Unity - Pure Onyx [v0.104.0] [Eromancer]

===V0.104.0===
This is probably one of the few times I've come back to this game, and all I will say here is that its been 6 years since this was posted yet it still feels like there was barely any progress. Sure the H-factor is decent, but the gameplay has not changed at all aside from durability actually working and it still barely feels like a game so far.
(I think it has been around 1 year since the last time I played, keep that in mind if I ever get anything wrong)

[Pro-tip: if you are too lazy to import someone-else's save, strip off everything, sell it to the nearest grunt store, press tilde and input the console commands for godmode and onepunchmode, and grind the skyline until you can afford every scene from the merchant in the void slums. This game doesnt care about gameplay, and neither should you unless you like beat-em ups i guess.]

-Update 1: I gave the benefit of the doubt and assumed Eromancer was just a solo dev with very little time and money, but I skimmed the forum and they really dont have a good excuse. There was an update announced on the dev's subscribestar so I might change my review again soon, but I doubt much is going to change aside from adding 1 to the gallery numbers-

==Gameplay==
-1 star
Its basically a side-scrolling beat-em up with some lite rpg mechanics via equipment and clothing. The basic gameplay loop is not exactly deep or interesting, its rather repetitive and stale, plus I dont think most of the stats even do anything. There isnt even any weapons for you to pick up, or are even brought with enemies aside from the bunny girls I think, but even then you still can't pick up their swords or bats for some reason unlike other beat-em ups.
Course, if you count the fact this game has been around for at least 6 years too, it really does begin to sour knowing how little the gameplay has evolved or improved. Ofc this is not exactly the main draw for this type of game so I am willing to let it pass somewhat, but its still a bit disappointing personally.

==Presentation==
1 star
Overall, the models and background look pretty good and is one of the saving graces for this game aside from the H-factor. If you tick off most of the boxes, the lighting and shadows look pretty good imo and the animations feel snappy. Still, if you run a lower-mid tier pc like me, I'd scale down the resolution and even then you will probably feel a bit sweaty because of how warm your pc is runnning this.

==H-Factor==
B+ rating
The biggest saving grace for this game, yet its biggest drawback in context. The sex scenes are what you are here for, the game knows your here for it, and it makes it worth your time. Its animations are highly polished and some of the best I have seen from a 3d game (from what few I played). No noticeable clipping or jank, nice jiggle physics, sounds are decent, animation is great, if it had moans it would be golden. I would like to have a button somewhere so I can unlock the gallery instantly, but you have to find pods from a gauntlet or purchase them from a merchant (best addition to the game imo), but fair enough, I don't mind working for the lewd.

Still, while the quality is there the gallery feels a bit scarce. In total, theres around 26 unique scenes (17 for MC) with 6 added (3 for MC) between the time I played ~last year and now, including the other girls while excluding the fem cop reskin, the futa Doll that roughly shares the same animation, and combining vanilla and rough since they're just the same animations. Idk if its because its because its 3d or just different personal standards, but its just disappointing when something like Syahata is about to release after 2 years and has a gallery 2x as large.
[F = *disqusted look* "Euugh" || C = "Eh, good enough" || S = "Whoa! Where did my pants go?!" ]

==Suggestions and Improvements==
First and fore-most, do something about the MC's hair, the side cut is driving me insane.

2nd, if dev doesn't mind, I think he should switch from game dev to animation and set up a patreon (if he doesn't have one) since this game is hard-carried by the H-scenes and hasn't really left alpha in years, which would give him money and us more H-content
-They had a patreon, it just got deleted a few months ago cause sex didn't look consensual-

3rd, if the dev is committed (Idk, I haven't been keeping up) then hire someone, re-focus on the direction of the game then fine-tune the combat then do the H-scenes, Even if the dev doesn't have any time or money, just please finish the game already, I have had cousins who have already had children that can walk by now.
-They had a whole team of 13 people and their patreon was doing gangbusters until it got deleted a few months ago cause the sex didn't look consensual, so that's where the vanilla "scenes" to the game i guess. Even now though, they are making over 22k a month, which translates to 264k usd per month. There is no reason for the game to take this long to develop with how much resources was thrown at their game. -

I really hope the dev isn't scum trying to leach off patrons, the content here is promising but its not worth money nor keeping up with it imo.
-Sure does look like it given where we are now and what I skimmed, fml-

==Conclusion==
This game has some decent presentation and H-scenes, but its really difficult to even call it a game right now. Its been sitting in early access for over half a decade and it doesn't really seem to be going anywhere anytime soon. Really hope there's some huge patch sometime puts egg on my face for this review and really makes it worth it to come back here cause I think the H-content is really good.
-Really doubting that hypothetical now, hope it comes true before I turn 60 and get ED-

==TLDR==
Exploit this game to the max or get a 100% save from someone cause this is basically just a glorified gallery with some pretty good scenes. Regardless, don't be too invested in this game since its content is scarce, yet the early access period never-ending.

this game has a lot of very nice animations. The fighting mechanics a very cool. Unforuntatly it is still very far from finished. It still feels like the first prototype of the game. Also it is still super unbalanced

One distinctive feature of Pure Onyx is its in-game, fully animated H content. While not the primary focus of the gameplay, these scenes add a sensual element and are one of the reasons to play it.

Pros:
Visually stunning 80s cyberpunk anime aesthetic
Engaging beat 'em up gameplay with a small amount of RPG elements
Unique and captivating story
Fluid and well-animated combat

Cons:
May be too violent for some players
H content may not be to everyone's taste

Pure Onyx is a fantastic beat 'em up that combines the adrenaline-pumping action of classic arcade games with a small amount of RPG depth. Its cyberpunk aesthetic and fully animated H content make it an unforgettable experience for fans of the genre and those seeking something unique in their gaming library.

Sex scenes are good and varied and the combat is perfectly fine, with nothing bad to really say about it. I voted 5 stars to bump up the 2.5 star average. Whatever your thoughts are on the creator and his business practices aside, the game is nice.

Pretty fun game to throw an hour or so into. The combat might seem a bit difficult at first but quickly becomes trivialised by the forward + punch combo and dodging. The animations are smooth and the sex scenes are hot. There's not a great deal of content atm, but it'll be one to keep an eye on for sure.

Ver.0.96
Although this is no where near finish. (maybe 50% done)
it has sex scene with good animation, the gameplay ground work IS there for a beat 'em up, and you can see the creator's vision of the game. even at slow speed development, It is impressive.

the game does have level system and somewhat of a gear progression at the moment.
no story at the moment

stages & combat is currently undercook and still missing "skill" w/e that is, but the basic is there, dodge/block. basic combo(holding forward and punch/kick) and a place holder special attack,
[showed mechanic of ground attack/ guard break/ no hit stun boss/ getup counter enemy. stun gauge]

there are only 3 or 4 "story stage" and the rest is "infinite combat stages" you will most likely end up be playing the infinite survival rounds against enemy if you play longer than an hour.

It's definitely not finished, but I'm loving the progress.
This game is really good so far, definitely has a ton of potential. If you like side-scrolling beat-em-ups, this is for you.
You can get new equipment, and change the stats as well as how the outfit displays. Almost every enemy has unique "grab" animations as well

A great and good-looking game with functional mechanics and well-executed animations. It's a classic sidescroll streetfight adventure game, with no story telling yet.

2D/3D transitions, modeled characters and nudes are very well processed. At the same time, the developers deserve praise for the fact that in addition to adding new sex animations, they also focus on improving the animations of others, including combos.

5 stars, as I've been watching the game and its development for a long time and except for the story, which is not yet solved, the developers are trying, the results were really known during several updates and unlike the great majority of games here, there are no big breaks between updates.

Great game, like the art style, the fighting mechanics flow well, and it's challenging too, the change of clothes reflect what is equipped to a certain degree, little details like this make it one of the best games in development at the moment IMO, highly recommend supporting their subscribestar so they can continue to develop this fully, definitely recommend

It's... not good.

First things first, this game has been review bombed a bit, because of the dev's history, and the amount his team makes being disproportionate to the amount of content produced... Which is what I am NOT going to consider. I am acknowledging that the game gets regular updates; it's not abandoned, and that's all you need to know.

That out of the way... the game is not good. It is not offensively bad either, but it lacks a lot of things that would make it interesting to play, save for the lewd animations, which are very good.

Some of the things the game lacks are not critical given the genre, like story. But, again, given the genre, some issues are really worrisome, especially considering how much time has been spent on the development. For example, itemization is pretty shoddy. Progression is nil. The way gallery is powered by basically random item drops is just bizarre. The core combat is not some skill-based masterpiece, it's bland, and in my view very easy mechanically. Bosses are just dull damage sponges. Now, none of these issues can't be rectified. However, if Onyx gets a fix today, it means the devis fixing fundamental design flaws some 5(five) years into development; it's not a good look. Alternatively you don't fix these issues at all, which is even worse because they make the game feel like a shoddy beta—which it is.

Basically, it has gorgeous kinky animations, great models, and a refreshing cel-shaded look. But it also has absolutely uninspired gameplay that at times feels nothing more than a temporary stub, and not the real thing. There is no story to distract us from shortcomings of gameplay either. For a title that wants to position itself as gameplay-rich, that's absolutely not a good look.

Many people feel salty because the dev abandoned "Malice and the Machine", but I don't really care, here the devs have added a large ammount of very well animated very messed up H-scenes, the music is again fantastic, currently it's just unfinished demo levels, you kill enemies to unlock the gallery and that's it, but it doesn't matter, the H-scenes alone carry this game to success. 5/5

Graphics in the game for 5
Animations for 4
Optimization for 3-4. Although I have a gaming laptop, but even with a minimum of graphics, it lags.
Game - 2 stars
Terrible controls, combat mechanics. Enemies are 10 times stronger than you. There are cheats here and you can quickly end the game. I went through it in 5 minutes and watched all the scenes, animations in the game. If the developer continues to make his game without improving it, I think it will turn into garbage

You know you messed up a game when parasite in city, a 2D game, with a smaller budget and better scenes, not to mention what its about makes sense, has a preg content(not ending), which it didn't even have to be there, but there it is anyways, and it is better for it. A BETTER side scroller, you're not stuck to one part of the map all time w/ it, no censors(if you get the patch) no need for translation as long as it was readable(it was and still is), is better than your 3DIMENSIONAL game, on a higher budget, coming out during the times of avenger's assemble: endgame/infinity war, or better yet a lot of block buster games, with a LOT more staff(maybe not that much, but don't matter), and over FOUR years in the making.
couldn't be me.
Edit: as the times change: may or may not update the rating. use this feedback as your source of fuel to make your game better.

best animations ive seen on this page so far. But the content is not existing right now. Only few animations. Only few enemy types. This game still needs a long long time. Come back in a few years. Not really worth right now. So in conclusion, great work so far but very very little content.

Review actual as of April 2023

TLDR: A solid base for a good game, with lots of potential to grow.

I love the fact that it has the right foundation - fundamentally a good game with sex/nudity added on top of it, which elevates it above the usual "good for a fap or two" adult/porn titles, and actually lets me judge the game mechanics favourably!

The beat-'em-up mechanics are solid, albeit shallow as of right now. Would love to see a deeper move-set, combos.
Balance needs some work, as while opponents have attacks that do damage both upwards and downwards, the MC can only attack in 2 dimensions. Stunlocking is also an issue right now.
Game features a simple progression system which grants higher stats as you level up, as well as a inventory system, which provide yet another avenue for stat increases, but unfortunately the various items (knuckles, clothing) are not visually distinct, and all use the same basic model/texture.

The sex scenes are varied, and well animated.

The setting is right up my alley. Retro cyber-punk? Sign me up, fam!

Love the synth-industrial soundtrack, but would like to see more tracks.
There is no voice-over, which is outright criminal. The protagonist needs to have groans and moans for both fighting and sex scenes. Funny quips and other voice lines would be an excellent addition as well!

Graphically the game looks great!
Models have sufficient poly count, and textures are good enough. Animations are smooth and i did not notice any jank.
Performance is also top notch: 400-700FPS on max graphics at 4K on a decent gaming PC with the one caveat - post processing needs to be turned off. Some of the shaders used here are poorly programmed. (Will try to mess around with reshade later to make my own set-up).

The game supports both xbox and DS4/5 natively right out of the box, which is absolutely amazing! Even AAA studios fail to properly support DS5 a lot of times! Here it just works, no workarounds/emulation needed!

Bottom line - if the game were to come out to steam EA, i'd buy it for €30.
But i do have an issue with Patreon and other subscription-based services when it comes to software/game development, as time and time again i see that it does not provide an incentive to deliver a finished product, but instead the project ends up lingering in development hell. Therefore i'd be down for a one-time purchase to add the game to my library, but i refuse to "support" the developer with a Patreon subscription.

despite the effort in animations and development that survives...
it will never get to what was malise and machine, because it clearly lacks soul, perhaps lore or perhaps because the mechanics shown with malise and machine still not even a game has managed to emulate them.

[Update] after researching the freshest development news I note that there may actually be potential,
if there are more characters in the roster selection it could become the worthy successor to Final Fuck,
not to mention that a 1v1 mode could be implemented [offline]
basically a scrolling story mode and a mode that looks more like mortal kombat than street fighter by design.

This game is rough for something in development for 5 years. It has great scenes and the framework for an intense beat-em-up, but the poor game play holds it back.

Art

This game is gorgeous. The enemy designs are great to look at, their

H-Content

The scenes are inventive, taking advantage of each foe's quirks. For example, One Vioreaper will try to carry and fuck you, only to plummet to the ground since you're too heavy. Midget thugs may shove chain enemies out of the way to get a turn , then bows for their audience after they plaster you in cum. You also keep up to two layers of bukkake on your head and hips, adding to Onyx's appeal. If only her chest also had a layer, eg when the runt hoses here with cum. It's a shame that the exhaustion system prevents you from entering an endless fuck fest, but I'm guessing that's to avoid soft locks. I'd also like clothing to be adjustable in the gallery and that female like Fem cops could be grabbed by other enemies.

Combat

Unfortunately the secondary draw of the game is it's weakest aspect which is the main reason for my 3 star rating.

• There's only two combos, one of which is two attacks long and neither has cancels.
• Running is garbage as it only boosts your horizontal speed and the few attacks where you would theoretically need speed like blade bunny' s slash auto target you anyway.
• Low attacks are finicky which makes hitting knocked down enemies annoying. Its doesn't eve change your hit box so you can get shot by a vioreaper or punched mid slide.
• That makes the special attack and the final punch combo less viable. They could've been decent for CC but when you're flanked (aka the time that CC would be useful) you're stun-locked anyway.

Mechanics
Many of the non-combat elements leave me scratching my head. It's like they slapped in stuff becaue it sounded cool rather than because it amplifies the gameplay.

• There's a durability system but only two foes utilize it, in both cases only targeting Onyx's pants. This combined with the liner upgrade system makes the limited inventory pointless as you only need one pair of extra pants and you can find more fairly quickly.
• The drops are generous, to the point where you can easily fill your inventory with first aid kits. It's so bad that most of the money I gained was from them instead of trash loot.
• Stats outside of HP and Stamina are useless, so clothes are more of a suggestion than requirement.
• Stamina is only useful for running, which runs out in a second or two even with cat ears doubling your reserves. Even so you can bunny hop out of running to move at the same pace while conserving stamina.

There's also the performance. My system is not the best admittedly, but 56-40 fps on low settings with drops down to 12 even in the gallery is ridiculous. I suspect it's due to the models far in the background as the spider cave has no drops even up to wave 40.

Despite my score, I still think this game has a lot of potential. However the slow rate of development combined with the dev's refusal to leave their abusive relationship with Patreon gives me doubts.

28.02.2023 release is promising right now but content is a bit barebones considering this game is in development for 5 years! It offers 1 hour or so playtime right now, but you will definitely enjoy it I think. It is a 2.5D beat'em up game with controls that are bit hard but you will get used to it in 10 minutes. Animations are solid with sound and so on but there are not too many unfortunately. I got to wave 45 and that's it i think, won't play this game again without a big update. It is worth checking out.

Absolutely phenomenal visuals and animations. The H scenes in quality, length, and content are the best in this genre of games. The combat and movement animations and other visual elements of the game are top notch as well. Gameplay is pretty average and content overall is lacking. The enemies aren't half bad, they look great, function pretty well and present a reasonable challenge (mostly). However the mechanics for the player are woefully lacking. Hit detection on the vertical axis is really poor, large enemies are easily clipped through (both beneficial and detrimental at times), animation lock is the big threat to the player, and everything to do with sprinting is poorly responsive (it's difficult to start and stop sprint, really needs a dedicated button/key).

The extremely low ratings for the game are based off of the rate of progress and people's expectations, but I'm not going to rate a game still being worked on by those subjective standards. When the game is finished it's fine to be critical of what wasn't delivered, until then I'm rating it on what it has and most of it is extremely high quality with a moderate amount of content. My previous complaints are ultimately minor.

I had never heard of the Developer before and thought one person made it which would’ve been more impressive but doesn´t change the fact that the Game is terrible.

Not only was this game developed by a team but also was in development for 4 Years.
I think going away from the standard VN or RPG Games and making a
Beat 'em up game is pretty ballsy, but this just shows what you can do all wrong in a Beat em´up game.

The Controls suck.
Animations are lame.
Characters have no voices.
The Game gets boring really quickly.
The drawings are ok.

It kinda proves the point of many other reviews that this just feels like another cash grab and it feels like the Devs didn´t even try to make this even acceptable and that's why it doesn´t deserve more than 1/5 imo.