Stumbling out from the alleys once more, I spot yet another jewel swirling through the gutters, and upon inspection, I find it rather unrefined, unpolished, and waiting for a future to make it's unassorted carbon formulate into something beautiful. Something that can gleam.
Does this gleam?
Well, sometimes yes, sometimes...well I wouldn't say no, more so just spotting various sized cracks needing to be polished off. However, before I delve any deeper, the biases on my side is that I mainly played through this on it's built in cheat engine, and even then it was a slog. And with that slog, it reminds me of something very similar that'll be mentioned later on in this review, which is both the bane and beauty of this game.
And as always, I'll try and be as honest as I can with what comes.
So what is this game? Mainly, it's a sidescrolling RPG with a busty, ab-olicious beauty leading the helm. You're basically a knight, you've been sent into some accursed wasteland where you meet your usual sand bandits, sand troglodytes, sand dogs, sand trolls and other sandy characters. Through all of this, you blip through your standard battle menu that every RPGM game pretty much sports and slowly succumb to brain death by pressing the attack button ad infinitum while occasionally healing yourself for hours on end. That's basically the core element of this game that'll be the hour long fests it sports.
Now the above sounds like a chore right? Well it is, but I find that there's something magical brewing within this grindfest. If, very big if that is, it's heading in the direction I think it's going. For one, this game alone reminds me of Earthbounds weirdness in terms of atmosphere and tone, which at times pairs with the scifi mystique of Metroid in some areas, while also sporting a visual style alluding to Dark Souls on grit-ifying scenery and characters. That alone makes me feel as though this game has a unique story and approach to it's own style it wants to sport sans the lewd. Of course that's all in it's early stages of becoming something alone without porn, though, the gameplay is a far cry from carrying that. At the moment.
I mention the above, as it also reminds me of a similar title on the lewd. It basically is almost emulating Karryn's Prison down to a T in terms of it's access to the lewd. It really feels like two different games slamming into each other at times, but they blend together well once you start to see it. Considering too that the same argument can be made about Karryn's Prison, since at a glance it's a slogfest roguelite that barely features sex in the beginning with Karryn fighting you every step of the way, but grind enough and your Karryn can become the woman of your lewd infested dreams.
Same feel carries on for this, in which Saria at first is a Knight that doesn't want anything to do with sex, but raise those similar looking stats and bars that KP features and eventually she'll start doing many actions that go against her initial hesitance (lacking in art currently and unfortunately). It very much takes inspiration from that in trying to emulate it's systems in terms of attaining titles and raising sensitivity bars that then start to affect the various lewd stats of Saria herself.
But, unfortunately, to get to that point I feel is far more of a grindfest than KP. In KP, there's titles out the ass that feel like bread crumbs towards your eventual slooty goals. You feel on track if you're going on that path, as trying to corrupt Karryn led to a whole new dimension of gameplay that switched up your entire approach in playing it. Yet here it mainly feels like a brick wall, where you're always stuck trying to feel for a crumb yet only getting the cold touch of yet another defeat screen. Not a game over, it's like being "defeated" in Karryn but not as modular yet with it's participants, and very sloggy after awhile. And currently there's really nothing pushing you or rewarding you down that route save for horny and cg.
I feel like once that system gets going with more cut in art, titles and a better grind progression then it'll be damn near as good as it's spiritual predecessor. Alongside it needing to implement a proper lewd system in pushing the player to utilize sex as a viable alternative to combat (which it currently lacks, lose and you get said defeat scene(s) that you can't skip unfortunately). I will say however as a fair warning from me, that said system is already somewhat in place with it's bones showing in raising corruption meters for Saria's various sensitivity's all the way to 100%, but the grind to get there is damn near unfeasible and really lacks the meat and seasoning for it to be entirely enjoyable.
Overall I do see this game shaping up into something great if the dev keeps on it, but at it's current state I can't recommend people to play it as is. As unless you're prepared to grind for hours only for small cut in scenes reminiscent of KP and a handful of proper CG scenes, then sure jump in, but otherwise wait until it gets much more refined then delve in. Yet as said, I think this game is on the right track and I can't wait for more. 4/5!
