Review of v0.42.6
This review is somewhat challenging for me to write because I am having a hard time gathering my thoughts and feelings about this game. Honestly I do not care for it very much. I was lured in by familiar tags that I usually enjoy but this game differs greatly from those I have played in the past. I tend to lean towards more story focused games/novels and the way this one is told just doesn't quite do it for me. That is not to say that this is a bad game in anyway, as you can see from my rating, I just personally do not find it overly enjoyable.
I'll just start with my biggest complaint that I have with this game, the MC. Not how he acts, not how he talks, not how he is modeled, not his inhuman 18 inch long 10 inch in diameter monster cock; but the fact that this game even has an MC since it honestly feels like 80% of the game and content so far he isn't even present for. That may seem like hyperbole but I promise you it isn't as far from the truth as you might think. It might not be exactly 80% but it is truthful that the majority of sex scenes and even just normal story scenes he just straight up isn't there. He doesn't feel like the main focus of the story the way it is presented. For the actual plot of the story yea he's an important character, the only son of a legendary berserker bloodline and maybe the last hope of stopping the demon invasion, but in sheer screentime alone Fiona has him beat in spades.
Another gripe that I have is how the story is presented is constantly changing. Chapter 1 is entirely kinetic and contains unavoidable sex scenes. I don't have a problem with that and it's even mentioned in the dev notes so it's no surprise, assuming you read it before downloading. Chapter 2 introduces the option for you to pick and choose what scenes you as the player see, making them skippable but not avoidable, i.e they still happen you just don't see it. I'm actually a fan of this more since you can skip scenes that aren't to your tastes. Chapter 3 doesn't add anything new here same as chapter 2, you can skip scenes that aren't to your tastes. Chapter 4 introduces a psuedo open world approach for some reason allowing you to choose the order in which you view scenes, except not really since you can't view certain scenes without previously viewing another scene so then you have to back out and go click on that scene first. It's honestly kinda a mess. If you're going to have to do that why not just keep it as a VN the way it was for the previous 3 chapters? It honestly makes no sense to me.
Ok now that my gripes are out of the way we can move onto some positives. As you can see from the preview screenshots the renders in this game are quite beautiful. Some of the ones in earlier chapter are a bit grainy but it honestly doesn't detract from the quality. In my opinion it just gives them a dirty almost grimy feeling which fits this games vibe pretty well in my opinion.
The character models are honestly going to be hit or miss for quite a few people, but I quite enjoy them myself. The proportions are ALL extremely exageratted, you're either a fan or you're not no real way around it. The great thing though is that it seems like ALL of the character models here are completely custom, at least as far as I can tell. None of them look familiar to me from other games that I've played and thats a plus in my book after playing countless lazy asset flips.
Now we come to the absolute greatest strength that this game has to offer and it's a big one, the sex scenes. The sex scenes here are absolutely some of the best that I have ever had the pleasure of seeing. Unlike some games where the scenes pop up out of nowhere and feel like an obligation and then come to a finish before you have time to actually enjoy them, here they take their time. They set the stage, warm things up with tantilizing scenarios have erotic dialogue that actually fits what's going on. If you're keen to the difference between straight up porn and actual quality erotica this games scenes are definitely more of the later. Not to say that the writing of the scenes overshadows the visuals you are presented with, quite the contrary. The visuals are also top notch in this regard have no fear.
All in all I can't say this is a bad game by any stretch, in fact it is quite good. I encourage you to give it a shot even if you find yourself like me and not liking the story aspect very much the sex scenes themselves are worth checking out at the very least.
Edit: After sleeping and coming back to reread my review I feel like I did not do a good job adequately explaining my main problem with the game and so I shall do that now. As I mentioned in the paragraph that covers how the story is being told has changed several times I am a fan of being able to skip certain optional scenes that do not align with my tastes. The problem with that is that right now the optional scenes seem to greatly outnumber the scenes that actually focus on and progress the main story. In chapter 2 part 2 there is a scene with that takes place in The House, the brothel that Fiona runs with a noble family from a different city. While the scene itself admitedly is very well done and quite hot, I found myself wondering why am I even seeing this in the first place. Like really who are any of these people? What do they have to do with the story? None of the other characters intoduced so far that are important to the story know who these people are so why is there a significant portion of this chapter dominated by seemingly unimportant filler? And that is exactly what it is, filler. Most of the optional scenes are only there to stretch out the playtime and serve no other purpose. Instead of all the filler the dev could of easily made actual important scenes that progress the story. A caveat to this is that the optional scenes is where you will find most of the sex scenes in the game and as stated before they are extremely well done and in my opinion the greatest strength of the game. That's why I am torn between enjoying the game but also not liking it very much.