VN - RPGM - Abandoned - Saria Reclaimed [v0.17] [Velminth]

Changed my review from scratch

This game has felt the test of time like a carton of milk left open on the kitchen counter. Turn back and seek solace elsewhere; you won't recognize the game anymore.

A shame.

On the surface, you sought a good H-rated game, which contains not only a stuff to jack-off, but also a quite of interesting gameplay. You learned to twist the lies of VN-creators and furries, believing yourself master of the system. But the Developer said, "NO! You WILL play another shitty-ass VN and you WILL be happy."

Might need to recreate the thread or something, always weird when this happens since we're effectively rating a different game, I guess?

Was waiting to review until the old version of the game juiced up some, but there went that.

Uh, new game is basically a VN. Not a very well-designed or written one, but the art was what carried the previous game anyway (as well as the quite enjoyable setting).

The current state of the game is that it's a buggy mess with not much content, so I can't recommend it to anyone. It's basically a proof of concept, not even a tech demo.

I am certain it will improve over time, but I can only judge what is there, and not only is there a subpar amount of content, what is there isn't all that great a showcase for the future.

I still hold out hope for the narrative/setting (i.e. environmental storytelling), so who knows, it's possible this will get iterations and/or rewrites.

Never before have I felt so dejected by a project.
What started as what I thought was a neat mishmash of stuff from different games, like Kenshi, some of the LISA games, Karryn's Prison; put into a system and style that both were onto something pretty amazing. Update by update, this game only got better, there were bumps and the sort on the road sure, but that's just what happens with any game system. Not to mention with time, we not only got pretty nice (even if over-done at times) voice acting for the titular protagnist, but really great cut-in art and what not too. Say what you want about the dev, but I think their art is top-notch.

Then... Came the out-of-nowhere card builder combat rework.
All I could think of at the time is... "Why"?
And even now in retrospect, I'm stuck on the same question. It just made no sense. Was it supposed to be hopping on a bandwagon in the same way that everyone and their dog started making Battle Royales? Because that's what it felt like.

Despite this, I was staying mostly optimistic and I figured maybe with some fine-tuning it could probably have been as good as the Karryn-ish system but just different, but now it's... An entirely different beast and, yeah. That didn't happen, it never got the chance to.

While I don't feel as saddened given that I never contributed to this project monetarily, which yeah, the developer owes me nothing and I fully admit that. But, holy- I am so glad I didn't throw any money at this project because it's changed so much I wouldn't be getting what I wanted to support in the first place.

I suppose if there's anything to learn from what happened with Saria Reclaimed, it's that ought to go about these sort of games like does with AAA games and Early Access indie titles these days, which is to observe from afar if you can. Lest you get invested and end up disappointed with what the project morphs into.

You already know what this is going to say. They ruined it. Soiled it. Stole our hopes and dreams (and some sizable piles of money in the process) and """remade""" the game to be easier and also drastically shittier.

RIP another promising hentai game.

It is a pity to see how a game with such huge potential could not be realized. All you had to do was go ahead and not touch what was working. The author of this game apparently does not think so and literally killed a game that could be compared to Karryn's Prison. I'm disappointed.

It was good while it lasted.

Can someone share the V0.15 of the game? Now the corruption is about how many cards u have in your deck, so it's grinding instead of development of the character kinda boring. Well have good art that's the star. The funny part of a battle system is in part the spontaneity, with cards u clearly lose that. Yea you can get some surprise attacks but after 2 or 3 battles become repetitive means predictable and boring

Owner ruined the game and changed EVERYTHING outside of the art work. Its not longer unique and no longer has that unique taste i was looking for. Used to be an adventure RPG battlefuck game. Now its a strategy card battler with very little detail (Because its basically a new project started over). None the less..... would no longer recommend this game.

Okay, Saria Reclaimed...

Uh... Something went wrong, and...

Let's start from the beginning... A game emerged that, according to many, had great potential and so on. Personally, I saw the potential, but I'm not talking about the PORNOGRAPHIC content. Yes, there was a battle sex system, some skills related to it, and other pleasant things, like different types of damage from skills, a small character upgrade system, INTERESTING characters scattered throughout the world, several bosses with their own sexual content, and I'm sure many were really looking forward to new updates because the project was very good, interesting, and atmospheric. Some even compared it to Karyn Prison or another game with a similar style, and it seemed like what could go wrong?

Okay... The first version, very buggy and poorly functioning, which promised us nothing good except the idea itself.

Then the project started moving in the right direction, bugs were fixed, content was added, the battle sex system and the combat system improved, and the project became a very high-quality product. Of course, there were many problems, and it cannot be denied.

Then the developer banned me for making a joke, and I realized that I did it for a reason.

After some time, they pleased us again with well-done work, even more content, innovations, balance, and even a skill tree appeared, with beautifully drawn skill icons made with love. Expansion of the game world, characters, a good and interesting presentation of almost everything. And, most importantly, I forgot to mention the pixel art graphics with beautiful surroundings. Of course, the drawing style of sexual content was liked by many.

And suddenly in the game appeared... A card battle system that was unbearably boring and bad, to the point that, frankly, I expected the developer's reaction to be quite fast, and the system would be changed to something more fun than dumb card battles that caused people impotence, headaches, nausea, a desire to play in a casino. Personally, I did not experience any pleasure in collecting a damn deck that worked worse than regular cards for attack, and cards for sex were a real crime. I am not interested in sexual content, but I am ready to become a shield for those who just want to enjoy pictures rather than play cards. The skill tree disappeared somewhere, and progression completely disappeared from the project...

It seemed like... a conclusion was made, feedback was heard... NO.

A good game that was supposed to be loved by everyone continued to turn into garbage over a very long time. The UI was not fixed, and old bugs remained in the project, but now with the card battle system, a non-functioning debauchery system, problems with presenting the lore component, and a completely ruined gameplay. They added a gallery that, after viewing, made it clear that sex battles are better than what's in the gallery. But, I remind you, the card battle system does not allow you to enjoy.

After 5 months or 4 months... I don't know... In short... Now there is nothing in the project, it's a visual novel with uninteresting battles, a very poor presentation of lore or story, there is nothing, everything is... How to explain... Sometimes people tell me directly, "HORN! You did nonsense; it doesn't work, it's not interesting, and it's just garbage..." Okay, I'll try to do better, but I will by no means abandon the initial idea. It's a terrible mistake, especially with a large audience. I'd rather admit that I find it challenging to implement one thing or another. I'll try to find a compromise, but I won't give up on what people were originally interested in my project for. And what this developer did is... I don't know... the action of a weak-willed person? or a child? What the hell is this?

I thought maybe people were giving the new update a bad rap, but no, it's really bad. This game used to be about ambiance; you were this solitary person on some barren world, only seeing the occasional fellow human on your journey, and even then they're usually your enemy. It was a great game that combined the critically-acclaimed battle mechanics and achievement hunting from Karryn's Prison with amazing show-don't-tell world building that's rare in H-games. Now it's just a chain of interactions with various characters that I haven't been given a reason to care about, throwing out excessive amounts of exposition when you used to have to hunt for it; what used to feel like a reward now feels like a chore.

It's really sad - this was one of my favorite games in development, and now it's just another game where you skip the text and squeeze whatever enjoyment you can get out of meaningless pictures. The art is still top-tier, but what's the point in a picture being worth 1,000 words if you have to trudge through 10,000 words before you can see it?

" I remade the game from scratch "

The game is literally a bait and switch at this point. It has now undergone it's THIRD total rework, and with no real reason given other than

Do not waste your time with this scam. Shame on this developer. Shame! Banishment for eternity!

Sudden change of genre.
Large amounts of cut content that was already in the game.
No communication or warning from dev about the change.
Childish and unprofessional behaviour of the dev.

Plenty of reasons for a 1 star, at this point it seems the dev keeps "REWORKING" the game to squeeze more money out of the patreon supporters and that is both disappointing and sad.
This was one of the most promising games on here but is now a massive disappointment due to a dev making bad decisions.
Truly a shame.

Here is a review about the game as it is on 0.16 not considering former version.

As a proof of concept, 0.16 is convincing.
It's not at all a card battle game as some may have wrongly pointed out. It's a standard rpg fight with triangle effectivness kind of game with a few side abilities to smooth things out. Very much like Karyn prison indeed.
There's no wanderin around on a map though, the story revolve around chapters which are purely visual novel except for the fight that happens within.
The writting is nice so far, there's not much, and one could argue that, for what there is, the story goes on very trivial things which leave you quite meh. But the intro is really well done. The rest needs a lot more convincing characterisation to work as a visual novel.
Art is (still) great. Well, there's nothing new compared to older version, but art is nice for muscular manga waifu enjoyers.

Overall it show where the game wanna go and what it will be about. If you're looking for a game to dive in, come back later, it's like 20 minute long as of now. Only a demo really.

TL; DR- Worth playing for a quick, one time go-through on the 1.15 or 1.13 version, but not for 1.16+ (edit at bottom)

For the last couple years, Velminth has been trying to release and work on what I'd respectfully refer to as Karryn's Prison lite. And for most of this games development, It's been very decent and promising. However, Vel took a swerve with the launch of 1.14 by removing the traditional combat with a card based combat. At first, it was a bit to get used to. But, Vel made up for this change with more art and wast to interact with the world he made. And if he'd continued development with this variation of the game, adding scenes and events, along with seasonal editions and some new bosses and areas, we would have a very solid title on our hands. However, as of December/January, Vel has decided that the future of the game is in removing the world interaction and making his project a linear story game with minor combat and lewd content. While there are new scenes added in from the last update, the scenes feel empty. And the text walls are so tedious that if you hold your mouse down too long or skip too many times, you'll acidentaly skip a turn of combat and take damage before you even get the chance to do anything. I'm sure there's an option to fix that, but the fact it happens at all got on my nerves very quickly. To top this off, Vel has been deleting comments on thier X posts as well as dissabled comments on the most recent update pages for his Itch.io page (and will most likely dissable the others too once people start posting obouit 1.16 in those as well).

I have no Ill will or malice to Vel. It's his creation and he can do what he wants wiht it. However, when you still promote previous versions of the game and people donate monthly to the project, you owe it to your paying community to acknowledge their criticism. I don't know if this project is salvageable, but I hope that Vel will use this experiance to make better games in the future and avoid the pitfalls that lead to the downfall of the title in its current state (just wanted to make clear that I'm rating 2/5 instead of 1/5 because Vel still has the download links for the previous versions of the game. I will immediatly update my review to a 1/5 if they are removed).

Also, Vel is slaying in the art department so you won't hear me complaing about the quality of Vels art work. That gets a 9.2/10 from me.0

Update: the 1.13 on the itch.io page was removed and leaves only the 1.15 and 1.17 builds up, thus I needed to update this to a 1/5 in respect to the initial version of the game. I won't play the 1.17 or other variations going forwards unless another game system is updated. Very shameful of Vel to do that.

New update betrays initial vision for the game. What started as an RPG maker game that had elements of a souls like boss defeating progression system, with a corruption system on top of it, has now devolved into a visual novel. The combat system has seen several reworks. Each time it took a step forward, this time 10,000 steps back. The new version offers no sense of progression, no sense of gameplay identity, and is mostly RNG. Mechanics are poorly explained, and the wonderful mechanics found in previous updates have been scrapped. Saria is dead, long live Saria.

The game went from a potentially awesome side-scroller RPG to another typical VN with only above-average artwork holding it up. The developer, while a talented artist, is a toxic individual who can't seem to differentiate valid, well-meaning criticism from blatant trolling.

Just recently, he closed the comment section on his Itch.io page. Make of that what you will.

I had only played this game from 15.1, so I have no knowledge of the prior versions where it was supposedly your standard rpgmaker fare. What I can say though is what I played was one of the most unique games i've played in a while. A LISA the painful style eroge game is incredibly unique, and the developer nailed the exploration and level design of the LISA series. Unfortunately, the card based combat system is an rng laden mess, poorly explained, grindy as hell if you want to level up the lust stat without justcontionusly losing battles, and half of the implemented systems barely even seem to work. Overall I stayed mostly for the well drawn art, and the fantastic exploration.

Now with 16.0, the dev has decided to nix the only things in his game that was actually competent. The game has been turned into some bog standard visual novel, 90% of the existing art has been removed, and they've even decided to double down on the dogshit combat system that now seems even worse and more incomprehensible then before.

Don't know what possessed the Dev to do such a thing, or act like such a jackass to anyone telling him that he basically killed all support for his game wtih these awful decisions, but its really unfortunate to see a project fail so rapidly. A real KOD-Like in the making

0.16: TLDR, the gameplay is boring, tedious, and just bad now
The Good
-the art is still stellar, mostly. Personally I feel like the over emphasized anime eyes + mouth expressions thrown in the beginning intro clash with the style (the pure white, heavy outlined circle eyes)
-Voice acting still great
-If you think there needs to be more card battler games, then this is one
-If you want a game with more story in text form, this is now a VN so ya.

The Bad
-the card battling has bad RNG. RNG for turn order, RNG for damage amount, RNG for damage mitigation effectiveness, and RNG on which moves enemies use. there's enemies that can two shot you and if you're unlucky enough that one medium attack is the last action in one turn and then the next turn they do it as the first action, well fuck you. basically no matter how good you strategize, one unlucky turn can mean defeat.
-on top of the RNG issues, the combat feels horribly balanced and like a slog. There's enemy moves that can oneshot you (and per the turn order RNG, that means you may not have any chance to defend against it). You have about a third (or less) of the HP of the enemies and your strongest consistently usable attack only does as much as the enemies' weakest attacks (your strongest that costs more resources, can do 1 more damage). All my winning combats have been doing like 2-4 damage per round (against 37 hp) and going through bouts of several rounds having to dodge and heal instead of attacking.

What started as a game with amazing potential that had the ability to rival a game like Karryns Prison inevitably crumbled under its own ambition. After going through a combat overall while slowly adding content to the game, as of the writing of this review the current update v.16 has completely done away with anything that remotely made this game unique and instead has gone the generic VN route.

Unfortunate as this game had such amazing potential, but with this update this game has gone from being one of the most unique games out there to being just another boring VN. Any kind of criticism or words of worry are met with ridicule, venom, and hostility. If this game is ever finish, or even gets close to being semi finished, just do what someone in the thread said and wait for the one guy who will upload a 100% save and just watch the scenes in a gallery. That's all this game will be good for in the end anyway.

Game started out with great potential, latest update turned it into a Visual Novel with little content (for now).

The Art is pretty good, the dev is clearly talented.

The game itself would have been a 4 out of 5 at the 0.15.1 version, even with the newly introduced card battle sytem. The very barebones Visual Novel Overhaul is a 2.5/5 for me personally.

I truly hope this game will be as good again as earlier versions, the potential is clearly there. Staying true to your own vision for your own game i can respect, not willing to accept any criticism whatsoever and acting like a muppet in the process, i sure can't (insulting people in this thread, banning them from the discord of the game etc.)

For the time being, the rating will remain at a 2/5.