RPGM - The Last Sovereign [v0.75.4] [Sierra Lee]

This is such a well written story, it barely even needs the sex its a good enough game on its own without it. Its heavy on dialogue and text but it draws you in and takes you on a great adventure. So much content to get through, I guess it has been in development for 7 years though so would be surprising if not!

This game is way too good for this site. This is a damn good story, but it's not for anyone looking just to get quick gratification. The positives are simply too numerous to count in a review tbh. If you want a smart story then here it is.

So the Last Sovereign is probably the best socio economic political simulator that exists and is mostly definitely the greatest in the spaces we degenerates visit.

There's also some porn too.

Honestly Sierra did a great job in making porn part of the core DNA of the game. With a few key decisions earlier in development, it would be a title that I could unashamedly play on my main steam profile. You can tell that the idea of a game that is both serious and pornographic resonated with the creator deeply.

Anyways, here's what I actually liked about the game:
Great:

1. Story- unironically a story that most jrpgs wouldn't clear. Granted, this is a seven year development project, but still. The writing shines through and I would play without the porn.
2. Characters- The protagonist, while being probably the most boring person in the main cast, is still awesome in his own right. He is a developed character that makes choices that an actual person would make. The rest of the cast each have their own motivations and ideals even if they are bent towards the MCs will, and players that enjoy their women to have personality and not be sexy lamps will enjoy.
3. Worldbuilding- Neatly integrates sex into the world, and it creates a believable socioeconmic environment where one average sexlord can create a pink utopia.
4. Gameplay- Combat is balanced, though you'll be disappointed if you skip any content. You can't farm xp, so every encounter matters to leveling up. The real meat of the game though are the triggers. Damn near every interaction you have and choice you make is logged, and some choices will be locked off without sufficient hidden scores. Keep an eye on the quest log and character dialogue to see if you reached some of these thresholds(or just use a guide, the best case scenario story is really good)

Decent:

1. Art- It's an acquired taste to me, but it's got a distinctive style outside of the RPGMaker default kit.

Anyways, It's unironically my favorite game in this space, but I sometimes like it in spite of the porn. Likely a contender on my top 5 list of all times, and it's somewhat depressing I can't discuss it more in sfw boards and real life.

Hands down the best RPG maker game I've ever played. The story is an enthralling epic that grabs you and never let's go. The characters are all extremely well-written and you fall in love with each of them very quickly. The gameplay is exactly what you'd expect from a solid JRPG but even here it goes above and beyond. There's honestly nothing bad I can say about this gem other than it's not finished. When it is I firmly believe it will be one of the best hentai games ever made.

The best porn game. Massive world, colorful cast and rich story/lore. Think of this as an excellent book with a lot of sex scenes.

The Dev makes full use of the RPGM engine. There are no the same play throughs as each of your choices can and will impact the world.

Transcends the genre. This is one of the best stories I've seen any game, I have never seen another game where my choices have so much impact on the world. The characters are rich and fully realised. The combat, miraculously, engaging despite being an RPGmaker game.

5/5

What would happen if we took all hentai games tropes and archetypes seriously and start writing an actual story around them?

This is easily one of the best RPGM based games ever regarding its complexity and the ACTUAL many choices you can make during MC "hero's journey" which manages to be an unique experience, classic as a FF but also has a stunning cast of characters and a solid worldbuilding which would blow tons of AAA games out of the water.

Highly recommended.


PROS:

Superb writing.

Every harem member has an unique and dinamic personality and an interesting backstory, in 100+ hours of gameplay I never felt like a main cast character had been set aside, but the total opposite since they actually have an evolution during the entiriety of the game. Each of them also has a wide arsenal of unique quirks and abilities which can make the difference regarding the situation.

The many choices you make actually shape your MC, the main cast and the world around them, even in a subtle way. A choice that could seem beneficial at the moment could backfire in a much grander scale 40+ hours later and also be your salvation much further in the game.

Good level design and awesome combat balacing, which motivates the player to be more efficient on equipments and clear every open maps since resources are limited and hidden stats and checks are all over the place.


CONS:

Even considering an excellent use of RPGM this game is so ambitious and well put together in every other way that it feels like the engine takes its tool on it, forcing limitations as a slow pace which heavily discourage an otherwise much cleaner and funnier second run.

A completionist player that doesn't care much about roleplaying would find the use of the wiki mandatory as many stats are hidden and the actual impact of a choice may be not entirely clear.

I really, really want to give this game a higher score, but the game is woefully lacking in too many areas to warrant anything above a three. TLDR: The main plot feels like rudderless meandering that's buoyed by good character writing, and the gameplay is bog-standard RPGM with hints of irritation grated in. As far as the sex scenes? They're very same-y. I hope you like orgies and lesbians, because a good 80% of the game involves them.

To begin, the writing overall is pretty good. A lot of people seem to be under the impression that it's some revolutionary epoch of storytelling, with a plot that deserves high praise, and they're mostly wrong. While the character writing is very good - each character feeling believably distinct from one another and having a solid place inside of the harem - the big picture writing leaves much to be desired. I've played about 50 hours of this game so far, and it seems that they're just introducing a big bad guy that you're supposed to take seriously, and he still acts like an edge-lord teenager, just like the previous two bad guys. Simon spends the vast majority of the plot cleaning up the messes of morons that came before him.

And when he's not doing that, he's performing empire building minutia. Normally, I like empire building. I have thousands of hours in EUIV and CKII/III. Economies and politics are my bread and butter. And this? This ain't it, chief. There's no "balancing" of interests, there's no "choice" in what you do or when you do it. All that exists is a spreadsheet, and boy howdy does the Dev hope you like tracking invisible variables. With one exception so far, the game repeatedly presents you with "choices" that are no more than "do you want to have a better result, or a worse result?". Of course, it doesn't tell you which one is better or worse, you're expected to psychically know which one is proper, otherwise you get arbitrarily boned over for the future. And the worse you do initially? The worse you do in the future! Failure compounds on itself. There's several extended sequences in the game where there are multiple variables tracked by the game engine that influence global variables for the entire game, and if you dare deviate from the Holy Walkthrough (hallowed be thy name) you'll be severely punished.

If you want the best results (in another year or two when the game is finished), you better be following that walkthrough right from the very beginning. Didn't talk to a random guy in a random location, who looks just like every other rando? That's a point on Hidden Variable #37 you won't be getting!

I want the characters in the game to be happy, I want the amount of death to be minimized. The ONLY way to ensure that your favorite minor characters don't die is to religiously follow a walkthrough, unless you have some godly luck when making choices. It's very vexing to have characters die because your various variable scores are "slightly" too low for a given segment.

So, if I didn't like the decision making, did I like the gameplay? No way! It's not awful, but it's not enjoyable either. Typical RPGM faire, but the amount of status ailments are incredibly annoying. I know there's items to minimize them...so what? You can't create a problem and introduce a solution to the problem and expect me to thank you for it. You created the problem to begin with! Overall though, it's not too offensive. It is annoying that, in order to maximize previous variables I mentioned, you need to fight everything you find to grind your level up to its max. There's a limited number of fights, but lord does it get tedious to finish them all.

How about the sex scenes then? Not too great, unfortunately. There's a few standout ones (gotta love shortstack halflings), but there is a copious amount of orgies and lesbians in this game. M/F/F does absolutely nothing for me, and that's a solid proportion of the game. And then it becomes M/F/F/F/F/F/F/F/F. No, I'm not joking. The one on one sex scenes are generally very good and intimate, but anything that involves more than that becomes a huge clusterfuck. It's way too busy for me to get any intimacy out of it, how can nine people be intimate all at the same time? Not my style, to say the least.

The character writing is what redeems it from being any lower than a 3 star, however. All the characters are very, very good. Simon may be one of my favorite harem protagonists of all time, he's got a good head on his shoulders and has his own foibles. Yarra and Robin are the two main leads in my eyes, and they have very, very compelling characters. Every single other member of the harem also has a good deal of scenes and characterizations to them too. No one feels superfluous, which is quite an accomplishment when you have so many people to bone.

The game is very ambitious, and deserves praise for that alone. I can't in good faith, however, give it a good rating when it has so many glaring flaws. You can't make informed decisions regarding your empire building, because everything is invisible. Buildings are tied to events in the future you have no way of knowing about, seemingly benign decisions can haunt you far, far in the future. I'm opposed fundamentally to a lot of the game design decisions made thus far. Still, I can't undersell how good the characters are. If you're willing to trudge through, Holy Walkthrough in hand, you'll have a good time.

This is a 'porn' game that I think genuinely changed my worldview for the better, and while it is a porn game, and would be a lesser game if you tried to remove the lewd from it, it is an amazing game outside of just trying to get fap material.

Amazing game. Very funny writing, deep worldbuilding, and the most "your choices have an impact on the world" of any game I've ever played. I almost gave up on it in the beginning because of the prologue, came back here to see why it was so popular, and ended up loving it after pushing past the fake out beginning.

There are some downsides, but almost all of them are because of the game engine (I keep fantasizing about trying to make a FFX style remake...). However, there are some hotkeys that overcome some of the issues that some people who have reviewed the game don't seem to know about:

F5: enters or leaves full screen mode
Alt+Enter: alternate full screen mode (F5 is advised)
F6: change size of windowed display

there are more listed in the readme included in the game as well, knowing those fixes the most frustrating RPG Maker usability issues.

I also came across an interesting in depth review from someone in the rational fiction community which I'll link in case anyone else would be interested in a non porn-first perspective on the game:

https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/miy5rc/rt_dc_nsfw_a_practical_guide_to_the_last_sovereign/

I started playing and insta quit at first because I assumed what I first got was what the game had to offer. If you end up doing that, play it again, and press on as I did. Without spoiling, it's deeper than it first appears.

I'll probably update this review later after I play more. I just want to tell anyone who is using reviews to decide whether or not to play this game, trust me, soldier on.

Brilliant, absolutely brilliant. Five stars. The plot is enthralling, the writing is excellent, the characters are deep, blahblahblah. Read any other five star rating and you'll find similar comments. I just want to highlight the part I love the most: the wars (and conflicts).

I've played some other rpgms before and the conflicts there are severely handwaved. "Bad boss with bad empire. Kill bad boss. Bad empire becomes good. The end." But TLS' wars is far more complex. I'd give an example from the Third Arclent War:
-Iris launches the magical equivalent of a protonuke at every single allied country, destabilizing them and slowing their mobilization. The IKD begins attack on Aram.
-Yhilin sends reinforcements to Aram. A task force is sent to stir discontent among the IKD's people and sabotage a teleportation beacon near the IK's castle. Stineford is barely saved after an initial attack.
-An attack is launched against Ardoheim. A skirmish for the control of key bridges occured. Aram and its allies make camp.
-Stineford is besieged and badly outnumbered. A divine wall temporarily negated this disadvantage and the allies counterattacked. The IK arrived with reinforcements. The DK arrived, thwarting the IK.
-Aram's counterattack fails. Yhilini forces rush to save what is left. A rebellion triggers in Yhilin. The teleportation beacon is sabotaged. A minor attack on Feroholm is repelled.
-The Ivalan Churched unleashed the magical equivalent of the Great Wall of China. The IK sent the Unsuccubi who are able to pierce said divine wall at the cost of severely weakening the morale of his troops. The IK's orcs are persuaded via diplomacy to defect.
-The Unsuccubi are routed. A massive invasion hit Aram, but was beaten back by holy magic and the combined armies of Yhilin, Aram, and the Church.
-The IK is killed. Foreign forces exploit the opportunity by raiding Zirantia. Aram does not wish for peace and a standoff between Aram and Yhilin is only barely averted due to the economic chokehold Yhilin had over Aram. Hardcore Church priestesses began turning on Yhilini allies via mercenaries, but were defeated.

See how complex the war is? It could legitimately be an entry on wikipedia. Another game I wouldn't name that I played had similar plot, and the solution to the antagonist isn't a wide war involving multiple nations, but a band of ragtag folks with a few artifacts killing the antagonist and that's it; happy end; never mind anything else.

So yeah, five stars.

-

This game is at the end of its development, so I feel I can give a rating now.

This is the very first adult game I played, almost SEVEN years ago. And during those seven years, in four of them I played almost everyday.
I could rate this game 5/5 even if it didn't had a single sex scene or CG, but even those are good so far, not even decent, just plain good, despite the sudden decision to add CGs to the game so late in development.

The gameplay is good, but RPG Maker has its limitations, but this game really pushed the depth of something simple as combat in this engine. But, the gameplay is also where most of the criticism of this game comes from: People either won't like the some really cryptic parts, ane some won't like the fact they will Alt+Tab in this game a lot, because we need to keep tabs in a lot of things. Also this game is hitting the 100-120 hour range by now.

The story: Ok I'll say straight up, it's one of the best stories in video games I played so far, including triple A ones, and in my opinion is the adult game with the best story, with some margin. Tbh, it's not really fair to other adult games, because it's not an adult game, it's an amazing game that happened to have an adult theme, and unfortunately deserved a better engine than RPG Maker.

Also this game is free, even on Steam. 5/5 can't wait for the ending.

This is in my opinion the single best game you can find on this website. The story starts off with us playing as a guy fighting a war against a demonic entity known as the Incubus King and it quickly evolves into something more.

What I liked about this game:

- The writing: I am a big fan of large, epic fantasy series and this game is just that. It is an interesting rpg story of epic proportions and the things you do have a real impact on the world.

- The scope: The scope of this game is unlike any other game I have played and this includes RPGs that are not focused on porn. The game has a lot of political scheming, kingdom management, large scale wars that makes it unlike any other adult game.

- The worldbuilding and immersion: The world is fleshed out. Different races/cities can feel different and have their own unique culture. After a major event in the game is done, you can go back to previous towns and you will see that the dialogue for basically every single NPC has changed to reflect the new state of the world.

- The complexity:This game does politics extremely well. Every character has their opinion on how things should be done and there is a lot going on. The consequences are hard to predict - this may or may not annoy some players but I personally liked this approach - just like the real world you have some information you know and other information that you dont know. There are situations where you need to work with what you have and hope for the best. If you find this is overwhelming, you can use walkthroughs that describe the consequences of certain choices.

What I disliked:

- The adult elements - This is a game you play for the story and not for the porn. It is the only game on this website that I have played where I think the porn/harem themes are unnecessary. Its not bad but I feel like this game would have been better off if it were like a more mainstream RPG game as opposed to a porn game.

- This is a more typical RpgMaker game and they can feel a bit clunky and dated. I personally do not mind them but I am adding this here just because this may be a dealbreaker for some.

Overall I would give this a 4.8 or a 4.9 out of 5. This is one of the best games (including non-porn games) that I have played. It makes me wish it did not have porn so I could recommend this game to people I know in real life.

I played most games from every genre there is. witcher 3 ,bioware ,the classic isometric RPGs .and this lewd game is my favorite. game both story and gameplay wise (gameplay for jrpg anyway ).

the story is really nuanced and mature far more than most games these days ,and the gameplay is very will balanced .only real issue I have with the game is the lack of art but that is not the developer's fault but for lack resources ,and that it is so complex that you need to follow a guide if you want not to miss things or get bad results .

The Last Sovereign [v0.60.3 Public] review

Man, this is so hard to review. What this game does well, it does so amazingly well that there really isn't anything to even compare it to, but there's also some really severe shortcomings.

Positives:
+ The best writing. And I mean the best. I've tried a lot of games here on f95 and I've reviewed over a hundred. Nobody writes like Sierra Lee. It's snappy, funny and has a coherent story throughout, which really draws you in. Oh and it's real sexy too. Sierra is a real force of nature when it comes to writing.
+ Extremely well balanced combat with the challenge level set exactly right.

Negatives:
- The engine is shit. This verion of RPGM with just a tiny window doesn't lend itself to anything that's even remotely visually pleasing.
- Combat is, well, RPGM combat and it gets boring after a while. There's honestly way too much of it and it takes up too much time. I played this before and I wanted to try it again to see where the story goes, but I just couldn't keep grinding through the massive amount of RPGM combat again. As amazing as the story is, reading it constitutes just a tiny percentage of the time spent in this game. The very large majority of a playthrough will consist of RPGM combat and well, I can't stomach it any longer.
- Very weak visuals. Plenty of low-effort drawings and 1-picture sex scenes. I'm sorry but I cant' fap to 1-picture scenes made by a mediocre visual artist. It really makes me sad to my core, because I'm thoroughly convinced that any game with modern (2022) HQ visuals written by Sierra would probably be the best lewd game ever. I just can't seem to find the full package anywhere.

This game could be the best thing ever if you love RPGM combat, or it could be something that you can't even stomach for 30 minutes, all depending on your preferences. I'm gonna leave an "average" rating because I feel that's fair.

I never leave reviews, but man.. this game. Never thought I'd say it, but this is the Dark Souls of all Porn games out there. And I love it. I don't have much to add that hasn't been already said by the past reviews, but I have to give this game a 5 star rating since I had a banger playing this for the past couple of months, yes, months. It has that much content. I don't even care about the porn element anymore.. This is something I played on a regular basis like any other game for it's complexity, hardcore combat, which some don't like, but I found it satisfying when you get to know all the mechanics around it. The story is also superb, characters, the loot/gearing up, and all the other little details just added so much into the experience for me. Beating pain in the ass bosses/sections has never been so satisfying, especially when you reap the rewards of your commitment. The same goes for the non-combat sections.

A word of advice for any new players, use a guide, but only when making investments, important decisions or when free-roaming so you don't miss content or to not make unintentional mistakes. Also, it's okay to not achieve your perfect end-goals to some sections. As long as it's not terrible, you'll be fine in most cases.

To conclude this review, any true RPG fan such as myself will easily fall in love with this game. Looking forward to the endgame.
Leaving this review right as I finished 0.59.3, which is also the version I started from.

i wish i could give it 5 stars, i really do, but the game has some flaws that are a bit jarring and permeate a bit the entire experience. Everything feels "good enough" with design choices making it a bit weird all over

The narrative is interesting, is probably the strongest point of the game, the protagonist is very likable despite his situation and "dark" power, cares deeply about his partners and about consent in a way that really adds to the story and the characters arcs.....

And sometimes you get to whore people or let them be raped, when and how seems really arbitrary and out of character for the MC. And while talking about rape, despite the background as dark and mature, rape (not by the MC) is absurdly common and treated as a mild inconvenience at worst, with several members of the harem having been raped -adding very little to the story- and its brushed off very casually (and it tends to boil down to the characters enjoying it at the end,even if they're not succubi).

Oh, and while few in numbers, the unavoidable NTR also hits you in the face about how little control you have the actual plot. And while it says your choice matter, is mostly "your choices determine your success/failure" aka gathering stats (for characters or the economic system) rather than actually shaping the plot or the MC.

Combat is good enough, choices of weaknesses and strengths seem arbitrary as fuck in some cases (why the fuck are overgrown wasps weak to "sex" element .....) but it does its job of keeping you entertained

I basically got really, really into it for a few hours and then my interest dwindled and died as I realized how little input i actually had, up to a few ntr scenes in which I felt that yeah, i cant actually influence this at all. Even the "will have consequences later" decisions actually boil down to "success/failure" states, rather than actually influencing the plot in alternative ways

Most games here is porn using a story medium. This is a story told using a porn medium. If you came here to spank your meat, this is not the game for you. The sex scenes progress far too slowly and the story is far too deep. It's a wonderful game that draws you in with it's characters but don't come in here intending to masturbate.

This is not just one of the best adult game I've played, but also one of the 2 best RPG Maker games I've played. The writing, world building, characterisation and humour are top notch, with some remarkably well written sex scenes. The art and character style is also really good. Some might grumble on the emphasis on the writing in the sex scenes, but they are generally so well done that trying to translate them fully to a graphical sequence would probably be a disappointment.

Also it really uses the capabilities of the RPG Maker engine, more so than most of the games. Combat is challenging but generally feels more rewarding than in your average RPG Maker game for some reason, possibly because of the limited XP pool. There is good reason to grind too, as the more you grind, the less difficult compromises you are forced to make. And the limited amount of XP from mobs feels a good decision generally, even though this is normally something I would strong disagree with.

And I think it uses custom tiles as well as using the default tile set better than most games. The dungeons, cities and NPC encounters just feel better thought out than many RPG Maker games

One thing I would suggest, although I'm not sure its possible in this engine is because this game is so strongly story oriented, is to have XP rewards for completing quests. Of course if it were possible it would probably require rebalancing XP from combat, which is unlikely to happen at this late stage. Something to think of for a future project, maybe?

Version reviewed 0.59.3

ED: More thoughts

Review for v0.59.3

I could write an essay about this game. The Last Sovereign isn't just my favorite "porn game", it's one of my favorite games period. For me, it's the very definition of come for the porn, stay for the plot. I have sunk about 200 hours across multiple playthroughs, and will probably put in 100 more once the game is completely finished (Yes this game is long, my last playthrough was about 80 hours covering 4 of the 5 chapters before I stopped).

You start the game as a young chosen hero set on taking down the incubus king along with some old dude named Simon and a hot elf mage. You attempt to take back a tower filled with evil forces.

You fail.
You get captured.
You die.

Surprise! This story isn't about you.

It's about Simon, the last sovereign.

You take the role of a war veteran suddenly given power with enough potential to end a threat that has been plaguing the continent all his life: the Incubus King. Have you heard this one before? Well trust me, it's more complex than it seems.

Before I really get into it, let me say I use an amazingly well written walkthrough located on the wiki. It's written in a way as to not spoil you as much as possible while still giving clear directions (just don't look too far ahead). There is special segments for many of the more complex parts of the game and things that outline the consequences of your decisions, for which there are MANY. I feel like the wiki enhanced my enjoyment a lot, and I can't really comment on playing the game without it.

Now, what I love most about the game is without a doubt the writing. The story, the dialogue, the characters, the written out sex scenes, the list goes on. It's compelling and has managed to keep me engaged across multiple playthroughs even. It feels like I'm reading the work of a professional. This is one of those games where I literally talk to every NPC to see whatever little snip of dialogue I might get. I love that the game has this effect on me.

You hear a lot of games use the phrase "your choices have consequences!" or that they "shape the world around you!" Never have I played a game that truly does that to this degree. For once, a large majority of the choices you make actually matter. Actions you can take in the first segments of the game have real affects lasting until the last chapter of the game and become apparent at many points in between that. A lot of the plot and mechanics effectively involves situations that are shaping the world in the first place. I could go more in depth on this, but it would be a crime to spoil this game if you know nothing about it.

If you're like me, you might grow bored of the bog standard RPGM you see so often and want to skip it all. Who wants to encounter 5 random battles trying to walk to the next area? Thankfully, this game doesn't do that. First, XP is finite. There are no random battles to farm. Every combat encounter is effectively meaningful because of that, and you are going to want all the XP you can get as even your level has an effect on events in the story. Second, combat is very well balanced. It provides a challenge without being super frustrating (besides a few purposely difficult encounters). Every combatant harem member in your party will also see their use, which is a nice touch.

This game is much more in depth and complex than what it might seem and I cannot stress that enough. It's a big part of the reason why I love it. If you're looking for something to simply get off to, this is not it. There are well over 100 scenes, but there is a mountain of a game along with those scenes. This entire review is me being brief about it.

TLDR - I would call this game a masterpiece. If you like RPGs and want something you can truly get invested in and sink A LOT of time into, do yourself a favor and play this game. To me, it can stand along with many big AAA RPGs in terms of plot and writing.