Generally, I prefer to take my time before picking up H-games, since there's always a chance that there will be important fixes or additions of content or whatnot... and a lot of H-games aren't really worth playing more than once. However, between seeing some odd level of hype over this circle, and the fact that I do like Kutan's art quite a bit, I figured... Why not? Plus, there's always a chance that it'll get a better translation one day, and that's probably the only thing that'd make replaying some of these games worth it.
Basically, the main thing that drew me to this game was Kutan's art... and unfortunately, it doesn't deliver that well on that... or anything else for that matter. If anyone bothers to check dlsite, they'll note that this game has 3 artists listed, and you might be inclined to think that those other 2 artists were mainly used for other characters, or backgrounds, or something.
If you thought that, you're dead wrong.
The only character to have H-scenes or images at all is Sophiria. Every other character in the game, regardless of their importance, only has a black outline, and based on the contours, I can tell that they're not even custom. All of those are based on art I've seen in other RPGM games... pretty sure they're generic assets that can be bought. Not even Dorothea, Sophiria's adoptive mother, has any art in the game. Instead, all 3 artists have worked on various aspects of Sophiria's H-events.
What this means is that Kutan's art is present in ~30% of H-events. Maybe 40%, depending on how you want to count some things...
So if you pick this up thinking you'd binge a lot of Kutan art? Think again. Cuz it's not happening.
What's even more dubious about it all is that the game re-uses CGs a lot. In fact, it does it so much that there's exactly three semi-unique CGs in the entire game, for the defeat events of Boss 4, 5 and 7 (and these events don't even use Kutan's art btw). Everything else? It's reused somewhere or another 2-3 times or more. This is especially jarring for in-battle molestation stuff and the restraint CG, which is the same no matter what is restraining Sophiria. Sure, all H-enemies are humanoid, but there's a pretty big difference between a normal human, a goblin and a massive orc... but the CGs used for molestation and whatnot are the same, with the only difference occurring when the rape scene happen, and even there, there's barely anything. Those scenes still use CGs that appear elsewhere, it's just that they guy fucking Sophiria is colored green for goblins and orcs... >.>"
Basically, while the H-stuff isn't necessarily bad, the actual amount of art in the game is actually a lot less than what the gallery might make you think if you drop by early on. There's obviously some variation in terms of what clothing Sophiria wears... but that only applies to in-town events btw. She can only use a specific outfit in combat, and its damaged state, or lack-thereof, isn't reflected properly in the combat rape or defeat scenes... which is really lazy.
In general, lazy is the word I'd use for just about everything in this game.
You can see it early on in the town design, where there's quite a few NPCs around... except you can't interact with them in any way. They're just... there... standing there creepily. It's even weirder when taking into account for example the Inn in the first town, which seems to exist for no reason whatsoever because you never actually do anything there. In general, the town maps are very... pretty... I guess, decorated nicely, but they feel soulless, so to speak, on account of the fact that there's no interactions aside from H-event stuff and gropers and whatnot. There's only 2 store areas in the whole game, in the 1st city, these being an item shop, an H-item shop, an armor shop and a weapon shop, and their contents just update in some ways as you progress through the story.
Not that it matters much, given that gearing is very basic and barely makes a difference. (Hint: Get the armor that gives MP regen and darkness resistance, particularly for the final boss. Get the best one available and the fight will be trivial, if tedious.)
The laziness continues with the combat, which is basic bitch RPGM stuff without much substance. There's a skill tree, and the dev did make this thing with MP skills generating a bunch of TP which you then use for the harder hitting TP skills... but... the issue with that is that you maximize the skill tree way too fast and way too easily, and for the most part, you don't need it anyway aside from the mid-boss and boss fights of the dungeons. Even there, up until the final boss, you can murder most things in only a few turns. You can fill up the skill tree by the time you're about halfway through the game if you just clear out most areas, and by Chapter 5, I was just plain avoiding most fights. I beat the game at lvl 60, with ~300 SP (or was it more?) just sitting there and doing nothing.
Basically, don't pick this game up for the combat, it's pretty boring, and the combat H is too lazy to make up for that.
Speaking of the combat H... Those enemies are all much weaker than the normal enemies in a dungeon, to a ridiculous degree, and the combat H stuff doesn't even DO anything to Sophiria. Molestation, rape, orgasms... it doesn't do any damage to her, doesn't reduce her MP or TP, nothing. Those enemies are no threat whatsoever and they seem to have been added in just so they can say they have combat H more than anything else. It's pretty sad no matter how you look at it.
Moving on...
The story is... just ok. Nothing to really write home about. It's not bad, it's not great, it's just an excuse to have Sophiria run around the game world, fight some stuff and get into lewds. About the only thing worth noting about the story is that her lewdness level and sexual experiences don't matter at all when it comes to the story. There are no bad endings. There's no lewd endings. Nothing. The whole thing is 100% railroaded, linear and pretty predictable for the most part. It does try to trip you up with some things at some points, so to speak, but how well that works depends on one's familiarity with some of the tropes they use. Ultimately, the main problem here is that it feels like the H-stuff is almost completely separate from the main story, in some ways creating the impression that you're playing two different games... There's some moments where Dorothea basically encourages Sophiria to prostitute herself to get travel funds... but it doesn't really go into things all that much.
Speaking of, money, you can earn a lot of it, there's not much to do with it though. I had 1.2 mil gold by the end, and that was with me spending a bunch of it willy nilly on consumable stuff I never used.
It should be noted that unlike some other games I could name, in this one, you don't buy your outfits or anything. Sophiria just gets them one after the other as the story moves forward, and said outfits are, to an extent, part of the story progression, linked to various chapters to a degree. There's no real optional outfits, aside from the option to have her run around in her underwear once you increase her Exposure level... which you do by reading books btw, which become available with story progression. It's weird.
Haaaaaa...
Quite frankly, no matter how much I type about this, the fact of the matter is that this thing is just an utterly mediocre game. It's not that surprising considering the stupid fast development cycle it had... but this is in some ways a very obvious cash-grab kind of game with very little substance. It might have been worth it if it at least had good amounts of art from any one of the listed artists (though obviously my preference would've been Kutan)... but it doesn't even deliver on that... and it's just eh overall. Wouldn't buy it unless it's at 50% discount or something.
