VN - Others - Completed - Suzukuri Dungeon: Karin in the Mountain [v1.01] [KarinProject & SofthouseChara]

Suzukuri Dungeon is one of those games based on "New Game+ cycles", and that's its best and worst feature at the same time. If we divide the title in 3 main selling points (gameplay, VN, 18+), the unfortunate conclusion is: "Nothing outstanding was accomplished". What really compelled me to keep playing was the structure itself, and a feeling that I had to see the true ending, no matter how repetitive the "loops" got. This is not an "old school game", (as in grindy, difficult, hiding information) or an instance of "greater than the sum of its parts", but it's entertainment that keeps you "hooked", and an overall fun experience.

Positive:
- Gameplay - Not a lot of depth when thinking combat (tower defense), in terms of management it's a bit better. To summarize it: Traps in front, Heroes at the back, high damage units, and special power at the right time, get you through the game (Normal mode). What's commendable here is QoL, meaning fights being very fast, and catching up in following cycles never becomes a problem (slightly annoying at worst).

- VN - You don't need to know the original inspirations, the references to some character dynamics and events are a bonus. With that said Suzukuri has "fluff content" that i don't remember seeing anywhere, and by that I mean topics like workplace ethics, money makes the world go around (capitalist approach), market strategy (sales, fine print, accounts), company expenses/personal expenses (spending priorities), and stuff like that.

This is marked as a parody, but i'm not seeing it. "They" are turning the dungeon into a business, and giving the reader very practical ideas. That doesn't last forever though, after the "heroine with a cat fetish" appears, things start to change. At any rate, much of Suzukuri doesn't fit standard Comedy or SoL classifications, the title has a lot of value in terms of available events though.

- 18+ and heroines - The only complaints are lack of build-up or "spontaneous H-scenes", as some would call it, and the character picks for the cast visually speaking (personal). Other than that, the adult content works well within its tags, and serves as a nice extra, and occasional change of pace. The heroines themselves are "divided in 2 casts" ***, and there's bound to be one that you like/favor. The endings with the heroines needed work, even so the actual events (with protagonist or other cast) have more than enough quantity/quality.

Negative
- All of the above is subject to negative remarks - As a VN this can get dull, lacks direction, sports unclear progression. The gameplay is not particularly exciting, and something simple like unlocking EXP upgrades early can make you life much easier (getting more turns to keep playing). The 18+ can also be criticized on grounds of no innovation, or attempts to deliver something better (it's only OK, and personally that's not enough). Finally, there's the New game plus cycle which i enjoy, but it can be a deterrent to some people (things get boring, repetitive, even if they took steps to accommodate the player).

Score: 6.5/10, based on sheer enjoyment. To put it clearly, there are better "hybrids" in terms of pleasant filler content, true to purpose 18+, and even gameplay quality (note that Tower Defense gameplay in a VN is ultra rare), but this was a case where "addiction" kept me going until the end. Recommended, make sure you are comfortable with the mentioned "cycle mechanics".

*** That's just for quick reference, the point is that the first 6 heroines, and the 4 that follow seem separated (for the most part) in terms of events. It's not just that however, even one of the mechanics to interact with the heroines is unnecessary for the second group, which leads me to claim there's a division. Something definitely happened there, it's an abrupt change of mindset and filler content.

This is a Softhouse Chara style game so multiple playthroughs are expected.
It's not even the worst since the Heroines all have their own separate events and endings that you can focus on for a particular playthrough. Basically instead of reloading a save to follow the branches of the story you just continue with another playthrough.

The only thing I am a bit disappointed by is the Units and Skills as I wanted a bit more synergy, progression and creativity with the Heroes as well as more Endgame Challenges to really test you.

The Dungeon Design I say is weaker than the other Dungeon games from Softhouse but they are not yet translated outside of the interface.
Then again the game could be considered challenging enough for most players in last areas.

-2
AS many point out the turn system absolute destroys this game, even with cheat engine it will bypass it and ignore it a lot of the time and will revert on load due to a system in place that randoms the required values.

-1
grindy, meh combat system that is only fun for a while then grows tedious and annoying especially with limited rooms and their quick destruction, sometimes badish wriitting though common style not the can't/cringe way. and few other small things.

+2
Good story and characters overall though I never got the last think 2 side? characters or saw many the endings
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(especially true end) as they are locked behind perfect playing or something idk even on new game ++ with $ cheat I could neve rget far enough before turn amount ends....

Really excellent game. I am a fan of the original Koihime series, especially SoSo's faction, so getting to experience more of the characters is a nice treat. Plus, this setting of a demon king in a fantasy land mixed with the fund tower defense gameplay makes this one really enjoyable. The translation is good as well.

Writing: 8/10
Imagery: 8/10
Gameplay: 8/10
Kinks: 5/10
Overall: 7/10

True endings are ridiculous. Compared to the other "games" out there which are more or less visual novels with some minor important choices, this here is an actual game. Easily comparable to something like Records of Agarest Wars, part visual novel part RPG.

The visual novel aspect is at least short in the sense there are no choices to make during them, and none of them adversely effect your relationship with any of the girls. You use a talking point to speak to a girl, which you earn by going through a defense level, and they earn a greater relationship with that girl. The dialogue is humorous and mostly light hearted, the story following suit. Be invited to serve a demon queen, run her dungeon defense force, and meet people along the way. You earn companions, like a pair of demon ogre sisters, a succubus dropout, and a man-hating sorceress. You’ll also fight other adventurers who invade your dungeon, like a thief with a love for cats, a dependent of the hero who sealed away the demon queen and her little sister. The CG scenes are not bad, but they do have that annoying mosaic censorship. Sadly none appealed directly to any of my major kinks, being far more vanilla.

The RPG is what I found to be the bigger attraction here, a dungeon defense simulator. Build a dungeon using the available rooms, assign units to the room if available, and hit GO. Watch your constructed rooms take on the intruders, and occasionally use the companion powers to give you that much needed boost especially in the later levels. Now don’t let the first few levels fool you, this game is hard. When you make it to the capital, each level there will test your ability to construct a deadly defense, and make the best use of your units and their abilities. That said, you WILL need to play through this game at least 5 times before you can even think of making it to the final levels of those areas. Even if you use Cheat Engine, there is only so much you can cheat. Leveling units means grinding, and that means using every turn you got to spend on that grind. Which your only given a limited number of turns before the game just ends anyways, and you can earn more turns, but not indefinitely without first moving along the story. And I hate timed missions.

So, good game, pretty vanilla sex stuff, challenging levels. B+

10/10 would recommend to play, I feel really bad to downloading a crack one so please if you can buy the game please do because the developers really deserve to be rewarded with such a masterpiece! There were some issues but the game is greatly translated and can be overlooked since the storyline is so great

The star rating is only based on the gameplay because the story repulses me to an unreasonable degree (mostly due to me being allergic to cringy anime harem stuff).

Gameplay is ok. The forced restarts really kill the vibes. I got the demon queen resurrection ending after NG+ 4 or 5. Game is impossible to beat in one go, but it's not designed properly around the NG+ concept. There are no branching stories, or RNG based events, it's just all linear crap that you skip through on subsequent runs. The balancing in stats and game mechanics is pretty off. You will see once you start getting deeper into the game. Most skills are useless and it basically boils down to getting the highest damage. It's not a total bore, and I did get into it enough to do a partial finish (didn't 100% the game).

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The story, on the other hand, is so incredibly cringy. It's like they brainstormed a plot with the sole purpose of appeasing otaku NEETs.
Lolis! Virgins! Quirky! Harem!

The MC is an insufferable simp. We are constantly reminded of how useless and weak he is. He sure is good at going on errands and basically being a doormat for all the girls' quirky and often unreasonable demands though. This is apparently the prime quality in a mate that was never before seen in this universe, because every. single. one of these girls were virgins before their female instincts are awoken by a max lvl white knight simp. 1500 year old demon queen? Virgin. A literal succubus? Virgin. A furry dog girl that supposedly goes into involuntary heat if she sees a strong male? Virgin. All the other woman that walks around town in their underwear? Yep. Virgins. The script makes it such a big deal that these girls are pure for our self insert Mr. Nice Guy. It's just too cringy.

Bunny Black by the same company, which offers a very similar story and girls, is not so annoying to read through because the MC isn't such a tool.

Had a lot of fun with this one, the story is pretty nice and I found myself reading a lot of it although I'm not too fond of VN usually. Restarting the game over and over to get all the endings do get quite grindy though

This game have a fatal flaw.
You need to loose multiple times. Without cheating i can't see how anyone can complete this game without hitting a level up wall at least 2 or 3 times. There is simply not enough resources to level up enough in a single play. and this make it very tedious. The gameplay is basically a kind of tower defense, nothing enjoyable like an eushully game. is very redundant and in the end everything is up to your units. The traps are literally there to amuse the invaders, and i mean LITERALLY. In this game your dungeon is a theme park for adventurers and the "demon queen" tell you that no adventurer must be killed. The hentai is not too bad, the characters mostly likeable. But the tedioum of being forced to restart multiple times, and knowing at a certain point of the game, when you realize you reached the limit of what you can do, that soon you'll need to redo everything again is a deal killer for me.

A high quality medium length game (not as good as the bunny black series).

The main reason that adds to the length of the game is the requirement to start a new runs and grind levels to become strong enough to finish the last few levels. As such, it becomes repetitive very quickly. I required 8 New games to finish the main story line. And another to collect all CGs.

Like most softhouse chara games, RNG plays a large role in the gameplay, as the combat is automated. So saving often is a good idea. As for the gameplay, it is a dungeon management game, but not as complex as it can be. In the end you will always use 6 out of 13 rooms for the characters. In the mid to late-game, trap rooms dont do anything to the enemies and you wont have gold issues, so the only viable rooms are boss rooms and buff rooms.

The H-quality is really good, as expected from softhouse chara. The number of images are decent (around 5-6 images per heroine) .

The main storyline is straight forward, with bad endings, individual heroine endings and some filler stories.