Unity - Abandoned - Shackled Fate [v0.8.2.8 Public] [WildFeyGames]

  1. 3.00 star(s)

    LS47

    Version 0.8.2.8

    Although this review is going to be focused more on the negatives, I don't want you to think this is necessarily a bad game. For the most part, this is a pretty solid demo. All the groundwork for the gameplay mechanics are established properly, and while the full body art for the characters might be dodgy at times, it is always alluring enough to keep me going though the hassle of getting the sex scenes, especially with oviposition and insects as the main fetishes, which I'm a big fan of. The setting of this game is really captivating, with an atmosphere I've very rarely seen in other similar porn games. Unfortunately, there are quite a few game design issues that prevent this experience to be enjoyed at its fullest.

    The first issue you'll notice upon booting this game, is that there are a lot of grammatical errors everywhere, not just in the dialogues but also in the info-bubbles for each item, making it difficult to fully understand how each of them works in combat. Perhaps the devs' native language isn't English, which might explain some of the oddities, but they really should have seeked for the help of a proofreader before publishing their game.

    As for the gameplay itself, the next issue comes with the way you navigate in the overworld. The map is large, and the character's default walk and run speed are way too slow. Most locations look the same, making it very difficult to orient yourself without the map; map which, while pretty, is very obtuse to use as it conveys very little information about each location; the best it does is indicating the location of the warp stones for fast travel, and it has a legend for the important landmarks, but everything is drawn the same way without any color code, making it easy to mistake a specific spot for another. But the worst thing about this overworld is that most of it is empty, with all the important landmarks being spread widely across the map with no rhyme or reason, which I think was intentional to justify its size and the existence of the warp stones, when a smaller, more focused map would have had the benefit of eliminating the need for them completely.

    Next, there is the combat. I don't have anything particularily bad to say about the combat mechanics themselves; the issue comes with the stuff around it. There is no leveling system in this game, and health doesn't regenerate between fights, meaning the only way to replendish your HP is to either find some consumables scattered across the map (very tedious and slow), spend a night at the inn (when the money in this game is technically finite, with a certain exception) or go all the way back to the witch's house to get healed for free, which isn't that much of an hassle thanks to the warp stones, but it is a problem that shouldn't be there, especially since not all fights give money as loot after a victory, meaning that some fights against animals are just a waste of resources for the most part. There is a vendor you can sell your items too, but you'll prefer keeping them for crafting anyway. The devs tried to adress this by adding the "well of gold" which basically gives you infinite mney if you're stuck, but in a well-designed game, that kind of thing really shouldn't be present in the first place.

    Another issue with the combat is that all amor you wear will eventually be degraded, reducing their effectiveness in reducing the damae you take. Since there is no way to repair your stuff, the only way for you to regain some armour is to buy the parts in a shop, which is incredibly expensive without the well of gold (aka cheating), because you'll only get money from non-animal enemies, which are finite and dissapear forever once you beat them.

    As for the enemies, it's really hard to gauge their power level without fighting them at least once. Most of the time, they have the advantage in numbers and will quickly surround you and spam double attacks against you, forcing you to save scum in order to avoid them as much as possible. Many of them ahve ranged attacks and you don't, meaning you have to waste a turn and deal significantly less damage, while they keep their double attack and hit you for a ton of damage.

    Lastly, this game offers you some choices in the way the MC interacts with her entourage. Some of the choices do a stat-check to see if they fail or not, some others give you new passive traits or stat changes as you progress thoughout the game. The issue is, some of those choices just do not work properly (like in the inn when I couldn't access a sex scene because the button defaulted to another one), and some of the ways to acces certain outcomes are really opaque, with nothing telling you how to reach them. For instance, apparently you can recruit an NPC late in the demo as she appears in a future sex scene, but I just ended up fighting her and killing her anyway, and I'm not gonna spend 10 more minutes save scumming to figure out if it is possible to recruit her or not.

    So overall, it's a mixed bag. The fighting is functional but a bit unfair, and walking around feels more like a slog than anything else. I think these two parts need some serious rework, alongside rewriting the shoddy mistranslated text. The art is nice, but not nice enough to warrant a full playthrough more than once. I'd wait until the devs fix the current issues before picking up again, but I'll keep an eye on it, because this has the potential to become something really interesting and unique in the long run.
  2. 1.00 star(s)

    Taylorswift251

    The developers of the game set a date for release months ago. were very short on why the release didnt get released. and now are just siting on money being given to them on patron every month. keep taking the money given to them but provide nothing of substance about the next release.
  3. 4.00 star(s)

    Rose emp

    When I played this it was called SpiritBound, now it's called Shackled Fate? Well this review is based on the latest version (v0.8.2.8 Public).

    Of course I won't spoil what's the content difference between the one I played (v0.8.1.18) compare to this latest version.

    So what's this game about?
    Tbh I didn't care about the plot!!! That's how boring it is zzzzzzzzzzzzzz. . . 3/5.

    How's the erotic scenes?
    Pretty hot, I must say! If the artstyle is not to your liking then screw off. This game covers up most of the content of getting hentai scenes, so you will never get bored! I give it 4/5.

    What about the combat?
    The combat is pretty basic, but the grind is pain. . . I find the combat very repetitive and the progression through the quest is tough (not really, more like time consuming). I rate it 3/5 because I have lots of patience.
  4. 5.00 star(s)

    neardog123

    One of the best games I've ever played,
    Interesting story, choices interfere with game events, fun tactical combat mechanics, costumes visually deteriorate when durability is affected, these details, but the game's plot is what makes me one of the best I've ever played, for but that is not complete yet.
    Likes: jttth
  5. 5.00 star(s)

    Starss

    V.7.0.6
    Dark but not gore + super pretty chicks & art

    Spiritbound is really good in his style but :


    - need to fix the feeling of improving your character : leveling system or usefull stuff (stuff feel useless), its for me, the biggest issue of the game. It's all about tactical but, after my 2nd try i just skiped 100% of fights thats not involved quest or Hscene, since they are useless
  6. 3.00 star(s)

    Bruno3

    The game sometimes gets complicated, you dont know what to do and where to go, they could improve on that, making it easier for the player.

    The animations could be better but its decent as it is.

    So its a 3 star
  7. 3.00 star(s)

    TheHighSpire

    Alright, so I've played Spiritbound and it is time for a review.

    I give it 3 stars. It's not because the game is bad.. it just isn't really shining either. You play as the girl on the picture who offends the spirits. To escape the wrath she binds herself to it and consequently loses all memory. To make amends she must make an offering to the spirits. The story is alright in the game.

    Though, the best is probably that there's an actual quest log to help you along with remembering these things. The only slightly annoying part is that there's no hints on who to talk to for locations.

    Another neat part is the combat of the game, I thought it was pretty decent and it had various other affects like potions and such to make it more complicated. Some commenters say that the combat is too difficult. I don't really agree - I didn't lose a single a time ("dying" in combat does not mean game over so long as you have more people in your group).

    One of the bad parts of the game is probably that I didn't feel like there was much progression. There was no leveling system of any kind. While I don't need the game to improve the character in every way like the generic leveling usually works, it would be nice to see the character improve in what she does. So, if she fights a lot then she will improve her skills there etc.

    Generally, I just find that there's a bit too few things to do, and too few events that I feel would define the character. That is especially important considering how she lost all memory. That said, it is good that it's not one of the generic "you must expose yourself/fuck everybody to regain your memory" games.

    Alright to break it down for easier reading:

    The Good
    • Decent story
    • Good combat, but it could be fleshed out some more to make it more interesting, and less repetitive.
    • Alright art if you like this type of thing.
    • Good quest system which makes it easy to keep track of the stuff to do.
    The Inbetween
    • The map takes some getting used. It's not bad, but I'd like a map-reading skill so that she easier could tell where she is on the map.
    • The way points needs to be more visible - they basically looks like logs, and they can be hard to spot at time. At least to me. It would also be nice if they were placed more centrally - especially in the town. The walk from it is not long, but it feels like it when you've done it for the 100th time.
    • The repeatable jobs in inn is a bit too repetitive with the inn keeper trying the same shenanigans every time..
    • Too few things to do.

    The Bad
    • Few CG 's and they are easy to miss
    • I didn't feel like there was any character progression. I never got stronger or anything. Only equipment boost stats.
    • You must lose a fight to get pregnant - that is alright, but it's pretty easy to win.
    • The inventory/bag is very limited which is really annoying. At least make things stack indefinitely or make a weight system. Even better would be to just make infinite space.
  8. 5.00 star(s)

    CorwinFr

    V0.6.3.10

    I like a lot this game, very promising.

    It's like a RPG game with H content, The story is interesting, there is real choice that impact the story, the combat system is more interesting than any game like.

    Pro :
    - Story
    - Visual & CG, the style is unique
    - RPG concept
    - Good release quality, very few to no bug at each release


    Cons :
    - About 30 CG for now
    - Difficulty
  9. 5.00 star(s)

    YuriiH

    As of 0.6.1 the game is a masterpiece candidate.

    PROS:
    1) A fusion between the lower-end and dark fantasy genres
    2) Challenging battles, rising to an extreme difficulty if you explore solo (see also "2" in CONS)
    3) Nice visuals--both, pixel and 3D
    4) To some extent open world
    5) Rewards for exploration
    6) Dressing-up doll gameCharacter visual customization system

    CONS:
    1) Typos. Running a simple spell-checker would really help.
    2) Battles again. Although avoidable and providing some crappy loot, they don't make your character stronger in this game.
    3) Heavy grind for money to buy equipment (although the Dev proactively implemented an in-game cheat for money)
    4) Poor inventory management. Limited inventory slots and small stacks don't really help if the game focuses on grind.
    5) Failed alchemy. Your character simply doesn't have enough space in inventory to make a good use of the alchemy recipies.
    6) Map doesn't show your character location, but only general outlines of the landscape. This is a rather cool feature, and I like it, but it may certainly confuse a new player.
    7) Story is about another Chosen one :sick:
    8) Something is very wrong with the village model. Hm… not the visuals… The f e e l i n g!
    The village events and conversations give an inconsistent impression of the settlement size--from a tiny hamlet to a town.
    Some of the stories could only happen within a small population, but the others--only in a much larger one.

    TO DEVELOPER
    You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.
  10. 5.00 star(s)

    abao

    The art is absolutely beautiful, the combat is interesting (it's high praise for a porn game), and the plot have me eager to see more (VERY high praise for a porn game).

    And the very best part? There is no grind.

    There.
    Is.
    No.
    Grind.


    Sadly some people misinterpret it as no progression. You still get progression when you actually do something new, you just don't get extra stats for redoing the same thing 100x in a row.
  11. 5.00 star(s)

    Noxissa

    This game seems very good so far. Art is very nice, content is good. Combat is decent, hoping for some better combat animations in future possibly?

    I'm looking forward to seeing more content as the game develops.
  12. 3.00 star(s)

    Deleted member 185293

    The game has potential but needs a lot of work. For starters, there isn't much porn here. I was able to find a few scenes but there's not much and there is only one repeatable scenes so far. There has to be more action in the village and outside it.
    Gameplay consists mostly of the FC walking about. It needs a lot of quality of life improvements: mini-map, some kind of fast travel system between locations, and most importantly normal mouse controls. You should be able to click on a point and have her walk to it instead of holding W. It's 2020 FFS.
    On the plus side, I liked the dev's art style. Characters are beautiful and proportionate, and their physiques aren't way too thicc but not loli either. The combat system is OK. Quickslots for items and abilities would be an improvement but what the dev did is still way better than standard RPGM combat UI.
    Resume: this game has potential and I hope it takes off but it needs both more renders and a better UI to become truly worth the time.
  13. 4.00 star(s)

    Every1sGrudge

    {Rev @ v0.5]

    Nice! Potential here.

    Art's very nice. It's either ground-up custom or clever enough sourcing that everything's cohesive and appealing for a chipset rpg.

    Writing needs work; Scenario's a new spin on Heroine Has Amnesia. Characterization is middling, but the sentence-to-sentence fluency is pretty week. Not sure if it's a lost in translation moment or if further proofreading is needed.

    I liked what porn I found. I really like the give your girl custom kinks potential, that's always fun when done well and lends to a liberation through corruption feel. I hope the plans include more nuanced loss scenes that some other rpgs have (escaping breeding pits, slavers, etc when captured).

    I actually didn't mind the systems present for the most part; some of the early fights feel tuned so that the MC survives with 1 or 2 hp left and that can get a bit annoying. Otherwise I feel like a shitton of effort went into planning and I appreciate that.

    TLDR: Eagerly watched.
  14. 4.00 star(s)

    CloudingMushroom

    Really cool. [v03.3] ended ready to open the world and i hope the game continues from this demo with the same quality as it has maintained through it.

    Still really early but I'm very optimistic and hope to change my review to a 5 star in a few updates when the game is big enough to warrant serious recommendations.