Just played this for the first time. My understanding is that I'm about 2/3 of the way through the current build (sandbox, even though I haven't reached that point yet), but I feel like I've accumulated enough thoughts to go ahead and give a few pieces of feedback. Before I do though, I want to say that any criticism is meant to be constructive, and that personal preference and opinion is not meant to be presented as objective fact.
I'll start with the more negative and then leave off on the more positive. I understand the concept of slow-burn and build up. It can often enhance the "payoff" and make it sweeter when you finally get there. I'm down with that. And I agree that you don't really want characters, particularly incest ones (let's not pretend here XD), just jumping immediately into the sack unless they already have a pre-established sexual relationship when the game starts. But as with many things, it can be taken too far. And I feel like this game is starting to venture into that realm. Let me also just say right here that I am one of those low-brow, knuckle-dragging pedestrians who want and enjoy actual sexual content in their adult games
. With that said, imo it is more disappointing than it is satisfying whenever 80-90% of a game's total content between main characters is spent just on build-up, with only 10-20% left for the actual, juicy, meaty sex content. If there is that much build-up, that can still be fine, as long as the game ends up being a long epic where there is still plenty of room left for a lot of payoff and sex content between the main characters.
Also in regards to build-up, this part is largely just personal preference, and it's something that a lot of games do, but enough with the handjobs already lol. Imo it's one of the most boring sexual acts that a man can have with another person. It's the
one thing that I could just do myself
. I understand that you gotta start out somewhere, and build your way up. You don't want to start with just immediately railing someone in the ass, I get that lol. So one or two times is reasonable. But after that it just starts to get into frustrating blue-ball territory. Especially when the characters are adults and not teenagers.
On to the positives, I am enjoying the writing, world-building, characters, music, mystery, set pieces, character models, and a lot of other things. But sitting squarely at the top of the pyramid is Morrigan. She's already one of my favorite adult game characters ever. If there isn't at least one ending where MC and her don't ascend to King/Queen, Emperor/Empress, god/goddess status together and are pumping out some pure-blood heirs (boy/girl twins to further the line would just be a cherry on top), I'm going to be personally very disappointed lol. Ideally mom and lil sis will still be around as concubines, but hey, I can settle for just Morrigan if I have to
.
Also this is mostly just a minor footnote, but I liked that the game has its own unique themes like "paradise and oblivion" over the usual "heaven and hell", "daemons" instead of "demons", etc.
One of the reasons I'm one of the few who like sandbox (when it's done well) is that I like that things can progress when I'm ready for them to. I like feeling like I have more choice and interactivity and am not just on completely linear rails until the ending. And I like when it gets to "freeroam" mode with repeatable scenes (aka "Who do I feel like visiting/fucking first today, and how?"). So as I said, I'm not there yet, but I'm hoping to see something along those lines if applicable.
So overall I'm very much enjoying the game, though I do hope that there is a lot of actual, varied, and satisfying sex coming eventually with the main LIs to make up for all of the build-up. And I am 1000% #TeamMorrigan. Looking forward to finishing the playthrough, and for more in the future. My compliments and best wishes to the dev.
