Based on the (as yet) unfinished v0.10 Beta.
My usual disclaimers when writing reviews on here are that A. I am here for the "plot" not the plot and B. I am very picky with visual novels and think broadly they can be very subpar. So, take both of those into consideration for my review when thinking about this game.
Pros
- Kinky and fucking sexy – A big theme of the game is mind-domination/control, corruption, enslavement and rape (not in the brutal kicking, screaming way, but when the girls are being mind-controlled into it, that’s what it is). There’s also hints of risk of pregnancy (which I hope the game might lean into a little more down the line). Basically, all of this amounts to a number of my favourite kinks which aren’t really in enough games. For me this is actually a big enough plus that I raised my estimate of the game by a fair margin.
- Renders and visuals – The renders of the game are honestly pretty top tier. The girls are also all, to a one, super fucking hot. I’m actually a really big fan of the models for both Maeve and Amber which somehow seem more unique and interesting. I’ve said this in other reviews that this is never something I put too much weight on, and I can be happier with less high-quality visuals, but it does warrant saying that there’s a lot of nice stuff to look at here.
Mehs
- Daisy-focused – Somebody else (Anoxida) said this in their review, and I hadn’t really noticed until they pointed it out, but it is VERY true. The game has 4 main girls (the family and the girlfriend) and then at least another 3 regular recurring faces (the maid, the sister’s girlfriend and the work friend). Of these core seven, the sister Daisy gets the absolute lion’s share of screen time, even intruding into scenes with the other characters. While Daisy was actually the least favourite of mine of all the girls I didn’t outright dislike her, but I can admit in hindsight that I wish the attention would be more spread out between the cast.
- Gary Stu protagonist – The old classic VN trap where the MC is an absolutely effortlessly perfect male specimen capable of smooth talking, fighting, superpowers and being shredded as fuck with a HUGE cock all with 0 effort. As in other games where this is the case, I don’t totally hate it because I enjoy self-inserting on this, but it does make for some slightly cringe-worthy setups from time-to-time.
- Awkward writing – English is very clearly not the Purple Fella’s first language and it shows in the writing. There’s fairly often grammatical errors or just weird uses of language which are a bit unfortunate. The dialogue actually reminds me of Become a Rockstar in a way because of how stilted and robotic it often is as well with characters talking like their dialogue was generated by Dialogue-o-Tron 3000:
Protagonist: Hello, Amber. It is lovely today. I think you are very beautiful.
Amber: Hello protagonist. Yes. It is lovely. What nice weather. Thank you for thinking I am beautiful. You are a very nice man and I love you.
- TOO much dialogue – Along with the robotic writing, there’s also just too much of it. It should honestly be cut down by about 15% to remove a lot of the dead weight which drags the game down over time. This is particularly note-worthy in one of the middle sections where it feels like the protagonist cannot go 2 minutes without saying how Daisy is the “sweetest, cutest, best girl ever”. Like… Jesus, just tone it down please? To be clear this isn’t so obnoxious and noticeable that it's exxxaaactly a negative but it’s really treading the line.
- The black girl looks weird – A very odd nitpick here, but there is an early scene with a character called Samantha. This took place at night and so for 60% of the scene I genuinely thought her darker skin colour was as a result of the rendering being made to look like it was in very deep, dark shadow. Until I realised she’s actually supposed to be black. It’s really VERY bizarre that with how good all the other girls look, the black girl’s skin looks legit ash-grey. More like a fantasy dark elf than just a girl with dark skin.
Cons
- Meandering story – Unquestionably the absolutely single WORST aspect of this game and I’ll come back to this in the main body below.
In
Savior you play as a police-officer who leaves his job in order to move back in with his family and finally solve the mystery of his father’s disappearance from many years ago. During this time you also discover that you have a bunch of super powers, in particular the ability to hypnotise and control other people’s minds. This is the basic premise and honestly it had a really strong start for me when I played v0.3 a couple of years back. However, as you might be able to tell, I now feel the game just does not deliver on the initial promise.
So, another user (taler) used the word “meandering” and honestly it is the absolutely most perfect word to describe the game’s story.
The game cannot decide if it wants to be a heart-warming slice-of-life game or whether it wants to focus more on the supernatural and otherworldly elements (and conflict) which make up the majority of the game’s backstory. It cannot decide if it wants to focus on having you dating and reconciling with your family or mind-controlling them and corrupting them one by one. It jumps between settings and characters basically on a whim and so it feels like it simultaneously never gets anywhere but also is moving far too quickly and not letting itself get into a groove.
It’s honestly beyond frustrating because really you never spend any time with any one of the settings long enough to get settled before there feels like there’s a huge dynamic change and you’re off again somewhere else.
I can’t really decide what the core issue here is. It feels a little like Purple Fella’s are trying to do too much all at once and should have been a bit less ambitious with their ideas. However, I actually feel like they COULD have pulled off all of this stuff were it not for one glaring issue: there’s so little connection between the chapters and segments of the game.
I’ll provide a few major examples. In one of the later chapters you spend some time with your family maid Maeve, finding out about her history. When this chapter started I genuinely took a few minutes to remember who Maeve was because she had been introduced 5 chapters earlier and then just had been nowhere to be found at any point since. The other example also occurs later when your girlfriend comes over and is upset at you for not having spoken to her for a few days. You make up and have hot sex… And then after she leaves (I assume… She just seems to vanish) you proceed to not think about her for another few days of game time…
The absolute worst example though (and apologies in advance for the spoilers) was from the most recent chapter where you (finally) spend some time with the most unappreciated of the main girls (Olivia).
This has you going on a couple of "dates" with her and SOMEHOW getting pulled into the relationship struggles of another girl (while hanging out with Olivia). Not only does this whole chapter feel TOTALLY isolated from everything else that's going on (there's no mind control options at all, none of the other main girls seem to be there and the central conflict is shoved to one side) it also drags on for-fucking-ever because of how long you spend trying to solve this other RANDOM GIRL'S relationship issues. Honestly... This whole chapter was easily the worst of the game thus far which doesn't exactly bode well given that you'd hope quality to improve over time.
Essentially the devs seem to be unable to weave the different story lines together. When the protagonist is interacting with one of the girls and one story-thread, that is ALL there is to the game. The other characters might as well not even exist, not even in the background. Because of this, there’s a constant feeling of bouncing from one story to another with no real cohesion between the various elements of the plot.
Add to this the slight frustration with the awkward writing and quite simply wayyyy too much filler text and the story feels like it slows to a crawl. It’s frustrating to read and experience.
Another aside here is that the game often will jump to interactions between two other characters, interaction the protagonist isn't party to, and these also can go on for far too long and feel like "surely I shouldn't know that this is happening?"
And then it lets you mind-control one of the girls and have some super kinky sex with them and it’s all juuust about worth it. Seriously, if the game just leaned a little more heavily into that roughness and force, really made it more about you creating a harem of mind-controlled slaves and I’d be ALL about it dude. So it’s just a real shame that I feel like I can’t rate it higher than I have.
Missed potential for sure.