I know this might not be the proper place for this, but I'm rather pissed off, so you'll excuse me if I'm going to go on a bit of a rant here.
First off is that I love Shrift. Probably my number 1 h-game of all time. I love the characters, I love the story, I love the art style, and I love the gameplay. Sure, EX4 had its whole "Fuck you genociders" thing, but other than that, best h-game of all time.
However, I recently started playing Shrift 2 after completing Shrift twice. Granted, there was a year or so in between playthroughs, but it's still just as good. I came into Shrift 2 expecting that again. Great story, great characters, great art, great GAMEPLAY.
If the capital word wasn't clear enough, lemme explain it for y'all: I very much dislike the gameplay of Shrift 2. For 4 major reasons:
1. I played on easy, as you do, and when it comes to what I've seen on this thread, I was expecting some easy gameplay. Granted, I've only been skimming around this tread for something I'll get to later. But this was anything but easy. YOU GIVE THEM AN INCH, AND THEY WILL RAIL YOU FOR A FUCKING MILE. And that leads me into the 2nd point.
2. Getting back levels is a MASSIVE pain in the ass. I did not get this game to GRIND! I got this game for a fun time. In Shrift, combat was equally good as the hentai, as the fights were all about temptation. So you could progress, and get your rocks off at the same time. BUT NOW, you have to fight lil ghost bois over and over again for what, maybe, 3-4 levels per dungeon? They take FIVE levels every time you loose, and not only that, but they get stronger. Let's start with the fact that THE FUCKING MOTH ONE SHOT ME. FULL HEALTH. FIRST TURN. COULDN'T EVEN GET OUT OF BEING GRAPPLED. AT LEVEL 47. If I could have put up a good fight, sure, I'd accept that loss. But not this. Oh and there's also the time I lost to the fucking slug. It was around 3000 hp whenever I fought it. Now it has over 7000. From 1 loss. Granted, I was in a husk state, so it was worse than usual, but can you blame me? I wasn't able to think straight cause I had my dick out constantly expecting there to be nice scenes every now and then, not every 15 minutes. If even that. THIS IS AN H-GAME. Where's the balance of the old Shrift? Did Abaddon eat it? And here's where number 3 kicks in:
3. The hotel. Oh boy the hotel. Where do I even start? Let's start with the fact that you had a nice, steamlined system if you wanted to have sex a lot in Shrift: have sex 5 times, drink tea, have sex 5 times, repeat. Now lets see what you have to do in Shrift 2: have sex 6 times (or yaknow, 1 time, since they say all or 1) constantly going through menus. Then, once drained, you have to go buy some pills. Full recovery ones cost around 5000 (I forgot the specific price) which means 1 or 2 per week on easy mode if not going out and GRINDING. And the worst part about the pills are the fucking cooldown. You blow it all having sex. Not only are you weakened, but now you have to wait 5 DAYS, for the cooldown to wear off. Enough for a full recovery minus 1 on my own. And you can't just sleep it off. No. You need to to go somewhere, then come back to the church. More menus. More time wasted. And finally, the UI during sex is trash. No option to hide everything all at once. The button guide comes back whenever you hit any button to increase speed or something. The bars at the bottom don't go away at all. OH AND BEFORE YOU COUNTER WITH, "Oh you silly goose, there's the void indulgence. Why not use that?", consider the following: No progress, bad UI is still in play along with lots of menus that have you backing out and watching their long af intros, no super speed dialogue function. I rest my case.
4. There's no information. Anywhere. The internet is useless. It's dryer than my grandmothers pussy. At least there's a guide for Shrift that goes into detail. This thread is the only source of information on the game, and GOOD FUCKING LUCK trying to find what you want out of 58 pages, if the information is even there to begin with. Not to mention the fact that there's no wiki for BOTH Shrift and Shrift 2. You would think there would be one for the first game, given how long its been out and the fact that it is now completed. AND DON'T GET ME STARTED ON THE ART PART OF THIS! R34? Nothing. E621? Nothing. Gelbooru? 1, and it's just the pic of the MGQ crossover with all the protags standing around all badass like. The only place I can find art: SankakuComplex. And how many? 60, half of which are Daji. Let's see how much MGQ has on R34: oh would you look at that, 1627. I would have thought that my favorite h-game of all time would have at least half of that, considering the collab with MGQ and everything, but no. Apparently we don't get the luxury. Like I said: THE INTERNET IS USELESS.
And here's the big conclusion. Wow, you made it to the end. Give yourself a pat on the back.
Shrift (the series) has fallen from grace substantially, either due to the new system, or the creator making bad decisions, or whatever. I'm not even going to talk about the stupid time system. Due to this, I will not longer be acting as if Shrift 2 is an H-game. It is now just a game with h-parts. I'll just go watch some loss scenes in Shrift or get squeezed out in My Room if I wanna have some good scenes with good controls. Now. I am going to go pass out in my bed from sleep deprivation. A good day to you all.