Sex is nice and all, but I've never been harder than when I got those huge returns on my investments later into the game.
The rpg gameplay is honestly not that interesting to me after the initial stages. The characters and the story are the real gems. Decisions feel meaningful and have long lasting consequences. You get a real experience of a well meaning dark sovereign taking over the world through economy and politics. I can't overstress how nice it is to have a mature main character who has relatively healthy stances on sex and relationships in a harem porn game.
If you're looking for a very long role-playing game with insane amount of variables, decisions, hidden content, amazingly written captivating story and insane amount of characters most of which undergo some form of character development, then this is the game for you. This game has far more intriguing and complex story than most if not all (I'd say all) RPGs I've ever played and I've played a lot of role-playing games throughout my life (JRPGs, western RPGs, slightly different RPGs made by nordic and slavic people etc). The only series that maybe trumps this game is Trails Series, and that's because there are tons of long interconnected games there and even those games don't have the same detailed political and economic aspects intertwined with the story. The AAA slop garbage nowadays doesn't hold a candle to this masterpiece.
If you're looking for a "porn" game, like many others on this site, then this isn't for you. It has scenes, but they're very simple with one or two average CGs accompanied by descriptive text of what's happening. You could turn the CGs off and it wouldn't make a difference for me personally.
If you're into role-playing games for the role-playing part, then definitely try this out. Keep in mind that this game is very long, so you're in it for a while. I recommend keeping the Thosha's walkthrough at hand if you're a perfectionist and don't want to miss anything, just as a precaution of sorts (it's pretty easy to miss some small event only to get locked out of additional content and NPCs).
This is one of those rare cases where EVERY SINGLE REVIEW IS CORRECT. Seriously. Nobody is saying anything wrong.
Their review, and your enjoyment of this game, depends entirely on what you're looking for. I would never shop at a vegan-only grocery store and then complain about how awful the food tastes, but maybe some people thought about giving vegan food a try and then they hated it.
The story IS VERY GOOD and it makes the experience enjoyable. And I even like the gameplay, because I'm an old school SMT fan and a debuff based combat system gets my dick hard. Which is the only thing migrating blood down there: the porn IS THAT BAD. It might as well not exist.
So I enjoy it. But here's my advice. Read the reviews and decide if this game is for you or not. You'll be correct.
edit: After reading a review on steam I want to clarify something.
The first few scenes are drawn in crayon. This is intentional and it sets up a twist within an hour or so. However "drawn in crayon" is about how good the quality is of those first few scenes. I felt my review was a little misleading because the scenes DO get better. It's just that hearing about how bad they are and seeing one drawn in crayon might give you a very wrong impression.
But eventually, you hit a point in the game where you're more aroused by the characters than the smut. Which is to say: about 20 hours in, you'll get scenes with DOUBLE the cgs but you'll like the characters a lot which MIGHT fill the gaps.
But personally I've literally had nights where I said "man, I'm really too tired to keep following the story of this porn game. I'm going to close it, jack off to something then go to bed" without any sense of irony. Which is me telling you "I've enjoyed this game enough to lose sleep over it" and "I don't really think it's porn".
Sierra Lee could save Bioware. I hope she never has to.
I have no idea why this game's rating is so high. It's a typical RPGM game where you walk around, fight stuff in mind-numbingly boring turn based combat, read dialogue, and collect CGs.
CGs are very poor quality, like they're drawn by a 12 year old, no interaction at all, just a picture and a wall of text.
Characters are kind of cringey, and honestly not very interesting. Even the main character I just couldn't find myself giving a crap about him.
Humor is attempted in the writing but misses.
Constant allusions to other information that our main character knows as an excuse for lore dumping.
The role playing part of the RPG is missing, you seem to sort of be on rails.
Writing is uninspired and after a few minutes I just found myself holding down the ctrl key to skip.
Combat system is about as basic as you can get for RPGM, there's not even combos or skill rotation to manage, just spam the highest damage move until your MP runs out.
Maybe the lore is decent...? Like there's a large map of different countries so there's potential down the road, but that's nowhere enough to keep interest until then.
Overall there's just nothing redeeming about it, I lasted for about half an hour before giving up on this. I'd expect something like this to have a rating between 2-3 stars and that's being generous, not 4.5.
innitially i determined the game to be slow, grindy and annoying
with bad lewds
not rewarding interactions
slow progression
unclear objectives
and while all of this is true and i stand by it
This game takes 100 hours of gameplay
i barely experienced maybe 3% of it and as such i might not be qualified to review it?
try it if you are unemployed
This game should be a visual novel, because it's carried by its story.
In comparison to your average slop game posted here, The Last Sovereign is a masterpiece of writing, though that's not to say it is a masterpiece of writing. It has a coherent story, (mostly) consistent characterization, and an attention to detail that can keep you engaged. Looking solely at the story, this game is probably worth your time.
In contrast, the game's combat system is not worth your time. It's bog standard generic RPG Maker. The only real unique design choice in that department is the scarcity of enemies, but that just feeds into combat feeling like a chore you have to do between story beats. The boss fights aren't really memorable, and I struggle to think of anything positive to say about it.
If you don't slog through fights, you can get locked out of certain choices or just simply soft locked, and if you cheat to play your single player game how you'd like, you can likewise get locked out of things by anti-cheat mechanics... in a single player game. The end result of this is hours and hours of backtracking through the same lackluster combat system, so you can do the things you'd like.
While again better than you'd expect from this site, the story isn't perfect. A lot of early harem acquisitions are extremely formulaic, to the point that the main character gets self-aware of this fact, but nothing comes of it. Some of the harem girls are also just bland and get overshadowed by their more interesting counterparts.
The art is nothing to write home about. There are a few rather nice designs, but a lot of them are just uninspired, but not Qum because she's best girl. There's a decent number of CGs, but they're not really that good by the standards of a porn game.
When it comes to wank material, you can do a lot better here. None of it's bad per se, but it's all very vanilla besides, I suppose the swinging and voyeurism. The writing is acceptable, but that's it.
The story and the choices are really where this game shines, though I think it's held back by the game design. Because the game is so long and there are so many objectively incorrect choices, it's hard to justify not just following a walkthrough. It's a shame because I do think it'd be fun to play through blind multiple times to get a feel for the various paths, but if you play as intended then that'd take way too long.
Oh yeah, and your harem girls will fuck other people. It doesn't really follow naturally from your choices as the result of gaining Qum's affection through showing compassion, not breaking your girls into sex slaves, and not whoring her out is that she's willing to fuck monsters on your behalf without you asking her to.
If you aren't looking for a wank, are willing to sink an inordinate amount of time/play in a manner heavily discouraged by the developer, and don't mind having your harem girls get pounded by a bunch of orcs in a non-optional segment, then you will find a surprisingly compelling story for a porn game.
There isn't a game more deserving of 5 stars than The Last Sovereign.
Top notch writing, beautiful art with a great style. Actually competent gameplay with interwoven mechanics. Sierra Lee never disappoints and I've been in love with her works ever since the Yandere one (not sure if mentioning other projects is allowed in reviews) .
Still this here is a masterpiece. A true magnum opus of a professional creator.
One of a kind. Beautiful. Masterpiece. Sincerely, one of my favorites pieces of video game media. Story driven. Character driven. Not a mere porn game: a game with porn instead. I love it a lot. I will miss it when it is finished.
Let me keep it simple and unbiased. It's not an ero rpgm games, it's an RPGM games with ero scenes as an after thought.
If you're download this game to beat your meat to, then you're shit out of luck. Unless you get horny off 5 paragraph of text and a picture (not moving), you best uninstall and download another game.
Now, if you're looking for an actual in depth rpg game with a ton of world building and 50+ hours worth of content, then this is your flow.
The combat is fine for RPGM standard, but the amount of choice that could affect what happened to your party in the future is baffling. The amount of lore and character development in this game could make a nerd weep in joy.
Summary
For gooning?: 2/10, absolute dogwater.
For gameplay n story: 10/10, absolutely perfect
Lots to do. One of the best games I've played. Art isn't the best, but the story line and game play are very fun. You build your harem as you go. Has politics. I love that your actions have consequences
If you are looking for h game to just wank to, this is not it as an h game i will go as far as to say this one is a massive disappointment, but as a game in general it's fucking amazing.
The story and lore of the world are engaging enough and the combat is alright, but where it really shines are choices and hidden stats, a choice that you made way back in the game might have some impact on the content you are playing now and as for the hidden stats I know some might not like it, but I truly feel like they add a lot of depth to it.
The management aspect of the game ties in with the hidden stats brilliantly.
One of the best RPGmaker games I've played. Not hgames, games.
The Last Sovereign is a deep RPG with a wide array of mechanics and features which incorporates its lewdness into its world and narrative.
I played some time ago, so it's possible things have changed, but my biggest gripe is that I missed a companion in my playthrough, leading to ongoing missing resources and turning certain fights into incredibly difficult puzzle+luck encounters.
I adore the finance into kingdom management aspect, although I wish more of the options had varied outcomes based on actions taken, so as to limit a "best" path of choices being optimal.
Game is on steam, free. Highly recommended.
I was finally bored enough to try this game out, even though I knew there was probably a reason why I ignored it at first glance. My intuition that I wouldn’t like it did not fail me.
Sure, it has a rich story, but as an erotic game, it fails miserably on the lewd front. The way the game portrays erotic scenes is an insult to itself. The developers might as well have just written, "And then they fucked," instead of bothering with the scenes at all. What makes it worse is that the entire plot revolves around sex, yet when the sex actually "happens," you’d probably be better off getting aroused by staring at a brick.
Without going into spoilers I'll say that the story is actually worth reading, I haven't skipped much text while playing (unlike in many other porn games).
There are some pacing issues and some stuff happen suddenly. The choices are supposedly meaningful but other than a few I think they just change some text.
Art 5/10
It's acceptable but not great 2d. No real animations as well. The tiles are terrible.
Gameplay 7/10
The combat and UI are pretty basic RPGM . The combat system is dated but really well made. Usually don't mind the music but I played the game muted, its pretty bad. I like the character's move sets.
Amount of Content 7/10
I'm not done with the game and I've played a solid 8-10 hours already.
The porn stuff is more than enough though.
Review will be updated when I finish the game, for now a 4 is the best I can give it.
On one hand it is extremely complex story with solid character writing and worldbuilding. On the other there are several major issues that bring it down significantly. My TLDR would be that it is 5/5 30-40 hour 2010 game that has been stretched to around 100-120 hours that will probably be released in 2025.
There is far, far too much filler - mazelike maps, overtuned fights in a system that frankly can not bear the weight that is placed on it, effectively mandatory map clearing to not fall even further behind, arcanely driven quests and events. Then there are the usual old RPG maker quirks which further bring down the experience such as general ux design or the fixed size game window(which by the way was actually solved in a different game in the same engine as far as I know).
And my major problem is that these characteristics interact in a way to create overcomplicated behemoth that is not enjoyable moment to moment.
What AAA games ought to be, plus sex. No game scratches the "competitionist/optimizer/choices matter/fantastic writing" itch like this does. Full disclosure, I am an active patron of Siera Lee's at the time of this review.
A free game has no right being this good.
One of the very few games on this site I play not for the sex scenes. I actually skim most of them, not that they are bad, but just not why I'm here. Which is interesting considering how sexual everything is in the game.
As I'm a more negative kind of person, I tend to focus on the negative parts - or put nicely in the case of this review, positive criticism of things I think could have been done better.
1) Combat
I hate RPG maker vx. Though I understand the game is old now.
I hate RPG maker combat even more. While I will admit the rpg-combat side in this game is relatively well done, it's only by rpg maker standard.
I wish there were less "random" encounters. Now, I know they aren't really random, but because the way the game works you are kinda "forced" to do every combat you can encounter. You can't rush past an area when you don't feel like fighting and grind a bit later because of the limited XP mechanic. And there is way too much combat overall.
2) Hidden stats
I have a love-hate relationship with all the hidden stats in this game. I like some of them but damn I wish the game was more obvious about them somehow. I think this works better for short game but this game is actually fairly long so it becomes annoying sometimes.
It kinda extends to other decisions, such as investments. Game just gives too little info on how doing things impact stuff.
3) Characters are a bit "too easy"
I mean, I guess it's that kind of game, but...Sometimes I felt like a lot of characters were a bit too easy to convince.
4) 'Fake choices'
For lack of better words, sometimes I felt like choices were a bit fake. Especially once you get back later on while reading guides and walkthrough. When I mean fake, I don't mean "there was no choice to be taken", but more like "there was a clearly superior choice to be taken".
Admittedly, it's not easy to handle. Ultimately, someone will make an optimal route playthrough bal bla bla.
For example, to give some early game choices which feel just fake when looking back.
(note I'm only talking narratively; maybe from a gameplay point of view someone might think it is a bit different)
EDIT: I'm near the end of the game and I do have one complaint: pacing.
I started to get a bit tired from the game and after looking at the save file I understood why - I have been doing side quests for 15 hours already, and I know I still have 5 hours of side quests to do at least....probably closer to 10, really.
To keep it spoiler free, big events happen for the prelude of the "final act", then you get a "last open world section" to tie up loose ends. Great! However, for better and for worse, dev decided to add all the content they somehow forgot to add throughout the game in this section, including a personal quest for almost every main character. (I call it side content since essentially most of it is optional and you can just skip it, as far as I can tell)
On the one hand, I like almost all of them from a story perspective. On the other hand, the amount of running around and pointless dungeons is just too much considering the main story isn't moving forward.
I wish the quests were set in a way that they could be started much earlier to better pace it out. For example, for the most part, there is no reason we would need to wait this moment to start Ralia's request.
I guess my point is I like too much the characters to skip all those quests, but damn I wish they were more to the point and with less chore in them considering we are on the last stretch of the game and they are ruining the pacing entirely; we have an great threat and the world is about to end but we spend literal months doing busywork or looking all around the world for random shit.
