Sooooo, I was supposed to write my "report" upon finishing the game, which happened a few days ago. Yet, I only do it now.
Truth be told, finishing Roundscape did bring joy, but more than that it tired me down. After 100+ a couple of hours playing through almost all the content available for Farm Male (except Calanthe quests - I don't like them) and posting my findings here numerous time, I feel greatly exhausted.
It was worth it, still, but quite tiresome. So lets tie this up, shall we?
This game has greater potential than almost any other porn game I've played. A potential that sadly - almost tragically given game's massive history and potential we are speaking about - was never realized. Its a clear example of game being bloated with extra content with no polish or care given to what was there already. It gets ridiculous when ages-old bug with quest log (that I strongly suspect was there from the very first version) is still there. We get new endings to the game, but huge bugs like that persist through dozens of versions! Preposterous - especially if we take into equation the fact that one of two new endings is inaccessible due to another bug!
The other point of contention are AI-generated images. I don't advocate against AI in general, but there should be limits to what AI should be used for. Limits that were crossed in Roundscape, given general low-quality of AI-replacements - verifiably and objectively, I am afraid. That, as well as dubious necessity to do it altogether and the fact that devs make quite a lot of money for a game of this genre. And yet have chosen not to hire artists, but to utilize free-to-use AI-generators.
Much was said about specific mistakes, including my own messages, so I will be brief on this point (those who are interested could check my previous messages). They are: lacking or out-of-place expressions, outright anatomical mistakes, a lot of mistakes with eye-generation (double irises, eyes pointing in different directions, etc), miscoloration (specifically, objects wrongly given color of nearby objects), out-of-place cum, occasional mess in the background and what I could only call a sign of rush or laziness.
Last point deserves elaboration for the sake of clarity - many scenes involve close-up shots, which usually highlight expression of sexual partners and are used as interludes or preludes. Naturally, the simplest way to do it is to crop a part of bigger image to create a new image - a simple task, done in mere seconds in MS Paint. Yet, in many cases of AI-replacement images the close-up was a separate generation, not a cropping! It lead to lessened continuity within scenes where characters could change expression amidscene, or have cumstains appear or disappear, or even have different skin-color in different part of one sequence of one scene. I will reiterate: it takes seconds - yes, seconds! - to crop an image in MS Paint. Roundscape uses simple png images, there is no special formating, no coding - just a bunch of png files put in a hidden folder. And I know what you are probably want to suggest - yes, I've considered a possibility that devs did it for the sake of keeping high-resolution that would obviously be lost upon cropping. But not only game already had tons of cropped images (and I doubt anyone complained about them) - some of AI-replacements were cropped too! And I really think that those were more polished images, while rougher ones got their close-up sections generated separately. So it anything, devs' intentions was to crop, which is logical because it keeps the scene consistent, and the lack of cropping is the result of rush or laziness.
Another point is that most of really bad AI-replacements were in the early game - and I suspect a reason for that. IIRC, 6+ versions are compatible with saves from later 5+ versions. Naturally, many people are likely to have used older saves, thus skipping most if not all of early-game content. So it makes sense to give less polish for something that would be seen by less people.
It only a guess, if educated one, but I think that devs spent on Gold Edition far less time than we would think. Perhaps, it wasn't given much time at all before they've finished Arenus - would certainly explain a lot of strange seemingly lazy decisions. Especially ridiculous stuff like not spending 30 seconds to crop a close-up to keep the scene consistent. Or a plethora of new bugs that suggests lack of testing, which in turn suggests very heavily that devs have rushed Gold Edition.
And so a game that needed polishing before everything else got everything else except polishing.
But enough with negativity. In previous days I went into lot of rants about devs, about game's issues and whatnot, even in this post I do it still. So, what's good is there?
Well, I like my games varied, so the variety of artstyles, kinks, characters, places and whatnot in this game makes me squeal in delight. Gold Edition didn't drag behind either, introducing a hefty lot of scenes, including delightful Golden Tower stuff and a cute few scenes for my favorite Mayla. Bueno.
Variety leads to another point: the whole volume of what you can entertain yourself with is immense to put it very lightly. I have spent 100+ a few hours on my current playthrough and trust me - I have entertained myself all right. If only combat was more polished, fighting would be more interesting as well.
This is really huge game with huge legacy that has bajillion tons-worth of content for almost every kink imaginable. This isn't something you see often - usually games are more focused. Or simply smaller - in sheer scale Roundscape Adorevia beats competition into stardust.
This is enough to warrant a playthrough or two just to see them all. Despite currently junky combat, AI-bullshit and a spaghetti-coded nest of bugs that occupy much of this game, it is still worth your time. And I will recommend it.
Now, lets wenture into spoiler territory. Mayla ending I was hoping for from the moment I've played this game for the first time. I will delve into details of this ending, so please do avoid it. Especiallt the spoiler within a spoiler.
So, this is it. A little verbous rant of mine about the absolute state of the game, one of its new endings and its issues. Hope you have survived reading through it.
Ciao!
P.S. I forgot to add my rating.
In its current state, the game is 3,5-4, and with fixed issues it will be 4-4,5. Due to its bloated nature I doubt it could be 5/5 though.