Overall, this game is excellent. It has a lot of polish for something developed in RPGM. There seem to be some Dark Souls influences, such as checkpoints that have to be activated (similar to bonfires) and healing items (flasks) that refill after sitting at checkpoints. The design of the areas themselves also reminds me of something you'd see in a From Soft game -- shortcuts that you'll see but won't open till much later, areas connecting with previous locations in interesting ways, and plenty of variety in enemies/environments.
There is a deep system involving skill trees for each character, weapon refinement, crafting/gathering systems, plus lots of miscellaneous events that help define each character. The translation is about as perfect as you could expect -- no hints of grammatical errors and with the exception of some very minor UI stuff (doesn't affect gameplay), every quest/interaction/menu I've come across is skillfully translated.
The "casual" difficulty setting allows you to breeze through 90% of fights without even worrying about pushing anything besides the Auto button, but there is some obvious effort that went into creating nuance behind the battle system so I would suggest anyone who enjoys turn-based combat to try out a higher difficulty.
Other reviewers have already mentioned this but the biggest potential problem with the game is how long it takes to get to each h-scene. There's always that tradeoff -- do you want a game that takes the time to characterize who you're fucking, or do you want instant gratification and endless amounts of sex thrown at you? This is definitely a slow-burn game but I think its gameplay loop is satisfying enough to make the player feel as if they've earned each scene without having to grind trash mobs over and over.
Instead of having to endure the shittiness of random encounters, the main form of grinding is actually exploration. There are definitely enemies around but a lot of the time they can be avoided and are spaced rather far apart, especially compared to other RPGM games that spam you with encounters every 5 steps. The story and area layouts are designed well enough that I've never felt bored or like I'm just traipsing through generic dungeons. One minor but rather unique detail I like is how weaker enemies from previous areas will run away from you if you happen to come back later. Farther into the game you also get an item that allows you to become invisible to enemies, so skipping combat becomes extremely easy the more you play.
Currently 11 hours in and not done yet, so this game really does have a huge amount of content. The h-scenes aren't animated or particularly special, but I think the artwork is great and the game benefits from its slow-burn nature of introducing and defining the personality of all the characters, each with their own quirks, kinks, goals, etc.
