RPGM - Succubus Covenant Generation One: The Cursed Forest [Ch. 5] [Olympus]

Always and forever will be carried by the art. The sooner the developer realizes this, the more the game will flourish. I have never seen a game more plagued by forced storylines and needless lore than this one.

In my honest opinion, Succubus Covenant is one of those games that I love coming back to year after year. It's a shame that Kain is out (first artist), but the addition of a lot of noteworthy artists is great. Story is good too, even tho I prefer the older story elements.

I was hyped at the beginning, but I can't support this game or the author anymore. The game is becoming a money grab with a lot of unjustified delays.

The story is hollow, nothing changes much. The gameplay consists of fighting succubus A (using Iron Will + attack + attack...) -> Cutscene -> succubus B -> cutscene -> Succubus C...

The only other monsters besides succubi are the devil plants (and they are just here to artificially extend the playing time and waste your time)

As promising as the game was,with all of its pomp and aspirations for huge universe,rich lore and great art,the dev zion messed up big time and ripped off his fans,after 2 years of stalling and lying he released what is a very lazy and half baked chapter 5,it also possible we wont get any of the promised sequels or atleast not the quality we got in the first 3-4 chapters in SC generation one. What can I say more the whole situation is a mess,RIP bozo.

Pros:

• Worldbuilding and characterizations feels on point.
• Plot seems well planned and is interesting to follow.
• Art is appealing, succubus cast with various different designs.

Cons:

• Its telling that if the combat were to be removed from the game this would instantly be a superior game, combat is tedious and random encounters with slow unskippable animations have no meaningful progression, its one thing when a game has ungodly grind, this takes it to a whole new level of introducing pure time wasters to pad out the gameplay into a infinite slogfest.
• Lack of a fully functional gallery.
• Large winding maps with very little intractable but key equipment scattered through the pathways, forcing more padding to slog through.
• Original artist that did the appealing art seem to have been replaced(?) in the later chapters.
• Constantly having saving being disabled further taking away your ability to play the game at your own pace.

This game... It was one of the best one's years ago, I played up until chapter 3 at the time, (I'm currently playing as I write this review, so it might change later)...

First of all, this isn't your run of the mill porn game, no, for better or worse, it possesses a deep lore, trying it's best to be rich in story... Something that can put you off a lot, because the game takes it's plot first, and porn as a secondary thing...

The game contains a bit of VA, not a lot, good soundtrack, and takes itself steady and at its own pace...

It's grindy, it might frustrate you, and you will need to at times switch between going full story mode (fighting against succubi) and at others going to the general map and to the ruins (Elven ruins increase your Magical attack, Demonic ruins increase your attack damage, Sumer ruin gives you a bit of luck and a some good resistances against status effects, Angelic ruins 25 HP points and a few skills, and Dwarven ruins magical defense and a Magical nullificator to silence enemies) I recommend you to do as many ruins as you can before having to go to a different place, I started to make the ruins when I had a +9 sword of Avalon, which made it very grindy...

Something that can really put you off, is how much the game takes itself seriously as I mentioned before, it takes itself as a plot heavy game first, and a porn game secondary, if you really just want a quick one from the start, skip the intro, skip the name selection, and go straight to the first enemy, there you can choose to submit (easy porn scene) or to fight... Against every enemy, there's 2 sides, submitting at the beginning, or once you win they "attempt to seduce you" up to you what you want...

First Edit: At chapter 3, after having Elven ruins at tier 3, sumer ruins completed, 2 demonic ruins done, and so on (Basically getting very strong) I must say that there isn't much of a challenge, and the amount of cinematics and things happening around our MC but without a direct importance to us, make the game really tedious, like, really, I throw a rock to pass the river, but I have 2 minutes of cinematics each time I enter a new place... The succubi enemies don't really last if you've done your homework (visited the ruins), something to change this would be to spice up the battles since they get repetitive and tedious fairly early once Chapter 2 is finished. Something else to notice, at the choices of chapter 3 (you'll know what I'm talking about) go for the God of Gifts, if you do the fighting, against the succubus, you permanently lose 25 HP...

Second edit: At chapter 4 the game art seems to have... Changed, became more cartoon and more friendly, again, one of the main issues between chapter 3 and 4 is... The lack of sexual scenes, the game seems to have turned into a Shonen rather than in the sexual aspects of it, and once you're on chapter 4, you... Already have enough gear to just completely smash any enemy that comes your way... I'm not saying the game should reduce the grind, but perhaps a bit more of eye candy and reduce the attempts at being a "MLP: The power of Friendship" something to note is that, at least up until chapter 4, there are still no scenes with any of the heroines...

Third edit: At chapter 4, there's a girl that's bugged, after the celebration her attacks are either "Succubs temptation" or Paralysis (You can only win using a Darvel)...

Fourth edit: At chapter 5 it's just... Atrocious, you have to grind to fight against 4 girls that are the 4 seasons, so far, okay, not too bad except... You remember when I wrote that you need to have Darvel to avoid paralyisis...? Well, Autum will permanently stunlock you, meaning you never have a turn, and Spring if I'm not wrong will do the same, so before you enter chap 5, get at least 10 - 20 Darvel...

I've been following this game since its very beginning. Succubus Covenant, with its once passionate dev and its talented artist, had all the tools necessary to surpass the biggest games of the genre. Yet here we are, years later with another disappointment of a game because passion retired and pa$$ion took over.

Story is good, probably one of the strongest point of this game but the writing has worsened over the years for some reason, even more so in Chapter 5 which is filled with typos and bland scenes.

Gameplay is extremely repetitive and players are forced to go through way too many trash monsters to get to the best part of this game: the succubi. These fights serve zero purpose as our character doesn't grow from them, all they do is frustrate players and delay their fun.

The CGs drawn by Kainkout were so much better than what we have now.
We're stuck with a worse artist ever since Chapter 4, with the quality and quantity of CGs per patch drastically dropping. No disrespect to the new artist, but Kainkout's CGs are simply much better.

The last string of hope I had for this game was severed by how little the dev cares nowadays. Chapters 1 and 2 were masterpieces, 3rd was fine but 4th and 5th are stinkers and I can't see Zion ever coming close to his past success.

I first came across this game years ago, shortly after the first chapter was completed. I thought it was awesome.

Since then, it has aged exceptionally poorly, and Zion has done nothing to modernise it. The game engine and style creates a tedious and unrewarding gameplay experience and the most important aspect, the succubi, have gone backwards.

The art is now far worse than before, the succubi have fewer scenes and the animations were removed. There are reasons as to why each of these things has happened, but seemingly no tangible effort to fix or provide new alternatives to amp up the quality of the game.

Had this series been handled properly it probably could have been making double or triple its Patreon donations every month.

Overall this journey, since the end of Chapter 2 has been a massive disappointment. Zion comes across as a nice guy but this series would be best off being sold to someone else, or at least managed by someone else.

- This game started off good, but the dev has such a massive ego about his "epic story" He forgets he's making a porn game. He tries really hard to push his story with annoying cutscenes every time you transition to a new area.

- The Art is good if you can plod through the endless dialog but takes a jarring turn ch4 onward.

- There's still no update to the gallery Ch4 and 5 succubus's each need a dedicated save if you want to view their scenes.

- Chapter 5 is an absolute mess with the final area looking like it was made in a day.

- The dev takes absolutely forever to release updates and never makes his self placed deadlines.

Final verdict: Just pull up a video of the scenes. some have even been animated by a 3rd party.

I really wanted to like this game. The art is excellent for an H-game, and each character has a unique enough personality that is re-emphasized by their character designs. It's based on what is possibly the easiest trope in h-games, Succubi who want to drain you for selfish purposes, and you who has to evaluate risk vs. reward in a world where even the slightest slip of your judgement will result in you being drained.

But there is so much that this game does wrong. Every single scene feels as though you are fighting an uphill battle to get to. Each map is a labyrinth of inconvenience rather than challenge. The combat system is dreadfully boring, forcing you to fight hyper-aggro mobs that offer no scenes, no interesting combat, and with incredibly slow battle screens.

Having to back-track to find areas that I missed because I can't complete a puzzle will probably end up having me fight anywhere from 6 to 10 trash mobs that don't do anything but inconvenience me and respawn every time I reload, so I'm actively being punished for exploring or even playing the game.

There's are a ton of mechanics that don't feel rewarding or necessary. The RPG mechanics are extremely boring. The only redeeming aspect is the scenes, which I would happily financially support this game solely for. However, each scene is gatekept behind a terrible gaming experience, and while there is certainly enough variety amongst them to keep you entertained, the lack of a gallery and the tedious nature of getting to each one means that by the time you finally find one, you'll probably have lost interest in playing the game anyway.

And holy shit, the story? What is the point of most of these characters? This big expansive world serves no purpose beyond showing us a multitude of forgettable cookie-cutter characters that no one is actually interested in. Having my map exploration interrupted by a cutscene showing a kingdom far off in the middle of nowhere encountering political drama between characters I've never interacted with nor heard of is such a bad idea. What's more, I can't even skip the cutscenes.

It's not like I get a prompt that says 'this is optional story, but will enrich the experience. Would you like to see it?' No, instead I get thrown into a cutscene and I'm forced to take out my phone instead.

If the game developer is reading this-- please, consider adding some quality of life changes. Skipping cutscenes, indicators for story cutscenes, making maps easier to navigate (I can't tell you how many dense objects have forced me to take an entirely different route rather than just serving as decoration).

But above all else, I am begging you- on my hands and knees. Please, please, please add a gallery mode. The actual content of this game is probably extremely uninteresting to like 80% of the people playing it.

It's not even like it's a bad game fundamentally. The systems are all there. But there needs to be some serious changes before I even bother trying to waste time wading through trash-mob fights that take 30 seconds each again. (with cheats, mind you. This entire review was written with cheats because I don't intend on having a full RPG battle that could have been accomplished just by bringing a weed whacker to the forest)

I wish the developer nothing but good fortune, but please fix your game.

No animation, subpar story, subpar gameplay, lacking enemy types. After all that dev will take 2 years to drop a shitty update that doesnt even add anything of substance that you can't find on rule34.

Where do I even start... This game has been one of the biggest disappointments for me. The first two chapters were simply great, creative, with good characters, animations, etc. Since then, the game took a nosedive, and this last chapter was the low point.

Zero uniqueness, 6-7 identical levels packed to the brim with the same enemies that you can kill with one hit anyway, so it's just a waste of time for the combat scene to open every 2 seconds. You have to hit 4 crystals in each one, defended by 3 enemies each. This part of the game is pure suffering.

Moreover, every third step triggers a 2 years long cutscene, which I'm sure only interests maybe 5% of players. Everyone else skips it. It's total time-wasting, just like the crystal destroying part i mentioned above.

The succubus fights are lame. Some can be easily killed, others are nearly unkillable. There are only 2 illustrations for each, except for the boss. (For that, maybe 4 or 5.)

And that's the game. It doesn't even come close to the first two chapters, and in the past 5 years, they couldn't make any improvements, not even to the combat system, let alone make the enemies a bit more unique. But besides not innovating at all, they don't even bring a fraction of the quality from the beginning of the game

On top of that, if they had released this within a month (even then it would be quite weak, but maybe people would overlook it), but releasing a patch like this after 2 years is quite rough... (And he doesn't even make the illustrations himself, so he doesn't have to spend time on that.)

All in all, what I see is that the developer gets the money regardless, so he doesn't care anymore. When he feels it's getting awkward that he hasn't released anything in 2 years, he quickly throws together some dry, meaningless content, and it's done.

Or if he really worked seriously on this for 2 years and this is the result, then that's very little for game development... Especially with the support pouring in. If that's the case, he should hire someone who really knows their stuff and creates something sellable for the people who pay him.

Arts are good just to say compliment too

This is a review after a 2 year wait for Chapter 5. Hope you like trudging through the same area's multiple times. Fighting the exact same enemy multiple times. This game has lost the spark it originally had and has devolved into nothing short of a patreon scam to get money.

At this point, take what a different commenter said and swap over to a visual novel.

Love the game!
If I had payed for this I would've been upset as hell after two years of nothing and given a 1 star review but... I'm a pirate..

It's a good game with a lot of cool stuff. I love the somewhat story that I am somewhat following.
Just a great game if you enjoy femdom with the idea of getting killed and reloading.
I prefer getting killed and restarting with some magic ability but.. It's the same really.
Just play and have fun!
Ah yeah one star minus because it's moving too slowly on the things that matters to me.. Companions (the black haired witch) and companions overall and story.
I haven't played latest update yet though but if my memory serves the updates became less good over time. As if the dev was getting tired of his own product. Started pet projects etc.

I think a dev owns it to their fans to finish their projects and not start other projects midterm. I just bought enshrouded and if they would create another game instead of finishing enshrouded I would get pissed off.
Again if I wasn't a pirate i would give this 1 star for feeling cheated.

top a tiered game right here fellas. First, we've got all sorts of characters to suit someone's interest. While the actual in-game level-up/get stronger system is a tiny bit lacking everything else genuinely just carries it. some may not be as much of a fan of the game over when you see the scenes but it gives this game character in the context of what's happening and pushes you to become overpowered to manipulate the game as you please. One of if not the best monster girl games I've played if we're exclusively talking about the scenes.

Succubus + energy drain with excelent story. This is perfect. The game is running fine even though my pc is shit, so, almost any engine should be able to. The only thing it lacks will be corrected at chapter 5 update (the romance w human charachters).

I got somewhere near the end of chapter 2 before I finally just had to stop.

This game is basically like a VN for how on-rails it is. It throws you a textbook of detail and exposition which never really feels original nor interesting. Your choices hardly matter. You don't ever 'level up', you are kept at a specific strength throughout the game through very small upgrades which are often tedious to gain (Hunt/fish, cook at fire, open inventory eat, repeat this 20x). As such, you often just avoid encounters since you mainly gain nothing from them. Speaking of encounters, you can't speed them up either. This will eventually grind on you as you realize how much time is being wasted watching these same attack animations. There's a reason so many RPGM games let you speed up combat or skip attack animations. Speaking of which, enemy variety is PHHBBBBT. It's the same damn enemies every time except the succubi for an ENTIRE DUNGEON. Oh, speaking of dungeons, those 'optional' dungeons are really stupid since you need to run all the way back to a place with a damn campfire after every damn battle since they don't place one at the start of them. Is this a joke or does the developer not see how grating these annoyances are??? It's as if they wanted to make a VN but still call it a game, but ignored every single principle of modern RPGM design that cut shitty time wasters out. Oh but not just RPGM games, it ignored the principles of modern h-games as well, because it's a "you poon, you lose" type game. With no solid gallery either.
All of this could MAYBE be overlooked if the story was interesting enough to read through, but it isn't. You will quickly realize how irrelevant a lot of the lore is. The only thing I will be positive about is the art (which isn't worth the effort) and the somewhat strategic encounters that sometimes happen.

I really feel the developer would have benefited if they tried playing actual h-games (not VNs either) to take notes from, because this shit is just not it chief.

What makes the difference between a good lewd game and an excellent lewd game ?

Play this game and you will have the answer...

I'm a fan of games like The Witcher or Dragon age and... well... imagine them in RPGM, without restrictions related to sex and nudity (sublimating them instead) and we would have something just as rich as this game.
And here I'm only talking about the scenario, because this pictures...
This succubus, this style, this universe, this mastery of RPGM tools, these musics... In short this fucking crazy atmosphere!
We are clearly on a masterpiece !

This game, which has a much longer lifespan than what RPGM's usually offer, skilfully manages to build up interest in the characters and the world as its exciting story unfolds.

Everything that RPGM offers is in this game, everything is customized and detailed with a destabilizing perfectionism.

Not only we are well above the lewd RPG created in occident but we are in the very top of the basket of what can present DLSite.
I feel objective in expressing that this game is one of the best that is made with RPGM.

Thanks to the developer for this creativity that made me love this game experience.


Before posting this 84th review, I read the previous ones and what came back a lot is this complaint of not being able to skip the texts, we're on RPGM... the "page down" key (next to the "end" key) allows it !

Pictures are very good, but that's it. And massive worldbuilding, if you're interested in that. But playing through this is a slog.

This game is VERY slow. EVERYBODY talks too much, and there is no fast skip. Pressing space/mouse speeds text and animation up, but insufficiently.

A LOT OF FLASHBACKS, scene switches and viewing other places, which is even more unskippable dialogue and animation.

Combat part is balanced to be very tight. It means that you have to heal after each encounter with tough enemies and each several encounters with lesser enemies. Monsters respawn after leaving and returning locations, and they are abundant. You will learn to avoid them, though - they don't give experience, just shop trash.

Sex scenes are with succubi, so if you trigger a sex scene, it usually is gameover. When you fight you usually get one choice to use Iron Will and escape, but otherwise it's game over. With long unskippable cutscene.

And pictures in www\img\pictures are png meant to be combined, so you're out of luck.

Succubus Covenant is a game that has immense potential. As I have currently completed all content available in version 0.4 the only main gripe I have of the game is the succubus themselves. You face an incredible variety of them and the scenes are quite good problem is in-order to trigger most scenes in this game you must get a game over it really doesn't feel satisfying defeating the succusbuses and receiving no content unless you save before hand and intentionally lose to get the scene.

In the game it is hinted the character may be able to remove the energy drain affect of the succubus which is essentially how they kill you, however currently there's been no more mention of that, which may make the game feel very unrewarding for many players as it seems the succusbus scenes are the ones with the most quality in them with other scenes being far and wide in-terms of game time to reach them and the very few of any that you can obtain.

If your someone who enjoys story and doesn't mind the very tediousness of the scene content then I'd highly recommend it, however I hope the creator allows us to freely interact with succubus and possibly dominate them by the end of the game as I think the current version really restricts understanding the characters and are more of a quick sex scene which you reload then move on to the way the game is meant to be played.