RPGM - Completed - SHRIFT [v8.07] [DEVIL'S OFFICE]

Story 10/10
SHRIFT 1 is a masterpiece storywise. The amount of work put into writing blows my mind. It's expansive, it's touching (in more than one way), and you genuinely feel a connection to the girls instead of seeing them as fuck toys. Not to mention the immense creativity of the fourth wall breaks, which adds more to the immersion. If this wasn't a porn game, I 100% believe that it would rival Undertale.

Scenes 2/10
I know under Japanese laws, genitals must be censored, but this game is censored to a degree of excess. You literally cannot see what is going on 90% of the time. The art style is cute, so it adds some points, but the censorship straight-up ruined any real reason for jerking off to this game. If this game were to be uncensored in the future it would be a 8/10

Overall 7/10

Played on V8.07

Alright.

I don't review games, and I also don't really play H games often, especially not so much for the H.

That being said, SHRIFT is perceived somewhat indecisively now. So I felt like I'd voice my opinion somewhere...

SHRIFT isn't a perfect game by any means, but I think that, considering this is mostly the work of one person. It deserves it's praise. As I am now a very well versed and experienced SWEAT at this game, I thought I'd say my piece.

Gameplay and Difficulty
SHRIFT's gameplay is something alright, a little unique compared to most RPGM type games as theres no real party. You will always be fighting demons with just the MC, Kazuya(with the exclusion of some Post-Game content), and for the most part, its a one on one match.

The Combat consists of depleting your enemy's Willpower/HP while also avoiding letting your Lust reach 100 while in an actual 'Milking Position', allowing it to hit 100 outside of one will daze you for a few turns, which can also very easily lead to a game over.

Its simple, but generally speaking if you manage your lust and restraints, you technically don't have a traditional HP bar that can cause you to lose a fight.

That being said, the game is spoken of to be notoriously difficult for games of this genre, even on it's easiest mode. I don't really know where this sentiment comes from? I can proudly(not really) say that I've beaten the game on Hardcore, which to my knowledge is it's hardest difficulty. And that took me a measly 9-10 hours?

My first run was on Easy and took 6-7, and that was without basically any guides. Were there deaths? Sure, plenty. Did it get a little tedious? Maybe. Did it feel unfair? Eh.

I think the basis for this idea comes from the corruption mechanic of the game, in which losing to a demon will give you 1/3(indulgence/full game over) corruption levels, which make it harder to fight that demon. This caps out at 5, meaning if you equip the Hell's Indulgence given very early on, you would have to lose 5 times to hit maximum debuffs for a fight.

Now this could get really problematic, as the lvl 3 4 and 5 debuffs are pretty bad... if they were truly permanent. You can reduce corruption by winning a fight against that demon's type, or talk to Meira to reset that demon's corruption. Doing the latter counts as an assist, that will of course affect your ending.

Though, that shouldn't be a problem? One should be playing with the mindset that your first ending can be whatever you achieve, I played with that mindset, so I used the assists from Meira freely in my first run... is that weird?

I guess some people didn't want to have to replay the game or something, but NG+ is something I'll talk about later.

There are some puzzles in Chapter 1 that could be really painful, but aside from that, the game is relatively easy to follow through. I had a good time with the challenge some bosses posed. So I will now dissect the super hard allegations one at a time. (Just skip to Story if you don't wanna see this.)

I will be going over the Neutral/TM Fights, not Genocide, mainly because I never did it. Though I will talk about Genocide later.

All of these are assuming Easy difficulty, your first run, and that you're willing to use the free corruption clears(WHICH YOU SHOULD BE?)

Iron Maiden

This is the game's first Boss Fight, so I can definitely understand it being a little challenging for a newcomer. But even on my first run this only took one attempt, its very lenient and easy to recover mid-fight as Lucy doesn't really have any one turn restraints that would completely force you into her tempo. On easy where all debuffs(including restraints) have a halved success rate, this is really easy.

For the second fight, which is more of a puzzle anyways, it took me a try or two? I don't fully remember, but on Easy you don't really have to follow any tempo as you can just spam the struggle and escape without issue.

Empuse

Chapter 1's End Boss is easier than the Iron Maiden fight, I didn't have to learn any strategies, I used the shotgun I got in 1-2, I escaped once or twice, I won.

To be fair, I think I got a bit lucky, but if you actually read the Compendium, you'll learn after your very first attempt that she has a lightning weakness. Learning PSI Jolt will make it even easier to win the fight than it was for me, as you won't have to spend turns reloading.

Mother Rabbit

Not really a Boss, but I can kind of see people struggling to progress through the chapter due to her. I did, but only because I was trying to fight rather than Run. As long as you aren't holding skip you'll notice she telegraphs that fight start grab she does sometimes, which can be evaded to then likely ensure an easy escape. With that in mind, escaping her repeatedly isnt that difficult.

Mukuro

I can see why people would struggle here, Mukuro is unironically one of the hardest bosses in the game. Aside from her encounter fights, especially the first one forcing you to fight her with no tea. But assuming your gear is decent(shotgun) you can make it through that one.

The actual boss fight is where it gets rough. As Mukuro's Time Stops and having an easy to land double binding means she can repeatedly derail your tempo to have to deal with an oncoming milking position or other problematic attack. Her health pool isn't atrocious where you have to do this for too long, but I definitely had to throw a lot of attempts at her on Hardcore. There are some interesting secret traits with her fight though that I learned, so that was neat

Anyways, yeah, complaints about her are fair, but on your first run on easy, this won't be too tough to run through.

Twins
Not hard, keeping your Lust down when the enemy has no restraints or milking positions is a joke.

Nina
Do yourself a favor and pick the dance battle, and the fight is ridiculously easy. Even on the actual battle route it isn't that hard. You can completely avoid all restraints with a 100% success rate as long as you're patient and calm. And you can avoid overreaching by just going for safe dances yourself. I don't think anybody finds Nina hard, though I can see why the 7 input dances the main idol puts on might come off as difficult. However, since she doesn't even instantly restrain you, and instead raise corruption, which can also be reduced by performing her dances correctly after. You can completely trivialize the 'damage' she deals.

Echo
First one is tough I guess? Maybe lose once and find out shes weak to lightning, then its a joke.

The last one too isn't really a boss, and goes down in two turns(one if you know its coming). As it has an instant win con, assuming you did the right thing with that powder.(Don't.)

Sphinx
Not a boss.
Okay even if you want to say people don't know these riddles, you can easily trial and error this.

Arachne
This is one of those bosses I can see people finding hard, like Mukuro, she belongs in the Triforce of actually hard SHRIFT bosses. Though once you figure out her attacks, simply keeping up Cool Calm and Sylph Storm means she literally cant do shit for the whole fight.

Titanoboa
This is technically only on TM, so I'll include it.
Its a pretty easy fight, nothing else to really say. Just keep up some damage gap and its trivial.

Camazotz

Assuming you made the smart choice and ran from the random encounters, you only have to actually fight your future frien Camazotz twice, and both are the same fight. A really basic and easy puzzle that you should only die to once before you understand how it works. The second fight does have Stream Sniper Micah2017 so keep an eye out for her I guess.

Daji
The third of the triforce of actually hard SHRIFT bosses, and for good reason. Daji is meant to be the final boss of Neutral Runs and by extension, almost guaranteed to be your first run's final foe. She acts as a test of everything else, drawing on mechanics and gimmicks from across multiple bosses. Each phase has its own optimal strategy to survive, and it will definitely take some deaths to make sense of them. That being said, don't be afraid to use assists, and eventually, you'll take her down.

The second fight is a lot less difficult, and should be beaten without much trouble.

I won't be talking about Samael for obvious reasons.

Story(Major Spoilers)

This is another big area of complaints, for somewhat good reason. SHRIFT's story definitely has flaws, but give the dev a break for trying?

Assuming you do like I did and don't care for assists, your first run will likely be the worst neutral end. Which does reveal that something is happening to Kazuya due to having killed demons.(We'll get to that)

You'll likely go through the second run trying to be nice to the demons, and you'll make lotsa silly friens who have certainly killed people. And this is where all of the controversy comes from. Similarily to the bosses, I'll go through all 14 of the demons you befrien.

Barghest
In her case, Hecate has made them too youthful in intelligence to even consider the results their mating instincts have on Kazuya or other victims. And as Kazuya befriends the one he meets, she proves that they're victims of their own boss' shitty practices.

Lampas
The ones that go around trying to kill Kazuya and others are once again, following their natural instincts. Though as the one we befriend proves, they are intelligent enough to be aware of this. No need to forgive the rest though, as we very clearly see that the Lampas we befriend wants to understand Kazuya more than that, and also doesn't have a body count(hehe get it) as they only bond with the one, which she has not. We also learn that the Lampas that don't fulfill their order uhh, die a horrible death. So Hecate is kind of the problem with saying they can disobey their nature. What a shitty boss eh?

Iron Maiden

Here's the fun part, I don't have to justify not killing the Biological Weapons, because you never get the choice. In a natural Neutral/TM run, they end up being disposed off, and you will never be given this let them go/finish them option with any of the 3.

Empuse
Empuse doesn't really get any time to justify it, but as Hecate has proven earlier, she forces her creations to do as she desires, so that context should be enough to spare Empuse. It also proves to have an effect on her mentality, which eventually changes her nature as well. If it doesn't on a neutral run, then thats fine, you'll come back to it and she'll redeem herself overtime.

Mother Rabbit
I rest my case.

Haru and Liz
They don't really kill anybody, though their scenario can kill you in some instances..? You don't get a spare choice anyways, and as you learn from Liz, all deaths involving Haru are actually accidental, she doesn't even realize what shes doing to the people she kills, which is a horrible truth that kind of feels sick to think about...

Mukuro
Shes more of a victim of circumstance than anything, and again, no actual kill count prior to encountering Kazuya. Figuring out her nature and origin makes her pretty easy to forgive.

Nina

Iron Maiden

Echo
Looking at the Echo you encounter first and befriend, she definitely seems hard to forgive at first. But she is technically one of the demons that doesn't kill you. So killing her would seem odd. If you choose to not use the powder as well at the end of 3-1, you'll be able to persuade her using the story from before as backing information, proving that she really doesn't want to resort to her nature.

The dream battle in this chapter is also good basis for this, that there is a divide between demons that want to earn a human's love, and the others that want to take their souls, even amongst the same species.

Sphinx
Silly silly sphinx, goofy lil sphinx, I love her(as a friend). Not to mention she joins My Room regardless of most conditions, and she's actually abandoned her former form to grow closer to understanding humanity. So killing you and other humans isn't really her current intent. Though she'll make you a genius(derogatory).

Arachne
This one is fair. Arachne is not a kind demon, is not a demon that misunderstand her nature. She revels in the food chain that she dominates, and has turned the feeding on human life into a masterful sickening craft. I didn't even consider Arachne was a demon I had to befriend in my first run, though I did let her go with the mindset that Kazuya would've done that. Which of course she refutes.

Kazuya and Arachne's fight is a philosophical one as well as a physical one, and Arachne summarizes that perfectly in My Room when you first enter her room. Arachne fought Kazuya to eat him, and Kazuya fought Arachne to survive. That was the natural order, up until then it was following the path.

But Kazuya wanted to reject that idea, he says as much prior to the fight starting. He wants to completely disregard this notion and bridge the gaps between demons and humans, even if it means having to convince her as well. And at the end of the fight, sparing her is his proof to the idea that this doesn't need to exist as a conflict, as killing her would only verify her ideals and beliefs, verify that this was how nature was meant to work. Arachne despises this, but wants to learn more about it even after that. Only after being told that those words weren't empty by Lampas and Empuse that is.

Of course, in some senses, Kazuya is wrong, and Arachne is right, thats the greater problem of SHRIFT's world, but even if Kazuya is wrong, then he'll continue to fight for that false belief, because those are his ideals.

Titanoboa
Damn this track is a fucking banger innit

Camazotz
Eh, she's not that bad... I don't think its exactly a one on one case like the Lampas, but technically the Camazotz you fight doesn't have a kill count. She's actually pretty cool once you get to know her, but for the pretext you have before actually sparing her, its that and Kazuya's will to understand and make peace with these demons that should be enough for a TM run, in my eyes(you know aside from us really wanting that TM run).

Daji
The only girl I actually hated at first, and I was definitely cursing her out when talking about her with my friends. The Ruinous Courtesan is really fucking cool though, design wise and character wise, and since sparing her can only happen after sparing the entirety of the My Room gang, its a Kazuya that has tried to understand every single one of these murderous yet conflicted demons. So when being prompted so heavily by The Familiar, and being told that a chance of bringing Yuuma back is possible, choosing Spare shouldn't be seen as so unrealistic. Not to mention she immediately redeems herself when you do and she becomes Best Girl(one of them at least).

Actual Story Section

The Angelic Magic Kazuya has been given is a pretense to say sparing demons is the right path, thats a sentiment many people have. I can see why people think this is an asspull, but its more than that. Its an interesting narrative device in its own right. As it brings a unique degree of mystery to the neutral endings, and Meira's txt notes to your game files after one do tell you what needs to be done.

The Angelic Magic isnt some random thing that came out of nowhere, its an aspect foreshadowed from the very beginning of the game. Its been planned and that is very clearly shown. Though Reina's nature is definitely a surprise, it does explain a lot of previous elements such as her desire to kill you.

With all that being said, True Mercy feels ridiculously good to the heart to get after understanding all of these things. And unironically that moment(beautifully amplified by Last Confession) was what made me understand why SHRIFT is so loved as a game by its fans.

This story isn't perfect, I'd even argue its one of the weakest elements of the game. That being said, no game dev has to be perfect. And the story really does try.

I won't talk about True Mercy, but I will now make a few brief remarks on Genocide.

Genocide Complaints

People complain that Genocide's story is shitty and simply shits on the player for choosing it, and doesn't want to attribute any blame to Kazuya...

I can understand part of this, but I don't get it as well. Undertale genocide shits on the player just as much, because there is no sentience to Frisk within Undertale, any comments to them, are really meant for you in a sense. And that line gets blurrier until Chara refers directly to the player.

In this case, the characters of SHRIFT refer to the Old One more and more until it becomes clear that the conversation is between him and you at the very end. As your and the Old One's connection to Kazuya is cut at the end of the run.

Though thats where I'd honestly stop comparing the two, as while people joke about this being H-Undertale, it really isnt a fair comparison for SHRIFT to have.

Was there inspirations taken, definitely.

Its still its own game, and going into it with this expectation will definitely ruin your fun.

Again, I haven't played Genocide, my friend has, which I watched, so thats the basis for most of my knowledge.

For people trying to say Genocide is the logical route, that falls apart immediately since it requires you to kill enemies in an area until no more spawn. A guy trying to escape and survive wouldn't realistically try to encounter more demons. So even with the mindset of killing those you encounter, Neutral is the logical route.

So anyways, I didn't actually have much to say story wise.

I won't say Genocide is without its problems. I like to think the creator just didn't have the planning in mind to write a more natural route, and was more invested in the narrative True Mercy was trying to be, as he proves by EX4 as well.

So honestly, I won't pretend that aspect of the game is perfect. But this is an H-Game for crying out loud, its amazing that it did what it did to be honest, and its no MGQ(you know, that other game where tons of characters try to kill/rape/imprison/claim the MC and we forgive/recruit them without hesitation) or Black Souls(don't get me started) but I think it deserves praise. Theres a reason it was part of the collab y'know.

I was going to make this way longer and discuss the EX Scenarios as well as a more in depth talk about the narrative within the three routes and their endings. But I'll leave that to people who want to argue.

In the End, SHRIFT's Story is a near 5 for me, but the rest of the game is without doubt a 5/5 for me. So, I love it. Despite it being an H-Game, its got my praise in spades.

I'm excited to play SHRIFT 2 when the game is completed.

If you want to hate the game, or you dislike the narrative decisions in some places. Thats okay, you have that right.

But people like the review below me, who make targeted remarks about the people who simply shared their love for the game? Thats uncalled for, let people like the things they like, no need to be an ass.

Alright, alright, I'm done. Enjoy your time.

If you play games to have fun and enjoy yourself, then only play this game if you're a hardcore masochist who loves suffering and abuse. I swear, most people who gave this game a 5 star have Stockholm syndrome and are just trying to make excuses for their abuser.

I played through to Chapter 2-1 and as much as I want to like this game I cannot because it has so many bullshit mechanics that sap away any enjoyment I almost got to have.

A few examples of things I disliked:
1. The story is almost creative and engaging, if it wasn't constantly throwing some of the worst "but it's OK because they don't really mean it or were born that way" logic in your face AND expect you to fully buy into that to continue the game.
The demons in this game voluntarily kill people and steal their souls away so that they can't even have an afterlife, which is a real place that you frequently go to in this game.
So they are objectively evil, right? Wrong. They're actually good girls who are just misunderstood and you should love them for who they are.
How dare you insinuate that the mass murders should be punished for their crimes in any way, you disgusting excuse for a human.
Feel free to look around other reviews and posts for all the nonsense the Dev did for the Genocide run. It's a wild read.
Essentially, it's a requirement to let all of the demons go if you don't want a bad ending.

2. The game almost has innovative game mechanics.
Demons affect the character's "soul", so it has this neat little mechanic where even if you close the game right before losing a fight, or if you lose a fight, you get a stacking debuff when fighting against that opponent until you are able to beat them. This carries between saves as well.
In theory, cool concept. However, this can literally lead to soft-locking you from being able to progress the game and having to delete all of your saves and another file (I note it below) because the fights are unwinnable and you cannot continue past them.

The game also has a "Mercy" / "Harm" after each fight where you decide if you want to let the demon go free or if you want to banish it from your world (not kill it). Neat idea as well, Bioshock and Undertale both do this. Except, you get half rewards for a mercy run, which is requried for any decent ending from what I've read, and you get 0 xp for mercy. So you cannot level up in a game where fighting is a requirement and the fights are stacked against you. You get some skill points for "safe fucking" demon friends a bit later, but it is small fractions of what you'd get from harming them.

It saves every loss or cop out you take (such as assistance points) in the PublicData.rvdata2 file. Taking assistance points, by the way, which can be your only lifeline sometimes, apparently means you get a worse ending. I wouldn't know, I don't have an interest in subjecting myself to more of the game.

3. The game is absurdly unfair, even on the easiest difficulty. People might claim "skill issue" here for some of it, but RNG can dictate the win/loss of a fight too much for my taste. Especially when losses can have permenant consequences. Without a guide it is impossible to know how to win most of the fights without trial and error, which involves losing if you don't get lucky and guess correctly. And if you lose too much, you cannot beat the fight.

4. The game is a grind. I like the concept of the battle system, but having to fight random encounters, forced encounters, random extra debuff encounters, and forced loss encounters really takes away from the novelty and quickly turns it into tedium when a battle can turn into: Get tied up -> Struggle free -> Get tied up differently -> Struggle free differently -> Get tied up -> struggle free -> Take a turn to recover -> Get tempted -> Make sure you don't select the wrong option depending on how high your lust is -> actually get to attack ONCE -> repeat.
Additionally, some fights require a LOT of exactly correct choices in the exactly correct order without getting too unlucky with RNG to win.
And the game will give you incorrect info or no info for how to win these fights. With Mother Rabbit, where I gave up playing because the game actually broke and softlocked me into a loss scene that went on infinitely, there is a very specific thing you have to do 8 times to win that is not explained at all, and asking the gave for advice WILL TELL YOU THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT YOU NEED TO DO. So yeah, fuck that.

5. This is really what sealed the deal for me, as I was considering cheating to win, but the game isn't even finished. You can't 100% it.

Fucking hell, I absolutely despise this game, so prepare yourself for a long one
Also, spoilers, I think that should be obvious. I don't want to limit my review, so read at your own risk, I'll be going over a lot of stuff.




I don't know where to begin about this game, after a whole 3 tries all spaced out between a few months, I've finally completed everything this game offers, I've wiped the stain that this game is on my soul knowing that I've completed it.
It's been quite a journey, with many interesting, and terrible things to see.
The 1 star review is based on my own visceral dislike of the game. In reality, I'd give it an objective 2.5/5 and maybe a 3.5 if I decided to ignore the bad and go with the good.
anyway, let's get into it.



Gameplay:

Shrift is a hard game, at the very least, a lot harder than a game that's made for coomers would normally be..
And it's quite ruthless at that, but i guess it's a given, since it's a femdom game, losing is very fucking easy.
Anyway, it follows a basic rpgm formula, you should likely know that..
But it distinguishes itself by adding a few mechanics.
Unless you're willing to go the geno route, you cannot level up. The only stat increases you can ever get will be from your items..
And even if you do go geno, the amount of buffs you get from it aren't really that good (considering what awaits you at the end of it).
You have 4 options to end combat:
Physical damage
magical damage
Persuasion/struggle
Fleeing
And there is only 1 way of losing, by cumming, meaning when your Lust bar reaching 100

You have 2 options when you lose, seeing the scene and dying, or reviving in the afterlife through indulgence
Once the 1st happens, you're given the option to load and go to the 'revenge' data, which simply restarts your fight, while the latter, simply takes you back to the resting point you last saved from

There are some special cases like the spinx fight or special fights where you're supposed to lose, but either way, like any rpgm game, it takes on a turn-based format.
This is where the hard part comes in, even on easy mode. Enemies ARE stronger than you, by a long shot, and not to mention in canon.
Due to how frequent random encounters are, you will get your ass kicked over and over until you can heal, and because of being unable to kill enemies on the TM route, you're to struggle, with no items, you'll likely end up feed for the demon girls, that is unless you get 'bronze boxes' and farm the shit out of the previous chapters
Your only save haven are the few safe spaces that exist on the map, some are close, some are farther, but you'll always breathe a sigh of relief the moment you finally reach one, with 99 lust and barely any willpower left.
Yes, this can happen even on easy mode, especially if you don't use a guide, and that's one thing I don't like about this game.
Unless it's your 2nd playthrough, or you're using a guide, you'll lose, a lot, but you can't do that, because of a very special feature unique only to shrift
And that's save corruption.
Every time you lose to one of the demons, whether or not you had indulgence, you become 'corrupted'
The way this manifests is inside your 'passives' tab under 'status' in the form of a debuff
It ranges from 3 levels for each enemy, every single level gives you a debuff which makes the fight even fucking harder, and even impossible
at lvl 3, your will and vit are cut by 80%, an absolutely fucking brutal lose that makes winning impossible
To make this worse, it applies to EVERY. SINGLE. PLAYTHROUGH, you CANNOT get rid of it, it's attached to your public save data.
How does one stop this? You can't just don't lose lol.
Well, there are measures against it
1. Make sure to backup your public save data in your game folder, you save data won't work, the public save data is where the corruption sits, so before an area, or before bosses especially, it's vital
2. Using the assistance points with Meira
3. Using the 'remove corruption' option in My room for every girl, though, this one is the worst by far, considering you have to BEAT the girl and fulfil the requirements for her to come to my room in the first place, so you can't remove the corruption until you actually beat them.
This is how I got completely fucked over by Daji, forcing me to start over, which pissed me off IMMENSELY, and i didn't want to assistance points because it affects the ending you get, so i just gave up, and uninstalled the game (for the 1st time)
It's tough, if you don't have the intention of playing without a guide you'll be stuck in a loop of trial and error, which would be fine if the game actually gave you that many chances, but it doesn't, unless you use the methods present, 1. is pretty safe, 2. ruins the ending and 3. is useless
A game being difficult is fine, but a game being unfair is another, and shrift has a lot of unfair moments.
I really dislike that, a game that's annoying to deal with even on easy mode, i remember my first playthorugh being 10 hours atleast, all because of constant repetition.

Anyway, assuming you win, you have the option to 'let them flee' or 'finish them off' this decides which route you take, but I'll cover this in the story section

Let's talk about My Room next
My room is uhhh something something space in your heart something something, forget the lore reasons, the important thing is, it's where the girls you beat and recruit will stay for your needs
You raise their affection either by fucking them (Which you can do 4 times each time unless you rest) or by giving them gifts
Most of them like gems, so that's easy, you give a gift, fuck them (this resets your ability to give gifts) give a gift again, then use up the rest of your 3 fucks, this should max out their affection presuming you go through the bonding event
By raising their affection, you get SP and cool special items from chests, some lore details, and naturally, more scenes, that's all on that.



art/scenes:

It's clear that the art of this game I very amateurish, it looks like it's in ms paint and it rarely looks pretty.
And this doesn't even mention the ""animations"".
Either way, this will likely be a turnoff for you, especially in scenes.
The ""animations"" are stretched out images, like not actual frames, the images are stretched out for the sake of 'looking' like they're moving
This can look REALLLY weird and uncomfortable.
I'm not a femdom male sub snuff guy, i only really played this game cause it was recommended to me with the words "it's just like undertale" but we'll get into that soon
It's because of that, that I never really looked what the scenes even looked like because of having indulgence on, and for the ones that I've looked, I naturally didn't like being raped and killed.
So if you're looking for some visual stimulation from this game, don't you're not gonna find it here, unless you're just that desperate of a coomer.

As for the character designs themselves, they're alright

Music:

For an amateurish game, it's quite good in some parts, though I'm not sure if it's specially composed and commissioned or simply ripped from somewhere, I skipped the credits lol




Story:

OOHHHH BOY HERE WE GO
THE FINALE IS HERE

Like I said, spoilers from here on out



The story of shrift depends on which of the 2 routes you choose (i don't really count neutral since they aren't 'canon' technically)
Mercy or genocide, do you extend your hand towards the very much blood thirsty girls and help them, forging bonds that would become your strength?
Or do you go on a ruthless rampage like some of them deserve?
It also has a lot of meta elements, making a meta narrative, huh, doesn't this remind you something?
Well, you're forced to take either TM or neutral anyway, because genocide is locked away unless you complete atleast 1 playthrough. This is the first problem with this game, false re-playability.
It's when the game forces you to play through it again despite the fact that the opposite being a far more reasonable option.
The 2nd problem with this game story is the clear bias, we'll get into that.
Just like the story, I'll talk about TM first

True mercy and EX:

Fucking hell, I've never seen a game unapologetically sweep murder under the rug like that, well, I guess this is a first.
I mean, among a series of girls who KILL you and TRIED TO KILL YOU and WILL KILL in the future (arachne) you decided to fucking save them?????
The game went through many lengths to prove that this is the 'best ending' and the 'true ending' 'the right choice' and such, but I really just don't buy it
And not only that, but it goes through many lengths of shitting on the players who choose genocide.
Here is where the game introduced many of its biases towards Tm and against genocide
I'll go over

Spoiler: Samael

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Spoiler: The old one

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FUCK YOU KAZUYA
YOU REALLY ASKED HYAKKI TO TAKE CARE OF US GENO PLAYERS?
MAN I HELPED YOU GET YOUR HAPPY ENDING ONLY FOR YOU TO BETRAY ME LIKE THIS??



Anyway, that's about it tm and ex4 has to justify not doing geno, I'll now talk about things i actually somewhat liked about this game so that this doesn't seem like a pure hate review









I think that's it for that?
This review is over?
WOOHOO
Longest fucking review i've ever written.
I could go into more detail about other stuff like reina being a groomer, yuuma being a poor plot device, the power of friendship in ex4.
But i'll just end it here, i've talked enough.
I am finally free... free of shrift.

This game is very good. The monster girl design is more on the side of "this is a female monster" instead of "this is a girl with different colored skin," which means that its very likely you haven't seen monster porn like this before. The story is also abnormally good. In fact its spectacular. Quite literally, this is one of those games that brings you in with smut and makes you stay for the plot.

It also can be however, immensely frustrating, especially in the beginning where, if you are to throw yourself into a monster and intentionally loose for the porn, you have just sentenced yourself to be instantly dominated every time you meet that monster in the future. And deleting/restarting a save does not fix this. Trust me. I tried. Additionally some bosses can be nuts hard, and you need to genuinely lean forward in your chair and actively play past the first few levels. Because the combat is turn based but has real time elements such as health draining with certain debuffs or stances being inflicted on you. When you're actively engaged in the atmosphere of the game, this isn't a problem. But if you want to lean back and relieve yourself, you're going to have to work for it a good bit.

I'd highly recommend this game if the previews don't scare you away.

SHRIFT is almost like a Battle Fuck game but only the demon girls will try to win stimulating you. This game record your loses and don't think it will not have it's consequences because the next fight with the same girl will probably have serious debuffs.

It's a good game if you want a challenge and the story is nice too. Also if you don't want a challenge then just start the game as Spectator Mode.

I finished v8.07 and was disappointed with how genocide route was treated. Why the Dev given us that option if he just want to trash it? But I agree that killing the girls after True Mercy is a bit sad.

Overall,is a great game to play. If you want a slideshow just make one in PowerPoint.

This game is unique and you can see the author wanted to make something different from the standard H-RPGM.

However, due to its difficulty and mechanics that made me loudly say "bulltshit" several times during my playthrough, this game is not for the casual crowd. Even the easiest difficulty beat my casual ass.

5/5

I hate it and will never play it again.
See you all in SHIRFT 2.

I've known about the game for a while, but never really tried it because I found the artstyle offputting. I am very glad that I tried the game, though. I've really enjoyed playing it and the artstyle has grown on me very quickly.

from what I can tell the game is fully translated, but what I really love about this game is it has a really cool concept that despite having different saves, you still did what you did and it affects the story accordingly, it reveals this early on so I don't really consider it a spoiler

Great game; really liked the setting and character interactions plus the artstyle really grew on me. One particular thing I liked was the music choices, I still listen to the main theme (Last confession), the city theme and Daji's battle theme on a regular basis, the whole OST is full of great tracks.

I would rate this game this game a 5 if it weren't for these two gripes:

1. Combat was annoying at times due to the RNG (certain fights took several attempts even with an ideal build due to getting certain debuffs/attacks at bad times.
2. In retrospect the main story is kinda dumb, it is clear that this game is trying to be an Undertale kind of story in relation with how you're supposed to interact with the demons, but its apparent many of the demons give you good reason to kill them due to it being established that they have killed humans before or worse actually try to kill you when you encounter them. Honestly the setting of this game (as much as I liked it) doesn't go well with the story that is being told. I'm hopeful that the sequel will attempt to rectify this issue (and from what I've seen so far its pretty promising).

This game is very hard even on easy.
It is a perfect game but if you want a fun experience then don't play.
There is no way to cure lust outside of battle so once you reach 100% it is gameover.
There are so many puzzles and dodge enemy's rooms.
I wanted to try the game again after a very long time and I wondered why I stopped.
This is why, there is a room at chapter one, part two where there is a impossible maze.
You can't get two status effects at once or you can't struggle out of it.
AND YOU GET LUST SO FAST YOU DIE the next time you get grabbed.
It is amazing game if you are a Master or a god gamer.
This is actually harder than darksouls.
Anyways have fun and goodbye

Update: I calmed down a bit, giving it the rating, it deserves which is five starts instead of one.
I hate getting cheated and getting pretty much soft locked due to the luck req being a hundred plus. (I only have 30)
This game is so good when I played it last.
Anyways please have fun and may luck be with you

Very nice but very hard you can try to either kill everyone and everything or have mercy and not kill anyone just like in Undertale i find that pretty nice it‘s also a long game i highly recommend anyone to play this

Great game for monster girl enjoyers, story kinda goes off the deep end in EX4 but still a great experience all around. The H-scenes are definitely something you either hate or deal with though, the art itself is fine, however the "animation" is less than ideal.

[V8.06]
Story/Plot (no spoiler) : Be a Simp or be Doomslayer. There is no inbetween. Half-jokes aside, I personally find the overall plot ridiculous to keep thinking about too much so just enjoy the ride while you're still intrigued on the mystery factor and discovering new bits of info. Initially your goal is to survive and get out of a post apocalyptical city riddled with demons but that is just the setting and there's a bigger picture and theme that probably gets a bit too ridiculously out of hand for anyone grounded in realism. There is two development routes for the main character based on your actions (without openly telling the player with a system message so pay attention) that does make a drastic difference in character interactions but you still go down roughly the same paths/encounters throughout the game.
Note: There is a large portion of content that is only accessible after beating the game following the True Mercy route. Gigachad Kazuya the Doomslayer (just my personal nickname for this lol) cannot access this content because believe it or not, he has No Mercy. Aside from that, some Demons don't wanna get frisky with Kazuya unless you take the Mercy route so be prepared to miss out on H-content.

Visuals: The character art is going to be the hard part to agree with and also the real deal breaker for most people but for me it was animated well enough via image distortion that its passable and started to grow on me. Picture alone don't do it justice so you might have to watch some videos somewhere for proper representation if you're curious. The game files has each frame of animation stored as an image so its not a video file if you're looking for it in there. Differences between viewing in game files and in-game is that there's focused camera movement, overlayed special effects, and speed variations to give the images some life.

Gameplay: There's an emphasis on status afflictions and struggling to win which the game accomplishes to convey BUT it gets extremely tedious and RNG heavy. Enemies inflict damage, status ailments, restrain you, and build up your lust meter. You need a couple turns to deal with each of those problems but some enemies only need 1 turn to cause most of them and if you have bad RNG, you can get stuck into a nasty loop that spirals into defeat even though you did nothing but try to stay alive. Thankfully there aren't too many fights where you can get stuck on too bad or at least have some way to cheese/bypass.
Despite how annoying things can get with enemies doing this stuff on top of restrain moves, there is much loved appreciation for a unique visual animation for each restraint the enemy has and they tend to have more than 1. Very few H games I've played through have had this much quantity and quality in the visuals and gameplay design for each of their enemies.

State of Game/Translation: There is currently 1 final true endgame encounter that isn't implemented yet but the Dev is already working on Shrift 2 so I don't know what to think of that? The English Translations is basically done for this game but they left out the side-stories that is only viewable from the main menu but its not important to know about them as far as my own MTL could make sense of it. Game is pretty much completed and the English quality is good so no reason not to jump in.

I'd rate the game 5/5 but the RNG factor of some fights basically had me soft-locked from progressing and killed my momentum several times despite being on easy Normal difficulty. I've played this game thoroughly and on repeat playthroughs so that loss of a star doesn't come lightly from mere annoyance.

Yes, the art looks weird and isn't great.
Yes, the game is unfair and will completely bullshit you.
Yes, the story is weird and will make very little sense.
Yes, it's in RPGmaker (but heavily modified)

HOWEVER....
It's good. This game is unique and the developer put a lot of work into it. It pulls a lot of inspiration from games like MGQ and Undertale, but with the difficulty approach of Demons Souls.
The monsters are stronger than you and a single mistake could send you into ruin. As the game progresses the monsters get weirder and the story goes off the rails. Survival becomes based on keeping up several buffs at a time. Things you do can have permanent consequences regardless of your saves. The game breaks the 4th wall repeatedly. Killing/sparing opponents plays a big part in endings. The game will remember what you did in previous/alternate runs. Death is expected and is part of the game. You WILL lose, because nearly every enemy must be approached with caution. When you die, you collect debuffs that put you at a further disadvantage and force you into learning the correct approach, and no, reloading a save or force quitting the game does not avoid this.

Is this game for your average player? Probably not, as the art and difficulty will put off many. However, it plays to its niche and it does it well. If you love monster girls (and I don't mean monster-lite like elves/succubi) and appreciate a Souls-like approach, this game will easily become your obsession. If not, you could still give it a try but more than likely it won't be for you.

For me, this game is easily a 5/5 as it has all the things I love except good art, and that's okay!

Like an unusual RPG game in world of modern times but with monsters, who are likely to rape and/or kill people. This game is somewhat similar to the one DETERMINATION kind of game.
Mostly like in usual RPG game, but a bit realistic, until some point... But you'll probably forget about that, being drowned in very fine plot and horny animations.
Horny and hot as hell !
This is kind of game, that you'll probably will not forget, because of it's unique world design, plot, and plot twists. Even if most part of this game, you'll be angered because of it's difficulty (even on easy mode), other parts of this game, makes me definitely to RECOMMENDED it to play !
There is more content in NewGame+. Don't miss it !
Unfortunately, not all content of this game is translated now, at version v7.02 t2.14, so at some point, after NG+, you'll read only japanese text...
That's the reason I dropped it at this point

Original 2 month old review.
Was going ok(relatively) until the Daiji fight. After that it became absolutely unplayable regardless of hacks, different saves etc. The losing = increased weakness mechanic is absolutely game destroying. I tried for more than 2 hrs and 15 attempts, and even with the guides it's not possible anymore.

For the dance fights I had to use an autoclicker, and the delay between button presses needed to be < 0.1 seconds. That's some crazy shit! My reaction time on the human benchmark website is 0.3 seconds lol.

Insanely hard even on "Easy" mode, and no fun (losing to enemies) allowed.

Overall score :- Ragequit/10

Final review:

Fucking managed to complete it with autoclickers and notepad to write down the moves to use.
The story was very high quality, but the engagement scenes were mtl'd

Overall score : cucked by mtl at the very end / 10

This is one of those games going in you think "Can I fap to this" and 5 hours later you are thinking "Why am I still fapping? I have work in 3 hours.

The focus leans heavily on the monster part of monster girl. Every monster in the game my opinion switch from "This cannot possibly attract anyone" to "Wow I would not survive here." when they perform their temptation. And the art direction looks purposely ugly to really hammer in the main characters(or your) decent into depravity.
The writing is surprisingly good. There is a fleshed out world here, and just about every character gets developed since there aren't really any mobs in the game. The game style can be seen as a H-Undertale.

There is a lot of content in this game, multiple unique loss screens for each monster, a full gallery with multiple bio for each entry. However due the branching nature of the game you will need to use your save slots to ensure you don't miss any of the entries, which can be limiting since you only have 5 slots. Due to the amount of scenes the harder to reach edge case scenes are not fully translateed, but it is unlikely to actually hit them unless you are trying to 100% the game.

The game does use a global save system, meaning every time you die or finish off an enemy will effect ALL of your saves and future encounters. This actually made the first enemy impossible for me to defeat so it is something you need to be aware of. But this game also grants you ways to bypass encounters aside from just fighting. I even made a friend at the end.

A friendly warning to the epileptic; there is a lot of screen flashing, particularly when your lust is high, along with the usual strobe light climax you see in these games. The slow and frequent rpgmaker cutscenes will sometimes get stuck if you try to speed them up with the ctrl key, so just wait through them.

The story is one paraphrased platitude after another. It's the trendy box of trying to promote love and care for people of bad natures because they're made that way. Don't think about it too hard.

There are two main routes;

The 'genocide route' where your character is made out to be the bad guy for being too stupid to have any good reasons for what he's doing. The writers make his justification 'Demons r bad' (and a lot of capslock.) The plot twist, if you want to call it that, on the bad route's main character was such a generic copout that I laughed aloud every time it popped up.

The 'friendship route' where you befriend demons who have killed x amount of people, is meant to be forgivable;
1. because they're female,
2. because you can fuck them.

The one demon of each species you befriend stays in a room you can access at any savepoint, while their brethren, which you spared in order to fuck this one, continue to go about their business killing and eating humans. The game pats you on the back the nonstop because you're just such a good guy.

The trial and error grindplay, with its occasional quicktime and stunlock between enemy grapples, can be enjoyable in its own way, more so if you like the usual anime-caricature personalities seen everywhere else.

Where the game really shines in is the animated sex scenes, which are excellent for the engine. They may start off skippy, but after a second the motion smoothes out at higher speeds.

I would suggest a separate volume meter to distinguish each scene's quiet sex ambiance from the industrial clunk/explosion sounds that happen during an encounter.

Monster girl quest paradox and undertale had a baby and it was beautiful.

Swallow up your pride and beat the game on easy for your first playthrough. I beat it on normal first and it was anything but fun. As a game with RPG maker combat, fights can be anything from a walk in the park to crawling in hell all thanks to RNG.
Oh, and be sure to get some help from a guide if you intend to clear the True ending. It's not easy figuring things out on your own, I'd know. But no need to worry, the game shows you what you can do quite clearly so you'll know when there's something you might be missing.