So the original version I have of this was from Fakku and it is up there with every creepy retro horror game I have ever played. It is NOT an RPG Maker game. It's a classic 8-bit game in the style of Sweet Home on the NES. It will mess with your head. You may say, "but Grim, it can't be that scary because there's hentai in it!" Well, you'd be wrong. The hentai barely lightens the mood and the prologue has a rather frightening end. The score is also chilling, it fits. Later on you'll have a team of characters and you'¡¡ fight turn-based RPG battles. There's a lot to this game and there's nothing else like it. There probably never will be. No one has thought to combine actual spine-tingling horror with hentai the way this game does. As for the scenes, you can have pixelated or non-pixelated and BL is even featured a toggleable as well.
So a lot of people have said this game is "like Star Fox." Well, as a fan of the SNES original which came with my system back in 1997 I can definitely say that is not the case. First of all, in Star Fox the ship moves by itself. I don't have to press a button to make it move. Secondly, everything I use is tied to resources. I don't want to play a game where I have to manage all my ship's resources because that's too much like work for me. If I was in a real ship and had to manage personal resources, that would be a different story. Though the fact of the matter is that I'm not and I'm looking to game as an escape from the working world, rather than an extension of it. It is not fun for me to have to manage resources. Additionally, the weapons have a warm up and cool down. This doesn't work either. Another big difference between this and Star Fox is that the game is not on rails. It's open and I don't care for that. You can't move backwards in Star Fox, but you can here. Star Fox worked because it was essentially an arcade game with a bit of strategy. This is more strategy and resource management than arcade game and I hate it. So can't recommend to people looking for a Star Fox style game. Furthermore, it is a Rougelike. Obviously, the Star Fox games are not Rougelike games but that's not even a big deal. The fact of the matter is that the game is not at all like Star Fox in terms of gameplay, so even though it may resemble it, that's not at all what you're getting here. I'd avoid this unless you're looking for a more maintenence driven tactics game with light arcade elements. It's like they took Star Fox and made it boring.
Leap Of Faith is the story of a man who just got out of a long-term relationship that he wasn't ready to break off. But she was, and there's a good reason for that which you will discover later in the game. On the advice of his friend Chris, he decides to get back out into the dating market and the chiseled Adonis that he is, he finds that he has little trouble. However, what he finds is more than just a fun time at a bowling alley or chatting with a pop superstar at one of her concerts - he discovers that people are complex and they have social and mental health issues that many other games do not acknowledge. Although this game has sex, it also deals with some very serious topics. One of the girls has bipolar depression that makes her suicidal, while another has body image issues. Later on, even the man who told you to get back in the game has dating problems of his own. Leap Of Faith is a fun, slice of life, but sometimes it can roll into serious drama. This is accentuated by the game's music which sadly is chopped out of this version. The artists complained even though Drifty has the rights to the music that he licensed. You'll need to Google "Leap Of Faith Music Restoration Mod" and you'll find that on a certain forum. Trust me, play the game with all the music for a full experience. Definitely one of the best in this genre and it also deals with some LGBT topics in a good light if that interests you.
Creature in the well is basically a pinball puzzle game. The problem with this though, is it takes the fun out of pinball entirely. Your balls dissappear rather than fall into the dead zone and you have to keep them from disappearing in order to complete puzzles to restore power to certain areas. This is fun at first, but as the game gets a little more difficult and focuses too much on the puzzles, you find yourself getting a bit frustrated and ready to just go for the refund. Let me be clear, this is a really neat idea - I guess I was just hoping for "defeat enemies using pinball tactics" rather than puzzle after puzzle after puzzle. Me personally, I'm just not that big into puzzle games and that's more or less what this is.
It should be obvious that many AVN's are funded through Patreon. Well, Patreon has been getting strict as well as itch.io around games involving inc**t as this one does. From The Patreon: "You the protagonist, are an 18 year old that is about to finish highschool. You live with your mother, father and a hot sister (Mia). The game starts 2 days before the end of school. You are behind in schoolwork and need to catch up on studying to pass. Your parents are going on a trip to France for a week. You are studying late at night when your sister comes home drunk." Since this is a no-go on Patreon and Itch.io the labels are now customizable. Mother, Father and Sister can be cousin or friend of you want. You can call them cookies, tbh. Doesn't matter. Regardless of what you call them though, the mother and father are still written as such, as well as your sister Mia. The game is described an alternative take on the RPG Maker game "My Sister Mia." The game also contains NTR and with a family involved, I'll bet that gets interesting. These are just a few things I think you should know before playing the game. Graphics aren't so great either, you can tell that the dev was still getting his bearings here. I would only recommend this if you liked Lust Theory and want more. I guess if you're into the hot sister or hot mom fantasy, this will work for you. But some folks will be put off by this and I understand. Again, check out Lust Theory first.
Obviously, the developer's first language is not English. Judging from the language options, they are either Russian or Chinese. I'm going with Russian in this case. Some of the lines read just fine. Others are completely confusing and often you need to be able to grasp the language in order to understand the story. Lust Academy had a few instances of this, but I could understand the context more often than not. However, here there have been several times where I've just said, "what?" and I'm a very proficient English writer and editor. If I can't tell what you're saying, we're going to have a problem here. The game itself feels animated quite well. A lot of work was put into the art here and it's the shimmering light in what can often be a confusing mess. The meat of the game seems to be in the dungeon catacombs. The goal is to get through these catacombs in order to discover the mines and other areas. You have to purchase gold in order to buy trinkets from the guard that will allow you to survive without losing your bearings. These trinkets wear out fast though, so you will be buying them constantly. You can get gold from the mines in the catacombs as well as jewels that you'll need to give the imprisoned wizard so that he can make relics for you. I'm still not quite sure when and where they will be useful, but you can certainly purchase a lot of them. You can also make a pittance in the tavern from washing floors or by guarding it from invaders. This is only useful as torch money for the secret passages. Now onto the adult content. After about an hour of play I've seen approximately one breast. I'm sure that things heat up a bit more, but for now that's all I've seen. It's not really my cup of tea, but I'm interested enough to continue along further in it. Just mind that the translation is really rough in some areas and it might be unclear what you're supposed to do. But if you are looking for an adult adventure game, this may scratch the itch.
So I've been looking over it a bit after reading the previous review and I think "feeding everything into Google Translate" is not what we're getting here. The game is far more legible than you'd expect, but you have to keep in mind that these projects are usually the work of either one individual or a small team. I expected an illegible game and while there are obvious portions of the text that feel a bit off, you do have to understand that the developer is not a native English speaker. I've run across this several times in the AVN market (that's what we're calling them) and you get used to it after awhile. As long as you can read at a basic level, it's not too difficult to understand. Also, if you allow this obstacle to impede you, then you're going to miss out on some of the other titles in the genre that have been promising, like How To Fix The Future. I will agree that the graphics are heavily detailed and the animations can be quite vibrant. It's not on the level of City Of Broken Dreamers (which the dev is interested in releasing here) or Being A DIK, but it'll give you something nice to look at. I also like the fact that I've been given more freedom to roam. I do love a good story, but often you feel like you're on the rails with these games and you can't really interact with anything. I think it's worth picking up along with the sequel. They're not long games and you'll spend a few days to a week with them. Then you can just move on to the countless other AVN adventures out there. Definitely pick it up on sale though, because it's not as good as Being A DIK - But few are!
I gave this game a try and while it does manage to be a bit more than your carbon copy RPG Maker game, it's still not nearly as vibrant as the sequel. You could tell this was the dev team's first shot and there's still a lot of unpolished bits here that are made much better in the sequel. The only reason I can honestly recommend this is because it has information that might help you understand the sequel a bit better. But the way it all happens is just so silly that you'd be better off getting the sequel, which is one of the best Kagura games ever published.
Evening Starter isn't your average RPG Maker game. It doesn't take place in a fantasy world, nor does it have that top down view we're all used to. What you're getting here is a dungeon crawler similar to Wizardry. There are multiple dungeons and several visual novel like areas where you buy new items and such all to pay off a debt which was your fault. And if you fail to pay the debt, it's off to the casting couch for you. Although Evening Starter does use the RPG Maker style battle menus and such, it adds a bit of difficulty (for instance, you have to have bullets in order to use your guns) and is definitely no pushover in that department. You'll be buying new guns and ammo often. I was hooked after the first few hours and couldn't put it down. Good gameplay that keeps you coming back is what this one has to offer and it's an exceedingly rare type of game in a genre that is filled with top down fantasy RPG's. The story is also kinda silly and has it's own little charm aside from some of the rougher parts with tentacle monsters and eager men. You can sell yourself in this game, so I want to make that warning clear to anyone purchasing the game. At the price they're offering, this game's a steal. Definitely go pick it up if you're in the mood for an X-Rated dungeon crawling experience that will not hold your hand.
