Playtime: 6-7 hours for one route (more if you do both or have to wait on the auto-translator)
Overall: Combat is H-Game Standard, while the H-aspect is refreshingly robust despite not being as comprehensive as it could be. I only played through the A-route (never lost a fight) and sluttily, so my review leans that way.
Good:
- You can start as a slut, virgin, or the rarest of all protagonists: a woman who has had some sex but not all of it. I feel this is definitely one of the major points in Eclipse Witch's favor. The devs went through all the effort of varying scene dialogue based on how lewd Liz is, so it's nice to be able to just... start with high lewdness. No need to get groped a bunch or lose on purpose to unlock the sex. You even get three options to choose how Liz lost her virginity. You can, of course, play through this as a corruption game if that's your speed.
- You still get scenes even in a virgin playthrough. Most games make you choose between scenes and virginity, but there are plenty of scenes and sex work (handjob, watersports, anal, etc) even for the virgin-run enjoyers. There are still bonuses for slutty playthroughs though (such as waking up somewhere else after a one-night stand instead of in Liz's hotel room at the start of a story event).
- You can rebind keys. I really wish this came standard in h-games (specially in h-games), but it's still nice to be able to jam all the controls around WASD or on the Numpad depending on which hand you'd like to have free during supper.
- You can avoid and speed up combat. This game uses an encounter-based system instead of random battles, and you even have to hit [confirm] to initiate combat instead of simply running into enemies, which is nice since you'll often accidentally run into enemies if you have Always Dash on (and why wouldn't you have it on?). You can set combat to fast, set it to skip the cut-ins, and even hit [confirm] to skip casting animations on the spells which have them.
- Exhibitionism is handled humorously, easy to get, and reflected in CGs. ENF enjoyers may be disappointed, but I like how Liz tries to trick people ("It's for magic training"), will go along with their misconceptions ("Did the guards/Ellie make you do it?"), or gets scolded for running around naked. You don't need to jump through hoops to unlock exhibitionism (just get Lewdness up and visit the men's baths) and Liz will still be naked in her standing art and the scenes in the final battle. There will even be a bonus line or two when Liz shows up to h-events naked.
- Scenes vary slightly based on Liz's lewd stats and the game even tells you when that happens. It's not just maximum lewdness which changes scenes, but even if you have something such as high anal development.
- Even though you gain lewd xp you don't have to level up your lewd stats. It's refreshing to not have Liz automatically become an anal slut just because she got groped a lot; you have to click a button to manually level up her specific lewd stats once you reach the relevant thresholds. You don't even have to get groped in the first place: there's always a merchant at night who will sell consumables you can use to increase a specific lewd stat in case you want to fast-track it.
- You don't need prostitution to have enough money. You might be a bit broke in the early game, but cash will soon start flowing in even if you don't do sex work.
- Full gallery unlock straight from the options menu. You don't have to get a particular ending or beat the game first. One downside though is that there aren't any hints regarding missing scenes, so you probably will just be releasing all instead of unlocking them naturally.
Bad:
- Not only is the branching plot not sign-posted, but the routes are not treated equally. A common short-coming of games with branching paths is that even though there's 12 hours of content you'll only see 8 if you're not intrested in the slavery route. Oh, except you actually only see 7 since the dev favors the slavery route. Certain types of scenes can even be exclusive to the path you're not on, so if you were hoping for some incest you'll be out of luck.
- Only 2 scenes with the sub-heroines on the A-route. Not 2 scenes apiece, but 2 scenes total. They're not even part of the main game: one is an optional substory and the other is an optional start for never-virgin playthroughs. It would've been super easy to slide some in (reconnecting with Liz's first crush; Liz's nudity is also getting her friend excited; Liz is omnivorous; etc) but instead they're restricted to the B-route and all rape since it's the B-route. We vanilla fans wanted something lovey-dovey in the A-route!
- Pregnancy is locked behind lewdness and your offspring don't do anything (in the A-route). You can find contraceptives from the very beginning of the story and Liz's cycle is listed on menu screen, but you need to reach a certain point in the story, have max lewdness, _and_ pay some money to unlock the pregnancy system. There are some additional scenes and dialogues for pregnant Liz, but her offspring immediately disappear with the excuse one of the benefits of Liz being an adventurer is that the guild will handle with the babies.
- Enemies jump straight into sex if Liz isn't a virgin. There's no grapple or strip or arousal phase; enemies just jump straight in. Not always, but it does make the sex aspect of combat less engaging. Also, Liz only gets sex skills at max lewdness.
- Enemies aren't even palette-swaps. For example, slimes all have the exact same sprite, but just a different name and maybe a different weakness. Not just the sprites when roaming, but their in-battle pngs are also exactly the same! This... feels incredibly lazy, particularly considering that palette-swaps are an accepted trope.
Medium:
- Combat is H-Game Standard. There are support skills and support items, but you'll end most fights by simply using an AoE skill twice. Elemental Magic is also handled poorly (5 flavors, but the same four spells) so enemies are usually dead by the time you cycle through your spells to find their weakness.
- Leveling is handled lazily. You can typically gain one or two levels per area, but then you'll suddenly need waaaay more xp to reach the next so that's when you know it's time to move on. You can't really be overleveled but you'll plow through most fights anyway.
- The familiar dissonance since combat is H-Game Standard. Liz is steamrolling the small fry, chugs an Ether, roasts the boss, and goes "wow, that was such a hard battle, i barely won." Some early fights which you don't need to win are indeed challenging, but things soon reduce down to simply blasting enemies and maybe healing between battles if you need it. This is particularly true of late-game battles when you have fancy equipment and powerful passives, but likely still true if you ignore passives and only use the equipment you find on the ground. It's makes the late game plot a bit of a slog since Liz is handily winning every fight but I'm supposed to believe The Big Bad and His Dragon are actual threats.
- Even though lewd events vary, they all have the same heart symbol. This is pretty standard for h-games, but it would still be nice to know which ones are prostitution and which ones are groping from the outset. Some events even jump straight into sex, though those don't even show up if Liz is a virgin.
- The final battle is more reading than fighting. I get that it's supposed to be the climax so the characters are supposed to come to realizations regarding the whole "duty vs desire" theme, but most of that didn't even get brought up until the final act in the first place! There's a little sprinkled here and there as you play the game but a lot is simply dumped on you since it's been six hours and the game is ending. Spreading it through an extra act or some side quests really would've helped the story resonate more.
- There may be bugs. I didn't experience any aside from some janky menuing after upgrading to v1.0.2, but others may need to use JP locale, lament Windows 7, or find a save in the thread.
