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:
TLDR: 5 star RPG game, 60h+ gameplay, good kingdom management, generic sex scenes.
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.