I had hoped that, after months of development time, things had changed, but the 0.3 version continues just like the first release.
Subverse is a disappointment. It tries to be an epic adult story Sci-Fi RPG with turn-based combat & arcade style space shooter mechanics that rewards with 3D sex scenes. And yet, it utterly fails in all aspects. I'll try to give some ideas as to why.
1. The story is badly designed.
This isn't a criticism aimed at the humor, or the voice acting, or any of the like, but specifically that the devs don't seem to understand how to pull the audience into the story.
Much of the story so far can be summarised as: things are happening to the protagonist.
We do not get a immersive opening that puts us into the protagonist's shoes and makes us sympathize with his course of action (so instead of experiencing OUR story, we experience someone else's) - which is not ideal given the whole gratification sex stuff that kind of is based on that.
Characters aren't developed and grow to be a part of the story, but rather just fall into the story and then are sexable. There's no buildup, no getting to know characters.
As a result, you don't connect with the protagonist and you don't grow close to the rest of the crew.
This lack of connection bleeds over into other parts, because you lack the feeling that you're paired against enemies. The hurdles are just mini games, the enemies don't feel like threats that endager the protagonist's plans (mostly because he has none).
Contrast this to any good story RPG, and you'll see the difference.
Games like DAO or Mass Effect start with a getting to know phase, where characters have an element of mystery to them, have their own plans which may put them at odds with your character's plans, and slowly build up who they are and - in so doing - why you should desire them as allies or companions.
The question of "why should you care about subverse character X?" is always answered with "sexable". When instead, it should be an intriguing character that draws the player's interest and makes them with they were sexable.
2. The Sex Scenes lack meaning
This problem bleeds over into the sex scenes. They're visually appealing, albeit a bit sterile, but well animated with great VA. But there's nothing there connecting you, the player, to the action.
You don't make decisions, you don't communicate, you don't further character development or advance or progress anything. You're just watching a looping 3D scene.
Beyond their physical appearance, the characters don't benefit from a story dynamic that makes you desire them and the ubiquitous presence of sex in everything dulls the effect of actually seeing a sex scene.
Which is weird. There is this prudish empire where you have all the elements to make a game where you can increasingly corrupt your companions and get off on the descent into depravity - but instead, the weirdest fetish is just a monday afternoon to them.
If a story is on a constant sexual high and has no lows, then you're in a landscape where everything's a mountain and there are no valleys. How does such a landscape look? Impossibly flat.
The game would have benefitted HEAVILY from actually having dialogue in the sex scenes, and to have them progress not through a slide-scaler, but instead player decisions or actions. If you're making NPCs with a story, why make the most intimate space the one where you CANNOT interact with those NPCs?
3. The Combat Progression is awful
The combat could be promising, but it grows boring and repetitive very quickly. Every bit of understanding the last 2 decades yielded in game design, this game entirely ignores.
You can gain resources and xp from both combat minigames, but for what?
The space combat is a top-down space shooter where you control a ship to defeat waves of enemies. The basic design is promising, if a bit simple, but the game does absolutely nothing to create variation or anything interesting.
You can't find & pick up power ups that change the combat and allow the combat to go through escalation phases that change the dynamic and switch things up.
You can upgrade your ship, but the upgrades are bland, boring and not really noticable. You increase the hp, the dmg, the spread. None of it is really noticable or can be experienced. It may just as well not exist at all. You never feel stronger, never feel the gameplay changing, it's just a couple points of damage more here or there.
This violates every principal of a progression system, where the whole point is to have the player get gradually stronger, feel the gameplay shifting with new abilities and decisions to make, that has the player stare and upgrades and sallivate about what they'll do once they get it.
The identical problem exists in the turn-based ground combat, where you lead a small force (up to 4 characters) against multiple enemy waves. The basic combat system is sound, but you never feel as if you're getting stronger, or as if the gameplay is changing. Tedium sets in very quickly.
You can gain new companions to take into combat - but only one can ever join the engagement, allowing no synergy, character interaction or otherwise interesting dynamics.
You can unlock new minions of which up to 3 can enter combat. But they don't have synergies or anything remarkable that makes them really interesting. Since you never really know what types of enemies you face, and since enemies usually come in all kinds of shades per mission, there's no reason to pick deliberately or to build strategies around your team. There are also no challenges or special reward conditions you need to fulfill, that might challenge you beyond the rote combat.
Xp gain is slow, but eventually characters level up - and gain increased stats or improved skills - which do the same thing, except with a bit higher stats. The fact is: you don't notice whether or not you got upgrades. Your minions never gain cool new skills or develop synergy effects among each other, or allow clever tactics or anything that might mix things up.
And because you never feel pressured, progression is meaningless. There are no big baddies you need to content with, no combat engagements you're afraid to lose. In other games, the player sympathizes with the protagonist and is encouraged to gain strength in order to defeat enemies - but here you never really notice the enemies growing stronger or dangerous - so you don't need to get stronger either.
Getting resources, xp, new levels and upgrades, feels incredibly meaningless and unrewarding.
And none of this was necessary.
The story is admittably beyond the point where you can redo the beginning or try to create highs and lows to not utterly desensitize players to sexual content, but the sex scenes (at least the story based ones) as well as the combat?
Those are salvageable, especially the combat.
But it requires an actual confrontation with what good gameplay is, and how to create it, not merely mimicking gameplay mechanics seen in other games.
The mechanics are there, both in the space shooter as well as in the turn based combat. But the devs don't seem to understand how to evolve them, or how to reward & encourage the player within the gameplay itself.
Ultimately, I hope that the devs have some wake-up moment to realize that the game design needs a severe change in direction, to actually create a satisfying gameplay loop, rather than time-consuming minigames - because if they don't, Subverse might be the shiniest "high" budget disappointment in the NSFW genre for years to come.
