any of them, when you met the requisites to start Charm Song just talk any of the 4 girls and it will trigger a event to start the DLC content (Charm song)
any of them, when you met the requisites to start Charm Song just talk any of the 4 girls and it will trigger a event to start the DLC content (Charm song)
Especially Einomaru. I guess the Devs wanted to give players a reason to bring her in fights and repeatedly fuck her, because her skill is ridiculously strong and her attack stat is the highest of all the girls. She even has higher attack than Ichika, who's supposed to be the most damaging attacker per shot on account of her sniper-rifle... But nope, the girl with the dual revolves has her beat....
For Aya, you don't have to stack every item, and place them on her shoulders, feet and crotch, as they kind of work as bowls making it harder for objects to fall off her body. But damn, they did her dirty with how bad the naked apron they made for her is imo.
For Hikari, it's safer to kill the zombies by landing on them straight from the top instead of trying to land on them diagonally, because teamkrama somehow scuffed the hitboxes. Near the end, before the platform that changes perspective, you're supposed to bounce off of the 2 last zombies consecutively, giving you a massive boost and access to a secret platform with additional points. Gotta go fast, stomp zombies in your path (no need to go out of your way to kill all), get the "secret" bonus, and for the love of god be careful on the last jump to the bed. How did they make the camera movement so jarring, I can't tell, but I lost so many runs to it or falling short on the last jump is more than I like to admit. Even then you're not guaranteed to get it though, so just go along with the ride and start your journey towards speedrunning as it sort of becomes second nature. How did they manage to make a platformer so bad? I could make something better in a day.
Don't ask about Ichika because I have no idea, I got it first try somehow. I guess look at real life crane games and see what they do?
Idol mode is... a bit of an annoying chore so I wouldn't bother, especially if you don't plan to play with audio (out of curiosity, why? audio cues help a lot, especially when mutants are near). The management side made me quit, which is what you'll spend the majority of the time doing, and then the actual rhythm game is stupid easy so I don't enjoy it either way (I'm a veteran at rhythm games so your experience may be vastly different). Thank god it's not required for actually beating the main game.
Honestly, Charm Song has been a bit of a let down. The new stages are nice (except the final boss) but everything else feels incredibly half baked, even for their standards. Part of me wonders how different this could've been if they were able to focus all resources towards this instead dividing it between SoD:CS and Ascot, and I really hope this isn't indicative of the quality we can expect for their next game.
Further proof revolvers are the GOAT in this universe.
Yeah these can be quite bad. If it helps:
For Aya, you don't have to stack every item, and place them on her shoulders, feet and crotch, as they kind of work as bowls making it harder for objects to fall off her body. But damn, they did her dirty with how bad the naked apron they made for her is imo.
For Hikari, it's safer to kill the zombies by landing on them straight from the top instead of trying to land on them diagonally, because teamkrama somehow scuffed the hitboxes. Near the end, before the platform that changes perspective, you're supposed to bounce off of the 2 last zombies consecutively, giving you a massive boost and access to a secret platform with additional points. Gotta go fast, stomp zombies in your path (no need to go out of your way to kill all), get the "secret" bonus, and for the love of god be careful on the last jump to the bed. How did they make the camera movement so jarring, I can't tell, but I lost so many runs to it or falling short on the last jump is more than I like to admit. Even then you're not guaranteed to get it though, so just go along with the ride and start your journey towards speedrunning as it sort of becomes second nature. How did they manage to make a platformer so bad? I could make something better in a day.
Don't ask about Ichika because I have no idea, I got it first try somehow. I guess look at real life crane games and see what they do?
Idol mode is... a bit of an annoying chore so I wouldn't bother, especially if you don't plan to play with audio (out of curiosity, why? audio cues help a lot, especially when mutants are near). The management side made me quit, which is what you'll spend the majority of the time doing, and then the actual rhythm game is stupid easy so I don't enjoy it either way (I'm a veteran at rhythm games so your experience may be vastly different). Thank god it's not required for actually beating the main game.
Honestly, Charm Song has been a bit of a let down. The new stages are nice (except the final boss) but everything else feels incredibly half baked, even for their standards. Part of me wonders how different this could've been if they were able to focus all resources towards this instead dividing it between SoD:CS and Ascot, and I really hope this isn't indicative of the quality we can expect for their next game.
They loved revolvers so much that Einomaru actually somehow has 4 of them in her default costume. What I mean by that is that even when she holds 2 in her hands, she still has 2 in her holsters because they were super lazy about her model...
As for the mini-games. Eh. I don't really care for the outfits involved anyway. Aya's looks terrible. Ichika's is of no interest to me. Hikari's might've been ok, but I saw screenshots of it and I'm not impressed.... In general. I haven't been impressed with a lot of the outfits in this game, especially since they often look bad during the sex scenes.
Like. Try out the Chinese Dress on Aya and put her in any sex scenes... the dress parts end up standing stiff and clipping through everything in absolutely ridiculous ways... So what's the point? I dunno if it's like that for all the girls... but it doesn't really motivate me to try and grind the thing for all of them either just to be disappointed. So far, the only outfit that seems to look genuinely ok during sex scenes... and only because it just gets rid of the top, bottom and underwear, is the Christmas outfit...
Well, I suppose the bikini armor also looks ok, though not great either, when it comes to sex scenes.
In any case, Charmsong as a whole is a mixed bag. I've done all the way through Act 11 so far, and I've got Act12 and Act 13 to do next as time and mood allows... The most fun part for me was the tank section. It's just so hilarious to drive that thing around... even though I got it to flip several times somehow... Not entirely sure how... However, being able to just obliterate Tintans so easily is super satisfying....
Most of the new weapons didn't really impress me, and so far, I didn't even get to use any of the so called Ults, mainly because all the ones I unlocked so far are ones I don't care for... The only two I'm even remotely interested in are the Auto-Turret (especially after seeing the ones placed in Act 11 and how they mowed down everything that got near them after you activate them...) and the one that gives health for killing zombies while increasing the number of enemies... Neither of which I got missions for yet. Unless I missed them somehow... which is not impossible I suppose... they might also just be in Act 12... which means you get them so stupidly late that you barely get any chances to use them unless you still have a lot of grind left to do...
However, I won't have a lot of grind left to do, so it's all super eh.
The translation quality for Charmsong is extra bad, so that's not helping either...
Though, I did notice one improvement they did with Charmsong. The expressions of the girls during the Charmsong sex scenes is a lot less stiff than what it is in the original scenes or even the two scenes that were added with the events. It's not much, strictly speaking, but it's such a big difference from the original scenes that it stands out a lot... all while being actually kind of sad if you think about it...
As for why I don't play with audio... explaining it in full details is likely too much of a conversation to be considered on topic for the thread... but suffice to say that for me audio=serious gaming, no audio is hentai gaming, and the two involve entirely different mindsets for me.
SOTD fulfills a small niche of mine, mindless zombie FPS, level up system, some sex.
I never read the story so... I'm the ultra niche guy.
And I legit grinded 10mil cash. (After getting all the upgrades and base expansions)
Also if you play very hard, you need "heal speed up" and also "turn off R18" to avoid females getting raped offscreen and cause early game over. Because special elites spawn simultaneously and the guns don't kill fast enough to avoid over swarming of the girls. (Always keep Ichika buffed up and in your team, her sniper homing ability hits super hard)
I hated the castle map of Charmsong, it's too fucking big, and I got lost, multiple times. Regarding the boss for the castle, I ignored the "fall through the floor" mechanic, and simply kept shooting until boss died. He takes reduced damage, but eventually dies. I managed to clear it even on very hard mode. This method requires you to run down to the lowest floor to refill your ammo, twice.
The singing final boss was bugged for me when I was playing on version 1.89. I had to clear it on very easy mode, otherwise none of my attacks would deal damage.
The tank map was my favorite, only the tank part was confusing, but I memorized the route after running like a clueless chicken for 30 minutes.
Soo, any actual like creature/zombie on girl scenes in this? So far I've just seen generic 3d hentai sex animations that im not willing to download a 15 gig game for
Soo, any actual like creature/zombie on girl scenes in this? So far I've just seen generic 3d hentai sex animations that im not willing to download a 15 gig game for
Well, every Act has a scene where the girls are molested/fucked by a zombie or monster for a short period and then killed during said fucking in some manner or another. For example, Act1 has the default zombie doing it, then Act2 has the Creeper doing it and it ends with it biting whichever girl's head off... So on and so forth. So far, only Act9 didn't have an explicit death scene, but I think it's meant to imply that the girls insides get filled up with goo and they suffocate. Maybe. Not sure.
In addition to that, the girls can get molested/fucked to some degree or another in combat. Normal zombies can fuck them if they're at zero health. Creepers can just plan jump on them and start fucking them at any time if they can get close enough. Worms eat the girls and carry them away. There's these big guys with long tongues that can catch them, turn them upside down and lick them...
All in all though, if you're looking for JUST zombie/monster on girl sex... you won't find much of that in this game, much like there wasn't that much of it in the first game as it always ended up with the girl's death in some way or another. Well, except for that bonus scene with Aya that they added in a latter update... and that one doesn't end with her dying because she's rescued before the monsters kill her...
Basically, most of the pure sex is either MC fucking the girls or some randoms you do fetch quests for fucking the girls.
For me, my main complaint is that the execution scenes are way too short. Could've made them longer in a number of ways...
So, does anyone know anything about a possible sequel to the game? Who knows, maybe they won't be stepping on the same rake while developing the next project... To be honest, I'd like to see Chad's comeback and maybe some kind of route system, you know, to ensure the replayability of the main plot...
So, does anyone know anything about a possible sequel to the game? Who knows, maybe they won't be stepping on the same rake while developing the next project... To be honest, I'd like to see Chad's comeback and maybe some kind of route system, you know, to ensure the replayability of the main plot...
They found out they can make money half assing most things, it's over for them creating solid games, lol. It's funny, all they'd have to do is fix the Halloween/Christmas events and my opinion of them would improve quite a bit. I mean, I wouldn't forget they didn't bother to fix them for years, but better late than never. There's still the rpg system/game balance kinda being ass, H animations not lining up properly, and all the invisible walls/barriers blocking your shots and such, but at least those aren't game breaking.
To the RPG system, as somebody on steam mentioned, the ults should have their own skill slot. It's also weird the girls become stronger in the new patch but the player really doesn't. I think the skill system should have been point based rather than slot based anyways, allowing people to choose between a bunch of weaker boosts and a handful of strong boosts. I don't like systems where earlier skills become completely obsolete to higher ranked skills. Not only are your options limited for builds, but there are some skills that are basically essential (Sped up healing, weapon reload speed), and some there are pretty useless in harder difficulties once the girls level up enough (Most the melee stuff, since the girls will kill anything that gets close eventually).
I don't think a lot of the minigame stuff should cost money either. You're deciding between buying skills or playing minigames, which means you're probably going to wait until you buy all the skills first. Then you suddenly have to stop and play minigames for hours to get all those unlocks. Should have been like every time you return from combat you get to choose 1-2 minigames to play. That would be more natural and then you wouldn't be spamming minigames all at once. Going into the bathroom or bathhouse and finding a girl using them could start the minigame instead. I think that was originally the plan (I feel like I remember a patch adding and removing the ability for the girls to interact with those areas), but they went back on it because it was too difficult or something.
Welp. Got my turret skill, got some "NTR" items and events sorted out...
And then I tried Act 12.
And as I was going through Act12... one of those spiders grabbed Ichika during a big mess... and dragged her outside of the map in like 3 seconds.
-_-"
This is the whole thing with the fucking Worms all over again... but worse...
I'm not sure if I want to try again tbh.
That shit was way too annoying... And Act12 seems pretty long... and I have several more NTR items I'd need to grab from there.
Ugh... Just. Fucking why... This crap wasn't fun with the worms when they could run into places you couldn't target them. You'd think they'd have learned after they needed to fix THAT particular shit last time...
They found out they can make money half assing most things, it's over for them creating solid games, lol. It's funny, all they'd have to do is fix the Halloween/Christmas events and my opinion of them would improve quite a bit. I mean, I wouldn't forget they didn't bother to fix them for years, but better late than never. There's still the rpg system/game balance kinda being ass, H animations not lining up properly, and all the invisible walls/barriers blocking your shots and such, but at least those aren't game breaking.
To the RPG system, as somebody on steam mentioned, the ults should have their own skill slot. It's also weird the girls become stronger in the new patch but the player really doesn't. I think the skill system should have been point based rather than slot based anyways, allowing people to choose between a bunch of weaker boosts and a handful of strong boosts. I don't like systems where earlier skills become completely obsolete to higher ranked skills. Not only are your options limited for builds, but there are some skills that are basically essential (Sped up healing, weapon reload speed), and some there are pretty useless in harder difficulties once the girls level up enough (Most the melee stuff, since the girls will kill anything that gets close eventually).
I don't think a lot of the minigame stuff should cost money either. You're deciding between buying skills or playing minigames, which means you're probably going to wait until you buy all the skills first. Then you suddenly have to stop and play minigames for hours to get all those unlocks. Should have been like every time you return from combat you get to choose 1-2 minigames to play. That would be more natural and then you wouldn't be spamming minigames all at once. Going into the bathroom or bathhouse and finding a girl using them could start the minigame instead. I think that was originally the plan (I feel like I remember a patch adding and removing the ability for the girls to interact with those areas), but they went back on it because it was too difficult or something.
It's a shame that so many potential and possible game improvements got buried. When I learned about SoD:SH, I was excited and really expected a continuation of the story of the original protagonists... and then this frustration hit me. Still, maybe with the next game, they'll redeem themselves. But I expect it to be a completely new crew, there is no way they would try to put the same characters together again... But who knows, maybe they will want to spend less on development and will use the old models of the chars instead.
They found out they can make money half assing most things, it's over for them creating solid games, lol. It's funny, all they'd have to do is fix the Halloween/Christmas events and my opinion of them would improve quite a bit. I mean, I wouldn't forget they didn't bother to fix them for years, but better late than never. There's still the rpg system/game balance kinda being ass, H animations not lining up properly, and all the invisible walls/barriers blocking your shots and such, but at least those aren't game breaking.
To the RPG system, as somebody on steam mentioned, the ults should have their own skill slot. It's also weird the girls become stronger in the new patch but the player really doesn't. I think the skill system should have been point based rather than slot based anyways, allowing people to choose between a bunch of weaker boosts and a handful of strong boosts. I don't like systems where earlier skills become completely obsolete to higher ranked skills. Not only are your options limited for builds, but there are some skills that are basically essential (Sped up healing, weapon reload speed), and some there are pretty useless in harder difficulties once the girls level up enough (Most the melee stuff, since the girls will kill anything that gets close eventually).
I don't think a lot of the minigame stuff should cost money either. You're deciding between buying skills or playing minigames, which means you're probably going to wait until you buy all the skills first. Then you suddenly have to stop and play minigames for hours to get all those unlocks. Should have been like every time you return from combat you get to choose 1-2 minigames to play. That would be more natural and then you wouldn't be spamming minigames all at once. Going into the bathroom or bathhouse and finding a girl using them could start the minigame instead. I think that was originally the plan (I feel like I remember a patch adding and removing the ability for the girls to interact with those areas), but they went back on it because it was too difficult or something.
Kinda forced? I can't even call what's happening in this as NTR. None of the girls are stolen from the MC in a complete fashion, none of them stop loving him, not a single one of them betrays him or changes their attitude for him. Granted, I haven't seen all of the events yet...but all the girls follow the same pattern and I doubt that changes.
What you can say is happening is that the girls use other dicks to relieve the extreme lust they have because of their immunity, but they never once stop prioritizing the MC.
There used to be a difference between "just cheating" and "Netorare"... and this game had the former and not the latter at best.
I say had, because in event 4 for all girls, MC finds out about it and in event 5, he starts actively participating in the thing in some way or another. Like, with Kirara, he fucks her at the same time as the fatty, and at the end, Kirara flat out says that she doesn't care about the fatass at all, he's basically just a living dildo for her, but loves the MC and provokes him into fucking her more and harder. Aya doesn't really care who's dick it is as long as it makes her feel good, but emotionally, she only loves the MC... which is in line with the effects of the immunity established by the 1st game, which made the girls even enjoy the zombie rape and whatnot even if they shouldn't.
Basically, I dunno about other people, but I can't call this NTR at all. Hell. I can even call this fair. Everyone that gets natural or artificial immunity has a heightened libido. MC can't physically satisfy all the girls all the time, so when he's not around, they jump on other dicks, d'oh. But at the end of the day, it's the MC that drowns in pussy, while all the other guys get only one of the girls at any one time, and only if they can't spend time with the MC first.
So who's really the cuck here, huh? Because if anyone thinks it's the MC, they're deluding themselves...
Kinda forced? I can't even call what's happening in this as NTR. None of the girls are stolen from the MC in a complete fashion, none of them stop loving him, not a single one of them betrays him or changes their attitude for him. Granted, I haven't seen all of the events yet...but all the girls follow the same pattern and I doubt that changes.
What you can say is happening is that the girls use other dicks to relieve the extreme lust they have because of their immunity, but they never once stop prioritizing the MC.
There used to be a difference between "just cheating" and "Netorare"... and this game had the former and not the latter at best.
I say had, because in event 4 for all girls, MC finds out about it and in event 5, he starts actively participating in the thing in some way or another. Like, with Kirara, he fucks her at the same time as the fatty, and at the end, Kirara flat out says that she doesn't care about the fatass at all, he's basically just a living dildo for her, but loves the MC and provokes him into fucking her more and harder. Aya doesn't really care who's dick it is as long as it makes her feel good, but emotionally, she only loves the MC... which is in line with the effects of the immunity established by the 1st game, which made the girls even enjoy the zombie rape and whatnot even if they shouldn't.
Basically, I dunno about other people, but I can't call this NTR at all. Hell. I can even call this fair. Everyone that gets natural or artificial immunity has a heightened libido. MC can't physically satisfy all the girls all the time, so when he's not around, they jump on other dicks, d'oh. But at the end of the day, it's the MC that drowns in pussy, while all the other guys get only one of the girls at any one time, and only if they can't spend time with the MC first.
So who's really the cuck here, huh? Because if anyone thinks it's the MC, they're deluding themselves...
Welp. Got my turret skill, got some "NTR" items and events sorted out...
And then I tried Act 12.
And as I was going through Act12... one of those spiders grabbed Ichika during a big mess... and dragged her outside of the map in like 3 seconds.
-_-"
This is the whole thing with the fucking Worms all over again... but worse...
I'm not sure if I want to try again tbh.
That shit was way too annoying... And Act12 seems pretty long... and I have several more NTR items I'd need to grab from there.
Ugh... Just. Fucking why... This crap wasn't fun with the worms when they could run into places you couldn't target them. You'd think they'd have learned after they needed to fix THAT particular shit last time...
TBF I like these spiders, they seem fun! OFC if they clip through the wall or the floor then it's obviously stupid glitch but so far I didn't have such issues except for one spider being stuck behind a wall and not being able to do anything. If you encounter these issues often try having Ichika in the party with the buff constantly active. She should be able to snipe them down.
And wait till you see act 13 boss...
The first time it just clipped through the floor, the second it took of into the sky and never came down...
Nevermind the thousands of zombies that are actively waving the glowsticks making my PC have a meltdown whenever I look up from the ground. I knew DLC is gonna be too much for my PC that it's gonna be a real horror show
I just cannot go past 60% HP of that thing because it's too heavy for my PC. It feels like I'm trying to beat a boss in a powerpoint
Strictly speaking, none of the girls are promiscuous in the conventional sense. The first game established that people with immunity, especially natural immunity, have a much stronger libido than normal. It was why the 1st game's MC was literally capable of fucking non-stop whenever he wanted, and why the original 3 girls could get off even from being raped. Hikari's bond events also give a reminder of that condition, and express the fact that the people that are vaccinated also get this to some extent or another.
The MC of this game is vaccinated, and doesn't get the side-effect as hard as some those of natural immunity, which is, as far as I've been able to grasp, the main reason why he can't fuck non-stop the way the 1st Game's MC could.
The game doesn't really establish if Ichika or Einomaru are vaccinated or naturally immune. I'd say Ichika at least is vaccinated, given the hints in the main story. Regardless of which it is, they too would have a naturally heightened libido, which is why Ichika can't really resist guitar man once she gets a taste of his D due to the MC's intervention. It's not that she's promiscuous, it's that her body betrays her regardless of what her brain thinks. It's like doing drugs. You can have as much willpower as you want, and you can resist the addiction while not directly under the influence, but you can't actually stop the effects of the drugs once they're administered. In this case, the girls can't resist the pleasure once something starts groping them or outright fucking them, even if outside of those time, they can think rationally.
Aya is especially bad, if only because on top of the effects of her immunity, she's also a masochist so she gets off on being treated like a dick-sleeve...
TBF I like these spiders, they seem fun! OFC if they clip through the wall or the floor then it's obviously stupid glitch but so far I didn't have such issues except for one spider being stuck behind a wall and not being able to do anything. If you encounter these issues often try having Ichika in the party with the buff constantly active. She should be able to snipe them down.
And wait till you see act 13 boss...
The first time it just clipped through the floor, the second it took of into the sky and never came down...
Nevermind the thousands of zombies that are actively waving the glowsticks making my PC have a meltdown whenever I look up from the ground. I knew DLC is gonna be too much for my PC that it's gonna be a real horror show
I just cannot go past 60% HP of that thing because it's too heavy for my PC. It feels like I'm trying to beat a boss in a powerpoint
I mean, I wouldn't mind the spiders if they didn't have weird bugs. Dunno if you played the game at launch, but back then, the worms could eat a girl and run through a wall, and you could literally do nothing when that happened. Even Ichika's ult didn't work all the time, if she even targeted the thing in time before it got too far. Worse, this could happen from Act1, when you didn't even have Ichika, so you had to be obsessively on the lookout for the worms even on Easy difficulty because they could easily lead to a game over.
Remembering those times is why I had such a strong reaction to this particular incident.
As for Act 13... Hmmm.... Dunno how my laptop will handle that. I've been playing on Ultra and didn't have any serious problems so far. From my testing, when any big frame drops or stuttering happened, it wasn't because of the graphics, but because the game is optimized like a turd. Basically, if it happened on Ultra, it also happened on the lowest graphic settings because it wasn't due to the graphics, but rather, because the game gets weird sometimes when spawning a lot of zombies at the same time or doing transitions or a number of things.
If I decide to continue and not just grab a full save, I guess I'll see how it works out...
That button doesn't work when any of the girls are engaged in combat. It's not meant to save the girls from grapples and the like, but from getting stuck on terrain or refusing to move from rooms or any number of things that causes them to glitch. This is because the grapples are not meant to take girls out of the map or silly stuff like that.
They fixed the last instance of shit like this happening, aka with the worms, which at launch could grab a girl and run off into the sunset out of range of everyone.
Depending on how frequently the spiders bug out, they'll likely fix them eventually like they did with the worms... but I'm not sure if I'll care about the game long enough to see that happen.
Strictly speaking, none of the girls are promiscuous in the conventional sense. The first game established that people with immunity, especially natural immunity, have a much stronger libido than normal. It was why the 1st game's MC was literally capable of fucking non-stop whenever he wanted, and why the original 3 girls could get off even from being raped. Hikari's bond events also give a reminder of that condition, and express the fact that the people that are vaccinated also get this to some extent or another.
The MC of this game is vaccinated, and doesn't get the side-effect as hard as some those of natural immunity, which is, as far as I've been able to grasp, the main reason why he can't fuck non-stop the way the 1st Game's MC could.
The game doesn't really establish if Ichika or Einomaru are vaccinated or naturally immune. I'd say Ichika at least is vaccinated, given the hints in the main story. Regardless of which it is, they too would have a naturally heightened libido, which is why Ichika can't really resist guitar man once she gets a taste of his D due to the MC's intervention. It's not that she's promiscuous, it's that her body betrays her regardless of what her brain thinks. It's like doing drugs. You can have as much willpower as you want, and you can resist the addiction while not directly under the influence, but you can't actually stop the effects of the drugs once they're administered. In this case, the girls can't resist the pleasure once something starts groping them or outright fucking them, even if outside of those time, they can think rationally.
Aya is especially bad, if only because on top of the effects of her immunity, she's also a masochist so she gets off on being treated like a dick-sleeve...
I mean, I wouldn't mind the spiders if they didn't have weird bugs. Dunno if you played the game at launch, but back then, the worms could eat a girl and run through a wall, and you could literally do nothing when that happened. Even Ichika's ult didn't work all the time, if she even targeted the thing in time before it got too far. Worse, this could happen from Act1, when you didn't even have Ichika, so you had to be obsessively on the lookout for the worms even on Easy difficulty because they could easily lead to a game over.
Remembering those times is why I had such a strong reaction to this particular incident.
As for Act 13... Hmmm.... Dunno how my laptop will handle that. I've been playing on Ultra and didn't have any serious problems so far. From my testing, when any big frame drops or stuttering happened, it wasn't because of the graphics, but because the game is optimized like a turd. Basically, if it happened on Ultra, it also happened on the lowest graphic settings because it wasn't due to the graphics, but rather, because the game gets weird sometimes when spawning a lot of zombies at the same time or doing transitions or a number of things.
If I decide to continue and not just grab a full save, I guess I'll see how it works out...
That button doesn't work when any of the girls are engaged in combat. It's not meant to save the girls from grapples and the like, but from getting stuck on terrain or refusing to move from rooms or any number of things that causes them to glitch. This is because the grapples are not meant to take girls out of the map or silly stuff like that.
They fixed the last instance of shit like this happening, aka with the worms, which at launch could grab a girl and run off into the sunset out of range of everyone.
Depending on how frequently the spiders bug out, they'll likely fix them eventually like they did with the worms... but I'm not sure if I'll care about the game long enough to see that happen.