A great exploration of conflict and how prejudice towards a specific group can prevent understanding of one another. It has many glaring issues but the sheer passion and heart seeping out of every pore of it makes up for it tenfold. So many moments are executed with the utmost of sincerity that I can't help but just feel enamored by it.
The cast is also surprisingly well written with Deathpolca and Diana being the most standout. Deathpolca is an excellent protagonist that is perfect for the kind of story this is. Diana is one of my favorite JRPG party members ever with an incredibly strong character arc that had a cathartic conclusion. The rest of the cast are no slouches too with them being very endearing and having great dynamics. The weak link of the casts are sadly the antagonists but the Emperor and another one I shall not name are pretty good.
The way it functions as a prequel to King Exist is also unlike anything I've ever seen. This is a very uniquely executed prequel.
The one true flaw of the game that I can't ignore is definitely the gameplay and overall world design being boring. It is not very fun to play sadly, and when compared to other RPGM games such as Black Souls, it falls flat in this aspect for me.
I love Deathpolca so much.
King Exit translation when.
The cast is also surprisingly well written with Deathpolca and Diana being the most standout. Deathpolca is an excellent protagonist that is perfect for the kind of story this is. Diana is one of my favorite JRPG party members ever with an incredibly strong character arc that had a cathartic conclusion. The rest of the cast are no slouches too with them being very endearing and having great dynamics. The weak link of the casts are sadly the antagonists but the Emperor and another one I shall not name are pretty good.
The way it functions as a prequel to King Exist is also unlike anything I've ever seen. This is a very uniquely executed prequel.
The one true flaw of the game that I can't ignore is definitely the gameplay and overall world design being boring. It is not very fun to play sadly, and when compared to other RPGM games such as Black Souls, it falls flat in this aspect for me.
I love Deathpolca so much.
King Exit translation when.
there's so much to talk about.
the constant clashing of ideals between "them" and "us", the lenghts one must go through to achieve their ideal, fighting fate in ways never seen before, hammering the fact that freedom is the most frightening gift for people who have been enslaved as far as they can remember (for the latter, DR really puts in perspective how immense that change of way of lives is). so much love and care went into treading these subject that i can't bring myself to rate this game any lower despite its flaws
the first half has alot to be desired from its antagonists, up until orphe; but still, it wasn't boring the slightest since there's no padding in the game; the pacing and execution of each arc made up for everything by tenfolds . The music is spectacular, most of it from free to use rpgm music but very neatly chosen ones; the one created by SHADE though, absolute masterclass after masterclass. Soo much soul went into composing them, BLOSSOM being my absolute favorite as i tie it to my favorite duo in the game; this allows me to talk about the cast now. oh my god this cast. NONE OF THEM feel wasted the slightest from each side of the game; never becoming irrelevant later on which is something that plagued most jrpgs i played beforehand, i'm telling you this game was made with unrivaled passion and love for the genre and stories as a whole
It really achieve what every story about opression and equality desperately seek and never achieve (thus leaning to a centrist end most of the cases). not only did DR avoid taking this route, but its execution of it is nothing but magistral. hard to talk about any of it without heavily spoiling the game, but see for yourself. i wanna add though, the way it connect to its sequel (that released before DR) is so unique and is why the game works so well, to a translation of king exit one day!
the constant clashing of ideals between "them" and "us", the lenghts one must go through to achieve their ideal, fighting fate in ways never seen before, hammering the fact that freedom is the most frightening gift for people who have been enslaved as far as they can remember (for the latter, DR really puts in perspective how immense that change of way of lives is). so much love and care went into treading these subject that i can't bring myself to rate this game any lower despite its flaws
the first half has alot to be desired from its antagonists, up until orphe; but still, it wasn't boring the slightest since there's no padding in the game; the pacing and execution of each arc made up for everything by tenfolds . The music is spectacular, most of it from free to use rpgm music but very neatly chosen ones; the one created by SHADE though, absolute masterclass after masterclass. Soo much soul went into composing them, BLOSSOM being my absolute favorite as i tie it to my favorite duo in the game; this allows me to talk about the cast now. oh my god this cast. NONE OF THEM feel wasted the slightest from each side of the game; never becoming irrelevant later on which is something that plagued most jrpgs i played beforehand, i'm telling you this game was made with unrivaled passion and love for the genre and stories as a whole
It really achieve what every story about opression and equality desperately seek and never achieve (thus leaning to a centrist end most of the cases). not only did DR avoid taking this route, but its execution of it is nothing but magistral. hard to talk about any of it without heavily spoiling the game, but see for yourself. i wanna add though, the way it connect to its sequel (that released before DR) is so unique and is why the game works so well, to a translation of king exit one day!
This review contains spoilers
Demon’s Roots is frustrating. It’s a game I love, though.
This is a game I got recommended through a pinned post on social media describing it as "10/10 kinoge'' and "yuripilled." I don't know what kinoge means and I'd say more 9/10 but it's pretty damn yuripilled, even if it takes a while to get there it's really intense and nice when you get to it, was not entirely disappointed by this recommendation. The short description made by this post did not have the space to tell me everything else I had to deal with, so I guess I'll try to expand it.
Demon’s Roots tasks you with freeing people from slavery, denounces it, calls it out as a cause of human suffering and an atrocity and so forth, and a product of evil, but then dedicates half of its art and an entire side mode to erotic depictions of sexual slavery. This undermines both its attempts at being erotic AND its attempts at denouncing it and building a narrative against it, as presenting each scene of sexual abuse as tragic and sad undercuts the ability of the people who would enjoy such scenes erotically to, well, enjoy it. (I assume, at least.)
I have mixed feelings on noncon fantasy as a kink, but I don’t believe that anyone who participates in such a thing is innately morally bad or any more likely to commit immoral acts. I have respect for it at a distance, it’s not for me and it’s not something I can personally dissect all the way, but I have nothing against noncon fantasy in a context-less setting.
The issue I have with it is just the fact that it’s handled so poorly within the context of the rest of the game. To say “I am against these things in reality and am making this erotic piece as a form of fantasy” as a note before an erotic piece is normal. Bringing up the fetish in the context of a discussion on sexual abuse to expand the discussion can be reasonable. Talking about how horrific sexual abuse is while stapling a video of your favorite noncon hentai in the middle, talking about said hentai in excessive detail and half-trying to pass it off as an example, is insanely confusing.
The most annoying part is that when it’s not doing this insanely confusing dance, it’s genuinely captivating as a narrative. The characters and how they interact are memorable and emotional. People react realistically to their situations. It lands in a loveable spot between love-conquers-all and grimdark, a beautiful kind of bittersweet characterized by sacrifice and loss and things not going how they were supposed to but it all having been worth it. While its oppression narrative is handled a bit rough at times (mainly relative to the previous complaints,) most of its themes and messages are handled in compelling ways. Solidarity between the oppressed, community, hope beyond hope, forgiveness, the things loneliness can do to people, I could go on and on. The complex (positive) emotions this game made me experience are exceptional, it ranks highly on that spectrum for me. It practically makes up for all of the flaws in my opinion. I wish it didn't have to make up for it, but I'm still happy this game felt satisfying to finish in spite of its flaws and the times where I felt so frustrated with it that I wanted to quit. It was worth it.
It’s kind of difficult to talk about the good parts, unfortunately, because properly selling the emotional narrative requires so much context and framing that it just can’t really be elevator pitched. It also doesn’t help that when I try to verbalize my feelings on my favorite parts of the story I tend to start sobbing. Sorry I can’t quite get it down here, but it’s really, really good, or else I wouldn’t be talking about all my problems with it in such detail.
The gameplay is pretty average RPGmaker stuff, nothing special but I’m a sucker for that kinda thing. Points added for having fun skills and a good amount of those satisfying "doing everything right and getting a huge damage number" moments. Points off for the fact that most of the game is cheesed through stacking evasion on a character that can take any hits intended for other teammates, giving you endless (slightly RNG-based but pretty consistent) invincibility. Points added again for lots of neat optional content.
It’s also highly worth noting that the version sold on steam is an unfinished version of the game. I’m not talking about the sex stuff being removed I mean like, day 1 modern Bethesda release here. (For reference: this version removes pretty much all of the games’ sexual content in a often strange manner, assumedly to follow Steam’s now-removed rules banning the hosting of sexual content focused games.) This version is missing multiple gameplay features. Notably the difficulty selection is replaced with being given 80 of every healing and stat item upon starting, which feels very alpha-build-y, various character sprites and art pieces are missing, and by chapter 2 I gave up on trying to complete the game patchless after having a temporary, one-area, intense debuff become irremovable due to a missing NPC. It’s downright broken.
I wanted to try beating the default version because the artstyle wasn’t the kind I usually find sexy, but it was just objectively a worse version of the game. I gave up and installed the official restoration patch, and sped through the portion of the game I’d already cleared (since I’d screwed up my original save in hackneyed attempts to fix my issues.)
The “R-18 skip” feature available in the patched version is somewhat effective at dodging its awkward sex scenes, there’s times where you can tell they had a tough time trying to gloss over it but it’s not horrific. This does, frustratingly at times, lock you out of certain areas of the game, though. One is just a sex scene centric area that would be mostly fine to ignore if not for the fact it has some solid exclusive weapons and accessories you might be sad to miss. Another is an optional dungeon-ish area with a unique boss fight and strong rewards from it, and the last major thing is an entire side-mode called “Bad End mode” with a unique gameplay loop that (to my understanding based on guides, I didn’t play it cause the noncon scene orientedness turned me off to it) makes the typical JRPG combat loop a lot more tactical. This mode only gives one okay main game accessory and no other unlocks besides more scenes in the cutscene viewer, so it’s not the most lamented thing, but still a little sad.
So I guess my point is just install the damn patch and turn on R18 skip if you think you won't wanna see that. Ultimately I hope you can find the beauty in it that I did.
I really love this game, genuinely, deeply, which makes me hate all of the confusing decisions in it even more. If it were simply a bad game with a mediocre plot and whatnot I could just stop giving a crap but I love it and that comes with baggage. Grr.
This is a game I got recommended through a pinned post on social media describing it as "10/10 kinoge'' and "yuripilled." I don't know what kinoge means and I'd say more 9/10 but it's pretty damn yuripilled, even if it takes a while to get there it's really intense and nice when you get to it, was not entirely disappointed by this recommendation. The short description made by this post did not have the space to tell me everything else I had to deal with, so I guess I'll try to expand it.
Demon’s Roots tasks you with freeing people from slavery, denounces it, calls it out as a cause of human suffering and an atrocity and so forth, and a product of evil, but then dedicates half of its art and an entire side mode to erotic depictions of sexual slavery. This undermines both its attempts at being erotic AND its attempts at denouncing it and building a narrative against it, as presenting each scene of sexual abuse as tragic and sad undercuts the ability of the people who would enjoy such scenes erotically to, well, enjoy it. (I assume, at least.)
I have mixed feelings on noncon fantasy as a kink, but I don’t believe that anyone who participates in such a thing is innately morally bad or any more likely to commit immoral acts. I have respect for it at a distance, it’s not for me and it’s not something I can personally dissect all the way, but I have nothing against noncon fantasy in a context-less setting.
The issue I have with it is just the fact that it’s handled so poorly within the context of the rest of the game. To say “I am against these things in reality and am making this erotic piece as a form of fantasy” as a note before an erotic piece is normal. Bringing up the fetish in the context of a discussion on sexual abuse to expand the discussion can be reasonable. Talking about how horrific sexual abuse is while stapling a video of your favorite noncon hentai in the middle, talking about said hentai in excessive detail and half-trying to pass it off as an example, is insanely confusing.
The most annoying part is that when it’s not doing this insanely confusing dance, it’s genuinely captivating as a narrative. The characters and how they interact are memorable and emotional. People react realistically to their situations. It lands in a loveable spot between love-conquers-all and grimdark, a beautiful kind of bittersweet characterized by sacrifice and loss and things not going how they were supposed to but it all having been worth it. While its oppression narrative is handled a bit rough at times (mainly relative to the previous complaints,) most of its themes and messages are handled in compelling ways. Solidarity between the oppressed, community, hope beyond hope, forgiveness, the things loneliness can do to people, I could go on and on. The complex (positive) emotions this game made me experience are exceptional, it ranks highly on that spectrum for me. It practically makes up for all of the flaws in my opinion. I wish it didn't have to make up for it, but I'm still happy this game felt satisfying to finish in spite of its flaws and the times where I felt so frustrated with it that I wanted to quit. It was worth it.
It’s kind of difficult to talk about the good parts, unfortunately, because properly selling the emotional narrative requires so much context and framing that it just can’t really be elevator pitched. It also doesn’t help that when I try to verbalize my feelings on my favorite parts of the story I tend to start sobbing. Sorry I can’t quite get it down here, but it’s really, really good, or else I wouldn’t be talking about all my problems with it in such detail.
The gameplay is pretty average RPGmaker stuff, nothing special but I’m a sucker for that kinda thing. Points added for having fun skills and a good amount of those satisfying "doing everything right and getting a huge damage number" moments. Points off for the fact that most of the game is cheesed through stacking evasion on a character that can take any hits intended for other teammates, giving you endless (slightly RNG-based but pretty consistent) invincibility. Points added again for lots of neat optional content.
It’s also highly worth noting that the version sold on steam is an unfinished version of the game. I’m not talking about the sex stuff being removed I mean like, day 1 modern Bethesda release here. (For reference: this version removes pretty much all of the games’ sexual content in a often strange manner, assumedly to follow Steam’s now-removed rules banning the hosting of sexual content focused games.) This version is missing multiple gameplay features. Notably the difficulty selection is replaced with being given 80 of every healing and stat item upon starting, which feels very alpha-build-y, various character sprites and art pieces are missing, and by chapter 2 I gave up on trying to complete the game patchless after having a temporary, one-area, intense debuff become irremovable due to a missing NPC. It’s downright broken.
I wanted to try beating the default version because the artstyle wasn’t the kind I usually find sexy, but it was just objectively a worse version of the game. I gave up and installed the official restoration patch, and sped through the portion of the game I’d already cleared (since I’d screwed up my original save in hackneyed attempts to fix my issues.)
The “R-18 skip” feature available in the patched version is somewhat effective at dodging its awkward sex scenes, there’s times where you can tell they had a tough time trying to gloss over it but it’s not horrific. This does, frustratingly at times, lock you out of certain areas of the game, though. One is just a sex scene centric area that would be mostly fine to ignore if not for the fact it has some solid exclusive weapons and accessories you might be sad to miss. Another is an optional dungeon-ish area with a unique boss fight and strong rewards from it, and the last major thing is an entire side-mode called “Bad End mode” with a unique gameplay loop that (to my understanding based on guides, I didn’t play it cause the noncon scene orientedness turned me off to it) makes the typical JRPG combat loop a lot more tactical. This mode only gives one okay main game accessory and no other unlocks besides more scenes in the cutscene viewer, so it’s not the most lamented thing, but still a little sad.
So I guess my point is just install the damn patch and turn on R18 skip if you think you won't wanna see that. Ultimately I hope you can find the beauty in it that I did.
I really love this game, genuinely, deeply, which makes me hate all of the confusing decisions in it even more. If it were simply a bad game with a mediocre plot and whatnot I could just stop giving a crap but I love it and that comes with baggage. Grr.
There's options to remove the porn scenes, they really aren't the selling point of the game.
Nice plot covering thoughs from characters, bosses and some important NPCs including the final boss which is kind of strange.
Nice plot covering thoughs from characters, bosses and some important NPCs including the final boss which is kind of strange.
TLDR; Amazing JRPG story if you can stomach mid RPGM gameplay and H-scenes (Steam has a censored version that works).
Unexpectedly amazing RPGM game that has lots of care put into the writing, especially with character interactions and worldbuilding. FANTASTIC music from SHADE too, but a decent amount of the music is stock RPGM stuff (some of it is actually pretty good though).
Gameplay is standard RPGM fare unfortunately, but the exploration to find broken gear is done pretty well actually. Combat follows typical magic weaknesses, elemental type, etc., although it does have something similar to the Trails series craft point system to spice things up. It is very easy to break the game's balance in two with certain party members.
The themes of the story are very simple, yet executed extremely well. Loved the exploration on the relationship between two groups, the defeated and the victors, and more abstractly, the "us" vs. "them" mentality towards an unknown group, and how those viewpoints slowly evolve via prejudice, a want for a stable life, and more.
The story and characters start off pretty simplistic, but layers of depth slowly get added onto them as the story gets more and more complex and morally grey. The overall party honestly became one of my favorites in any JRPG, and Deathpolca in particular became one of my all-time favorite JRPG protagonists.
Story pacing is noticeably faster than 90% of JRPGs available now, with interesting developments, plot twists, and wide-sweeping events happening constantly. Not many segments just completely halt all story progression happening (ala Trails into Azure). Even with this fast pacing, the characters still get ample time to develop, alongside the world. One notable weakness in the writing are the villains, they're kind of like Kiseki antagonists (lame).
Elephant in the room in this game is that it is an eroge, meaning lots of H-scenes. The story related ones were pretty bad and felt like they were there to satisfy the eroge quota. R-18 skip exists, which may alleviate this for people who don't like these.
Unexpectedly amazing RPGM game that has lots of care put into the writing, especially with character interactions and worldbuilding. FANTASTIC music from SHADE too, but a decent amount of the music is stock RPGM stuff (some of it is actually pretty good though).
Gameplay is standard RPGM fare unfortunately, but the exploration to find broken gear is done pretty well actually. Combat follows typical magic weaknesses, elemental type, etc., although it does have something similar to the Trails series craft point system to spice things up. It is very easy to break the game's balance in two with certain party members.
The themes of the story are very simple, yet executed extremely well. Loved the exploration on the relationship between two groups, the defeated and the victors, and more abstractly, the "us" vs. "them" mentality towards an unknown group, and how those viewpoints slowly evolve via prejudice, a want for a stable life, and more.
The story and characters start off pretty simplistic, but layers of depth slowly get added onto them as the story gets more and more complex and morally grey. The overall party honestly became one of my favorites in any JRPG, and Deathpolca in particular became one of my all-time favorite JRPG protagonists.
Story pacing is noticeably faster than 90% of JRPGs available now, with interesting developments, plot twists, and wide-sweeping events happening constantly. Not many segments just completely halt all story progression happening (ala Trails into Azure). Even with this fast pacing, the characters still get ample time to develop, alongside the world. One notable weakness in the writing are the villains, they're kind of like Kiseki antagonists (lame).
Elephant in the room in this game is that it is an eroge, meaning lots of H-scenes. The story related ones were pretty bad and felt like they were there to satisfy the eroge quota. R-18 skip exists, which may alleviate this for people who don't like these.
cranked out
dahora
Really good RPGM game, easily one of the top among this kinda type of games.
The gameplay is nothing out of the world, is the classic kind of battle that you are going to find in almost every other game made with rpgm, the good thing is that with strategy you can beat the game without much of problem or by grinding the hell out for levels.
I also think that one of the great points on this game it's the OST
About the story, its okay, the cast and all the characters are enjoyable but there are some points on the plot that the game fells a little.
Outside that, it's a good and pretty funny game.
The gameplay is nothing out of the world, is the classic kind of battle that you are going to find in almost every other game made with rpgm, the good thing is that with strategy you can beat the game without much of problem or by grinding the hell out for levels.
I also think that one of the great points on this game it's the OST
About the story, its okay, the cast and all the characters are enjoyable but there are some points on the plot that the game fells a little.
Outside that, it's a good and pretty funny game.
Demons Roots. It is a game that many will scoff at the idea of playing upon learning of either its premise or its engine. Especially when they learn it has tons of porn in it, some of which is... on the extreme side, to put it mildly. However, beneath the surface is a heartfelt, if a bit too tropey at times, story about history revisionism, the oppressed, and the 'us or them' mindset people are so eager to adopt, and at a lightning-fast pacing with constant twists and turns to keep the reader engaged.
Of course, Demons Roots does sacrifice a lot for this pacing. Indeed, while the game does try to evoke the feeling of a grand invasion, the reality is that the game is clearly hamstrung by what is feasible to depict. What should be huge kingdoms are... 6 houses, 10 npcs and a dungeon. The culture of each place is described to you in off-handed sentences. There's no time to develop this or expand the scale; the game's gotta plan, you see, and dammit you are going to go on this ride whether you like it or not. Next plotpoint, next kingdom, go go go, no time.
While this leaves a lot to be desired on the setting of the world itself, the game doesn't skip out on its characters. Many that are feel trope-riddled initially or boring prove themselves to be anything but as the story goes on, with nuances and belief. The war, and the reasonings for the war, while boiling down to the same greater goal, means something different to everyone. It reminds me of a smaller-scoped Wrath of the Righteous in that way.
Unfortunately, the gameplay only ever reaches 'alright'. Decent, and potentially more interesting if Ange didn't shatter the game across her knee by being fundamentally broken, but rarely great. It does the best with what it can by giving characters strongly defined roles and differences, but it is RPG-maker combat through and through.
If I were to labor critiques at the game, I find the dialogue to be a bit unnatural at times, so focused on explaining and expositing the plot and getting to the next plot point that the characters, when in some focal scenes, start feeling like expository devices, or answering machines that are responding to questions the reader might be having. Lots of "Hey, why doesn't X/Y/Z help, or why don't we do A/B/C" "Well, that's because of X/Y/Z reason, because of A/B/C". Much of this is owe'd to the story moving at such breakneck pace that it leaves so many natural holes that the game must constantly seek to answer lest it be buried under a weight of contrivances.
That being said, that's mostly a gripe. A real complaint would mostly be the final act and chapter, the 'epilogue' as it were. The situation behind it makes sense, but it feels like something that needed much more time and development to properly get across. As it is now it feels like a needless appendix to get across a point the game had drifted off of due to focusing on the antagonist. It's thematically fitting, but feels excessively fast and honestly unwarranted. Not to mention a lot of characters just... aren't involved in it, which is unfortunate.
Either way, I enjoyed my 30~ish hours with Demons Roots. I don't know if it's an all-time great for me, but I respect it a lot for what it does, and what it grows into.
Of course, Demons Roots does sacrifice a lot for this pacing. Indeed, while the game does try to evoke the feeling of a grand invasion, the reality is that the game is clearly hamstrung by what is feasible to depict. What should be huge kingdoms are... 6 houses, 10 npcs and a dungeon. The culture of each place is described to you in off-handed sentences. There's no time to develop this or expand the scale; the game's gotta plan, you see, and dammit you are going to go on this ride whether you like it or not. Next plotpoint, next kingdom, go go go, no time.
While this leaves a lot to be desired on the setting of the world itself, the game doesn't skip out on its characters. Many that are feel trope-riddled initially or boring prove themselves to be anything but as the story goes on, with nuances and belief. The war, and the reasonings for the war, while boiling down to the same greater goal, means something different to everyone. It reminds me of a smaller-scoped Wrath of the Righteous in that way.
Unfortunately, the gameplay only ever reaches 'alright'. Decent, and potentially more interesting if Ange didn't shatter the game across her knee by being fundamentally broken, but rarely great. It does the best with what it can by giving characters strongly defined roles and differences, but it is RPG-maker combat through and through.
If I were to labor critiques at the game, I find the dialogue to be a bit unnatural at times, so focused on explaining and expositing the plot and getting to the next plot point that the characters, when in some focal scenes, start feeling like expository devices, or answering machines that are responding to questions the reader might be having. Lots of "Hey, why doesn't X/Y/Z help, or why don't we do A/B/C" "Well, that's because of X/Y/Z reason, because of A/B/C". Much of this is owe'd to the story moving at such breakneck pace that it leaves so many natural holes that the game must constantly seek to answer lest it be buried under a weight of contrivances.
That being said, that's mostly a gripe. A real complaint would mostly be the final act and chapter, the 'epilogue' as it were. The situation behind it makes sense, but it feels like something that needed much more time and development to properly get across. As it is now it feels like a needless appendix to get across a point the game had drifted off of due to focusing on the antagonist. It's thematically fitting, but feels excessively fast and honestly unwarranted. Not to mention a lot of characters just... aren't involved in it, which is unfortunate.
Either way, I enjoyed my 30~ish hours with Demons Roots. I don't know if it's an all-time great for me, but I respect it a lot for what it does, and what it grows into.
An RPGM game, going THIS hard. Insane.
It's pretty simple thematically, but it's pulled off so well. What an ambitious, heartfelt, well-executed roller-coaster of a story.
Unironically clears most AAA games nowadays.
Too bad it will go under a huge number of peoples' radars because it's an eroge.
It's pretty simple thematically, but it's pulled off so well. What an ambitious, heartfelt, well-executed roller-coaster of a story.
Unironically clears most AAA games nowadays.
Too bad it will go under a huge number of peoples' radars because it's an eroge.
Who gets to write history, but the victors?
At the end of the day, this is the question Demons Roots asks, broadly, and takes it to its very clear thematic end. There are very few pieces of media that have such a clean and well-directed through-line, and for one to be an rpgmaker ero game is actually incredible. I don't mean that as damned faint praise either, because I respect the hell out of rpgmaker eroge developers.
I don't know, I'm not good at writing things. Demons Roots is legit the best JRPG I've ever played, that's all I can say. No one will ever play it because its a torture eroge, but it has so much to say, so much love to share(dont make a stupid joke), it has a soul that is so rare in this world of fiction. If you can get past the content, please play this game--you will be rewarded.
At the end of the day, this is the question Demons Roots asks, broadly, and takes it to its very clear thematic end. There are very few pieces of media that have such a clean and well-directed through-line, and for one to be an rpgmaker ero game is actually incredible. I don't mean that as damned faint praise either, because I respect the hell out of rpgmaker eroge developers.
I don't know, I'm not good at writing things. Demons Roots is legit the best JRPG I've ever played, that's all I can say. No one will ever play it because its a torture eroge, but it has so much to say, so much love to share(dont make a stupid joke), it has a soul that is so rare in this world of fiction. If you can get past the content, please play this game--you will be rewarded.
Ninguém me impede de me tacar de uma ponte depois desse final
Very enjoyable RPG Maker Game, highly underrated! Just turn off 18+ scenes and enjoy the HEAVY story for demonkind and slave FREEDOM >:D
(and the wholesome romance story between Deathpolca and Lily 💗)
(and the wholesome romance story between Deathpolca and Lily 💗)
IM FUCKING DEADDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
this game honestly has many things which could be better to me, but what it does well is fucking amazing and it is really made full of passion from a guy who before doing rpg makers did hentai doujins lmao
kinoge yuripilled..
this game honestly has many things which could be better to me, but what it does well is fucking amazing and it is really made full of passion from a guy who before doing rpg makers did hentai doujins lmao
kinoge yuripilled..
Historia excelente, personagens muito bem desenvolvidos e combate que funciona. 10/10
spoilers: https://doi.org/10.1215/-12-2-1
Revolutionary Girl Rance
um dos melhores j-RPGs que eu ja joguei
Considering this is a hentai RPG maker game it has 1000x better than it has any right to be. I could not possibly put into words just how good the story and the characters are. This is probably one of the best jrpgs of all time easily, and its a shame most people will never even play it. Oh well, if you read this, I hope you decide to play it, because its worth it. You might start playing and think the game is full of tropes and horny pandering for perverts but trust me when I say I think you will be pleasantly surprised by just how wrong you are, just like I was. Never has a game had such an emotional impact on me.
Incredible story, one of my favorite protagonists of all time in Deathpolca.
The game is a reasonably enjoyable RPG maker game, but the 18+ content definitely detracts from the experience at times. Fetishizing the violence and cruelty is a little bit of a tonal mismatch.
The game is a reasonably enjoyable RPG maker game, but the 18+ content definitely detracts from the experience at times. Fetishizing the violence and cruelty is a little bit of a tonal mismatch.
Demons Roots is an incredible statement that a powerful ending can redeem any kind of garbage, tropey, degenerate writing to cement itself as one of the greatest video game stories of all time.
Most JRPGs have a dreadsome mid-game lull or, even worse, blow their load early and the final quarter turns into a slog. Demons Roots is in many ways a stunning counterexample, not the least of which because the game absolutely betrayed my early expectations. There is no praise strong enough to emphasize how good the pacing is here. I loved the first couple dozen hours, I really did, but political intrigue withstanding, it was evident to me this story was riding its tropes and nonsensical eroge twists into the ground. Dumb party members will reveal everything to an antagonist because anime bullshit; the script waylays you with tomfoolery like "hot guys really think they can get away with anything." Early Demons Roots is riddled with Jappojank and the tropey characters that propel it along.
And it's all a fucking ruse, because as the game unfolds, the one-dimensional characters reveal little shades of nuance. The script, keenly self-aware, makes fun of itself. And this rich, harrowing political drama about war and racism absolutely explodes with intrigue, betrayal, death, twists, and delicate, deliberate writing that redeems all prior plot conveniences. One guy wrote this is "Game of Thrones if Game of Thrones was good" and there is two things I know: I'm tired of all political dramas being compared to Game of Thrones, and I fucking love Game of Thrones. Yet as I crawled through chapter 4, the similarities between these two stories became uncanny.
At the heart of it is a tragic and heartcrushingly human story about the tolls of war. Humanity is motivated by a shared hatred of some nebulous other; "us" vs "them" mentality; can we accept and learn to cohabitate with this inherently evil "other," demons vs humans, humans vs demons, disparate peoples desperately trying to cohabitate when propaganda, tradition, and their own cultures demand them to hate each other? A single human may forgive, but can an entire culture? This theme carries the game to its final heartbeat, explosive revelation after explosive revelation, culminating in an immensely powerful ending occupying my very first thoughts as I woke up this morning.
By the end of it all, this disparate and distinctly eroge cast of bikini-clad, isekai'd, crossdressing, freeuse mages, equal parts insufferable and adorable, evolved into one of JRPG's most nuanced, poignant casts, and it happened so subtly I hadn't even realized how attached I was to these characters. This is not faint praise. I find most JRPG casts merely "acceptable." The Xenoblade series, Tales, many Final Fantasies... some of them have characters I love, but mostly I find casts as a whole exist to shade the plot. Demons Roots deftly balances both; I would not care for the world's plights were it not for its cast, and I wouldn't care for the cast were it not for the cursed world they inherited.
All of the game's flaws can be summarized neatly by the RPG Maker design limitations. The smut is (mostly) lame. The traditional, turn-based combat is pulled straight from 1994, and even JRPGs from that era have more cinematic presentation than Demons Roots. This is indisputably the lowest budget, most obviously JRPG Maker JRPG I've ever played. There are other indie JRPGs coming out this decade with better production; Astlibra and Chained Echoes immediately spring to mind. I know, I know; I hate people who bitch about graphics as much as anyone else might, but video games are just as much a visual art as they are a musical and written art, and Demons Roots is, visually, absurdly boring. I do love the music, though. This soundtrack bops. It's dynamic and eclectic, rich with chiptunes, orchestral, chamber music, metal, and it all just works.
Exploration is rote; towns exist, but there's not much to them, and the only real reason to explore them is to indulge in flashes of interaction with side characters that might miss integral character shades otherwise. Dungeons are stylistically the same boring isometric dungeons you've seen in any other SNES [inspired] JRPG. The saving grace is that lootable objects are everywhere, with numerous hidden trails; scouring them is the primary means of obtaining new equipment, so exploration is rewarded and almost mandatory if you don't want to grind your ass out of more challenging boss encounters.
The combat design carefully navigates around the genre's common pitfalls: every character is good, some a bit more than others, but they all have their moments; debuffs are consistently useful, including in boss fights, and often mandatory; party members can be swapped in and out without wasting a turn; and encounter design is usually just complex enough you can't X-mash your way to victory. For an RPG Maker game, everything was designed with as much of a modern touch as possible, but there's no getting around the limitations of its system. I'd be overwilling to overlook all of the game's flaws if it had an even somewhat exciting progression system. Earn EXP and level your characters linearly? Literally 1994.
I was prepared to write a frustrated diatribe about all the praise this game is getting from the select few willing to overlook it's an eroge and play it """for the plot"""; at minimum, I was certain everyone praising the shit out of this game just happened to be among the small herd of weirdos that love goofball anime comedy and Jappojank storytelling (fucking shounen lovers), and there's no way Demons Roots would appeal to anyone else. Well, I was wrong. If you, like me, find yourself slightly disillusioned in the early hours thinking you got jebaited by a bunch of trolls voting "Pingu in the City" to MyAnimeList's top anime charts, press on, because literally every hour is better than the last. After spending the early year balls deep in Astlibra, these two games make clear the indie JRPG scene is where the most insane, off-the-wall design is going to happen, and I hope to see these games get more mainstream attention. I'll close this with a final thought:
Deathpolca is the greatest JRPG protagonist of all time.
Most JRPGs have a dreadsome mid-game lull or, even worse, blow their load early and the final quarter turns into a slog. Demons Roots is in many ways a stunning counterexample, not the least of which because the game absolutely betrayed my early expectations. There is no praise strong enough to emphasize how good the pacing is here. I loved the first couple dozen hours, I really did, but political intrigue withstanding, it was evident to me this story was riding its tropes and nonsensical eroge twists into the ground. Dumb party members will reveal everything to an antagonist because anime bullshit; the script waylays you with tomfoolery like "hot guys really think they can get away with anything." Early Demons Roots is riddled with Jappojank and the tropey characters that propel it along.
And it's all a fucking ruse, because as the game unfolds, the one-dimensional characters reveal little shades of nuance. The script, keenly self-aware, makes fun of itself. And this rich, harrowing political drama about war and racism absolutely explodes with intrigue, betrayal, death, twists, and delicate, deliberate writing that redeems all prior plot conveniences. One guy wrote this is "Game of Thrones if Game of Thrones was good" and there is two things I know: I'm tired of all political dramas being compared to Game of Thrones, and I fucking love Game of Thrones. Yet as I crawled through chapter 4, the similarities between these two stories became uncanny.
At the heart of it is a tragic and heartcrushingly human story about the tolls of war. Humanity is motivated by a shared hatred of some nebulous other; "us" vs "them" mentality; can we accept and learn to cohabitate with this inherently evil "other," demons vs humans, humans vs demons, disparate peoples desperately trying to cohabitate when propaganda, tradition, and their own cultures demand them to hate each other? A single human may forgive, but can an entire culture? This theme carries the game to its final heartbeat, explosive revelation after explosive revelation, culminating in an immensely powerful ending occupying my very first thoughts as I woke up this morning.
By the end of it all, this disparate and distinctly eroge cast of bikini-clad, isekai'd, crossdressing, freeuse mages, equal parts insufferable and adorable, evolved into one of JRPG's most nuanced, poignant casts, and it happened so subtly I hadn't even realized how attached I was to these characters. This is not faint praise. I find most JRPG casts merely "acceptable." The Xenoblade series, Tales, many Final Fantasies... some of them have characters I love, but mostly I find casts as a whole exist to shade the plot. Demons Roots deftly balances both; I would not care for the world's plights were it not for its cast, and I wouldn't care for the cast were it not for the cursed world they inherited.
All of the game's flaws can be summarized neatly by the RPG Maker design limitations. The smut is (mostly) lame. The traditional, turn-based combat is pulled straight from 1994, and even JRPGs from that era have more cinematic presentation than Demons Roots. This is indisputably the lowest budget, most obviously JRPG Maker JRPG I've ever played. There are other indie JRPGs coming out this decade with better production; Astlibra and Chained Echoes immediately spring to mind. I know, I know; I hate people who bitch about graphics as much as anyone else might, but video games are just as much a visual art as they are a musical and written art, and Demons Roots is, visually, absurdly boring. I do love the music, though. This soundtrack bops. It's dynamic and eclectic, rich with chiptunes, orchestral, chamber music, metal, and it all just works.
Exploration is rote; towns exist, but there's not much to them, and the only real reason to explore them is to indulge in flashes of interaction with side characters that might miss integral character shades otherwise. Dungeons are stylistically the same boring isometric dungeons you've seen in any other SNES [inspired] JRPG. The saving grace is that lootable objects are everywhere, with numerous hidden trails; scouring them is the primary means of obtaining new equipment, so exploration is rewarded and almost mandatory if you don't want to grind your ass out of more challenging boss encounters.
The combat design carefully navigates around the genre's common pitfalls: every character is good, some a bit more than others, but they all have their moments; debuffs are consistently useful, including in boss fights, and often mandatory; party members can be swapped in and out without wasting a turn; and encounter design is usually just complex enough you can't X-mash your way to victory. For an RPG Maker game, everything was designed with as much of a modern touch as possible, but there's no getting around the limitations of its system. I'd be overwilling to overlook all of the game's flaws if it had an even somewhat exciting progression system. Earn EXP and level your characters linearly? Literally 1994.
I was prepared to write a frustrated diatribe about all the praise this game is getting from the select few willing to overlook it's an eroge and play it """for the plot"""; at minimum, I was certain everyone praising the shit out of this game just happened to be among the small herd of weirdos that love goofball anime comedy and Jappojank storytelling (fucking shounen lovers), and there's no way Demons Roots would appeal to anyone else. Well, I was wrong. If you, like me, find yourself slightly disillusioned in the early hours thinking you got jebaited by a bunch of trolls voting "Pingu in the City" to MyAnimeList's top anime charts, press on, because literally every hour is better than the last. After spending the early year balls deep in Astlibra, these two games make clear the indie JRPG scene is where the most insane, off-the-wall design is going to happen, and I hope to see these games get more mainstream attention. I'll close this with a final thought:
Deathpolca is the greatest JRPG protagonist of all time.
The yuri in this goes hard
What can you expect from one of the best written JRPGs on recent memory which also happens to be a Hentai game of sorts? Hypocrisy.
Still, play this thing with steam's censored version and the ingame R18 filter on if you think Persona 5 is a good game.
Still, play this thing with steam's censored version and the ingame R18 filter on if you think Persona 5 is a good game.