VN RPGM Onhold Saria Reclaimed [v0.17] [Velminth]

[palmtrees89]

Anyone got a tl;dr?

Developer at one point started insulting everyone and everything for the tiniest bit of criticism, and I mean actual harsh insults. He's kicking paying supporters from his Discord for simply disagreeing with him, or having opinions that differ from his own.

The game was quite popular before the complete overhaul (adding the card system instead of actual gameplay for example), but he ran it down big time which in return obviously lead to more criticism and the developer turning into a complete maniac.

Last thing I heard from the guy was that he's gonna finish this game the way he wants, and 3 months later it's on-hold aka abandoned.

 

[Detective Cancer]

It is executed badly, and changed drastically with each update, but it also does have genuine improvements with each update with Vel figuring out what he wants the combat system to be. The new game is looking to be further expansion of this experimentation.
If this was the sole issue you'd not really have this level of outcry; but you add in the fact that most of the content that people enjoyed was thrown out to produce a completely different game twice in one year and Vel being very hot-headed person... it's just recipe for a disaster. In fact if Vel was just better at PR I doubt you'd have much contention at all; only a minority of dissatisfied voices compared to massive outcry we have today because he added more fuel to the fire (even if unintentionally.)

Developer at one point started insulting everyone and everything for the tiniest bit of criticism, and I mean actual harsh insults. He's kicking paying supporters from his Discord for simply disagreeing with him, or having opinions that differ from his own.

The game was quite popular before the complete overhaul (adding the card system instead of actual gameplay for example), but he ran it down big time which in return obviously lead to more criticism and the developer turning into a complete maniac.

Last thing I heard from the guy was that he's gonna finish this game the way he wants, and 3 months later it's on-hold aka abandoned.

Ah, that's a shame. I figured it would boil down to either a meltdown or extremely bad execution.

I remember really not liking what combat was like before and felt it was one of those RPGM games that has an open world for the sake of it but I kept playing it because I liked the art a lot. I can't say I blame the dev for trying to streamline or change it to suit their vision and skillset more but shitting on your supporters with feedback is not the play. Could've bore the outcry and come out with a good enough product to turn some people around. I've seen other games completely remade in new styles or engines and still have a decent userbase who support it. "Last Devil" comes to mind, went from RPGM to Unity because of how limiting the engine is and all its fans still like it, the game looks and plays much better now. Granted it's a niche little game but most porn games are.

I'll try this game out later tonight, maybe replay the last open world version and see how I feel about 'em.

 

[Loligami]

This is just blatantly false. No matter what pretty words anyone used, completely gutting the game like this would still have put most people off. Even doing absolutely nothing, not updating the game from 15.2 at all and saying absolutely nothing about it would have been better than the complete dismantling of the game we got. Vel was always going to receive backlash over his fucking retarded decisions no matter the pretty words used to dress it up.

Yeah no matter how you look at it, this game was being developed as a Karryn's Prison clone, which is what most of us were here for. No surprise a game that is suppose to be a KP clone but with better Art would get good traction and support. Gutting that and turning into something completely different is going to turn off the vast majority of people.

 

[FallenSoldierOfLight]

I played the last version....was really confusing and the second enemy one shot me :/, but played the version before remake.....it was very interesting

 

[kelfaein777]

soooo is oskar supposed to be impossible to beat because I've tried 10 times and cant get past him i think some rebalancing is in order because at this point he has too much health and you have too little.

 

[Detective Cancer]

soooo is oskar supposed to be impossible to beat because I've tried 10 times and cant get past him i think some rebalancing is in order because at this point he has too much health and you have too little.

I was about to say something to that effect as well.
I don't know if I'm doing something wrong, there's no actual way to kill any of these people, and they're not scripted deaths.
I think I get the hate now, unless I'm doing something incorrectly there's no way this is correct.

 

[Bulbanych]

I was about to say something to that effect as well.
I don't know if I'm doing something wrong, there's no actual way to kill any of these people, and they're not scripted deaths.
I think I get the hate now, unless I'm doing something incorrectly there's no way this is correct.

Nah, you're not doing anything wrong. It was a common complaint that fights are now essentialy luck-based and enemies can defeat you without giving you any chances to fight back.

 

[palmtrees89]

soooo is oskar supposed to be impossible to beat because I've tried 10 times and cant get past him i think some rebalancing is in order because at this point he has too much health and you have too little.

I was about to say something to that effect as well.
I don't know if I'm doing something wrong, there's no actual way to kill any of these people, and they're not scripted deaths.
I think I get the hate now, unless I'm doing something incorrectly there's no way this is correct.

The card system is just terribly executed. You can beat the encounters, but you better pray to the RNG gods for good turns. It's not getting any better either.

 

[JohnnyFarrel]

I can't speak for anyone else, but no matter how good the mechanics were in Karryn's Prison, the main character was atrociously unfappable.
For me it was a glimmer of hope to see a similar system but with an actually attractive character.

So I'm not insane, thank god

Also "On hold"? it's unequivocally over

 

[cyaanure]

I was about to say something to that effect as well.
I don't know if I'm doing something wrong, there's no actual way to kill any of these people, and they're not scripted deaths.
I think I get the hate now, unless I'm doing something incorrectly there's no way this is correct.

Fun fact, the dev answered to people complaining about the difficulty and rng in fight by "get good" and more ban.

 

[Lerial]

sad. kinda like the sex combat style stuff, and while it was really unbalanced when swapped over to the new card system, kinda hoped a next few versions might be able to make it better.

one thing for the bosses, they can take saria down, sexually, way easier than a normal enemy. if your sexual resistance is lowered from fucking or losing to other people, you're not going to manage well, so rest and kill the in between enemies for the best chance - it's still basically a crapshoot, but you can control which attacks you can use, at least.

but yeah, the grind is a little much to get enough sex exp to get to the fun bits, without the initialize sex cards, it sort of takes too long to ramp up to that point normally. though, the bosses can be a shortcut - losing to that homeless dude in the tent, for example, gives vaginal exp - something you'd be lucky to get in some other fights, even with a bunch of pussy boost cards.

saw that chapter 2 got started, then also 'on hold'. sad. get it, cheat for scenes in the town and the sex cards, screw around with the enemies, but i guess it's not worth much else past this point, so far.

 

[Colortrigger]

I do personally enjoy the addition of new H-attacks from the bosses, with new added flavor text (the new alcohol kiss from the drunk is my favorite). The main thing for me (and I realize this will take time to add back in, if this is what the dev wants ofc), is the lacking of nearly all the original content pre-revamp. If he adds all that back in, whether by unique attacks from certain human enemies, or by all random bandit enemies having access to all that stuff, or through just having that stuff in the card system, then it's fine we're good. If not, then it is what it is, we've still got access to ver .13/.15, etc. I personally do not have a horse to bet on in terms of whether the game becomes a semi-open world experience like it was, or a visual novel, like it is now. As long as that content stays in tact at some point in the future, the game is alright imo. It would be even more awesome with some new juicy flavor text! If not, it's the dev's decision. I respect that, I'll just stick with the legacy versions. I think that's fair.

EDIT: I realize things are pretty on edge rn with this thread, sorry if my opinion rubs people the wrong way. Just giving my personal opinion, as someone who's been watching the development cycle of this game since like 2021.

 

[HikkiG]

I do personally enjoy the addition of new H-attacks from the bosses, with new added flavor text (the new alcohol kiss from the drunk is my favorite). The main thing for me (and I realize this will take time to add back in, if this is what the dev wants ofc), is the lacking of nearly all the original content pre-revamp. If he adds all that back in, whether by unique attacks from certain human enemies, or by all random bandit enemies having access to all that stuff, or through just having that stuff in the card system, then it's fine we're good. If not, then it is what it is, we've still got access to ver .13/.15, etc. I personally do not have a horse to bet on in terms of whether the game becomes a semi-open world experience like it was, or a visual novel, like it is now. As long as that content stays in tact at some point in the future, the game is alright imo. It would be even more awesome with some new juicy flavor text! If not, it's the dev's decision. I respect that, I'll just stick with the legacy versions. I think that's fair.

EDIT: I realize things are pretty on edge rn with this thread, sorry if my opinion rubs people the wrong way. Just giving my personal opinion, as someone who's been watching the development cycle of this game since like 2021.

He's working on an entirely new game, we're lucky if Vel even comes back to Saria Reclaimed. And if he does it'll likely be another complete rework using what he'd learn from his current project.

 

[dragonsix6969]

The card system is just terribly executed. You can beat the encounters, but you better pray to the RNG gods for good turns. It's not getting any better either.

or try use old cheat

 

[Lerial]

He's working on an entirely new game, we're lucky if Vel even comes back to Saria Reclaimed. And if he does it'll likely be another complete rework using what he'd learn from his current project.

hm, kinda good, but still sort of give and take.
he's kinda got issues communicating with people seemingly, and can't take criticism that could end up leading to improvements - kinda would stem to all his work, till he gets over it. he kinda seems like he's avoiding 'learning from his mistakes', or even refusing to acknowledge them.

didn't finish this game, might not finish that game, either, not to mention it might be a year of starting a new project before we get anything - maybe a few years before we get anything worth actually grabbing...

one thing he learned from this project - remaking a system, then not testing it throughly, then dropping it rather than fixing it, isn't a great idea, but that's basically what he's done here. so, maybe don't remake the system in the next one? and remaking this system again, doesn't mean it'll be good.

if he does have a card system in the next project, given it's starting there, hopefully it'll be done well.

 

[foriifyrh]

Loved this game until the remake. It's still good, but it used to be one of the best games, if not the best, I've played from this site. I loved almost everything about it. Beautiful soundtracks, a really interesting and cruel world to explore, NPCs, even the background art was top-notch. Now it's almost your average visual novel. The only thing that differentiates it from others is combat system and muscular female protagonist. It's still good and interesting to play, but for me it lost it's charm.

 

[Polyushko]

It was way cooler when it was like Lisa in Gameplay

 

[jemper32]

Lack of communication with gamers will fatally lead to the collapse of any project.
Im not optimist. Vel s future games are doomed...

 

[Dunderbolt]

Lack of communication with gamers will fatally lead to the collapse of any project.
Im not optimist. Vel s future games are doomed...

It's not even just communication. There's good games out there that didn't 'communicate' with the end user. What it is, is him not fleshing out systems and leaving the game completely unbalanced and broken in a way that leaves the player confused. Something he could see if he played his own game.
I'm %99 sure all he did with this rework was play through with dev items to ensure that any sequences wouldn't completely break and then say "Yeah, that's good"

tons of games would be better if devs themselves played their own work and then asked themselves. "Am I having fun?"


Edit: I would like to add. I like the second iteration with 0.15. The card gameplay is great, albeit scuffed in some areas and it being a Library of Ruina rip, but overall really good. It's a sad reality of a dude with a good baseline, ruining it then complaining

 

[BigBiggieBig]

Hopefully this helps you out till the next content update. I know they will either restore some previous features, or introduce some new ones. Lets see what they're cooking, so to speak.

I actually spat out my drink laughing at this review, my man is not capable of seeing the On-Hold tag and/or doesn't want to acknowledge that the game is pretty much over. "I know" my ass.

Lets see what they're cooking? Man's already bulldozed the kitchen, he isn't gonna cook jack shit, hop off the copium.