I really enjoyed this game during a rainy week off. My total play time was just over 40 hours for total completion. The real joy in the game is leveling/outfitting your squad, then going on the next mission with your new kit. All the areas have multiple ways to approach them, with further entry options available depending on your augments. I appreciated how by the end game, once your squad is fully decked out, they feel really powerful. At the start of the game I had to be really careful with my engagements; by the end I was confident about storming the front gate to compounds. I will say the final mission was a challenge and the ending was surprising. I gave the game 4 stars because despite all the great tactical options and enjoyable gameplay, it did have some quality-of-life issues. A big one is whenever you load a game, you have to reset your squad quick keys and re-ping your mission objectives. Nothing terribly arduous, but a noticeable inconvenience. Also had the game crash twice to desktop. I tend to save often, but it was unexpected. Overall happy with my purchase and felt like time well spent. If an expansion is ever released, I would happily jump back in for another playthrough.
As other have mentioned the English translations are a bit rough at first. I say at first as, they likely didn't improve much throught the adventure, but with time I got used to them and was able to follow the story fine. On subsuquent play throughs the early text didn't bother me any longer and was relatively clear. I've played more adult VN than I would like to admit, and my greatest dissapointment in most of them is the character design, and dissproportionate body parts. This adventure only has natural looking women, which I really appreciated and enjoyed. I ended up putting nearly 30 hours into this game exploring the different endings and completing tasks. Overall I enjoyed it and would have given a 3.5 star if possible. The concept is good, the adventure fun, its just the janky DOS like controls and substandard translations that hold it back. Also some elements of the game appear to be place holders if there is ever another DLC expansion. Finally some play through notes that would have been nice to have before I started: Have to use Reishal scroll on Firefly first, or risk a task breaking glitch between hers and Violets picture. Elsa's dresses are currently not used in the game, nor is there a way to get a towel for Violet (Developer Comment December 2023). Don’t Exorcise the Nun with the Damned Stilleto, untill after getting Firefly's true name. When Camaria gives you a pouch. Use it to get the pearls inside, before giving it back to her; Otherwise the quest will end prematurely. To find the Runaway Bride, you have to go into the Catacomb level 1 gem mine, then move east to a secret room. To trigger the assasinate the Priest event from the Princess, you have to allow the Priest to fully complete his Investigation task. There are various ways to complete the game (some being an untimely death). Ultimately you have to let the Forces of Darkness take the Keep to get the different endings and finish your playthrough.
Fantasy Tavern Sextet - Vol.1 New World Days took me 4 hours to complete a first play through. During the play through the story was fun in a childish Saturday morning cartoon way, but with adult themes like drinking and intimacy thrown in. I was expecting more of a game, but it is only a virtual novel. There are no mini games, and during the 4 hours there were approximately 10 instances when the player can make a choice for how the story proceeds. The choices don't have a meaningful impact for future chapters, they just alter how the current scene plays out. I give it a three-star rating as I didn't feel like playing the game was a total waste of time or boring. But there were scenes when the protagonist gets attacked by a monster and I was fully expecting a mini game or decision tree to interact with it, and it was purely handled as a single-track story encounter. At the tavern I was expecting a mini game to manage tasks and finances, or at least some player agency to decide how I would assist, but again it is all a single-track story. The only times you get to make a choice is when it involves one of the harem girls. Finally, the scenes are very basic and limited. It felt like a low budget theater where they only have so many backdrops, so all the scenes get crammed into three or four locations. Not so much because it helps the story but rather because of budget constraints. It was disappointing when the aforementioned monster was never visually depicted, nor a subsequent major protagonist. The story will talk about other characters and give them lines to say, but all you will ever see are the harem girls in the limited backdrop settings. I personally don't plan to continue the story into volume 2 or 3. The game wasn't a waste of time, but for me it was a waste of money.
