A game that fails to meet any of the goals set by the developer in the notes section (and thus is a terrible or 1-star review) based on what was promised
- explore the related but distinct genres of training and corruption
First, both halves of this game are so structurally similar and lean much further on the training side that after a year and half a dozen updates, there is more or less no trace of corruption. I don't believe either character has changed, and the one who has been "corrupted" has been kidnapped, held in a cage, and forced to strip and clean for random soliders for over a week, which is closer to "forced with threat of death" than "corrupted"(but she is still able to say no thanks to her next task, so nope, not corrupted at all, but more on that later).
- How are they similar? How are they different?
As stated previously, there is so little difference between the two halves that I had to rework my review due to the fact that I assumed one half would be trainer and one half corruption (but changelog refers to everything as training). The only difference is that one of them is the most basic, barebones interpretation of the idea (you are allowed to say no twice every time until you have to say yes, repeating with escalating tasks and punishments). Which is made worse by the fact that both in the story and in the real world, the developers treat the person who kidnapped, then imprisoned, a royal against their will as some sort of genius who has it all planned out (ignore the fact that he had to flee the city because he was about to be caught doing a minor crime). Sadly, the better half is only better by default and has writing such as "you can turn a task, but it will take you longer to complete your spy training," which more or less boils down to (you are allowed to say no twice every time until you have to say yes again with escalating tasks and punishments, in this case having to do more minor tasks).
- How do they look from the perspective of the object of the training or corruption?
This is perhaps the most disappointing failed goal, as after a year both have started training (recently), there has been no believable or tanigable corruption (besides one girl not recoiling from being sexually assaulted while tied up), and even beyond that, who the people were before is utterly irrelevant to who they are now. A street kid thief who grew up with a single abusive father and two older sisters forced to prostitute themselves is just as easily able to fool high society as she is after several "training" sessions, and a princess who never worked nor wanted for anything is able to remain sane (and even enjoy pleasure!) after having multiple traumatic experiences.
All in all, if this game was just trying to be ye old pornography, it would get an average rating as there are things it does better and worse than other medevil games (the menus in particular stand out for being "accurate," but by the developer's own admission, that is not what he was attempting to do; he was attempting to do what I described above, and based on that, I would call this game terrible because it fails on every front (the dev note promises are what drew me to this game in the first place). I also think it "fails" as pure pornography compared to other games both in art and animation, but my main gripes are to do with failed ambition.