, a few quest hints, and then lets you decide where to go from there.

    This is so much better than every other RPG that demands you perform the story according to its plan. "I'm afraid that town in front of you is blocked until you fulfill quest 3.2.c, and put on the Red shirt." This also leads to some balance issues - rarely did this game hit the sweet spot of being challenging. Most of the time it was trivially boring, and occasionally it was brutally crushing when I wandered into an area that was too high level. I felt this was a fine price to pay for the freedom of exploring a wide and varied world on my own terms.

    For example, the third quest was to explore a Dungeon. Instead I immediately pissed off to the other end of the map and explored a random town in the middle of nowhere that ended up having a mine overrun by zombies. After getting my ass kicked a few times in random encounters, I realized they were far beyond my level, and fucked off to another random area, exploring that town until I found a new party member.

    The game has a few things I didn't like all that much, but pretty much all of them are countered by a strength. I don't like the squad-based mini-game in the overmap, but it's optional so I can skip it. I don't like having to do a ton of running back and forth, but the teleportation and ease of navigation means it takes practically no time, and with practically no annoying random encounters to bog it down.

    As a porn delivery system, it isn't very good - the events take a while to get to, have somewhat arbitrary requirements (with no indicators, forcing you to read the walkthrough), and are just okay. This very much feels like porn tacked onto a game, rather than being integrated with the gameplay.

    All in all the game has some great ideas, a solid gameplay loop, balance issues, and mediocre sex scenes. If you're looking for a game that slaps you on the ass and says, "have fun and don't die too much!" you'll have fun with this for a while.
  19. 3.00 star(s)

    lilstank

    This is a review for v21.06.27, however I've played previous versions since I discovered in early 2020. I've played the for about 16 hours total.

    I want to like this game and I personally find it charming and filled with signs of the dev putting genuine effort into it. The interiors of most buildings look to be constructed by the dev himself, each and every one has some intriguing thing to do inside. Characters you wouldn't expect have some dialogue or interaction.
    The management portion of the game is enjoyable, albeit very linear. There is a clear route that must be taken to advance the progress of the kingdom but that isn't inherently bad.

    The large party that can be swapped out easily is great. Having an entourage that reacts to events helps create a nice atmosphere. My only gripe is that the characters themselves aren't very interesting. They're fine party members but not well fleshed out characters.

    Scenes are nice! There's a lot and some are easy to get and repeat while others you have to work towards meaning you get both instantaneous and delayed gratification. Even the old CGs look fine, personally I'm not a fan of the art but it'd be nonsense to claim they are bad.

    The main issue which makes this game frustrating and finally caused me to delete it was combat. Almost all depth in combat is ruined by the fact that there are no indicators for what level you should be, when to expect combat, and that the best team lineup I've found is just an entire support team for the MC.
    I consistently attempted to make interesting combinations such as hyperbuff'd Tsubaki, one-punch Brad, Chiro the Grey, and ADHD Sandra. All of them are shit compared to making MC chug every stat boost, pouring all the skill points into team-wide stat increases and spamming regular attack. The only 2 helpful combat companions I found were Trey (the only man able to tank anything good lord everyone is so squishy), and MC the only guy other than Sandra who can do any damage consistently. Mira and Sandra have uses outside combat like heals and lockpicking, but other than that you can just put whoever you want since they won't do anything.
    This entire problem could be circumvented with the introduction of actual passive abilities. Why do you have to activate Trey's blessing as a paladin he barely gets 2 rounds per battle before either the rest of the team is dead or the enemy is dead. Or corrupted body, its damage buff is literally not worth wasting an attack. Sandra should enter combat in vanish, and AOE spell should not be doing more damage per character than single target spells.
    Vampire was consistently one of my highest level characters and could not, for the life of her, do anything. Some characters like Vampire or Tsubaki simply do not do anything. Either no enemies are ever vulnerable to their elements, or the amount of skillpoints needed to even make them relevant is incredibly wasteful.
    Combat can seemingly arise from nothing, finding Chiyo early and immediately suffering 3 AOE rock shatters that can kill a level 25 team with Trey having high M.Def gear, is neither predictable nor engaging. No one expects to be ambushed on the 2nd story of a barracks in your own base right after starting the game. Fortunately the Auto-Save is good and has saved me more times than I'd like to admit.

    Thanks for listening to my Ted-Talk, I hope the dev makes the main cast more interesting and completely overhauls combat.
    Otherwise this game is fun and reflects the effort and diligence of the dev.

    4/5 Worldbuilding
    3/5 Characters
    4/5 Management
    Shaq-Fu/5 Combat
    Emphasis on Combat means Overall 2~3/5
  20. 2.00 star(s)

    jhustrue

    I tried to like this game. It should be a good game, after all, it has a decent amount of sex scenes and a ton of quests, but it's frankly not very good at all.

    The quests are a huge disappointment. This dev loves to make you go somewhere for a quest, run back to the castle for some arbitrary reason, then all the way back. Between fetch quests and running back and forth, none of the quests are actually interesting and very few are rewarding at all.

    The art is not consistent. The dialogue pictures sometimes don't match the characters; it's disturbing to get to a sex scene with a character and find that the CG looks nothing like what you were expecting. Even CGs of the same character look vastly different from scene to scene.

    Sex scenes are... lacking, to say the least. They're so poorly described that this game would honestly be better off without sex scenes. I don't feel that the dev puts much effort into the writing at all. I'm not sure exactly how long this game has been in development, but I know it's a really long time. The writing should have improved with that much experience in writing, but it doesn't. It's just as half-assed in the most recent updates.

    The map overview system and training your generals are a huge timesink that in its current state is largely unnecessary. I reckon that it will be a long, long time before it's otherwise. Pregnancy in this game is utterly disappointing.

    I expect more from a game that has been in development for so long.