Essel
4 reviews liked by Essel
Degrees of Lewdity
2021
It's kind of wild that an erotic noncon game is somehow also one of the most deep, complex, impressive life-sims ever made. There is so much to say about this game that it's kind of hard to put it all into words. From the fact that you can play the game for well over 150 hours and still be encountering new experiences. The way that the game somehow blends both scripted events and RNG in such a manner where you may never know if you've encountered a rare event or if that was intended to happen. The way that it has a brutalist social commentary on a dystopic world where morals are entirely decayed and your body is every freak's prize to be stolen.
All this on top of the raw freedom the game allows. You can play this any way you want. Want to play a purist, virginal person in the sex game, who resists every sexual advance in the game literally about how the world wants to defile you? Do it, in fact, here are special items and buffs to keep you safe. Want to instead lean in and live the exploitative, nightmarish hell of Saki Yoshida? Go for it, you'll have a wild ride, and there are almost infinite atrocity scenarios to rabbit hole down. Want to play a hyper-violent route, where every molester is met with fists of fury to the face and teeth kicked out? Not only will we give you special buffs, but you can even jack yourself up with pepper spray charges. Want to just be a lil cutie who goes to school and works a part-time job? Sounds fun, and we'll give you loads of social connections, romance options, and dozens upon dozens of casual gameplay encounters to enjoy.
There's a hyper-detailed body system, where all parts of your body affect physical and mental gameplay. There's a detailed fashion system, where you can decorate your absolutely adorable pixel-art sprite in the cutest and raunchiest outfits you can imagine. There's a detailed social structure, including with how popular you are at school, with students and teachers, with the police, and even with animals that you tend to. It has 12 separate fame mechanics, with additional hidden ones in the background, affecting how everyone - strangers and people you know - see and react to you. It has an increasing difficulty curve, so you can never get too comfortable. It has multiple end-game scenarios, along with multiple villains and quests. It has ongoing seasons, including weather and holidays. Bro, it even has farming mechanics.
On top of all this, it is also surprisingly sex positive, despite its noncon theming. It has an extremely in-depth fetish checklist, and if you don't like one of them, turn it off. The game compensates for your preferences. But maybe you specifically don't want one gender or the other to interact with your character. Simply change all the genders. Maybe you want an intersex character. Easily done! Only want big-boobed people, or maybe you prefer a certain size of penis. There's a toggle for that. Don't like the gender of a named NPC? Customize them to your whims. Don't want to get pregnant or get anyone else pregnant? Turn it off! Want to get pregnant the moment you hold hands with someone? Turn it on! It's as if the dev has literally thought of every possible interaction and outcome, and everything has been accounted for in one way or another.
All on top of this being an early access game, meaning that it is still being actively updated, even though the game is feature-complete three times over. And if that's all not enough for you, the game is also a sandbox RPG. You can play one character for as long as you want, or roll up a different character, and do as much as your heart desires, with no end. It has a rewind function in case you want to retry a scene, and it also has an "ironman" mode in case you want to be forced to commit to your run. Would you rather an easier difficulty, or to have cheats turned on so you can customize every detail of your character? The game allows you that accessibility. Does this game have an achievement system? Of course it does, what doesn't it have?
It's so hard to recommend this game based on its subject matter alone. Because, yes, it needs to be emphasized that this game knows what it is: it is an extremely explicit noncon erotic game. If the idea of non-consensual sex or lewd experiences upsets you, this is not for you. But if you can accept this game for what it is, it gleefully offers up literally hundreds of hours of content for your perusal. It may be hard to recommend this game, but if anything that I've said above seems even remotely interesting, I literally cannot sing the praises of this game enough.
All this on top of the raw freedom the game allows. You can play this any way you want. Want to play a purist, virginal person in the sex game, who resists every sexual advance in the game literally about how the world wants to defile you? Do it, in fact, here are special items and buffs to keep you safe. Want to instead lean in and live the exploitative, nightmarish hell of Saki Yoshida? Go for it, you'll have a wild ride, and there are almost infinite atrocity scenarios to rabbit hole down. Want to play a hyper-violent route, where every molester is met with fists of fury to the face and teeth kicked out? Not only will we give you special buffs, but you can even jack yourself up with pepper spray charges. Want to just be a lil cutie who goes to school and works a part-time job? Sounds fun, and we'll give you loads of social connections, romance options, and dozens upon dozens of casual gameplay encounters to enjoy.
There's a hyper-detailed body system, where all parts of your body affect physical and mental gameplay. There's a detailed fashion system, where you can decorate your absolutely adorable pixel-art sprite in the cutest and raunchiest outfits you can imagine. There's a detailed social structure, including with how popular you are at school, with students and teachers, with the police, and even with animals that you tend to. It has 12 separate fame mechanics, with additional hidden ones in the background, affecting how everyone - strangers and people you know - see and react to you. It has an increasing difficulty curve, so you can never get too comfortable. It has multiple end-game scenarios, along with multiple villains and quests. It has ongoing seasons, including weather and holidays. Bro, it even has farming mechanics.
On top of all this, it is also surprisingly sex positive, despite its noncon theming. It has an extremely in-depth fetish checklist, and if you don't like one of them, turn it off. The game compensates for your preferences. But maybe you specifically don't want one gender or the other to interact with your character. Simply change all the genders. Maybe you want an intersex character. Easily done! Only want big-boobed people, or maybe you prefer a certain size of penis. There's a toggle for that. Don't like the gender of a named NPC? Customize them to your whims. Don't want to get pregnant or get anyone else pregnant? Turn it off! Want to get pregnant the moment you hold hands with someone? Turn it on! It's as if the dev has literally thought of every possible interaction and outcome, and everything has been accounted for in one way or another.
All on top of this being an early access game, meaning that it is still being actively updated, even though the game is feature-complete three times over. And if that's all not enough for you, the game is also a sandbox RPG. You can play one character for as long as you want, or roll up a different character, and do as much as your heart desires, with no end. It has a rewind function in case you want to retry a scene, and it also has an "ironman" mode in case you want to be forced to commit to your run. Would you rather an easier difficulty, or to have cheats turned on so you can customize every detail of your character? The game allows you that accessibility. Does this game have an achievement system? Of course it does, what doesn't it have?
It's so hard to recommend this game based on its subject matter alone. Because, yes, it needs to be emphasized that this game knows what it is: it is an extremely explicit noncon erotic game. If the idea of non-consensual sex or lewd experiences upsets you, this is not for you. But if you can accept this game for what it is, it gleefully offers up literally hundreds of hours of content for your perusal. It may be hard to recommend this game, but if anything that I've said above seems even remotely interesting, I literally cannot sing the praises of this game enough.
Kirby Triple Deluxe
2014
I had a more detailed review ready for this game but by the end of it, I really had nothing to say or wanted to say anything about it. I was completely exhausted by the end of this short game, which is a miracle of its own. It wasn't grueling just boring and repetitive, the second half was just using the first part of the game as its levels. Music was good, not memorable and the visuals other than the CG scenes were good. Maybe there's a better Kirby game out there, but this isn't a good first impression.
I quite remember something Sun Tzu once said to me in coversation. It ran along the lines of "We are so back, my friend!"
Under Night 2 is a perfect game among the bounds of its own features and whims. I could not ask more from a sequel to an already fucking great game. I will, however, address the large network-based elephant in the room, and perhaps its release date was also a case. With a solid week of shady network and having each update being fifty-fifty on whether the matchmaking works or doesn’t work. It’s a weighted coin flip, really, and I wish it wasn’t because the times I was allowed to play in a room or in unranked, I enjoyed it a lot. The success of this game has been stunted, to my personal theory of mine, by the release of two much larger games within the same week, one even being a fighting game. However, I cannot deny the fact that Under Night as a franchise was already niche and therefore has a harder time breaking the market.
The gameplay is perfect, an art piece of its own caliber. It helps that this really is a sequel, an iteration of the previous with some changes given to individual fighters here and there. Perhaps it is my own bias, or more likely my lack of experience, but the new fighters feel like the toolkit is much stronger than the legacy cast from the previous game. All but personal thoughts at the end of things. The arcade mode is very straight forward, doesn’t do anything new within that regard, but still good. The movement is lovely, the flow of combos, based on buttons, is great, I feel like the command list is a bit cryptic, and I know this is a nit-pick but having the option to have the UI of the buttons to be the buttons on the controller someone uses still annoys me. The music has a few standout pieces but none that can ring back and forth in my head, making it memorable.
With wonderful art, great movement, hell, maybe the best movement in the fighting game market as of recent memory and interesting yet still doujin fighter-esque plot, I would recommend picking up this game. As a warning, if you play on steam, wait a few more updates to see if the online net play improves. If you are reading this in the future, as of the first day of February in 2024, then perhaps its fixed now, ill leave on a hopeful note.
Under Night 2 is a perfect game among the bounds of its own features and whims. I could not ask more from a sequel to an already fucking great game. I will, however, address the large network-based elephant in the room, and perhaps its release date was also a case. With a solid week of shady network and having each update being fifty-fifty on whether the matchmaking works or doesn’t work. It’s a weighted coin flip, really, and I wish it wasn’t because the times I was allowed to play in a room or in unranked, I enjoyed it a lot. The success of this game has been stunted, to my personal theory of mine, by the release of two much larger games within the same week, one even being a fighting game. However, I cannot deny the fact that Under Night as a franchise was already niche and therefore has a harder time breaking the market.
The gameplay is perfect, an art piece of its own caliber. It helps that this really is a sequel, an iteration of the previous with some changes given to individual fighters here and there. Perhaps it is my own bias, or more likely my lack of experience, but the new fighters feel like the toolkit is much stronger than the legacy cast from the previous game. All but personal thoughts at the end of things. The arcade mode is very straight forward, doesn’t do anything new within that regard, but still good. The movement is lovely, the flow of combos, based on buttons, is great, I feel like the command list is a bit cryptic, and I know this is a nit-pick but having the option to have the UI of the buttons to be the buttons on the controller someone uses still annoys me. The music has a few standout pieces but none that can ring back and forth in my head, making it memorable.
With wonderful art, great movement, hell, maybe the best movement in the fighting game market as of recent memory and interesting yet still doujin fighter-esque plot, I would recommend picking up this game. As a warning, if you play on steam, wait a few more updates to see if the online net play improves. If you are reading this in the future, as of the first day of February in 2024, then perhaps its fixed now, ill leave on a hopeful note.
This review contains spoilers
9/15/2023- This entry will start at a later point in the game, 10 hours in to be exact, but for Tears of the Kingdom, that isn’t a long time. I went through the sky island tutorial, and it was set up for the whole conflict, being built up for ages, or that’s what’s been told to me, the player. The people of Hyrule versus the sealed evil wizard Ganondorf. The combat so far has been just right, its dense and you’re allowed to do a lot with it, it’s just that there isn’t a level of complexity to it, I haven’t played any other Zelda game, well completed one, so I can’t compare. The landscape is beautiful in a vast and empty sense, I also feel like this has been talked about before in many pieces of review-based media so I won’t harp on about it, what I will harp on about is the odd frame rate moments. Many times, within my journey through Hyrule, the grass and flags flying in the wind will lag and lower the FPS but the area around the flag is normal. It’s like an anomaly, weird event only I, the player, can view. I am introduced to the fuse system and the ultra-hand system; I am a fan of the fuse system. If that was the only gimmick in the game that would be great, got my mileage already. The ultra hand is alright, it’s clever and I used it mainly to create larger versions of a plank to walk across dangerous areas. Story-wise I think I’ll say that its interesting but just that, doesn’t engage me other than stringing me along to areas where I learn more about these people who live there and solving their problems, like what I did today. Reached Rito Village, helped Tulin with some monsters and now I’m babysitting him until I finish, he’s useful so that helps.
9/23/2023- The Gerudo valley and the area, well the road I took, felt a lot more fun, a lot more fun, I got to sneak through the canyon, which has this sort of combat gimmick where the heat and cold in certain areas had you swap from a fused weapon that does ice damage to heat damage, its very simple but implemented enough to where I found great joy in it. The Gerudo valley as an area, rather than the canyon to it (one of many ways you reach it, but the intended route if you go by central Hyrule) is fun, I found great irony in Riju going “ah the monsters that roam the storm are dangerous” while I never found them hard at all, for two reasons. I would like to think that this was intentional that the lizalfos drop elements based fusion weapon parts, then you reach the valley in its prime and encounter these new monsters (they remind me of those weird mummy monsters I saw in the Ocarina of Time promotions) and they’re a breeze to fight. Slow, no weapons and no range, hit them once or twice with a fire-based attack and it does the job. Zelda combat is easy, but the enemies aren’t idiots, these guys were still easy. Making it into Gerudo town and for a main kingdom the main town is small, maybe there’s a large city I haven’t found yet, I don’t know, maybe I will know, Ill let you know when I know. Wandering around I spot a mating, a breeding class, the gerudo take, thank goodness the town was taken over my monsters, I don’t want to know what strange and deranged opinions the Gerudo give to their children on men, based on what happens when a gerudo male is born. Given a mission to defend the town once im in the vault, after being called a “voe” hope that’s not a slur. Defending the time is boring, but I enjoyed it, jumping around, sprinting from place to place and making go “I need more stamina”. The current thoughts right now, is that Tears of the Kingdom has great mechanics, setting and puzzles but never seemed to engage me in the world and story, I want to but have no desire to.
10/2/2023- I have had three play sessions without logging my journal experience here so inshallah I will make it up here, albeit a shortened version but maybe not! Finishing off the quest in Gerudo Valley was fun, for the most part. The lightning temple is by far the most fun temple I have gone through, I loved the puzzles and it felt good solving them, they interconnected. The boss for that temple, Queen Gibdo, was a cool design but the first encounter and first half of the final showdown wasn’t that fun for me, the second half where it began to become more of a puzzle-lite boss was great, I also had a mirror shield on hand, great times. Beating that bug bastard was hard though, for me at least, took me around 4 tries to beat when the Wind Temple boss only took me one. This only made me notice how I run out of arrows, almost always. It pisses me off how I can’t use wood to make arrows, I must scavenge and pillage Ganon’s forces for five arrows. This game has a lot of good things going for it but a lot of flaws or opportunities to make the game better that just isn’t there. Moving on, I reached a few temples and gained some blessings, I am starting to enjoy the temples way more. Buying arrows in the Zora domain made me notice how FUCKED the market in Hyrule is, sixty rupees for 15 arrows, how worthless are these literal jewels? I do find these marks of currency everywhere, under rocks and in the middle of nowhere, so there’s probably a lot of them scattered all over, lowering the value. Other than that, we see Sidon again, glad he’s moving on in his life, moving up. The quest is good, kind of, the solutions to the puzzle that leads to the temple is so stupid but at this point I just started shooting and throwing and flying through, yeah it worked, its not that fun. The mini story arc between Sidon and Yona is nice, I enjoy how it faces how brash Sidon is, despite all the good he does, feels like he isn’t making the smartest choice, and now that he’s about to become king, his actions will have more weight. He also has baggage, untold baggage. Reskins of the Likes appeared again and attacked the group, I did not enjoy this fight, at all. After a bit I got the groove of the battle and won, after two tries, still didn’t like it. Boss fights are not the strong suit in this game, maybe it will get better. I keep flipping back and forth with how I feel about the combat system, sometimes I really enjoy it and otherwise I feel like clawing at my face with how basic yet annoying it can feel, from inputs to feedback. Link feels like Jello and the enemies like sponges. The first temple is short, or I think that’s the temple, regardless, I am glad that the main idea is getting to the center, and there’s a lot of methods, I just made a wooden plank bridge to traverse the cave side. Now into the floating islands, they’re fun, I like the idea of bubble puzzles, but I know I will never use these bubbles again, which sucks. The construction flux (two!) was a fun fight, makes me wish that there was more boss variety in temples, feels like I’ve fought dozens of these guys already. I then picked up a sage’s will. The temple boss’s fight was lots of fun beating him the first time, I enjoyed this fight way more than the last two, ranking this temple, out of the three, the best one. Link grabs Sidon’s family jewels and we are fucking on our way to the Goron, last stop before I make last preparations for Ganon.
10/17/23- FINAL TEMPLE HERE WE COME! The last temple was fun albeit the journey getting there was a bit obtuse but otherwise it was fun. I also did all the tears and learned the location of the master sword. For one I really want to learn more about the past Hyrule rather than the post upheaval Hyrule, looks like there’s more to it than what’s happening right now. Then the light dragon is possibly the most annoying feature brought into this game, why can it not be in one section, I get the point is to explore the map but by the time you could reach the light dragon, you have explored most, if not all the map already, its reductive.
10/28/2023- FINAL ENTRY- FINAL THOUGHTS- Before this entry, maybe like a few days before or on the 17th, I was really in the mindset of thinking that I wouldn’t enjoy this game at all, in any regard. That only turned out to be true, kind of. I thought the second half of the game is fantastic, not well paced, I don’t think this game is well paced at all. It feels padded out at times. I also didn’t enjoy the combat a lot, The feeling when you time a dodge right and get the flurry rush gave me a great feeling, but I cannot help but feel like the combat is stiff, along with the lock on camera being very unhelpful with me in the middle of battle. The story is alright, I really enjoyed the past Hyrule segments but most of the present region areas have just alright to nothing of stories, but the story is ok. The added mechanics are great, they have their moments, but I don’t feel like it being the central gameplay focus is justified by any means. I didn’t care for the side content; I did most of it to unlock features but never felt engaged in any of it.
This game is fun, but I personally cannot recommend the time-sink.
9/23/2023- The Gerudo valley and the area, well the road I took, felt a lot more fun, a lot more fun, I got to sneak through the canyon, which has this sort of combat gimmick where the heat and cold in certain areas had you swap from a fused weapon that does ice damage to heat damage, its very simple but implemented enough to where I found great joy in it. The Gerudo valley as an area, rather than the canyon to it (one of many ways you reach it, but the intended route if you go by central Hyrule) is fun, I found great irony in Riju going “ah the monsters that roam the storm are dangerous” while I never found them hard at all, for two reasons. I would like to think that this was intentional that the lizalfos drop elements based fusion weapon parts, then you reach the valley in its prime and encounter these new monsters (they remind me of those weird mummy monsters I saw in the Ocarina of Time promotions) and they’re a breeze to fight. Slow, no weapons and no range, hit them once or twice with a fire-based attack and it does the job. Zelda combat is easy, but the enemies aren’t idiots, these guys were still easy. Making it into Gerudo town and for a main kingdom the main town is small, maybe there’s a large city I haven’t found yet, I don’t know, maybe I will know, Ill let you know when I know. Wandering around I spot a mating, a breeding class, the gerudo take, thank goodness the town was taken over my monsters, I don’t want to know what strange and deranged opinions the Gerudo give to their children on men, based on what happens when a gerudo male is born. Given a mission to defend the town once im in the vault, after being called a “voe” hope that’s not a slur. Defending the time is boring, but I enjoyed it, jumping around, sprinting from place to place and making go “I need more stamina”. The current thoughts right now, is that Tears of the Kingdom has great mechanics, setting and puzzles but never seemed to engage me in the world and story, I want to but have no desire to.
10/2/2023- I have had three play sessions without logging my journal experience here so inshallah I will make it up here, albeit a shortened version but maybe not! Finishing off the quest in Gerudo Valley was fun, for the most part. The lightning temple is by far the most fun temple I have gone through, I loved the puzzles and it felt good solving them, they interconnected. The boss for that temple, Queen Gibdo, was a cool design but the first encounter and first half of the final showdown wasn’t that fun for me, the second half where it began to become more of a puzzle-lite boss was great, I also had a mirror shield on hand, great times. Beating that bug bastard was hard though, for me at least, took me around 4 tries to beat when the Wind Temple boss only took me one. This only made me notice how I run out of arrows, almost always. It pisses me off how I can’t use wood to make arrows, I must scavenge and pillage Ganon’s forces for five arrows. This game has a lot of good things going for it but a lot of flaws or opportunities to make the game better that just isn’t there. Moving on, I reached a few temples and gained some blessings, I am starting to enjoy the temples way more. Buying arrows in the Zora domain made me notice how FUCKED the market in Hyrule is, sixty rupees for 15 arrows, how worthless are these literal jewels? I do find these marks of currency everywhere, under rocks and in the middle of nowhere, so there’s probably a lot of them scattered all over, lowering the value. Other than that, we see Sidon again, glad he’s moving on in his life, moving up. The quest is good, kind of, the solutions to the puzzle that leads to the temple is so stupid but at this point I just started shooting and throwing and flying through, yeah it worked, its not that fun. The mini story arc between Sidon and Yona is nice, I enjoy how it faces how brash Sidon is, despite all the good he does, feels like he isn’t making the smartest choice, and now that he’s about to become king, his actions will have more weight. He also has baggage, untold baggage. Reskins of the Likes appeared again and attacked the group, I did not enjoy this fight, at all. After a bit I got the groove of the battle and won, after two tries, still didn’t like it. Boss fights are not the strong suit in this game, maybe it will get better. I keep flipping back and forth with how I feel about the combat system, sometimes I really enjoy it and otherwise I feel like clawing at my face with how basic yet annoying it can feel, from inputs to feedback. Link feels like Jello and the enemies like sponges. The first temple is short, or I think that’s the temple, regardless, I am glad that the main idea is getting to the center, and there’s a lot of methods, I just made a wooden plank bridge to traverse the cave side. Now into the floating islands, they’re fun, I like the idea of bubble puzzles, but I know I will never use these bubbles again, which sucks. The construction flux (two!) was a fun fight, makes me wish that there was more boss variety in temples, feels like I’ve fought dozens of these guys already. I then picked up a sage’s will. The temple boss’s fight was lots of fun beating him the first time, I enjoyed this fight way more than the last two, ranking this temple, out of the three, the best one. Link grabs Sidon’s family jewels and we are fucking on our way to the Goron, last stop before I make last preparations for Ganon.
10/17/23- FINAL TEMPLE HERE WE COME! The last temple was fun albeit the journey getting there was a bit obtuse but otherwise it was fun. I also did all the tears and learned the location of the master sword. For one I really want to learn more about the past Hyrule rather than the post upheaval Hyrule, looks like there’s more to it than what’s happening right now. Then the light dragon is possibly the most annoying feature brought into this game, why can it not be in one section, I get the point is to explore the map but by the time you could reach the light dragon, you have explored most, if not all the map already, its reductive.
10/28/2023- FINAL ENTRY- FINAL THOUGHTS- Before this entry, maybe like a few days before or on the 17th, I was really in the mindset of thinking that I wouldn’t enjoy this game at all, in any regard. That only turned out to be true, kind of. I thought the second half of the game is fantastic, not well paced, I don’t think this game is well paced at all. It feels padded out at times. I also didn’t enjoy the combat a lot, The feeling when you time a dodge right and get the flurry rush gave me a great feeling, but I cannot help but feel like the combat is stiff, along with the lock on camera being very unhelpful with me in the middle of battle. The story is alright, I really enjoyed the past Hyrule segments but most of the present region areas have just alright to nothing of stories, but the story is ok. The added mechanics are great, they have their moments, but I don’t feel like it being the central gameplay focus is justified by any means. I didn’t care for the side content; I did most of it to unlock features but never felt engaged in any of it.
This game is fun, but I personally cannot recommend the time-sink.