I would like to start this by saying I believe the game had potential, a first person shooter whereby you solve dungeons on your way through a mystical land with its own degrees of intrigue outside of the player's direct control seems to be just the sort of thing I thought I would enjoy.
Unfortunately this did not happen to be the case, I will explain as follows. However a quick note before I do *HERE THERE BE MINOR SPOILERS, TURN BACK AND PLAY THROUGH IF YOU DON'T WANT TO HEAR THEM* with that concluded, let's continue:
Gameplay: The gameplay was reminiscent of a slower style of first person shooter. Key abilities were granted to each of the 4 characters and these were thought out to their roles. However the gameplay itself seems fairly buggy, monsters would defy wall constraints by simply phasing through them and the lack of a more powerful weapon made certain monsters simple sponges of more HP. Combine this with largely oversized maps and a limited dashing pool meant that each level took quite a lot of time to navigate, adding to this was the matter of locked doors which could be opened only by their respectively coloured keys. This lead to a large degree of backtracking, and lead me to believe that this was meant as filler rather than given any objective. The doors themselves also had a tendency to break, not opening when faced with their respective keys. I admit to giving up after the 6th time this happened, as I was not particularly having any fun with the concept of repeating another level for reasons that should have been addressed during development. In summary the gameplay simply did not hold up to the standard for an enjoyable experience.
Sound: The sound was fine in most cases, sound effects largely played when they were supposed to and they fitted with their respective actions. The music however had a problem with either broken flags for stopping the music or just didn't know when it was supposed to end, thus having interesting scenarios where the lighthearted tavern music drowned out the fetid dungeon atmosphere that was supposed to be playing. This could only be fixed by closing the game and re-opening it. On the whole I'd give it a pass simply because the music and sounds were good, but would attest that more care was needed when fixing end positions for songs.
Story and Originality: I actually enjoyed the story largely. The overarching theme of the Phoenix and the Serpent seems like a good concept, and the interactions of the characters depending on who is 'leading' the paths is both varied and interesting. I did feel like there were definitely some induced plotholes but those could have easily been explained within the already given setting as either random chance or a result of sheer accident from too many plots colliding, so it was fine either way. There are some elements that I would question in terms of corruption (Simply look to Leonard's story) and how that didn't occur in the other's stories, but overall it was good.
H-Content and Artstyle: The h-content was somewhat lacking, given that there were a grand total of 16cgs with no variation according to text, and a large amount of the action was not in display, or was supposed to be but got positioned poorly. Thus in good faith I cannot commend it (and I am slightly confused of the tag "Creampie" given that it is never shown, if it was implied then I'm not sure I caught that either). This is speaking from personal preference and can be entirely ignored if you so wish, but at least the amount can be agreed to be small for a game that plays as long as this does. However the fact that there are no apparent options for a gallery or a scene replay makes it a larger problem as the only other solution was to create a lot of saves in order to "replay" the scenes again, leading them to be somewhat of a hassle to get to again.
I feel this is a shame simply because the artsyle was enjoyable, it certainly gave the feel of that fantasy setting and largely upheld the quality throughout the VN sections. As for the game sprites they worked to the extent they were expected. Although items were comically large to grab attention presumably.
In summary I will repeat that it had potential, with a good story and an artsyle that was certainly fitting for the setting. It was just soured in my experience by poor gameplay design and not enough bug testing on the product as a whole. This lead to the small amount of h-content available not feeling like it was worth the effort getting to.
Unfortunately this did not happen to be the case, I will explain as follows. However a quick note before I do *HERE THERE BE MINOR SPOILERS, TURN BACK AND PLAY THROUGH IF YOU DON'T WANT TO HEAR THEM* with that concluded, let's continue:
Gameplay: The gameplay was reminiscent of a slower style of first person shooter. Key abilities were granted to each of the 4 characters and these were thought out to their roles. However the gameplay itself seems fairly buggy, monsters would defy wall constraints by simply phasing through them and the lack of a more powerful weapon made certain monsters simple sponges of more HP. Combine this with largely oversized maps and a limited dashing pool meant that each level took quite a lot of time to navigate, adding to this was the matter of locked doors which could be opened only by their respectively coloured keys. This lead to a large degree of backtracking, and lead me to believe that this was meant as filler rather than given any objective. The doors themselves also had a tendency to break, not opening when faced with their respective keys. I admit to giving up after the 6th time this happened, as I was not particularly having any fun with the concept of repeating another level for reasons that should have been addressed during development. In summary the gameplay simply did not hold up to the standard for an enjoyable experience.
Sound: The sound was fine in most cases, sound effects largely played when they were supposed to and they fitted with their respective actions. The music however had a problem with either broken flags for stopping the music or just didn't know when it was supposed to end, thus having interesting scenarios where the lighthearted tavern music drowned out the fetid dungeon atmosphere that was supposed to be playing. This could only be fixed by closing the game and re-opening it. On the whole I'd give it a pass simply because the music and sounds were good, but would attest that more care was needed when fixing end positions for songs.
Story and Originality: I actually enjoyed the story largely. The overarching theme of the Phoenix and the Serpent seems like a good concept, and the interactions of the characters depending on who is 'leading' the paths is both varied and interesting. I did feel like there were definitely some induced plotholes but those could have easily been explained within the already given setting as either random chance or a result of sheer accident from too many plots colliding, so it was fine either way. There are some elements that I would question in terms of corruption (Simply look to Leonard's story) and how that didn't occur in the other's stories, but overall it was good.
H-Content and Artstyle: The h-content was somewhat lacking, given that there were a grand total of 16cgs with no variation according to text, and a large amount of the action was not in display, or was supposed to be but got positioned poorly. Thus in good faith I cannot commend it (and I am slightly confused of the tag "Creampie" given that it is never shown, if it was implied then I'm not sure I caught that either). This is speaking from personal preference and can be entirely ignored if you so wish, but at least the amount can be agreed to be small for a game that plays as long as this does. However the fact that there are no apparent options for a gallery or a scene replay makes it a larger problem as the only other solution was to create a lot of saves in order to "replay" the scenes again, leading them to be somewhat of a hassle to get to again.
I feel this is a shame simply because the artsyle was enjoyable, it certainly gave the feel of that fantasy setting and largely upheld the quality throughout the VN sections. As for the game sprites they worked to the extent they were expected. Although items were comically large to grab attention presumably.
In summary I will repeat that it had potential, with a good story and an artsyle that was certainly fitting for the setting. It was just soured in my experience by poor gameplay design and not enough bug testing on the product as a whole. This lead to the small amount of h-content available not feeling like it was worth the effort getting to.