I'm gonna try not to be too negative since this game is still in production, and I can definitely see it improving, but there are some critisisms that I need to get off my chest. I'll cover what I didn't like first so that I can end this review by highlighting the things that I did and ending on a high note:
My biggest problem with this game is the writing, and by that, I don't mean the dialogue, grammar or english, I'm used to playing bad MTLs and this is worlds better in that regard. But the actual storytelling, and character writing was just... Kinda disappointing, especially in comparisson to the original. I found Rachel/The Green Shadow's character to be very uncompelling and annoying in this game, and the writing for her character/story completely fail the premise, and the main reason I play games like these. I'm here to watch a strong, badass, determined heroine with a lot of pride and lofty ideals of justice get knocked down, raped, humiliated and gradually corrupted, I'm here to watch her be humiliated, broken down through her failures and circumstances, and that just isn't what we get here. This Rachel has none of what made the original so compelling, and I think nowhere is this more obvious than the opening scenes of both games.
In the original Green Shadow game, our introduction to Rachel is her walking into a room with the top heroes like she's got the biggest dick in the room. She's blunt,stoic and badass, and even manages to trade banter and barbs with totally not the Hulk. Her reputation precedes her, and though her backstory is kept intentionally vague, we're informed that she's already a trained ninja and an accomplished, respected hero. This scene is simple, but establishes Rachel's two most important traits; her confidence and arrogance. This is a game centring on humiliation above all else after all. Compare that to this games introduction, where all of the mystique is immidiately stripped away and we just jump into the plot with no fanfare. She's not depicted as particularly proud, confident or arrogant, she has no reputation whatsoever and outside of one line in her backstory, no indication as to her dedication to justice. Simply put, we get nothing, and then when we finally have control of Rachel, literally everything we can do with her makes her feel shallow and utterly uncoordinated and aware, not like the badass, jaded superhero we get at the start of the original. This Rachel is depicted as vain and petty, obsessing over her weight and pics of herself, being giddily excited at the prospect of becoming famous and being more than willing to throw away her shame at the drop of a hat, right at the beginning. This has the unfortunate side effect of making all of the humilation, corruption and defeat hit way less than it should. Cause she's not depicted as a badass ninja superhero, she could be any girl doing cosplay and it would have much the same effect. The way she's written is just kinda lame, and that REALLY takes me out of it. Character flaws and a bit of naivety are fine, and honestly integral for helping us suspend our disbelief, but without the character strengths and their ideals, the humiliation and corruption that are central to this game just don't land. But I digress...
Gamplay is my next big issue, although its something I'd normally be willing to forgive if that writing/story was good. The combat is fine, honestly not that different from the original save for the exclusion of the insta-kill ability which made the game a hell of a lot more playable, but we do have a lot more toys to play with at least. No, the problem comes from navigation and progression, which is honestly kinda unbelievable since the original nailed this! Long story short, navigating the overworld in this game SUCKS! The building short cuts take longer to use than just walking, and the map is just a pain to navigate. There are no signs or directions, no real logic to anything and for the most part, we just walk through incredibly large, empty, totally irrelevent areas looking for the one place things can happen. Its so slow, tedious and aggrivating just getting from A-B, and god forbid you have to find something hidden or tucked away. Finding quests or events is also a pain in the ass, cause asides from the quest chain you get from the start, everything else is scattered around and you're given no indication of where. It took me ages to find out that you could get quests at the hero building cause the game just never tells you, and there seem to be a lot of quests that require you to talk with specific NPCs or interact with specific spots or objects. Maybe I'm just an idiot, but it should not be this tricky or tedious just to progress the game. The original used the phone and computer as a hub for all of our quests and side-jobs and that worked perfectly!
Also, and I'm sure its been said before, but having your outfit and weapons taken every time you lose to a thug just sucks and isn't fun. Having your hero costume stolen once or twice in the original was fun, it led to some exhibition content, and it gave you a solid motivation to work at the jobs and unlock more scenes, but here it just seems to be to discourage you from fighting and punish you, since money is so hard to obtain, especially without clothes, since for some godforsaken reasons, most of the scenes and activities in this game are linked to what you're wearing. WHY DOESN'T THE HOODIE OR ATHLETE WEAR COUNT AS CASUAL CLOTHES?! This just leads to what feels like softlocks where it just seems impossible to progress or do anything, which just isn't fun. I constantly feel like I'm being punishied just for trying to see and enjoy the games content, which is the opposite of what it should feel like.
My final problem with the game is a relatively minor one, but at the start, I chose to not see blood and gore, since that's just really not my thing and makes me mad uncomfortable, and the fact that I had that choice was great, and something the original REALLY needed, but uh... It didn't actually work, and I'd still see scenes of blood, gore and death, like when I fought the mudman and he blew my stomach open after I made a single attack. Now I don't like gore in general, at least not in my porn games, but if its gonna be in there, it should at least be telegraphed and avoidable, and not something that can just happen out of nowhere... Especially when you specifically selected not to see it. I'd also just really like to have an option to disable character death since those sort of bleak bad ends are just unpleasant to me. I'm here for rape and humiliation, and these death scenes are taking up space that I think those could fill, but that's more personal preference than an outright critique.
Luckily this game isn't fully without its pros and charms, although they aren't quite enough to salvage the game for me personally. But a lot of the actual indiviual scenes are very hot and decent written. There are a lot of fetishes and scenarios and I can only imagine many more in the future, and even if they aren't all something I'd enjoy, I'm at least glad that the developer(s) aren't holding back. Also, this game has pregnancy mechanics, which I always love! I'm not sure how in depth they are yet, or even how they work in this version (I didn't get that far) but its always a welcome addition and something I think the original game would have benefitted from immensly!
I know this review probably seems very harsh, but that's honestly just cause I have such high hopes for the concept and I want to see this project be the best that it can be, cause despite its flaws, I can see the potential! The writing and characterization need to be worked on and improved a lot, and the map/navigation and quest system need to be either majorly tweaked or re-build from the ground up, but if these issues are addressed, I can see this game hopefully becoming something really special. Its just that at the moment, it isn't living up to its potential or my expectations. Anyway, that's all the rambling I have in me, at least for now.
2/5 - I've played worse, but this could be so much better!