Review for The Genesis Order v.83072.
I've been playing The Genesis Order since the initial release. I played both of the developer's previous games in the series and it's obvious that the developer continues to improve on them. I find The Genesis Order to be better than the previous game in the series (ToN) in all respects except one: originality--which you'd expect because it's a sequel. The Genesis Order might be the closest thing to an AAA title in the adult gaming world, but that's not really saying much, and what really holds it back is the use of the utterly garbage RPGM engine.
Story: 3/5 - The story is OK. The MC is a police detective and there are way too many WTFs in how policework is done in the game's universe. It might be an attempt at humor, but if so, it's a poor attempt. Being the 3rd game in a series, the story revolves around a young and dumb MC, money is earned from finding ancient artifacts, and the game is somewhat predictable. Unfortunately, when the game got into the v.7xxxx, the supernatural aspects of the story and especially the scenes started to become cringy.
Sound: 4/5 - The game has a small amount of voice acting for the MC and some other characters. What's there is good, but there's just very little of it. Going by the previous games, there is no intention to add full voice acting, so I don't really understand the reasoning behind just doing so little. Maybe it adds immersion for the players to know what the character voices are supposed to sound like even though 99% of the time players have to read text instead of listening to voices. There are also other sound effects in the game. Most are good but some are a little too arcade-game-like. At least the sound that plays when finding an artifact in Treasure of Nadia was changed to be much less annoying in The Genesis Order. The moans during the Lewd scenes are well done, and I like that they can be disabled.
Visuals: 4.5/5 - The visuals during events are outstanding. Excellent renders and animations. The models are beautiful. Probably the only downside is that the both the level of detail and the actual resolution of the renders is low. I suspect this is intentional to speed up development time and/or reduce game size. The visuals during free-roaming aren't great, but they are better than any other RPGM game I've ever seen, especially given that most RPGM games have graphics that look like 1980's era arcade games.
Gameplay: 3/5 - I am not a fan of RPGM at all, but this is by far the best RPGM game I've ever played, including first two games in the series. That doesn't mean gameplay is good, though. The gameplay seems to be targeted at pre-adolescent console-monkeys. On the upside, the developer created a user interface that is excellent compared to the default user interface of RPGM games, which is complete garbage and appears to be designed for console game controllers.
- The gameplay where players navigate the MC through the game world looks like it was designed to appeal to kids. All RPGM games I've ever seen are like this and in my opinion, RPGM just isn't an appropriate game engine for adult games.
- The puzzles are sometimes just stupid. For example, in one update, the MC needed to find a chisel to break through a rock wall. Where did he find the chisel? On the roof, of course! WTF? Then, the chisel broke and he had to find another, and then another. The other two chisels were also on the roofs of random buildings. Seriously WTF? Wouldn't a normal person go to a place where they are likely to find tools, like a barn, a garage, or a store? Another example is finding 3 old books and some mystical essence and using them to craft a "seed" that the MC eats to make himself smarter. WTF? It's more stupidity that appears to be targeted at children.
- Earning money is another WTF. There are a few ways to acquire money. One is to just randomly find money on the ground, but the frequency and amounts the player can find make this method pointless. Another way is to play basketball in the gymnasium in the Police Station. This method is also pointless because so little money is earned, not to mention the WTF factor of who actually pays you. The only practical way to earn money is to roam the forest areas looking for artifacts to sell to the shady guy at the Warehouse. Doing this is grindy, but so far, players don't need that much money, as at least half of the money players need to purchase everything available is found through playing the game, so the grind is fairly low if players aren't trying to earn more money than they can actually spend. Strangely, the MC has a job as a police detective but apparently, he doesn't earn any money from it.
Content: 5/5 - There's a lot of content in terms of events, scenes, and dialogue. The developer releases updates twice per month and each release typically contains 3 new lewd scenes and about 20 minutes of gameplay. I'm not aware of any other adult game that has such frequent releases or as much content. It's impressive.
Robustness/bugs: 4/5 - It's impressive that I never encountered any real bugs. The only thing I remember was that in early updates, artifacts would frequently appear in the forest in locations that weren't reachable. E.g., near some of the boulders that blocked the pathway. Clicking on the artifact would result in the dialogue that normally occurred when clicking on the boulder, making the artifact unreachable. However, I've seen many verified reports of other players encountering game-breaking bugs, so I know there have been some more serious bugs, I just never encountered any.
Overall, this game is advancing adult gaming more than any other game. Again, that's not saying much, but hopefully, it will motivate others to take the next step to bring adult gaming up to the standards of modern games in general.