NSFVirto
This review contains spoilers
An ero-RPG with a fully voiced protagonist? Cool! Unfortanutely that's about it.
The gist of Slave's Sword plot is rather simple: Girl Knight named Luna Ashley with rare magical powers gets captured after failing a mission and is branded a slave, she then finds herself fighting with a group of revolutionaries against the empire she was a part of.
RPG Systems and gameplay in general: It's as straightforward of a RPG Maker game as it can get, but the grind is real in this one game. Can't say I have found plenty of interesting battles since there aren't many zones in the game where enemies cannot get killed by spamming the attack button. Skills in this game are rare commodities, Luna herself comes with Fire based skills that I shit you not, are not very effective for the majority of the game.
Besides that, magic comes in the format of finding rare tomes scattered on the story missions that give you 1 magic attack of other elements (and those are usually better than the fire attacks luna gets plenty of). Weapons and armor parts in this game can be upgraded. Since equipment is level locked, you will find yourself wanting for iron ores and money so you can upgrade your current weapon to be better but that eventually makes them better than the weapons you can buy for the later levels, so what's the point? Wouldn't it be better to not be able to buy/upgrade since each system makes the other one irrelevant? I honestly really dislike this.
You have a slot for accessories and some of them can even add element properties for your attacks but it's honestly a underused mechanic (plenty of the resist rings are also useless since most enemies don't do status attacks). There's also a gacha system inside the game, you can spend in game money to buy random cards with some cute artwork, and equipping a card can give you buffs. Honestly, I think I found the one that carried my whole playthrough by giving a chance for a second action every turn. This really did give me a fighting chance for the last part of the game where I don't think I would get by without healing and attacking at the same time.
The Grind (TM): The game gives you the option to bounty hunt, which gives you access to some areas that will have a boss at the end. It's so dull and repetitive, but also pretty much the only way to get the game's singular upgrade material, so you're doing that a lot. I honestly think this game would get a lot better if it just cut down on the artificial ways to extend it's duration than making the player do boring quests for quite some time. Of course, there's also prostitution services one can perform, but they give less and less money over time, something that I can't really think is good game design. I know the character is supposed to get naughtier over time for doing these services (just so the corruption tag of the game is justified) but why not start with her doing "lower level jobs" instead of starting her at the top and dropping her for no bigger reward? It may seem like a nitpick, but it's very unlikely you're doing this grind watching the same scenes every day just to get less than 1300G per night (which becomes less and less over time) it honestly feels like the game is at odd with the player.
NSFW Stuff: The content that is there ain't half bad. Honestly it may be the only good thing about this game, since the protagonist is FULLY voiced. It may not be the most daring when it comes to the kinds of acts performed on Luna but that can also be good, not everyone wants every act to be completely deranged.
Even though I think the CGs are good, besides the ones you get for exploring the dungeon and losing to the monsters, the ones you get on the city progress at such a slow place, it really feels like the devs didn't want you to watch everything until you finished the game (and unlocked all the scenes anyway).
Conclusion: Download this game and get you a save file where the CGs are unlocked. This game is honestly better viewed as a CG Folder than anything else.
The gist of Slave's Sword plot is rather simple: Girl Knight named Luna Ashley with rare magical powers gets captured after failing a mission and is branded a slave, she then finds herself fighting with a group of revolutionaries against the empire she was a part of.
RPG Systems and gameplay in general: It's as straightforward of a RPG Maker game as it can get, but the grind is real in this one game. Can't say I have found plenty of interesting battles since there aren't many zones in the game where enemies cannot get killed by spamming the attack button. Skills in this game are rare commodities, Luna herself comes with Fire based skills that I shit you not, are not very effective for the majority of the game.
Besides that, magic comes in the format of finding rare tomes scattered on the story missions that give you 1 magic attack of other elements (and those are usually better than the fire attacks luna gets plenty of). Weapons and armor parts in this game can be upgraded. Since equipment is level locked, you will find yourself wanting for iron ores and money so you can upgrade your current weapon to be better but that eventually makes them better than the weapons you can buy for the later levels, so what's the point? Wouldn't it be better to not be able to buy/upgrade since each system makes the other one irrelevant? I honestly really dislike this.
You have a slot for accessories and some of them can even add element properties for your attacks but it's honestly a underused mechanic (plenty of the resist rings are also useless since most enemies don't do status attacks). There's also a gacha system inside the game, you can spend in game money to buy random cards with some cute artwork, and equipping a card can give you buffs. Honestly, I think I found the one that carried my whole playthrough by giving a chance for a second action every turn. This really did give me a fighting chance for the last part of the game where I don't think I would get by without healing and attacking at the same time.
The Grind (TM): The game gives you the option to bounty hunt, which gives you access to some areas that will have a boss at the end. It's so dull and repetitive, but also pretty much the only way to get the game's singular upgrade material, so you're doing that a lot. I honestly think this game would get a lot better if it just cut down on the artificial ways to extend it's duration than making the player do boring quests for quite some time. Of course, there's also prostitution services one can perform, but they give less and less money over time, something that I can't really think is good game design. I know the character is supposed to get naughtier over time for doing these services (just so the corruption tag of the game is justified) but why not start with her doing "lower level jobs" instead of starting her at the top and dropping her for no bigger reward? It may seem like a nitpick, but it's very unlikely you're doing this grind watching the same scenes every day just to get less than 1300G per night (which becomes less and less over time) it honestly feels like the game is at odd with the player.
NSFW Stuff: The content that is there ain't half bad. Honestly it may be the only good thing about this game, since the protagonist is FULLY voiced. It may not be the most daring when it comes to the kinds of acts performed on Luna but that can also be good, not everyone wants every act to be completely deranged.
Even though I think the CGs are good, besides the ones you get for exploring the dungeon and losing to the monsters, the ones you get on the city progress at such a slow place, it really feels like the devs didn't want you to watch everything until you finished the game (and unlocked all the scenes anyway).
Conclusion: Download this game and get you a save file where the CGs are unlocked. This game is honestly better viewed as a CG Folder than anything else.
2019
A pocket sized ero-rpg that doesn't overstay it's welcome? Huh.
The concept is as straightforwards as it gets: You play mostly as Botan, a kunoichi that needs to murder this merchant that is dealing with Onis in order to get power. Your mission is to infiltrate his house and try not to get yourself killed.
RPG Systems and gameplay in general: Honestly I love this game's simple approach to combat, you can either instakill most enemies by sneaking on them, or fighting them head on with basic attacks whose damage depends a bit on a die (it even has it's own little animation on screen, lovely stuff). Besides that you probably are going to rely on the "Substitution Jutsu" technique that can tank 2 hits for you occasionaly (it can be used out of combat). Since the game is rather small, this approach just works really fine.
Since the game is rather short, I'll try to simplify the rest of the review.
Botan gets "cursed" by the Onis and that makes her very susceptible to break after having sex with them, so most of the game will have you trying not to get game overs after you get grabbed by the wandering onis of the mansion, or on the games specific story events that can get you a game over screen and usually a H-Scene for your troubles.
On the topic of the content of those H-Scenes, and the overall game, it's a rather gruesome approach that I'm not really used to see. Pretty much all of them H-scenes result in Botan getting brutally murdered, and whilst the game usually doesn't show everything, it makes an effort to describe what happens to botan after she gets broken and that was interesting to say the least. Honestly, my only gripe is that usually you have to replay a bunch of text and sometimes whole gameplay sections if you want to see an H-scene, which makes for some boring waiting times. But that is just a nitpick.
Conclusion: I find hard to say anything too bad about this one, it dodged many of the usual mistakes I see with this kind of game. It's very short so definetely give this one a try, but skip it if descriptions of extreme violence are not your thing.
The concept is as straightforwards as it gets: You play mostly as Botan, a kunoichi that needs to murder this merchant that is dealing with Onis in order to get power. Your mission is to infiltrate his house and try not to get yourself killed.
RPG Systems and gameplay in general: Honestly I love this game's simple approach to combat, you can either instakill most enemies by sneaking on them, or fighting them head on with basic attacks whose damage depends a bit on a die (it even has it's own little animation on screen, lovely stuff). Besides that you probably are going to rely on the "Substitution Jutsu" technique that can tank 2 hits for you occasionaly (it can be used out of combat). Since the game is rather small, this approach just works really fine.
Since the game is rather short, I'll try to simplify the rest of the review.
Botan gets "cursed" by the Onis and that makes her very susceptible to break after having sex with them, so most of the game will have you trying not to get game overs after you get grabbed by the wandering onis of the mansion, or on the games specific story events that can get you a game over screen and usually a H-Scene for your troubles.
On the topic of the content of those H-Scenes, and the overall game, it's a rather gruesome approach that I'm not really used to see. Pretty much all of them H-scenes result in Botan getting brutally murdered, and whilst the game usually doesn't show everything, it makes an effort to describe what happens to botan after she gets broken and that was interesting to say the least. Honestly, my only gripe is that usually you have to replay a bunch of text and sometimes whole gameplay sections if you want to see an H-scene, which makes for some boring waiting times. But that is just a nitpick.
Conclusion: I find hard to say anything too bad about this one, it dodged many of the usual mistakes I see with this kind of game. It's very short so definetely give this one a try, but skip it if descriptions of extreme violence are not your thing.
This review contains spoilers
Mai and The Legendary Treasure is a middle of the road Ero-RPG.
The concept is rather simple. Girl wants to be a treasure hunter and gets transported to a world where everyone wants to find the so called Legendary Treasure of this guy named Leonard Poire. It's a bland isekai plot but the premise ain't the worst I've ever seen and the character of Mai and how her treasure hunter skills develop during the game makes for nice banter, though, at times, is just plain boring (as isekais usually are).
RPG Systems and gameplay in general: Honestly I found the fighting part of this game to be having some imaginative, but flawed decisions that make the game sometimes feel like a slog. Characters have skills and magic besides the usual attack button, which are special actions costing either MP and rarely, TP (veterans of rpg maker games may be familiar with the naming convention) and whilst magic can only really be bought or found (Either by killing enemies or finding magic grimoires on the overworld), skills develop somewhat randomly by just fighting monsters with a kind of weapons. That means that letting your characters have a preferred weapon type pays off a lot in the long run, for some skills do be hitting like a truck. However, not all skills are created equal, and often times, random targetting multi hitting skills do be your best option for dealing with enemies since they interact funnily with the games dual wielding and naturally multi hitting weapons.
The game has options for auto play during combat, but since enemies scale with your level (a system that often times is never greatly utilized but that I can't dislike fully) the auto button feels like a slot machine in the later parts of the game. Though it has a tactics menu that can interact with how the auto feature will function (by having characters being able to fulfill more supportive or offensive roles) the fact that some spells just don't scale well (specially those you get at the beginning) makes you wish for a "delete skill/magic" button just so they stop being used during combat for the rest of the game.
The game has a elemental resistance/weakness system that could be better explored, but most enemies are either reskins or color palette swaps and not really interesting enough for one to really try to fight every enemy by exploiting it's weakness, it's a hassle that doesn't pay off usually, specially because since the game doesn't have a bestiary, you're going to get lost on the enemies weaknesses really fast.
Itemization in this game is weak to be honest. Weapons and Armor, the ones that aren't costumes for the characaters that matter (Fuck you, Abel) are usually just a case of "Get the upgrade on the shop (that changes items based on your level, reall cool touch) or find a better weapon casually sitting on the floor of the next dungeon". Accessories feel like they should matter but the whole combat system just doesn't utilize that so much, really par for the course in the mediocre ero-rpg scene.
Boss monsters are lame and really not memorable, after you discover some strategy that works they just become sacks of hp, and if you can't beat some boss now, just grind a lil bit on mobs and get the next set of upgrades for your weapons, and that's about it.
Story: Eh, it certainly exists and some characters are interesting, but the lack of other hubs for you to interact with characters makes every other place you find just another dungeon filled with enemies that aren't really fun to battle and don't interact much with you. Mai's journey with her friends and the asshole meant to cuck mai's love interest and help the big bad guy is colorful at times but feels very bland. (Also, Mai's love interest just suck. He really is just there to be cucked and I'm not even kidding). The payoff to the great search for the legendary treasure feels very lukewarm.
NSFW Stuff: where do I even start with this one? Well, for one the scenes are "animated" as in, during sex scenes a whole two sets of frames between penis in and penis out happen, the speed of which is changed every time you press the Confirm button. I don't know who was the crazy dev who thought that pressing confirm a buncha of times during the sex animations was going to be fun, I made use of the Skip Dialogue and Fast Forward buttons a lot. ON AN ERO-GAME . . . I think it was one of the few times in my life that I got tired of a game during what's supposed to be it's highlights and it's such a shame. If instead of a required button press, the game just alternated speeds at random intervals, or even had a steady pace but that wasn't just boring, I porlly be happier.
The Sex dialogue is also very poor, it really doesn't get very exciting, the characters sometimes do be having the same pose happening at the same time and it feels like every part of the sex scenes just were poorly executed/thought out.
lots of "Beg for my forgiveness, mwahah", intense cucking of every male character, and dear lord the loli stuff is just so unnecessary.
Conclusion: Skip this one, fella. There are way better games out there. I honestly don't think the interesting ideas with the combat system save this game from being boring and that's saying a lot.
The concept is rather simple. Girl wants to be a treasure hunter and gets transported to a world where everyone wants to find the so called Legendary Treasure of this guy named Leonard Poire. It's a bland isekai plot but the premise ain't the worst I've ever seen and the character of Mai and how her treasure hunter skills develop during the game makes for nice banter, though, at times, is just plain boring (as isekais usually are).
RPG Systems and gameplay in general: Honestly I found the fighting part of this game to be having some imaginative, but flawed decisions that make the game sometimes feel like a slog. Characters have skills and magic besides the usual attack button, which are special actions costing either MP and rarely, TP (veterans of rpg maker games may be familiar with the naming convention) and whilst magic can only really be bought or found (Either by killing enemies or finding magic grimoires on the overworld), skills develop somewhat randomly by just fighting monsters with a kind of weapons. That means that letting your characters have a preferred weapon type pays off a lot in the long run, for some skills do be hitting like a truck. However, not all skills are created equal, and often times, random targetting multi hitting skills do be your best option for dealing with enemies since they interact funnily with the games dual wielding and naturally multi hitting weapons.
The game has options for auto play during combat, but since enemies scale with your level (a system that often times is never greatly utilized but that I can't dislike fully) the auto button feels like a slot machine in the later parts of the game. Though it has a tactics menu that can interact with how the auto feature will function (by having characters being able to fulfill more supportive or offensive roles) the fact that some spells just don't scale well (specially those you get at the beginning) makes you wish for a "delete skill/magic" button just so they stop being used during combat for the rest of the game.
The game has a elemental resistance/weakness system that could be better explored, but most enemies are either reskins or color palette swaps and not really interesting enough for one to really try to fight every enemy by exploiting it's weakness, it's a hassle that doesn't pay off usually, specially because since the game doesn't have a bestiary, you're going to get lost on the enemies weaknesses really fast.
Itemization in this game is weak to be honest. Weapons and Armor, the ones that aren't costumes for the characaters that matter (Fuck you, Abel) are usually just a case of "Get the upgrade on the shop (that changes items based on your level, reall cool touch) or find a better weapon casually sitting on the floor of the next dungeon". Accessories feel like they should matter but the whole combat system just doesn't utilize that so much, really par for the course in the mediocre ero-rpg scene.
Boss monsters are lame and really not memorable, after you discover some strategy that works they just become sacks of hp, and if you can't beat some boss now, just grind a lil bit on mobs and get the next set of upgrades for your weapons, and that's about it.
Story: Eh, it certainly exists and some characters are interesting, but the lack of other hubs for you to interact with characters makes every other place you find just another dungeon filled with enemies that aren't really fun to battle and don't interact much with you. Mai's journey with her friends and the asshole meant to cuck mai's love interest and help the big bad guy is colorful at times but feels very bland. (Also, Mai's love interest just suck. He really is just there to be cucked and I'm not even kidding). The payoff to the great search for the legendary treasure feels very lukewarm.
NSFW Stuff: where do I even start with this one? Well, for one the scenes are "animated" as in, during sex scenes a whole two sets of frames between penis in and penis out happen, the speed of which is changed every time you press the Confirm button. I don't know who was the crazy dev who thought that pressing confirm a buncha of times during the sex animations was going to be fun, I made use of the Skip Dialogue and Fast Forward buttons a lot. ON AN ERO-GAME . . . I think it was one of the few times in my life that I got tired of a game during what's supposed to be it's highlights and it's such a shame. If instead of a required button press, the game just alternated speeds at random intervals, or even had a steady pace but that wasn't just boring, I porlly be happier.
The Sex dialogue is also very poor, it really doesn't get very exciting, the characters sometimes do be having the same pose happening at the same time and it feels like every part of the sex scenes just were poorly executed/thought out.
lots of "Beg for my forgiveness, mwahah", intense cucking of every male character, and dear lord the loli stuff is just so unnecessary.
Conclusion: Skip this one, fella. There are way better games out there. I honestly don't think the interesting ideas with the combat system save this game from being boring and that's saying a lot.
This review contains spoilers
Magical Girl Celesphonia is quite a game, not gonna lie.
The premise is your typical "girl gets turned into a magical girl in order to beat a monster that is going to murder (or in this case, rape) her and eventually sets out to save the world". That works in the games favor to separate the various moments where you play as the Amane, the protagonist, without using her newfound powers, and the moments you suit up and become the heroine Celesphonia, with all of your monster beating skills.
As Amane you go about the city in order to do some odd jobs, visit shops (in order to buy new clothing, items or spend time doing activities that can get some of your stats raised), talk to NPCs and the like. But you also go to school in order to use the game's day and night cycle and raise your reputation (Which I honestly haven't realized yet why would one maintain it in a high level).
You usually turn into Celesphonia on the game's battle maps. As far as rpg combats go in these kinds of RPG Maker games, M.G.C. gives you lots of abilities you can invest time and resources into, making build variety possible, though not really that necessary in order to beat the game in it's normal difficulty (haven't looked into the tougher difficulties but I think it's best to judge a game based on it's default difficulty). Grinding only becomes a necessity when farming for the better items on the list and though I'm not really fond of grinding items (that sometimes have somewhat low drop rates) the fact that game has a "auto-kill-easy-enemies-on-a-backstab" mechanic makes traversing the game so much more enjoyable and interactive than most JRPGs I ever played, even outside RPG Maker games.
The writing for the most part is not that bad, considering it is an ero-rpg. Of course, given that for the most part the main non ero content isn't what you go for when playing these games, it served as a passable anime story about a girl fighting monsters.
NSFW Stuff -
On the topic of the ero content, it honestly ain't half bad, though it uses mostly stills of the character on the unlockable scenes, the integration between some of the game's in battle mechanics with the ero content is really interesting and makes it an enjoyable experience. The sound design could use some more work. Amane as pretty much one sound file dedicated to her orgasms, and you better like it because god, you're hearing that one a lot. Sometimes I just wished there were more characters envolved in the H-Scenes that made any sound at all because that surely is somewhat tedious, specially if you go for a lot of the scenes you didn't get before on the final part of the game. Some of the other characters don't even have sounds dedicated to them which means the game uses only sounds for the intercourse without any moans happening which is honestly disappointing.
On a apreciative note, this game does it's corruption very nicely and I know the studio does this a lot, but I couldn't for the life of me say that it doesn't work. As a steam reviewer has said, this game makes you feel really bad about the things you put the character through, and though it's the nature of the game to make very risqué choices for H-Scenes, the whole journey of getting your character from inexperienced to sex addicted really does get one hooked and it's a highlight of the game.
One may take a look at the rating I'm proposing for this game and think I may have disliked it but honestly I loved every second of this game, and the rating is reflective of that. It's bad parts mostly come from uninteresting monster and encounter designs on the battlemaps that usually plague most RPG Maker games, but honestly this probably the biggest rating I could ever give to a game like this, and that should be something to consider it favorably.
If you enjoy a slow burn, this game sure may be to your liking. I fully recommend it.
Magical Girl Celesphonia is definetely one of the best Ero-RPGs I played in quite a while.
The premise is your typical "girl gets turned into a magical girl in order to beat a monster that is going to murder (or in this case, rape) her and eventually sets out to save the world". That works in the games favor to separate the various moments where you play as the Amane, the protagonist, without using her newfound powers, and the moments you suit up and become the heroine Celesphonia, with all of your monster beating skills.
As Amane you go about the city in order to do some odd jobs, visit shops (in order to buy new clothing, items or spend time doing activities that can get some of your stats raised), talk to NPCs and the like. But you also go to school in order to use the game's day and night cycle and raise your reputation (Which I honestly haven't realized yet why would one maintain it in a high level).
You usually turn into Celesphonia on the game's battle maps. As far as rpg combats go in these kinds of RPG Maker games, M.G.C. gives you lots of abilities you can invest time and resources into, making build variety possible, though not really that necessary in order to beat the game in it's normal difficulty (haven't looked into the tougher difficulties but I think it's best to judge a game based on it's default difficulty). Grinding only becomes a necessity when farming for the better items on the list and though I'm not really fond of grinding items (that sometimes have somewhat low drop rates) the fact that game has a "auto-kill-easy-enemies-on-a-backstab" mechanic makes traversing the game so much more enjoyable and interactive than most JRPGs I ever played, even outside RPG Maker games.
The writing for the most part is not that bad, considering it is an ero-rpg. Of course, given that for the most part the main non ero content isn't what you go for when playing these games, it served as a passable anime story about a girl fighting monsters.
NSFW Stuff -
On the topic of the ero content, it honestly ain't half bad, though it uses mostly stills of the character on the unlockable scenes, the integration between some of the game's in battle mechanics with the ero content is really interesting and makes it an enjoyable experience. The sound design could use some more work. Amane as pretty much one sound file dedicated to her orgasms, and you better like it because god, you're hearing that one a lot. Sometimes I just wished there were more characters envolved in the H-Scenes that made any sound at all because that surely is somewhat tedious, specially if you go for a lot of the scenes you didn't get before on the final part of the game. Some of the other characters don't even have sounds dedicated to them which means the game uses only sounds for the intercourse without any moans happening which is honestly disappointing.
On a apreciative note, this game does it's corruption very nicely and I know the studio does this a lot, but I couldn't for the life of me say that it doesn't work. As a steam reviewer has said, this game makes you feel really bad about the things you put the character through, and though it's the nature of the game to make very risqué choices for H-Scenes, the whole journey of getting your character from inexperienced to sex addicted really does get one hooked and it's a highlight of the game.
One may take a look at the rating I'm proposing for this game and think I may have disliked it but honestly I loved every second of this game, and the rating is reflective of that. It's bad parts mostly come from uninteresting monster and encounter designs on the battlemaps that usually plague most RPG Maker games, but honestly this probably the biggest rating I could ever give to a game like this, and that should be something to consider it favorably.
If you enjoy a slow burn, this game sure may be to your liking. I fully recommend it.
Magical Girl Celesphonia is definetely one of the best Ero-RPGs I played in quite a while.