RPGM - Completed - Strawberry Vampire [v1.0 Full] [Second Smile Studio]

edit:
The rest of the review was written before finishing the game and after a particularly rough patch with a character I think was written to be more aggravating than intended. But after finishing it, I think I was too unfair. While the scenes are still way too long, it's still a solid 4.5* game. In other games you'd spend that time on some random encounters anyway.

The game is really well made but it's so sluggish and drawn out that it spoils it greatly. Realistically it's a 3.5 star game.
It looks great, I like the character banter, and the narrative is pretty interesting. So what's the issue?

It's all about tickling. It's the one and only fetish really present. That's all fine, it's made for specific audience. But when you have a 5 minute long scene, a 10 minute long scene, a 20 minute long scene with very small variations...it gets pretty boring if not outright grating.

At parts it also really puts the "torture" in "tickle torture". A bunch of scenes are about people being tortured in the most literal sense. That 20 minute long scene being with the most aggravating character who genuinely wishes suffering on MC for absolutely made-up reasons turns "grating" into "infuriating". Fuck Venus so much (derogatory)

You also cannot skip text. At all, not even fill a textbox instantly. Movement speed is on a low side, opening the menu has fancy, but also slow and unskippable animation, optional room dialogue has...you guessed it, unskippable animation.

It's really a testament to effort put into the game that I'm still willing to rate it 4 stars after putting me through the Venus scenes.

Cute, light-themed game with puzzles and qte, nice cg visuals and rpgm enviroment. At first i really liked it, simple premise and clear objective - get out of devil's prison, then it got worse - not much options, at least as far as i got, the game is pretty much linear except side events, no skip button considering the H-scenes are VERY long, i literally had to sit and hold enter for 5 minutes.
I quit at slime fight when i just couldn't jump for some reason and lost and i had to waste another 5 min holding enter instead i just quit.

Review for 1.0

This was a surprisingly good RPGM game.

While the fetish content was not quite what I was looking for, I actually found myself interested in the story itself.

The gameplay is decent, if frustrating at times. There is a mix of puzzles and QTE events. If you're unlucky, the game might lag during a QTE heavy sequence. The dev was nice enough to allow you to complete quite a few of the more tiresome sequences via "completion mode", if you fail them.

The fetish content consists of tickling with occasional urination. While the game mentions at some points that the character experiences sexual stimuli, it remains mostly vague.

Some scenes are avoidable, while others will occur no matter what you do. At the end of the game, you get viewing access to all the scenes.

The story was intriguing, and I found myself with plenty of questions about the Devil's Cave. While I found the answer to some of them, several plot points remain unclear and unanswered, despite actively looking for collectibles/optional lore.

Additional notes:

The plot does get dark at several points, which makes the fetish content more of an uncomfortable addition rather than an enjoyable experience (personal opinion).

The game lags consistently in several areas.

Navigation of menus is quite unintuitive.

Reviewing v1.0 Full
Beginning the game with a pretty mediocre set up, I was happy to explore and be engaged and ready to find out more. Art felt fun, character styles seemed to have their own flair.

But once into the gameplay, frustration began. Nothing ruins a good concept faster than poor pacing.

Movement speed feels clunky, every time the menu open/returns to the inital screen you have to wait for the assets to assemble before you can select anything (including closing the screen), and you have to summon your companion repeatedly just incase they have something to say.

The final straw was the first unskippable event. I didn't time it, but I am relatively confident it went for 5 minutes even at the fastest pace the dialog boxes would allow.

I'm sorry to the developer if all scenes past that point are fun, breezy, and interractive, but I'm putting the game down and rating my experience until an update that allows you to speed up sequences/text, or the pacing is better balanced so it doesn't feel like a chore to endure

For v0.2 Demo:

I must start this review by saying, that I in no capacity have a thing for tickling. Playing this game decisively has shown that to me. However I would say, that for someone with that interest, this might be the game for them.

The characters so far in the game have their own personalities even if they did not have to be that way. Some little things, that I would say do not do anything for the story, but that shows, that the NPCs are not supposed to be just text boxes.

The art is nice to look at. There seems to be a good variety to the scenes centered around bondage, tickling and forced nudity. The background music of the game is fitting to the atmosphere of the places you travel through.

The only thing leaving a sour taste in my mouth is the premise of "Bad Church doing Witch Hunts", because I have seen that used in media over and over again already. However the story promises mystery and its own thing, which will probably wash that taste away.