It's um. It's uhhh. Good sexy, sexy gods, where to start with this one.

The environmental design is consistently incredible. Lusst'ghaa remains incredibly Gigeresque, and the level of detail is really wild. The manor that the cult resides in feels very lived in, simultaneously cozy and ominous, and the city has an animalistic vibe, having fallen to disrepair and being covered in trash. The nude statues and horny paintings around the manor are pleasing. Personally, I'm partial to the small one of a woman holding up the man penetrating her that's found in the hallway drawer. I would put that on display in my own home, I'm not shitting you.

There's nothing standout about the gameplay. Get hit by enemies and get hurt, see scary things and get brain hurt. Most enemies are patrolling and need to be stealthed. No marks added or subtracted, it's just a first person experience in a post-Amnesia world. It's fine and serves the game adequately.

The story and characters are so close to being something, and certainly were enough to keep me hooked to the end, but there are severe flaws. I frankly can't tell if I'm meant to like the protagonist or not, but I don't. He has some endearing moments, but they were few and far between for me, even though I typically really like a flawed protagonist. I find most of the named NPCs endearing or likable in some way. The doctor's voice actor acted his whole ass off all the way through, and I respect him for it.

Now, I have kinks and I have pronouns, and I love video games. I'm someone who has an interest in integrating sexuality into games, which, full disclosure, was my main draw to this series. And there is certainly sexuality all over, but it's not...much of anything. It's immature, infantile. It's predominantly shock value; BDSM and queerness, well that's threatening, so that belongs to evil cults. Enemies have their tits out! Sometimes, you'll see unnamed characters tangled up in tentacles on the ceiling, isn't that thrilling? Unfortunately, not really. To me, a mature approach to sexuality would have something to say about social norms, taboos, kinks, and the contradictions of human love and sexuality. I really wanted Lust from Beyond to address these things, say something about humanity, but it just never got there. It's disappointing.

I did really, deeply enjoy this game. It made me feel like some kind of space maintenance worker, tuning machines and bringing them back to full function. This was also the first game to disallow me from putting objects into my head, which is something I test on every single VR game I try, as my favorite little detail in the whole orchestration. That said, I think the puzzles could have used the space around the player more, and they stayed so easy as to feel more like a tech demo than a full game. I would have liked to have my mind bent a little more.