VN - Ren'Py - Completed - The Eloise Case [Nikraria]

Set between Stroke of Madness and Delirium, The Eloise Case is a small interquel that breaks the usual formula in Nikraria's games. This time, you play as a psychiatrist who pulls strings to have Eloise admitted into his care after she had burned down her home in what initially appeared to be a psychotic episode. But as the sessions between the two play out, it becomes increasingly clear that the shrink has a ulterior motive beyond just helping out the daughter of an old friend.

Unlike the previous two games which were point-and-click adventures, The Eloise Case is more along the lines of a trainer game where you manage the titular heroine's activities while you try to ease her into doing increasingly more deprived actions. This ranges from simple things like coaxing Eloise into sucking you off to straight up whoring her out to various degenerates within the city. So if you're looking for a quick fap or just wanted to see more of Eloise in action, this is the game for you.

This is the second in a trilogy of games, I've reviewed each of them, and a fair bit of my review will be copied from the other two reviews given the games share similar art, story elements, and gameplay.

TLDR:
This is probably the game most worth playing in the series, it's definitely the least needlessly frustrating, to the point that its impossible to fail or face any negative consequences at all that I could find. But then the story is pointless, none of the characters actions or motivations make any fucking sense, and there is no character progression, so we're back to find the cgs and skip the game. This one you could probably turn skip unseen text on and quickly grind to the sex scenes, but meh....

Review:
First, lets talk about the art. Nikraria's art is obviously an acquired taste. I, for the most part, really like it. I find the stylization pretty sensuous and erotic. But. This game, this series, and Nikraria's work in general has the issue that all of the characters look pretty similar. Almost all of them have unrealistically large breasts, even on characters that dont really have them in their original media. If this were occasional, or even on half the characters lets say, it would be fine. But it is every singe character. The other commonality is almost all of Nikraria's characters are redheads with bobcuts. He loves Leliana from Dragon Age (who is one of my favorite characters) for instance, and this game series features the protagonist, her mother, and her aunt as the three main sexual characters. All of them look almost identical.

The other issue with the series' art is that all the sexual situations are very samey, its either vanilla or tentacles. Thats really it. This game doesnt even have the tentacles, jut the vanilla stuff with a ever so slightly rapey vibe to it.

So basically I like the art style, and think it can do a lot to improve characterization, but its really kinda boring after a while. Which leads us to the writing and story.

The whole series is lovecraftian horror-y stuff. It's a decent setting for a porn game, and for a while it's effective, but the series just repeats the same story beats over and over and over again until it's just dull as hell. Most lovecraftian stuff has elements of growing madness, of an unreliable narrator, of questioning reality. the madness is never expounded upon meaningfully. It just shes spooked and horny, and then in sex scenes shes spooked and horny, and in game over sex scenes shes spooked and horny and then loses herself to being spooked or horny. It's the same every fucking time.

The narrator is hinted at being unreliable briefly in this game, but that gets blown away like 10 minutes into the game and never really comes back. Reality itself is never really questioned. Everyone sees the same stuff and perceives it in the same way, its just how batshit nuts they go that changes.

This game also has a lot of other issues not present in the rest of the series, the doctor character tries to exploit her sexually. He just starts doing it. Theres no build up. No reason for it. He just does it because thats the kind of game its meant to be. It's like it was expected so the author just forgot to put it in the plot at all.

Then we have the bit where he uncovers that weird cult shit is happening. But that just stops and never comes back. He doesnt even talk to the patient about it. It just vanishes from the plot.

The eloise character likes sex, and you can make her do sexy stuff with people. The dr gains nothing by essentially pimping her out. He just does it. She puts up arbitrary resistance in the menus until she has high enough stats, but seems suddenly fine with everything in all of the events with no explanation.

And then after training her to be a sex slave for no reason he just sends her off to an island somewhere at the end for no reason, and even if you say you believe her because thats the better ending, the next game only starts with the bad end anyway so fuck you player for doing extra work.

I should also mention that the English is understandable, but has frequent spelling, grammar, and word choice mistakes.

Much of this game just has a black background. Its so fucking lazy and immersion breaking.

All in all. It had potential, but the story and gameplay are pointless time wasters to get you to seemingly unrelated sex scenes with a noncharacter.

This game has a very interesting story line, and really good art. I'm very much looking forward to any other games by this author. This is a game for you if you're interesting in corruption games. My only complaint is that it is a little too short. I wish the endings were a little bit more fleshed out.

The following review is based off my personal experience with playing this Game/Visual Novel... I try to be as brutally honest and detailed as I can, and these are my own opinions and thoughts, from one or more play throughs... The version this review is based on is v1.0...

Not sure if this is in fact a complete visual novel, or the prelude to a much more in depth and vast visual novel?

The visuals of the characters are 2D hand drawn and are befitting for the dark and haunting theme of this visual novel... The backdrops are the same... I do wish the fade in and outs for the patient visuals wouldn't take so darn long each game day, when deciding what to do each day, but it's a minor issue...

The script has the occasional spelling/grammar error as well as wrongly used word... Such as whenever a stat was increased/decreased it used the word "in" rather then "by" in the sentence (i.e. "Stress increased in 10" was used rather then the proper way of saying it "Stress increased by 10")... Plus the story font makes it more difficult to read, especially if not set to full screen... It works ok for the names, but a less chaotic font should be used for the actual story text... The plot revolves around a male protagonist psychiatric doctor, who has a case involving a woman who burned down her family mansion...

The game play involves increasing and decreasing certain stats for the patient, asking questions involving her life and the fire, as well as having her participate in activities to increase her own skills and reduce stress... As the appropriate stats increase high enough, the stress low enough, and you delve deep enough into her life's story, the adult/erotic content begins to open up... Mostly in the form of dares... With each dare becoming more and more intense and in some ways darker... She is of the impression that many mystical things were going on at her mansion as well as her being mistreated pretty much all her life, without fully realizing it till she became an adult...

There are several dark themes to the patients story, and her treatment at the hands of the protagonist... It's hard to tell if the protagonist is tricking her, or she really wants all the events to occur and truly enjoys it all... It's a mystery, which only feels darker and more mystical in how this VN/Game actually ends, visually... It's hard to tell if this will be a continuing story on the part of the protagonist, or if the patient will be involved in future events... You get a sense that the Doctor is pretty much a pervert while still trying to work out a mystery at the end, almost like it was teasing more content without coming straight out and saying it... Yet the patient was shipped off somewhere else, with an even spookier cliff hanger visual... Guess we'll have to wait and see...

Overall, this is a mysterious, dark, and very perverted visual novel, with an entertaining if not also slightly disturbing story, followed by lots of erotica which also felt similar in some ways... I would almost liken the story's genre to that of an Erotic Horror Mystery set in a almost Elizabethan setting... At first I almost felt like this was going to be a Batman universe setting, because of the name the developers gives the asylum... And perhaps it sill might be a Gotham setting? I don't know...

In any case, it's not a bad VN/Game so far, although in some ways I felt it might be, just a tiny bit too dark, but everyone has their likes and dislikes... Will I revisit this one if it actually continues on, beyond the current content? Sure, sometime down the line... Have to wait and see...