RPGM - Wicked Rouge Refine [v0.15.0] [FIROKETA Games]

This game has the potential to be the GOAT if development continues as is. The gameplay is solid, the story is decent, and the scenes are quite good. Although I was initially put off by the render style, you get used to it real fast. Another aspect that I found to be amazing was just how realistic the social dynamics are of the participants within the yujo industry of the Edo period.

Reading the reviews, I feel like there might be some excessive and perhaps misguided criticisms towards the game.

First of all, its a management game, so it is to be expected that there will be grind. The grind in this game is not the worst. It can be relatively entertaining but only for so long. But you can always come back to it later if you get fatigued. I personally enjoy it mostly for the fact of getting richer and beefing the establishment more with upgrades.

Secondly, considering it is regarding the management of a brothel, this type of sharing content (or "NTR" as people call it, which I am certain it isn't) can also be expected. You also get heroines that don't engage in that so this should accommodate most people.

I understand that RPGM has a bad rep. With the number of games that use it for the worse, its understandable. But there are good games that use it. When playing, I have not found any glaring issues with the implementation of RPGM here and I actually kinda like it.

Its also meant to be a VN, so lots of text is expected. I love story and the story and scenes (both sex and plot) here is pretty solid and enjoyable. I personally preferred the previous version's models better, but that isn't enough for me to give up on the game.

Overall, I definitely feel its a well above average game for the mechanics it has.

Pros:

1. Girls/models
2. Premise of revenge

Cons:

1. Pseudo-ntr wouldn’t have mattered at all, but then creator had to add “feelings” for the main hookers. This is a major gripe because at that point the MC gets attached to the girls hence why is say it’s not not NTR. Never get attached to any hooker smh
2. Grind I mean if I wanted a micromanagement grind fest I’d go for 4x game as it does this much better (I guess some people like doing chores after work) try Stellaris or EU4
3. RPGM no idea how this became popular
4. MC is not a “chad” (I feel cringe even thinking this word) he’s a typical anime simp

Having played the original Wicked Rouge until I got bored with it, I found myself right at home in this new version: bored from the get-go. The grind of managing and training the girls--which may have been fun for awhile, before becoming unbearably tedious--is nearly identical here. As a brothel owner, I would dearly love to outsource that stuff. The combat system is also nearly the same, so if you were tired of that: welcome back. There has been no improvement in the oddly-unintuitive controls. The only difference that struck me was the slightly different story, told more verbosely this time around.
If you haven’t played the original, give this a try: it might give you many hours of enjoyment. If, like me, you wore yourself out on the original Wicked Rouge, there really isn’t anything here for you.

As an avid fan of Management/Sandbox type porn games, this game just ticks all the boxes for me.

The management aspect stands out as one of the best, if not the best of this genre imho, with mechanics that admittedly may be daunting for first time players, but once you get the hang of it becomes quite enjoyable (even without using the cheats), even moreso than the actual lewd content.

Combat is pretty much your generic RPGM hack and slash which is not always a bad thing, especially in a porn game.

There is already a good amount of lewd content with both the oirans (your brothel whores) and the LIs. Although immersive players who do not want to see other dicks ingame may not find this to their liking, and that's okay. Personally, I abhor NTR just as much as anyone and not once did I feel like I was cucked in one way or another during my playthroughs. They're literally whores, let them earn their keep ffs As long as the 3 main LIs are safe from the clutches of the dreaded 3-letter word, I'm in for the long haul.

The myriad of weapons and armor available in-game also makes customizing your fighters to do specific roles (Tank, Main damage dealer, Fast hitter) possible. This is rare in this genre and is one of the reasons I've logged several dozens of hours in this game already. The game mechanics feel like I'm playing a game within a game, within a game.

Overall, if you enjoy micromanaging and lewds, this game is for you.

One of the best games on here I would say.

Game takes place in feudal Japan where you take over your fathers brothel and work to avenge him and make your mark in Hana City.

I really love the brothel management in this, the characters make sense and feel pretty believeable for the most part. It has a bit of the "Everyone wants to fuck you because you are the MC" syndrome but in this it makes more sense than many other games since you are the master of this establishment that's keeping these people off the street or worse.

Management system is fun and addicting, music is the best I ever heard in any of these type of games and the characters and setting are all very interesting. Combat system in this version is vastly improved and does it's job, not much of it in the game so far.

As for the sex, this game has plenty of it and not just the boring vanilla love kind. You have that romance options for some characters while other characters are part of the brothel and you rent them out in a Yakuza Hostess kind of mechanic, which is brilliant. It feels real, like a dirty and kinda harsh place, which you can imagine was the case in feudal Japan.

Overall I love it and can't wait for more.
5/5 from me.

When it comes to brothel management games, this is this best one I have ever seen. Even comparing it to "bigger" studio releases like Dohna Dohna.

Well, its a brothel game with focus of training whores (Side LI) and selling them to customers and business management. People call it Pseudo NTR, I call it a weird frankenstein monster between this with a bit of romance, which in my eyes feels forced.

This game has a clear setting. "Your" girls get fucked by other dudes and you fuck them afterwards. Main LI ( Otsu,Kisayo,Nekomi) are mostly safe (depens on your actions and story progression). And then you have Side LI ( The sisters Saka and Yura, Fudeyo) which are fair game and with that I mean they will fuck others. Otherwise you cant progress the game. Im pretty sure fom the GUI of the Oirans/Whores you will have them more then the Main ones.
The game tries IMO to appeal for both sides and honestly speaking I dont care. All I want a good product and with this game I have mixed feelings.

If you cant stomach seeing your waifus getting railed by other dudes, be it Main or Side, then you should avoid it. Its a Brothel managment game duh.
However, sometimes I try something like these game which are out of my comfort zones.

The strong features of the game is, and I know it will piss people off, is the business management. Yes its grindy and yes with a rebalance of the money/pricess the gameflow could improve, but the game mechanic is solid and feels its pretty deep thought through.
The other good feature is the combat system. While nothing special since its RPGM, it felt nice. More enemy variety would be nice tho.
What I also liked are the models for MLI and SLI. So are the renders and the lighting.

While the story is a hit or miss which differs from person to person, I must agree with the others that some monologs ( particularly in the early game) is irritating. Also I noticed that this was done where no variaty of the CGs where shown, which is a bummer because its one of its appeal of this whole game. (I mean its the reason why I even picked this up despite im not a fan of such genres.)

The reason why I give a 3/5 and not a 4/5 which I at the beginning thought wanted to do, is how the game treats the Oirans/Whores. While im aware what her whole purpose in the game exist, Im disappointed that AFTER you "Conquer" these, you dont have much interaction with them.
What really bothered is that despite the Dev. saying MC is "Chad", these girls kinda forget that MC after they keep fucking their customers night after night, week afte week, month after month. That just dosent make the MC special.
I thought that something would happend like they would fuck their customers but since they cant satisfy them, they will interact with the MC once in a while because he is "Chad" and can satisfy them properly. IMO a wasted potential there.

I haven't played the original one and can't rate this version partly based on it. Only playing this for a couple of hours and I feel worn out from the amount of text. Using RPGM combined with VN elements doesn't always work, and this one doesn't. The amount of text to read through is annoying, to say the least when half of it would be efficient.

The few places to actually visit in the city is pretty boring with only a couple of events that aren't repeatable. Such as visiting the shrine and only getting one sex scene is pretty bad. Or the shop to see the bumbling cute assistant once with no more interactions.

The lack of h-scenes with very few animations is disappointing, to say the least. Hopefully, in another 6 months to a year with some major overhauls, this game could be halfway decent.

Overall this game is very grindy with the cost of items being way too high. The only way to get the upgrades needed without spending hours to get the money is using a cheat. In its current state, I just can't see giving more than 2 stars. I'm sure it's not easy making a game, but it needs a major overhaul to compare to other VNs that are really good ones.

Best of luck to the dev and hope they get the support to continue working on it.

Version reviewed:
v0.5

I tried a lot of games like this in the past 1 year and this is the 1 I have the most hope.

Probably the characters need a bit more diversity by the look but I like it that they are looking authentic (well except maybe the white hair lady who doesn't look like her hair is white because of old age)

I like the story telling but I think sometimes a little less is more.

I like the training system and the direction of future mechanics planned.

Progressing could be slow in the future if all fort assault or boss encounter has to be planned like the current ones. Maybe the random brothel defending scenarios will create enough fight to fill the gaps till a new main story fight map is created.

This game is actually incredible.

The negative reviews are because the developer discontinued the original game in favor of this remake (which has had a bit of a rocky start) but with this last patch it's becoming obvious that this was definitely the right decision.

Why this game is a must play:

-> There's a rich story, with many characters that feel real and alive.

-> The world is immersive -- the tone, atmosphere, music, visuals -- it's just how you would imagine Japan hundreds of years ago.

-> The pacing of the game is done extremely well, and both aspects of gameplay (1. Managing the brothel 2. Defending the brothel) are also woven into the story extremely well.

Version: v0.3.1

This game is an RPGM but plays like a VN? Well it a pretty bizzare design choice but from what i have played it mostly works, although i dont know why anyone would make such a roundabout game design.
The thing that pops out the most for is is the art, its very refined and looks great with the eastern aesthetic. The 3D renders are great works of art and the backgrounds dont lag behind in that regard.
Yet the biggest blue baller of this game is the writing, the writing makes me feel like im watching 30 minutes of TV commercials while high. It just keeps going and going and it just wont stop. You could cut half the dialogue off the game and it still would retain dialogue flow all the same.

Please, stop hurting me with such a high amount of letters that lose all meaning the further you go.

After finishing what currently exists of the Wicked Rouge REFINE version (0.3.1) my initial thought was whether I should review this at all. I know Fidless is a damn good developer who puts a lot of work into their releases, and I like to support developers who care. In the end, however, I feel like honesty is the best policy, even when it doesn't make me feel great.

I was a huge fan of the original Wicked Rouge, and it was one of the very few VNs that for me ever managed to combine gameplay elements with story elements in a way I found engaging and natural. Happily, most of this still is the case.

In fact, most of the core game has survived intact, with combat and pathing receiving some tweaks and improvements, and despite being surprised by the interminable infodump to begin the game, I was very much on board. I believe the graphics have also been tweaked as well, and they are very nice...I have no complaints (other than I REALLY miss Fudeyo being blonde)

So far, so good.

The problem, when I really distill it down, is the writing. It is in almost every way a downgrade from the previous version. It takes 20 paragraphs when 2 will do, it explains the same themes over and over (Kisayo has cold eyes...I get it), and it just comes across as though the story doesn't trust the reader to follow it. I don't know that I'd go so far as to call it 'bad' but it's not doing the game any favors...certainly for those who can compare it to the original.

Also, there feels so far like there is a real curtain between the Oiran and the 'main LI's which comes across as a peace offering to those who don't enjoy sharing/prostitution/etc. kinks. I get the thought, and I don't decry any dev for trying to widen their audience...but this is a brothel management sim...I fear you are more likely just to frustrate both groups.


Still...this story is early on, there is plenty of time for the writing to settle in...hopefully I am wrong about options with the characters...and there is still a lot to love about this game. I will keep following it, keep playing it, and I hope very much that I will be raising this review score not too far down the line.

I wish you all the best with your development of the game Fidless.

What ''Refine'' Means?
Basicaly its kind of remake version of old game, its have 1600x900 60fps animations with kind of updated management system.

Good Points
+ We have animated backgrounds for lots of scene: like while you are reading dialogues you can see leaves falling down in background. While its someting immersive same time its gives feeling game lack of images for situtations.
+ Drawing/Render style is quite nice, its gives all those old times ambiance very succesfuly.
+ Turn based combat system is kind of enjoyable. And fast-forward feature works in fights aswell which is you can make it faster boring fights...
+ Story seems interesting at least... (But its became boring with to much unecesary text/dialogue)
+ We have animations for sex scenes and they look decent.

Bad Points
- Its use RPGM... And we all know how RPGM games are... Despite this game beinb ''VN'' its still have a lot of annoying thing because of being RPGM. First problem is having only 10 page of save file (total 88 save chance) which is quite annoying while Renpy games have 999+ save page... Secondy RPGM IU... Like always its annoying a lot. Third problem is about sounds, you cant close text sound without closing Sound Effects, which is totaly unnecesary. Why i need close all sound effects for closing annoying text sound? And why we have text sound even in first place?! Fourth problem is about text again, its not fast enough even ''fast'' option. You still gotta wait text load or you gotta click everytime. Just add option ''Instant'' mate... Fifth problem is about textbox, basicaly you cant hide textbox with ''H'' or ''Right mouse button'' and instead you need use ''Alt'' button... Yeah... Makes sense... Sixth problem is about rollback feature, basicaly we dont have rollback feature for dialogues... Cool...
- I dont know why its happening, but despite giving my character another name game and some characters still calls me ''Yaichi'' which is quite RP broken. Even in some scenes MC calls himself ''Yeah im Yaichi Kawamura'' etc... If we cant use name we choice why you give us that feature in first place?
- Turn based combat system is kind of enjoyable but RPGM IU makes it little bit annoying to play... Seriously i cant understand people who use RPMG, there is some games use RPGM fullest and make it un-annoying but if you cant reach that level RPGM is pretty risky for annoying players, so why use if you didn't master RPGM fully? SMH...
- To much text... Seriously how many text/dialogue this game have with lack of images/scenes? You know after some time its became pretty boring... And despite having a lot of text content for scenes and days we have realy short main story.
- Sex scenes needs more angles/positions with animations.
- If this was first version i would say they look decent enough but even ''Refine'' version animations are not good enough. After remake like ''Refine'' i would like to see at least 1920x1080 60fps animations, a lot of succesfull DEV today makes at least 1080p animations and even some of them makes 2k animations for sex scenes.
- Making remake always makes things annoying beause of content amount, and we have same problem here: even i see less scene then old version and i was player who didn't played old version last updates, so i cant imagine how disappointed this level of content for old players...

For The End
Honestly im disappointed... I played this game early versions but didn't like it because of bad points i told in this review, but when i saw ''Refine'' version and DEV saying ''We give a lot to Refine, we done pretty good job.'' etc i started thinking they can at least fix most annoying bad points like RPGM problems etc... But looks like they dont... This game had/have potencial to became 4-5 star rate game but now... With all these bad points im not sure its someting more than 2-3 star at all.

First of all, I should say that I am big fan of the previous version of this game and I pray every day so that Fidless completed WR Refine (sorry man, last 2 years were pretty rough for me, so I cannot support you on Patreon as I used to)
I dare to say, you will not find any remotely close projects as this one. If you like stuff about brothel managment and medieval Japan, I'm sure WR refine is your choice. Ofcourse beeing Visual Novel it have A LOT of text even in current state, but did you expect smth different from VN? The game is still in development, but even now it's worth a shoot! All I hope is that, dev will not abandon this one! Fidless -

I reviewed this game early last year based on the old game a with a 5 star rating. The cost of maintaince were set based on the the income and it was good to play

The new one (Refine) management setings are hopless .
1. The Oiran fuck 1 men a night especialy the 2 sisters & and sleep)
2 . If they run for 2 days in a row .. They fall sick and take 3 to 4 days off.
3. Avarage daily cost for running is $1200. the only other income is the entertainment house,

How are you sapos to run it?. No Fuck house can run especily paying the Oiran 250+ gold per day. ( after a B class training) ?

Reset the settings ... to make it more enjoyable building the bussiness to profitably. Other wiae bring the old setting

- I'm a #1 fan of this game since release, but disappointed with this new refine version after waiting so long for update.
- Girls are less attractive compare to original version
- No reason to rebuild the game. Should just continue with the original version which is so much better and IMO have potential to be a super popular game.
- Need better sex scene, and choice to make it optional to skip the fight scenes.
- Hope dev will continue old version, and I will continue my support via patreon.

The review is for the 0.2.0 version.

Lets start by saying that I loved the old version of the game and despite the amount of content the "remake" has right now I like it a lot.
It has great renders, sound and I like the type of game as well, management with an overarching story and a bit of combat in between. The story is good, it is of course similar to the old version which I liked quite a bit.
There is only one gripe I have with the game right now and that is the excessive amount of inner monologue there is especially in the starting quest(return to the red petal?) where for example on different occasions you keep having basically the same inner monologue about your childhood friend(Kisayo) who had you wrapped around her finger, the first time it was a bit shorter so ok the next one will explain a bit more but nr 2 and 3 are longer and almost identical(when you wake up in bed after being KO in the first quest "real CHAD-like!!" and a bit later when you talk to Nekomi before going to the office)(considering these are your inner thoughts and you are not in a conversation with another character there is no reason to have them multiple times) and this is just an example, pretty much any character you meet or situation you find yourself in is accompanied by a longer than needed introduction/explanation by inner monologue. Another one is the reason you accept to run the "business" it's told by inner monologue a couple of times and it lists a lot of reasons, for well.... no reason! I don't need a half a A4 page worth of explanation why the MC does it, keep it at least a bit simpler and use long explanations when it adds to the story.
Ah and the MC does act like a typical 16yo anime character but until now only when it's concerning Kisayo. --this one is more of a personal annoyance.

If anyone is wondering why there are 2 lines about the "good" parts of the game and a lot more of the "bad" parts when I gave it a 4/5 it's mostly because I really do like the game and I wanted to explain and give examples why I thought something was "bad" and make it easier to identify if by chance the developer agrees with any of the points I made.

Thank you for your hard work and best of luck in continuing and improving the game!

The game is good (even with the lack of content, I know its a remake but still it feels like theres a lot of wasted content from the old one), I cant lie about that but dude, its a PORN game, why do I have to read a lot of text, and I mean a LOT of text since the very beggining, put a context, a good sex scene and then all the shit you want after that, in that way you can hook the player, but no, you prefer to put a nobodycares history since the very beggining.
Dont get me wrong, I love great stories, even in porn games, theres a lot of great games in the top rated list in this site with a good example, this one can be there too in a future but damn, you drop all the shit at the start and thats boring as hell.

PROS
+ A nice/clean rpg game
+ Pretty renders
+Good waifus

CONS
-They FORCE you to read a nobodycares history since the start, maybe its a good one but I will never know because I didnt read it, I press shift for over 10 minutes, thats a lot of time dude.
-Pseudo-NTR: Your waifu will be fucked by others, shes a whore.
-Lack of scenes, only the v0.2.0 but you guys have a LOT of content from the other game, use it.

Review for v0.2.0 public

Like some other people I was hesitant when I seen the rework, but that skepticism quickly faded when I started playing it. I played through most of what is now the "old" version awhile ago and although my memory is a bit fuzzy, I can still compare the rework to it. In my opinion, there are a lot of noticeable improvements.

What this does great right away is creating an atmosphere that gets you immersed. The visuals are great, the music is fitting, and even the sound effects are well chosen. Above all though I think the writing makes this shine. The protagonist feels like more of a protagonist, as in he has more character to him than what I remember from the old version. He's also not the cookie cutter nice guy MC you might see often, but he's still likeable so far. The big villain feels more intimidating this time around which is nice. Another new thing I really like is the dungeon crawler-esque map system. It's engaging and fun, and along with it, combat feels better too. Of course the few sex scenes so far are really good as well.

All that being said, this is still essentially a brothel simulator. If you are someone who doesn't like the women to have sex with anyone but the protagonist, this still probably isn't for you. Yes there are main girls who seemingly will only have eyes for the protagonist (ignoring possible bad ends or "dark paths"). But, the Oirans do act as prostitutes, and right now the only difference between "main girls" and "oirans" is the title. Saka and Yura, two of the starting Oirans, feel like main girls to me. Which is good as it's nice having all the characters get developed and feel like true characters, but the plot pushes them into basically selling themselves to help the business. If you're not into that happening it doesn't seem like there is an alternative right now. I guess you could just have them not service clients during nighttime, but that probably isn't viable long term.

I feel like the dialogue hints a lot at them possibly not going that route and doing the other jobs of an Oiran that doesn't involve straight sex, but again the plot pushes them into it. It would be cool if that becomes an option in the future to appease people like me who would want to go that route, and have alternate ways to earn money (like background courtesans or something) but again this is a brothel simulator after all.

Overall though, the rework is great. If you're someone like me who is hesitant to try this out because of the reasons above, I'd still say give it a shot. I didn't think I would like the game either when I originally played it either. I do hope we eventually get a route similar to what I talked about above as I think it would appeal to a lot of those people who would otherwise not even touch this.

I'm excited to see how this develops, best of luck on continuing the rework Devs! It's already a great start.

I was really sceptical about this rework. They usually don't end well, but while I still mourn all the content still to be integrated or changed compared to the prior version, I have to admit that this version is a better game. The narrative is richer and more engaging and if they manage to move forward like this, it'll be great. It is already one of the most unique games here.

Play it. Support it. They deserve it.