Several translators are in use; forgive me, it's much easier for me to read English than to write it.
I'll go in the order in which I encountered these elements and how I perceive and evaluate them. I cleared all the local dungeons, and that labyrinth—you know the one, with the smiling black monster.
First: the atmosphere and music. Wow. JRPG Maker games often don't boast a distinctive visual style, and I haven't researched the most popular assets, but the ones I see are quite suitable and evoke the desired emotions of a devastated city and buildings. And the ambient elements polish these sensations. Whether it's the quiet hum of the city, the rustling noise of the laboratory, with occasional sounds, as if someone is still moving in the distance, and you're not alone. The battle theme is also good: strong, threatening, but well-paced, just what you need for a turn-based battle. For some reason, I was reminded of FTL. Well, yes, it certainly has a space setting and a more active, inspiring OST, not horror (although there is one quite scary theme, it's just not used), but! They also maintain the tempo for a simultaneous adrenaline-pumping battle, but also with careful consideration of every step. That's what I want to hear in boss battles.
I want to especially highlight the safe room theme. Quiet, sad piano. The moment when you finally exhale. Then the piano speeds up, echoing thoughts of a moment of safety that remains brief. And then, quiet female vocals. Enhance the emotions. You're safe. For a brief moment. And you have to squeeze everything out of this moment. The world is still mortally dangerous. It's a truly powerful composition. While the others are, well, good for the atmosphere, but aren't particularly memorable in their own right, this one has stuck with me for a long time...
Combat. The distance idea is brilliant. This, of course, rules out battles against multiple enemies; I don't think it's possible to set the distance to each one so that when you move from one enemy to the others, the distance to the others changes. But perhaps a single enemy will suffice; let's play that way. Besides... thanks to the distance and the fact that some enemies can only operate at close range, which makes them rush to get to you, having high speed isn't always beneficial, thanks to the fact that movement skills have higher speed. Yes, the first rule of jRPGs, go first, works against more difficult enemies, but still, it turned out funny.
I'll say it here, because I didn't notice it right away, but... The character graphics are made using a neural network. Yeah, I didn't know that when I downloaded it. And I'm surprised. The developer really put in the effort, and the result isn't just another identical AI image with the same upright pose, but a quite pleasing image. The only thing that bothers me is that in some scenes the girls don't have nipples... What? Of course, I want to see everything.
So, moving on... I have some complaints and things I'd like to see changed, but let's start with what I came up with first and what could be added to what's already there. I don't know the developer's plans or where to read them; I'm just starting to be friends with itch.io... Actually, I only registered today specifically for this game, because it has great potential.
For example, the crafting system. We have a shelter, and it can be used to its full potential. Even a kitchen. We could cook more nutritious food from food, which would provide buffs for a period of time. However, cooking something complex and powerful would require spending a segment of time. And we could also make consumables. Healing and so on. And it would also be possible to upgrade the house, its functions, and its defenses; I'll talk about defense later. Crafting parts could be found in forays; they could spawn randomly once a day, with the rationale being "mutants wander back and forth and sometimes leave behind things they don't need.".
Crafting weapons and things like that... well, no, because we find equipment, and also because I think everyone will immediately want to find the biggest and longest stick for the longest spear in the world, because of the distance.
Speaking of functions, and I probably thought of this before, but I'm not sure, so here goes. A garden and a rainwater collector. A source of food and water, which need to be built from materials. And after... There's a really good synergy here. Both structures can have their own durability, which decreases after each elapsed time segment. For one, and the maximum durability itself can be +/- 1. So, without much luck, it's just "generally, you can delay ten times, well, if you're lucky, the structure will hold up eleven times, but after that, it'll definitely break." There will be three types of maintenance:
Prevention: +1 durability, doesn't cost time, but a small amount of energy and can only be performed once per day.
Maintenance: +2-3 durability, doesn't cost time, if you don’t do a second repair right away, one after the other, but cost significantly more energy. And it's always available.
Repair: costs a segment of time and even more energy, possibly if the building is broken, and completely restores it.
Honestly, while I was thinking about it, it sounded more... balanced? I'm not sure now that I've written it... It seems like if you perform maintenance, the building will last three days before requiring repairs. It seems worth it in theory and will force the player to consider whether it's worth the time. And of course, all this will be less of a problem if you upgrade it. If you find the resources for it and the blueprints. Yes, blueprints—surely the player has to somehow learn how to craft a survival masterpiece from sticks?
Since we're talking about combat... Here come my complaints. I chose Psionics as my weapon—elemental damage, ranged attack without wasting ammo, simple and effective. I really liked the Psi-Pulse. And here's the problem... Okay, every attack type has its own problems. Melee is, damn it, melee, and from the enemy's side, hello consistent damage and the threat of "grab." Ranged combat means reloading, maintaining distance using stamina, and the threat of getting shot in the face. Psionics... almost like ranged combat, but instead of reloading, farming Focus...
Okay, so Psionica scales with Libido, which means we're more vulnerable to pleasure. Okay. That's specific, but fair. But... enemies that use Temptation... you realize they completely hard counter Psionica, right? Even just regenerating enough Focus for active combat requires 50+ Arousal. Once a girl uses a skill once or twice and her Arousal hits the cap, that's it the player is caught. And to break free, you need SIXTY Focus! You're never going to accumulate that much if you're actively using Psionica. Which means: hello first ejaculation, and halfway to a guaranteed loss. You'll literally have to pray about which specific skills the game picks against you; if it wants to dump you fast, it will. Oh, by the way, it takes twenty five Focus to break free after an orgasm... assuming you're not fighting an enemy that simply won't let you escape her grip. That cursed Kuniochi is my hardest fight.
Personally, I also think the cooldown on the Deep Breath skill is too long... I can live with the cost, but speaking of Focus... it builds up too slowly and you need so much of it for Psionica. This needs some rebalancing. In my opinion, a Psionica build should have several effective skills for Arousal control. Not cheap ones, but skills that require a balance between aggressive attack and defense to manage Arousal levels. It shouldn't be such a massive hole in the gameplay. A weakness should mean taking more damage and having to maneuver tactically or spend resources to beat an enemy with elemental dominance. But when an enemy can just send you to your knees to suck them off in a single turn? Sorry, but that's broken. If you want to introduce risk give us the tools to compensate for it.
I'm no balance expert, but the first thing that came to mind was the ability to carry over accumulated Focus from previous battles... 'But then you could just grind it and start every fight with a full bar, all 100 Focus,' right?.. Well, that can be solved surprisingly elegantly. There's also a combat step that happens every few cells when you move around the map, right? Bleeding deals damage, other effects tick down, and stamina regenerates... Focus could gradually drain during that process as well. That means to have a lot of it at the start of a fight, you wouldn't just hold down the stealth button; you'd have to constantly run around and fight as much as possible. Not a bad idea, huh? It's perfect for an aggressive build that requires walking that fine line between getting buffs from Arousal and being vulnerable to Temptation.
I'm not sure how it works for melee and ranged builds, but I tried playing with that skill that buffs melee damage for 20 Focus, and it was unpleasant. To be honest, I was just grinding zombies with it, using the fact that I'd hit them after they took a step toward me so I can't really imagine how it would play out in a more difficult fight where there's an actual exchange of blows. But speaking of melee combat, you know, it's missing something like a block or a way to stagger the opponent, just so you don't take a ton of damage straight to the face during close quarters. That's just how it feels to me; I haven't tried playing a pure melee build, so I'm not insisting on this being the absolute truth.
...Alright, let's move on to what annoys me the most and how it could be changed within the framework of the setting as I see and understand it. Femdom. I like non human girls, but damn... damn, damn, shit. Endless femdom. In my heart, alongside TF2, sits MGQ, but still I hate this femdom. I'm down for both extremes and the middle ground. Whatever a person wants, they should get. But what if circumstances work against that choice? Well, we can still choose despite everything, even if there's a high price and high difficulty. You can always justify it; the setting is already one where anything can happen. And we're playing as a guy with special Nanites and psionic potential.
So, the girls are stronger than us?.. We don't just have to get jacked. Let the Nanites stimulate growth, strengthening, and muscle compression, making the fibers denser and stronger (bonus: this might not even affect the MC's appearance; there wouldn't be more muscle mass like some steroid using bodybuilders). Do they possess powerful pleasure based skills? Then we won't just relax we'll tense up, endure, get used to it, adapt, and teach them in return. They can paralyze us with a single squeeze of their ass? Then we'll squeeze our own ass and use our psionic abilities to paralyze them back, and make them lick our ass. Pardon my excessive use of the word 'ass.' Of course, everything would come at a price...
The stronger our body becomes beyond human limits, the more food and water it would require to maintain that strength. That means you'd have to eat and drink many times more, and during time skips, food and water would also be consumed at a higher rate.
To level up pleasure resistance, you'd need to constantly use defensive skills and refuse to cum, endure it, even if it hurts. That is to say, if the player fails at that moment, that's exactly when the traits giving weaknesses to pleasure develop, and the femdom branch progresses, eventually blocking any alternative forever.
And psionic skills need to be trained. In some special way? I mean, they should be something distinct, so that if a player decides to become the 'alpha of the neighborhood,' they aren't tied down to grinding psionic experience.
I'm dead serious about all this. I'd like to hope that the respected developer won't stubbornly stick to this Femdom shit until the end. Otherwise, we'll be there trying to save the world... well, or what's left of it... or stop the thing that caused all this [CENSORED], while some cat girl robot femdoms us, making a fortune off our cum and giving us garbage in return. For that kind of scam, you should put her in doggy style and... well, you get the idea. By the way, I still don't understand how these 'hold out as long as possible' scenes actually work. A random heavy sex attack when arousal is above 75 equals a ton of pleasure damage, plus debuffs can be applied, how do you counter all that? By NOT leveling up psionics and Libido? Hell no, should I really lose those moments just because of my class choice? That's another reason why I want a rework of Psionic skills for Arousal resistance.
After all, if you want to, you can come up with a way to shift from being dominated to dominating from any position. You go to a brothel and they tell you to lick that spot? Then lick it so hard her eyes pop out of her skull, saliva sprays everywhere, and her vocal cords strain to the limit. And then, make a push for the final base. What, the client didn't order that? Well, if the client is satisfied, they won't complain. But if the client isn't satisfied and doesn't appreciate your attempt to go beyond what was requested... well, that's your own fault; that's what risk is all about. Don't be surprised if Arianna kicks you out of the establishment with a boot to the ass, takes your entire paycheck for the day, and tells you not to come in today... Come back tomorrow. She might be pissed, but we are literally irreplaceable... She can't kick us out forever.
Well... I've already written a lot, but since we're all adults here, let's discuss the H-content. Have I mentioned before that I like non human girls? *Sigh*, thanks to Miia and Musume for that... by the way, our manga translator added a ton of lamias images after the first few chapters, including the one that took Miia's place. Because as I've said, I love MGQ- damn, I just said that in the same style again, pardon the tautology. Anyway, for me, there's something about demonic blue skin (and slime) and lamias, so Sixteenth Alice is my waifu, even though her psyche needs some fixing... It would be cool to see her as a secret super boss. You could justify both that and the fact that the player character can defeat a Monster Lord who is just wields Dark Energy and can cause a massive explosion that erases ordinary physical objects: she was thrown through space, she's weakened and hungry, and she won't refuse to refuel on male cum to recharge her strength. By the way, yes, if she makes the MC orgasm, she should recover significantly and receive buffs until the end of the fight. That's perfectly worthy of a secret super boss.
Speaking of orgasms this is a bit inconsistent, but... okay, this whole thing where the MC can't resist the urge and runs to shove his cock in even when he was nearly killed moments ago these are setting conventions that I'd still like to overcome through effort. Why is it that orgasms outside of a brothel suppress our will to fight? That sounds like something serious that could develop if you let yourself be caught for sexual torment multiple times, but not immediately. It would be better if it simply drained your strength; if your strength runs out and you can't break free from a hold and you've been stuck in it for a long time, then that's it you lose, because you simply can't escape anymore and they'll milk you until the end. And the girls should have their own limit too. We should have the ability not to pass out, but to hold out until the end. That is, if we have enough energy, stamina, and all that for it. Well, obviously, this won’t work if the trait has developed that leads to a loss of will to fight after orgasms
That's it, i wrote it all... A lot of text, I know; I spent two and a half hours writing it. Even three... Damn. I hope it doesn't get deleted and that it gets read I think I was speaking on point, and I believe this text could at least inspire the developer for further development... Usually, around this time, I'd be giving games a 1-10 rating, but the game in its current form is still raw; it has little content for playthroughs and replayability. At least by my standards. Personally, I think it's a quite atmospheric game capable of being tense at night when you're wearing headphones and the game itself is set at night with creepy ambience. Playing is generally pleasant if you focus specifically on the gameplay rather than the H-elements. Just not for long. But there are some doubts and complaints: it lacks skills and Focus for more diverse battles the kind where you take steady minor damage in melee, try to dodge return fire in ranged combat (I’m aware that there’s a skill that grants 90% evasion; I’m just saying that in most cases, you can’t know whether an opponent’s attack will deal a lot of damage If only there were a psionic skill that allowed you to read minds and see your opponent’s next move.), and use psionics to control your lewd urges. And well, I personally have hate toward Femdom.
I'm done. If you read this all the way to the end thanks for your attention. I hope the meaning was preserved well during translation.
PSA: Now it worked... it didn’t say anything about moderation review. By the way, I wrote everything above about 72 hours ago, roughly in one go, so if there are any mistakes, please forgive me. And if my first attempt to post this suddenly appears, ping me via message — I’ll delete the copy myself.