This game is really cute, it has actually functioning and manageable stealth and a bit of a Metroidvania feel to it as you do get new abilities with progress, allowing you to backtrack, fight, sneak or explore differently. I like when games that give you new abilities give you uses for them in combat. I hope it makes its way to completion I'll definitely be buying it. With that said, the review:
Pros:
- Very cute art, the main character's art is really cute, and the lewd content is sexy. Short ways into the game you get the ability to seduce and charm enemies and it has little portraits of the character exposing herself, each level has variants and that's crazy.
- There's a lot of ambiance and personality to the environments. RPGM usually has "generic town" "generic forest" "generic castle" but the maps in this have secret passages, rewards for exploration, engaging puzzles, etc. Another surprise. RPGM games rarely get this involved.
- Exploration is neat. Each screen is filled with nooks and crannies you can hide in, attack from, and run around. The main objective of the game is to get to a place and kill someone, very gamey there's nothing good or bad about that. The thing that makes it interesting is the few varied approaches you can take to that goal. There's the seduction option, or you can stealth by everything using the map design, or fight everyone, not advisable but fun anyway.
- The combat is interesting. It's not turn-based, it's got a bit of a Souls/Sekiro feel to it. You have stamina, a limited amount of skill usages, and refillable potions. You can get perks to make these more abundant and regenerate though, which is nice. Also the currency is called "souls" so.. you know. You can also just seduce enemies so they don't attack you, they'll just molest you if you're nearby. Alternatively once they let their guard down you can kill them, although they do respawn when you Rest.
- The exploration and combat are both aided with the addition of almost Metroidvania-like abilities. An example being the lightning blink dash you get early into the game. It allows you to jump over a tile and also does AoE damage, making it very useful to escape enemies, take an offensive approach, or simply explore more fluidly. It's unfortunately not that common that games with that give you tools like this make use of them in combat as well as general progression, it's usually one or the other, so that's a plus.
Cons:
- This being RPGM VX you can't change the window size without an outside tool, you also can't go fullscreen without your resolution being forced down to the game's. It's unfortunate but it is a gripe I had to deal with. Luckily there is the resize tool here:
Github link to Magpie.
- There is a decent amount of backtracking, the game being largely open-ended despite being kind of linear means you'll be retreading maps fairly often but you can make the maps safe by charming all the soldiers in the way later on so... mitigating factor there but still a bit tedious sometimes~
- The keybinds are kinda weird and hard to get used to but once you do it's not a big deal or you can customise them.
- There's no easy way to check your current stats to keep track of them and unlock new perks (specifically the lewd ones). Again not a big deal, it might be fixed later on anyway.
Overall, really neat game, shows lots of promise, and once it gets finished I'll definitely buy it. I'm a big proponent of buying games you like when it's from small Indies and this game's being made by a single person from what I understand. If anything major changes I'll edit this review but so far I really enjoy this little game. It's not perfect, but it's pretty darn good.