Others - Strive: Conquest [v0.10.0] [Maverik]

An excellent game with many interesting mechanics and good story. There are a lot of things to do, and your possibilities sometimes can be limited only by your imagination. Various classes have different output, so you can get something or someone in more than one way. Rare thing for sure!

Interesting game, and I recommend playing it, but there is one BIG problem!

If you look at Strive from the perspective of a normal game:
- Few mechanics that really affect gameplay, you can get by with only a small portion of these mechanics and get through the game to the current patch without any problems.
- VERY easy game, I when I first started Strive, I thought it would be difficult, the game would give me the challenge of having to load saves dozens of times. But no, literally two hours of play and I have already earned more than 20k+ gold, and carried all the dungeons, playing only through magic, it is too unbalanced.

If you look at Strive from a porn game perspective:
- Just over 5 pictures 18+
- And all sex scenes are described by text, no pictures, little variety and no fetishes as such.

Maybe in the future something will be added, but I doubt it, although the story is present and it's the only thing that kept me in the game. If they add mechanics, complicate gameplay, so that many had resistance to different magic (it is, but not all), in general, complicate the entire gameplay, plus add something new for porn game.

P.S. I played more with mods, and oh my god, the game became even easier, I downloaded the two most popular mods, they too much simplify and already simple game.

There is already quite a lot of story that makes you keep playing. Love the random characters in combination with a few story characters to spice it up. I'm a big fan of procedural/random generation and the (paperdoll) slaves and dungeons scratch that itch.

As of version 9, it's an above average 'jack-of-all-trades' sim. Everything about it is alright, but not outstanding. The sim aspect has a lot of options, but you basically can't ever fail and the generic sex scenes are incredibly dull. The combat has many classes and abilities, but once you get an assortment of elemental skills and decent gear nothing is a challenge anymore. The built-in paper dolls are passable and you can use your own art.

It's moddable, though I found it breaks the game very easily so I wouldn't use more than some QoL mods. If the storyline ever gets finished it'll be a highly regarded game, but it's been in development for many years at this point and it's still on chapter 2.

I think my problem with this game is just that I don't like games where you create new characters yourself. They're always incredible repetitive, and it's made a bit worse in this game because it's text based, so you just see the same dialogue over and over.

You can add pictures, which helps, but it's also a hassle.

Great game, but not at the prequel level, and far from finished [at least the save break from 0.8x to 0.9x, and may break again after v1.0, so the game right now is kind of a trial/demo than a finished game yet

Feels low resolution, the character creation is extremely limited, and has a ton of individual hair options that most of them don't even fit with each other.

Since you spend all your time in the UI. I can't recommend it since the UI is simply unacceptable and a huge downgrade from the first game.

This game has a sad case of game and porn syndrome. Too much porn happens for a flash and then its empty again. This game has reinvented its gameplay from strive 2 but its porn is exactly the same, a text box that you click to make sex happen. Why is there a action based around rewarding people with sex and then a sex scene does not happen? Why do you not punish slaves in a scene? Why does everything that could be hot over in 1 second. Much like their first game, this is a sandbox full of the wrong kind of sand.
This game is too focused on being a narrative porn game where you manage slaves when it has such potential to be a sandbox porn game about managing slaves instead. My opinion, less art, less story, more pornographic mechanics.

I really wished to enjoy this game more than I have been and have popped in once every year or so to see the progress. However, my opinion of it could be best described as ambivalent at the absolute best. The management aspects are fine. It's certainly not challenging me or activating my neurons, but it is entertaining to an extent that I find acceptable for an unfinished game, current development time aside. Similarly, the combat is serviceable, albeit slow and repetitive.
The grand issue with the game is that it's barely erotic. It describes coitus with all the prose and imagery of a high school textbook. Furthermore, there is little reactivity to, well, anything. Play a female character? Well, you turn into a man during scenes with unique characters. Are you a dainty fairy with a virgin pussy getting railed by a massive-cocked centaur or vice versa? It makes little effective difference. Hell, it's not really even referenced. Are you or your slaves being used as sextoys daily down at the local brothel? Are you beating your slaves six ways to sunday? Does your slave have massive tits and ass? Have you trained your sex slave to the point were they meekly accept literally anything? None of that means anything from an erotic standpoint unless you can get your rocks off to values being incremented.
I mean, sure, there are regular scenes, but that is absolutely not why I would be playing a game such as this. The game needs writing. It desperately needs an immense amount of it. Down a cocktail of iron, viagra, cialis, maca, horny goatweed, yojimbo, L-arginine, or whatever else people use for boner fuel. I don't know. Do whatever you need to do get some creative juices flowing and write mountains of smut for a wide variety of situations. As it stands currently, I would need to edge for a week to even have a chance at nutting to Strive: Conquest.

What a terrible step back from the previous game. Even though at a first glance it seems to boast more options and a better management experience, it is in fact stillborn.

There is no soul in this game. The travelling system of the previous installment was half the charm of the game, and it has been violently ripped out in favor of a soulless dungeon crawl with an undefined number of stages, and meat walls of battles that force a certain playstyle (evasion builds) if you want to start as a fighter character. Sure you have more choices later, but by that time, tedium kicks in.

As for the management of slaves what in the ever abusive dark gods is consent? Loyalty? We are playing at best a Stockholm syndrome inducing rapist-slavemaster, what made the dev team think that this direction was a good idea? I read previously that random enslavements were not possible but at least that is not the case with me, I could find randos to enslave. Its just that the old system with the map, the ropes, etc. was far more engrossing than what ever this is..

So disappointed because as Director Krennic said : "we were on the verge of greatness, we were this close" with the previous one, and now.. the future is bleak..

If you, like me, found some guilty pleasure in the kinky escapades of "Strive for Power," brace yourself for the sequel, "Strive for Conquest." Remember the first game's UI that felt like deciphering ancient hieroglyphs? Well, the sequel decided to one-up its predecessor by introducing a UI that requires a PhD in Hieroglyphics to navigate.

Let's talk RPG combat. In "Strive for Power," it was as barebones as a skeleton in a biology class. In "Strive for Conquest," they've decided to keep it that way. The non-unique/non-story-related sexy times are less yawn-inducing this time, but good luck finding them in the labyrinthine menus. It's like trying to find a needle in a haystack if it was also made of needles.
The developers must have thought "bigger is better" and cranked everything up to 11. The result? A game that's as convoluted as a politician's explanation of tax laws. For those of us who enjoyed the simple, kinky fun of the original, "Strive for Conquest" feels like being handed the controls to a spaceship when all we wanted was a bicycle.

And let's talk about the tutorial. It's like having someone explain quantum physics when you only asked how to change a lightbulb. The game has transformed from a cheeky adult adventure into a management sim that requires more serious commitment than most of my relationships.
What did I want? More spicy scenes, memorable characters, a more crucial role for the sidekick (sister or childhood friend), improved combat, and shinier graphics. What did I get? A game that feels like trying to assemble IKEA furniture without the instructions.

In conclusion, "Strive for Conquest" is like ordering a pizza and receiving a gourmet salad. It's not what you wanted; it's more complex than you expected, and you're just left longing for the simplicity and guilty pleasure of the original cheesy delight.

A worthy successor to the O.G. masterpiece among 'adult games'.

Game is similar to its predecessor 'Strive for Power'.
Has a larger variety of different mechanics, yet at this point in time some of them feel unbalance and/or unnescessary, probably, cause they are not yet fully implemented as intended in a meaningful way.

Gameplay is interesting.
Combat is simple, yet engaging.
Art is beautiful.
Characters are memorable.
Allows customization.
Experience is rewarding.
Game has a wide variety of things to do.
Currently it is unfinished, so is yet to live up to its full potential and its predecessor's success.
Even so, it is quite an interesting game to play even now, although you have to be ready for it to leave you wanting more.

A worthy successor, but obviously unfinished yet - 8/10.
(Game is in v0.7.0a during this review)

This review is on version 0.7.0a.

For every step forward Strive: Conquest makes, it takes six or seven back.

I was a fan of Strive for Power, and liked it quite a bit more than I like this game. Its only real issue was that it had a very small amount of content, so if they had just kept updating that game with more unique characters and stories I actually would have been way happier.

But instead we have Strive: Conquest, a game in development for several years at this point and...not all that much to show for it, to be honest.

I first played the game roughly 2 years ago, I believe, and it was fine. There was more tedium to the game, more management than the first one, but it was alright. The UI needed some work, a lot of stuff was half-implemented and would break your game, but I figured I'd be pretty happy with it once that particular issue was solved.

However, I never went back to it, because I just didn't want to replay up to the point where the game broke.

So it sat on the back-burner for a couple years. Until now. And damn, I'm gonna have to put it back.

My understanding is that in the past two years the majority of development time and patches to the game have been repeated reworks to the game's systems, to the extent that it would regularly break saves and require people to throw it out and restart. That happens in game development, sometimes you just can't bring things over. But reworking the same stuff repeatedly for years? Come on.

And it shows in the gameplay. Tooltips contain innaccurate information of a previous iteration and were never updated, systems clash with each other, numbers are all over the place with no explanation as to what they mean...

And there isn't even too much more content than there was when I played it previously, but dear God there are a lot of bugs.

I'll put it succinctly: "Strive: Conquest" was a better game two years ago.

Now it just doesn't seem to know what it wants to be.

"Slaves" refuse to do even the simplest tasks unless you butter them up and ask them super nicely, having a dedicated system to unlock their ability to do basic tasks like...put on gloves. No that was not a joke at all you actually cannot put gloves on a "slave" unless you unlock it by being very nice to them and saying nice things.

Want to have sex with your "slave"? I hope you're ready to first say nice things to them to increase their "loyalty" points, then spend those to unlock their ability to go on dates, then go on a date with and sweet talk them in an attempt to get their "consent" high enough to sleep with them. That was a joke by the way, you still can't have sex with them, because they don't have their "Sex:Basics" unlocked, so you're going to need to get more "loyalty" points for that. Also you can only have sex once a week until you increase your "sex" stat by doing all this repeatedly to actually have sex...erectile dysfunction is a bitch, ain't it?

I generally try to avoid speaking impolitely when reviewing a game, but on this occasion I believe it needs to be said bluntly and thus I will do so: Loyalty in its current function and the associated training system is straight fucking trash and the game would be better off if it burned on the cutting room floor.

If your slaves have a high "obedience", they should do what they're told, because that is quite literally what "obedience" means. "Loyalty" as a stat should come from providing slaves with decent lives and should slow obedience drain. "Fear" should be a stat identical in this function and work off intimidating your slaves. You can be both feared and loved.

In terms of "training" them to perform specific functions, the class system is more than enough as classes give bonuses to related jobs.

The last major thing I want to mention is the absolute disregard for player customization. Now, you can set your race, your gender, all that fun jazz, but when it comes to CGs? White human male. That's it. Your skin color is green? Sorry you have a tan dick. Female? Sorry you're a male for this scene (in this regard, even the pronouns suddenly switch from female to male, which is especially jarring - though this does appear to be a bug). I am really left wondering, why even give the option for players to select races and gender when you aren't going to respect it? Of course, it doesn't end up being that big of a deal because there just aren't many CGs in the game (which may be another big negative for those who dislike a focus on text), but it really makes a statement about the quality of the game if it can't be bothered to maintain player choices. There are a couple easy fixes for this of course, either coloring the penis properly and making it appear as a strap-on for females, or just not show player gentials and focus on the character in the CG, but the game doesn't even do that. It really is insulting.

When asked about properly addressing player gender on the game's official Discord in March of 2023, the developer's response was "not likely to happen any time soon as it would double the amount of art and writing", which is, of course, not how that works. It would be a minimal increase to writing, given that most of the game's writing is not accompanied by any CG (realistically the writing increase can be measured in mere minutes). The art piece is a fair argument, but also incorrect, as it would often be a small portion of of the CG (assuming you aren't showing the player character in the image, which in this case, you really shouldn't be), not a complete redraw, and let's face it: If you're going to give the options, do it right.

Funny thing is, if you manage to work past all that - and it is a slog - the content with the unique characters and storylines is rather enjoyable (though several character's questlines are very poorly designed), which is the only reason this is getting two stars rather than one.

Still, as it stands now, in "Strive: Conquest", the one getting Conquered is you.

It is designed grindy, cheats just allow us to ignore game-y parts. But what is left after? A picture and A6 of text per one of dozen scenes? Click "penetrate vagina" to see "you push benis in CharNames vagina"? It was in development for 4 years on top of already existing game, and all I see in changelog:

Revamped combat menu and skill assignment
Fixed
Rebalanced
Revamped
Nerfed
Rebalanced
Damage type changed

So I finished strive for power and now here's the (unfinished) sequel hanging over me, Ive some free time, so what the hell. Let's see if the sequel holds up to its predecessor's candle.

Pros

- Story and world building is basically the strongest plus from strive 1, and strive 2 is no slouch. The world building bit is fairly poor this time round, but the story feels about twice as long, with more NPCs and engagements.
- Recruitable NPCs color this game better than any other H game, even those dedicated RPG ones. There's so many of them you can legit just dump all your other slaves and have a party composed of only these guys
- Characters are fairly fleshed out. Yes, many of them are basically horny as fuck (apparently asking to fuck is a legitimate reward for saving your life in this world) but nowhere near the dumb levels of other H games. There's some consequence for being an arsehole in this game.

I came out of the game caring about the characters. How many H games could manage anything close?
- Strive 2 improves and expands on the economy from strive 1. This time round, the management aspect of the game can't simply be a set n' forget. You need to optimize to get the most out of your slaves...I mean unpaid equal workers.
- I find myself somehow dumping 10+ hours into this game. Testament that even in this present state the game is not merely playable, but engaging as well.

Cons

- Strive 2 feels more like an expansion, rather than an full fledge sequel. Because much of what existed in Strive 1 (interface etc.) hasn't really changed much. Hell, even the soundtrack is still the same as Strive 1.
- This game needs better tutorials. I played strive 1 and the game still looks like doing calculus to me. You dont need a wiki (not that any good ones exist right now) but fuck me its like hands on learing how to drive a fork-lift day 1.
- If you played strive 1 and thought the H game aspects are piss-poor, strive 2 hands you their beer and somehow manages to do even worse. Basically the H gameplay is like its predecessor, 99% text and 1% screens.

Except the game bizarrely requires you to now upgrade your slaves to do more than just vanilla intercourse. Why? Like I need their consent to fuck them in the arse sideways.
- The game removes the pseudo-pokemon aspect of enslavement. Yes, this is merely a gameplay-related change, but I enjoyed tying up randoms and enslaving them, it fits the first game's world-building. Now, you just get them, no breaking required. Given how immersive, and daring, the first game was in this aspect, its bizarre that they decide to remove this in strive 2.
- The world building really suffers here to be honest. Strive 1 featured an actual map, and getting to the other side of the world had consequences as well as different races and enemies to recruit. And you actually have to travel in a fairly realistic way. Strive 2 is just a functional push of a button, with no map. Cant help but feel this as a downgrade, both in terms of gameplay and immersiveness.
- Artwork is below average. I dont want to shit on this part too much, because the game is still great despite it. But Christ the artwork looks more like a year 1 college student's assignment. Strive 1 isn't exactly Van Gogh, but it might as well be compared to Strive 2.


Conclusion

So, should you play this? Yes, because its a nice time sink with lots of juice. This is a proper game, with H game elements, and its still competently written enough to have a niche in the H game world. Just dont expect to cum too much off it.

Cant help but feel if the artwork was done better, and the H had more scenes that actually mirror the text, it would at least be an attempt to outdo its predecessor. As it stands, if you like strive 1 and want some more, here's more porridge to your bowl. But the second bowl feels watered down.

I recommend supporting the devs, the game has enough content to deserve it. But do so with a nice suggestion for Maverick to just improve on the artwork and H aspect.

This game is for people that really dig reading wikis and guides and spending a lot of time optimizing. I found it unintuitive in the extreme; without consulting outside references I couldn’t get anything going at all. If you are looking for a fiddly game with lots of tricks and knobs you may dig it, but if you want something a little more relaxed you probably won’t like this.

First game was fantastic and customisable and the second one is well and truly on it's way to be better in all aspects. The recent changes have changed the metagame quite a bit which is quite a welcome change.

review Strive Conquest 0.6.8.c

Read other review talk about previous game or this is a remake or second.. i don't know, not play it before this game.. so download game 6pm 21 March now is 2pm 22 march... just stop at Forest Beast mission... yes game got me HOOK like that hot beautiful slim blond with pretty face.. give u one nite you never forget!! if you like management... resouce gathering... female and male slave gathering... weapon item smith creating... oh and Quest so YES this is your GAME

Why not 5 star..?
well when game is done i give that 5... i feel game can become cow milking processing factory.. haha but still drop 1 or 5$ so dev can buy milk... good for the bone.

It took a while but the game is now starting to or even surpass its predecessor strive for power, many of the mechanics are still changing but its getting more and more polished and i can play this game just as much as i would the original, although i will say in terms of slave management and slave transforming its still lacking(like changing their age or their proportions) but its on its way.

I like the game! The UI is pretty nice, the gameplay is okayish, and the sex is exciting enough. Sadly, as far as a sequel goes, it's a bit worse than the original in my opinion. I'd definitely recommend playing it!