Unreal Engine - Completed - Subverse [v1.1.0] [Studio Fow]

As of v0.1

Gameplay - 1/5
The "bullet hell" style space combat is actually pretty fun, but the same can't be said for the grid-based combat. It's really fuckin' boring and slow-paced. Hopefully the devs can add a "fast mode" to alleviate the shite pacing of the grid-based combat because if you're expecting XCOM w/ hot girls, you will be thoroughly disappointed.

Scenes - 2/5
If you're a REAL studiofow fan (a.k.a. a degenerate who likes seeing hot bitches getting fucked by fug ugly monsters), then you'll probably be disappointed with the current amount of monster scenes. Afaik, these are the only notable scenes involving aliens: one tentacle scene with the Lily the sniper (w/ cumshot), 1 mantic scene with Demi the robot (w/o any cumshot), and 1 alien doggystyle scene with the red-skinned devilgirl (w/ cumshot). It's irritating tbh because even the vanilla scenes are pretty lackluster since most of them are just animation loops w/o any real happy ending/creampie/cumshot (rn, only 3 vanilla scenes have a happy ending)

Story - 0/5
They spent waaaayyyy too much time making "cool-looking," cyberpunk-esque cutscenes that nobody fucking cares about. I would've appreciated it if the fucking cutscenes actually had sex in them (say, for instance, the blythe antagonist cowgirling and fucking the shit out of her enemies after beating them up). Nobody gives a shit about shiny visuals if it's only there to tell a cookie-cutter, generic, sci-fi story that's trying waaayyyy too hard to mimic the wacky, over-the-top vibe of Borderlands. That just ain't it chief. Tell your cutscene animators to make something that'll ACTUALLY interest us coomers.

RECOMMENDATION:
get a full save from the thread, go to the "captain's quarters" then click the bed to "enter pandora," which is basically the game's gallery

TL;DR: shite gameplay, boring story, shite cutscenes, get a full save to watch half-decent loops and anims.

Update as of v. 0.3.0
Even after all this time, the game really hasn't changed at all. The sex is STILL NOT incorporated/integrated into the gameplay (thus, there's very little context to most of the scenes other than "oh, i feel like fucking right now"), but there IS one cinematic cutscene with the new character involving sex, so that's good I guess? They still have a long way to go, however, and for 23 gb, the porn side really isn't worth it. You might as well watch all of the scenes (including the newly added ones) on xvideos/spankbang, or download something with higher quality porn (e.g., WildLife, Paralogue, AQE, Honey Select, Illusion games), or way more story (e.g., any good VN from this site). Otherwise, if you enjoy crappy grid combat, repetitive jokes, forgettable characters, and crappy allusions to zoomer culture and funny maymays, then go ahead and waste your time, I guess.

the game is completely disconnected from the scenes that, for the most part, are pretty good. There are only two scenes that you get from ingame events/progression, the rest of them are totally unrelated and you have to spend points to unlock them in a gallery. I fucking hate that system, there is no context whatsoever and the gameplay feels hollow for an adult game because you know you're not getting any action on defeat, mission success, etc etc

Excellent:
-Voice Acting
-Locations (Background)
-Models (Waifus)

Good:
-Animation
-Story
-Humor

Bad:
-to Short

I Honestly don't know with wich games most of the ppl compare the game. Look at pretty much all 5 to 4 Rated games on here and they are Easiely compare and it is still a 0,1 Version. Yes it is not the Second coming of Jesus but if you ask me the foundation is there.

Yeah tried the game for 80 minutes, not recommended.
Overall rundown of the game
-story/dialogue
terrible ironic reddit dialogue, constantly self reference itself and being so "epic 4th wall breaking XD". literally just a wannabe deadpool.
-COOM
the sex scenes themselves are ok even if most of them lack cum shots, the problem is that most of these scenes lack context and are not integrated into the story, they're just there and it makes it really boring, and not even worth fapping to.
-gameplay
space combat is really bad, no finite controls and the combat is extremely straight forward, ain't no 2hu
the ground combat is just extremely awkward and simple. no real depth to it, just move and attack. with a few counters here and there.

>bugs
don't know if its "buggy" exactly but there's a lot of extremely dumb and flawed mechanics
>dialogue takes forever if you don't skip because you can't just skip to the next line until you wait 5 seconds
>if you skip dialogue on the ship it takes you back to the room instead of dialogue menu
>no easy escape keys for menus or windows
>"discovery mode" where you fly your space ship around is just pointless and tacked on

Could've been something more but instead, it's just a glorified porn. The only thing that made this a game is that there's sequence where you gotta play. I can't say anymore because everyone has already pointed out what's good and what's wrong with this game. I hope it'll improve more since it has a lot of potential.

So this is what AAA porn gaming looks like. What a turd.
Devs, please! Making fun of your asset flip game, being ironic, doesn't make it alright. Especially when you get a million something bucks on kickstarter. Seriously? A million fucking dead presidents, and it somehow ends up worse than some patreon one man side project. Hello? Do you have no shame?

The mini-games are all mobile shit, and the actual porn, I swear to god I couldn't fucking believe it, is separated from the actual game. Yes, you just unlock scenes and then watch them separately, they aren't a part of some narrative. And the actual scenes are not even that good either, not "one million dollars" good that's for sure.

HUGE dissapointment, to think this was supposed to bring a new era of porn gaming, what a joke.

Considering the time this was in development, its fairly bland. Its a standard visual novel, with some tactical gameplay sort of like Xcom. Well and some ship fighting which is also just a standard arcade shooter. The Gameplay is tedious and boring. Nothing special here to be found.
The scenes are also a bit bland. You just have single scenes to choose from, you cannot move the camera and there is fairly little.
That coupled with all the lies the devs told their fans, I cannot really give this a higher score than that.
Only catering to Harem where the Protagonist gets all the girls, a full game, deep gameplay up to par in quality with Xcom and so on.

As expected, the game looks better visually than most other porn games
But that's about it, the sex scenes are all well animated but not scripted, barring maybe a couple of scenes that are 'special' and feature slightly more involved direction than just baseless fucking.
It all clearly show's it's a 0.1, which idk what i expected from a game that crowdfunded so much

The BAD
- No free camera for sex scenes
- Animations could be better
- They chose a VN over a Dating Sim Interaction style (it doesn't fit)
- Grid Combat gameplay
- Boring Story

The GOOD
- Voice Acting
- Shoot em up Gameplay

Well that was quite disappointing, especially after all that hype.

Pros:
+ Great art and animations
+ Nice cutscenes
+ Good voice acting

Cons:
- Terrible writing, they really did an insanely bad job at presenting any sort of story. Feels like I'm reading a story written by an edgy call of duty child.
- Space ship gameplay is so insanely boring.
- X-com turn based whatever gameplay even worse somehow
- Unintuitive menu
- Constant loading screens

Really seems like they should just have made a movie instead, the "game" part of this was just a lot of work, and no fun.

Extremely disappointed in this game i was expecting a lot more on the porn side, as it stands right now it has a mediocre shmup section and an even more boring tactical section. I have played a few tactical games and this is definitely too simple to keep me engaged to it.

The porn needs context and scene setup in a game or it just isn't interesting, Studio Fow could have just made these and uploaded them separate from the game because as it stands they add nothing to the experience.

Now i will give them credit for the production values as they look pretty impressive, the music and voice acting are also solid. Honestly i think they wanted to make a normal game and not a porn one but utilising the fan base they already built was too hard to pass up.

The fact that this game has been in development for two years is in this poor of a state is an incredible suprise with the lack of content, only three fuckable characters as of Launch, an already repetitive quest system at the beginning of the game (it doesnt make it better when you make fun of it game) generally cringy dialogue and the worst sin, porn within the game is completely seperate. No scenes lead into fucking other than the recruitment scene then you just get to watch the scene without the ability to change angles. The shmup sections are actually semi-decent though and I had fun doing that but its incredibly unbalanced and having Killi as a copilot unlocks a stupidly overpowered ability.

Subverse is an ambitious cinematic gameplay erogame that blends visual novel dialogue, SHMUP and grid-combat gameplay, and animated ero.

Full review:
Sanahtlig's Corner: Subverse, Adult gaming goes mainstream

Pros:

• Colorful characters and dialogue
• Well-developed setting despite the unserious concept
• Fun SHMUP combat
• Strong cinematic visuals
• High production values, especially for a Western-developed eroge

Cons:

• Generic grid-based land combat
• Ero content is (currently) sparse and lacks context
• Initial (early access) release lacks sufficient content to justify the price

Honestly a very poor showing from a game that promised the moon and was funded enough to get there and back. Gimmicky dialogue, poor plot progression, boring combat sections and downright mediocre animations.

Unless you're into NTR, the game's primary content, avoid it for almost anything else.

Geez people. This is EARLY ACCESS. Lot more development will come.

So far, good game. Its funny, looks good, fun gameplay, sex is a bonus. Ya, its scene based and what not, but that is early on. I am sure there will be more later or in the finished product. Look forward to seeing where this one goes.

Too little game too many uninteresting, mediocre and unnecessary dialogue.

I have not experienced the hype. I didn’t expect anything from this game, I even thought that people would always be deceived and thrown for money, but now it came out and I’ll say that the game is so-so. even more precisely, there is no game as such. a set of dialogue scenes and a couple of game moments. i have feelings, they make the future gameplay for donate scenes by hiding them behind the grind and there will be boosts and stuff that we hate in games.

The game tries to be so many things at once and doesn't succeed in any of them.

VERY slow intro, it isn't always clear what button does what and pacing is all over the place.

Dialogue is good, characters are average for what you'd expect from such a game.

With that all said you can definitely feel that a lot of hard work went into this game but sadly none of it is truly paying off so far.

First Impression(s):
They really should've put the bread back in the oven before selling it like hotcakes.

Review:
[Update 0.3.0] At this stage, the gameplay remains the same with added 5+ hours of discovering the Hydra Nebula for Pooter Points (and there's a lot of planets, too!). Nothing has changed other than the Kloi armada and the Chutts as the newest roster in the enemy pool.

[Update 0.3.0] The scenes? Well... Reminds me of The Green Website back in 2015 or earlier. Some of the scenes now are showing some changes and have some variety to them and actually have descriptions of what "happened" in the scene, I think it's yet another welcome change in this update. Is it "good enough" to "get off to?" It's passable, still, in my opinion.

How FOW proceeds with the PANDORA system in the future (with the promise of 3+ minutes of scenes and all, I've heard) remains to be seen. I shall look forward to the 3+ minutes scenes.

[Update 0.3.0] Overall performance is quite solid and noticeable lags here and there on slower and older rigs, the option to switch from 4K cutscenes to regular ones is a welcome change.

[Update 0.3.0] The VAs? They're executing their lines pretty well and actually give each character different and most of the characters in this build alone are domineering than others.

One thing I'd like to advise everyone is that some may feel Elaisha Sorn (or even the Kloi as a whole) is a hit or miss in terms of how they speak and the intonation -- as if Talissan itself is made from the purest of Valley Boys/Girls since beautification and perfection of self is very important than anything else.

As for Commander Blythe? I'm actually surprised that they employ the voice of Russian Femboss from Saints' Row the Third. Or so I've listened to her voice.

How about the dialogue? Full of sexual puns and references to many cultural happenings (e.g. V for Vendetta, Tim Pool, that "magic trick" scandal) as the cherry on top. For me, it's a hit or miss. At best.

Conclusion [per Update 0.3.0]:
Subverse is a promising game that somehow got into a very bad start.

At this state of play, I'd recommend people to reconsider their choices before purchasing the game either with a discount applied or at full price. How long until the game is worthy to play thoroughly? In two or three years, assuming that FOW has no other project to work on or that they didn't suck themselves into the development hell phase.

By a studio known for sex scenes the game is a disappointment in this regard. Since it is an early access game, there is still time to correct this fatal error.

Sex Scenes: 1/5
Cgs: 5/5
Dialogues: 2/5
VA: 4/5
"XCom Combat": 3/5,
SHMUP: 4/5
MC: 2/5
Waifus: 3/5, same body type , no one is petite or thicc with a phat ass.

Subverse tries to blend porn, story and actual gameplay together, but some terrible design decisions, very much hit-or-miss story tone and baffling decisions regarding blending in the actual porn with the game causes this hot mess.

- Gameplay

Subverse has two "mini"games baked in. Barebones Shmup and barebones turn-based strategy (Think XCOM with 90% of its features and mechanics cut out).
Now don't get me wrong here. Both minigames are functional. They're just extremely barebones and don't match up in terms of gameplay style. What I'm trying to say is, they're a bad match together and people that like shmups may not like TBS games and vice versa.

This isn't helped by the fact that both gameplay elements are horribly barebones and bland. There's little variation, hardly any progression and no reason to "git gud" for more rewards/success.

- Story
The story isn't good, nor is it bad. It's tongue-in-cheek, kinda fourth-wall breaking at points and overall fairly lighthearted. The problem is that the story and its delivery is VERY much a hit-or-miss. Some people will appreciate the tongue-in-cheek references and low-brow humour. Others will find it extremely grating. The actual story bits of the story do get occasional bouts of Loredumpitis, but its main plot is serviceable enough I guess.

- Porn
Most of the porn is hidden behind a token grind and unlocked in gallery only. Actual in-story smut is few and far between. The quality of the smut is good enough I suppose, but a hefty chunk is fairly niche. It just baffles me that for all it spouts about being an actual smut game with great smut and great gameplay, the game doesn't really deliver on either.


Subverse, in short, fails to deliver compelling gameplay for the amount of resources and time available. While it's not -bad- gameplay I can, with absolute certainty, state that other smut-with-gameplay games have delivered gameplay unfathomably more enjoyable and complex than this game.

Likewise; Story wise there's both far worse and far better floating around on the web. This game just disappoints me more because it has a budget far in excess than most smut game devs out there.

And finally smut-wise it's a letdown in some ways too. Again it runs into the sad truth that it's not bad, but it SHOULD be so much better given the time and resources available.


TLDR: It's not bad or unplayable/broken. It just should have been so disappointingly much better than it delivers at this point for the time and resources the devs have access too.
It both saddens me(For this could, and should, have been great...) and gives me hope(For others did, and do, hit it out of the park) that others have done so much more with so far less in terms of making great porn games.