What is the actual like, plot to Emblem Order anyway? From messing around on that demo, besides there being a surprisingly long training sequence, I noticed the camp actually changes. It seems the women were kind of dominant in the camp, but if the protag loses, it seems the men end up being in charge or... something. Or I might be misinterperting the visuals, since I kind of just messed around and haven't tried text hooking anything yet.
Alright, first, to provide a background...
A recurring theme in Ahriman's works is that there is a force of evil that corrupts people into debauchery. (It's like Slaanesh, kinda.) The protagonists are members of some organization that fight against this evil corrupting force, but they are also prone to getting corrupted themselves, depending on events in-game (read: get raped a lot.)
In the Nord series, the protagonist is a leading member of the Emblem Knights, who fight against the evil force of corruption known as Kegare, or "Taint". The Emblem Knights appear to have jurisdiction over multiple fiefdoms, and are frequently called in to deal with problems like pervasive crime, monster incursions and chaotic uprisings. Individual knights are blessed with "emblems" (or crests) — runes inscribed on their body that are the source of their martial and magical prowess.
Nord #1 opens with Nord(hart di Fauberat, Lady of the Black Flame) being cursed by a Tainted sorcerer. The curse warps her Emblem (into something resembling an in-universe cumslut slave tattoo), robbing her of most of her strength and inflicting her with frequent bouts of arousal. This gets her relegated to backline "house-keeping" (as in defending a town and catching small-time crooks) duty while she recovers her powers (her sister Est helps a bit with this process by synchronizing their crests, which from a meta perspective provides excuse for a yuri scene).
Nord #1 ends with Nord rounding up kidnappers and other assorted criminal elements that plagued a town, plus fending off an orcish invasion of a nearby village. Meanwhile her sister gets to do all the fun stuff offscreen like taking out some bigshot enemy that I can't quite remember now, but it's probably Tainted related.
Nord #2 starts with Nord being fêted as the guest of honor in the fiefdom of Pales, as she gets called in to deal with a rebellion (that is Tainted-related, somehow). Along the way she gets distracted by a goblin incursion that the player can choose to pursue.
The opening banquet scene in the alpha trial demo is... excessively long, but basically it involves Nord losing her temper at some of the other attendees making snide (and sexual-harassing) comments behind her back., causing her to leap on the table to show off her magical crest to awe them into submission. Which is an idiotic move on her part because of the aforementioned "warped-into-cumslut-slave-tattoo" curse.
Apparently the Crest Knights were trying to keep the curse under wraps. (Because having one of your captains being branded with a sex slave tattoo is basically a political death sentence.) Nord's adjutant/executive officer was particularly quick-witted about this affair and managed to storm in and brainwash (MIB-style) every single one of the banquet attendees to forget about the whole affair, keeping Nord's dirty secret a, well,
secret.
Also Nord is now the Marquise of the Northern Reaches, courtsey of Est recommending her (in a flashback reveal) for the title as part of some kind of political manueuver that holy-shit-I-stopped-caring-about-because-holy-hell-the-cutscene-is-GOD-DAMN-FRICKIN'-LONG. Then some bureaucrat politico stepped in (interrupting the sisters' 'bonding' time) raising some issue about the war effort and something about nobles complaining of whatever-I-stopped-caring-ages-ago-and-am-totally-out-of-shits-to-give. Then it transitioned into a femdom scene with Est calling out the politico as a lolicon (Est has a svelte body figure despite being the elder sister) because she's also out of shits to give about the boring politics. Or something. I was fast-forwarding by this point. Anyway, Nord discreetly left the room by this point in the flashback. Phew.
So... anyway, the Crest Knights are usually in charge during a military operation, which is why they appear to be a dominant position when you first move into a forward operating base. As Nord's Submission Level increases, the enemies and (depraved) citizens get bolder and eventually turn the tables on the Knights even in their encampment. This change is reflected in the NPC sprites on the encampment map.
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As for a brief review of the current trial (labeled Emblem Order trial v1.1):
1) It's mostly a rehash of the same mechanics from the first game. You begin at your headquarters. You talk to your adjutant and pick a mission/map, which brings you to a forward base. From there you can pick sub-missions/quests that usually involve taking out a specific target. (Or targets.) All of these involve a long chain of unskippable fights fought back-to-back. There is no dungeon or field map; you automatically progress from one fight to the next with your current HP/MP/TP and status (de)buffs.
2) Combat has you faced against multiple enemies (usually a minimum of four enemy
groups per phase). You get two actions per turn. Buffing/Healing/Support skills don't take up an action. Some specials consume MP, while some others consume TP.
3) By default, enemies perform a basic attack for low damage (the number of attacks scales with the size of the group, and some of the can call for reinforcements). They may telegraph a Power (growling wolf face), Binding (evil smirk) or H (pink heart) move, which they will perform next turn. These can be interrupted by hitting them with the correct special, which will stun them and deal extra damage (which move a special is effective against is labeled pictorially in the special description itself).
4) Getting hit with a H-attack will increase Nord's submission meter. You will progress into a H-scene at certain break points (Submission Level 1, by default when you start with Level 0). The H-scene also progresses at various break points (by default this corresponds with each increase in Submission Level).
5) H-attacks will usually also grapple Nord. You have three general types of responses to a grapple: Endure (left option, usually skips the turn but heals), Resist (top option, usually counterattack for a TP cost ) and Escape (right option, usually attempts to escape the grapple but may fail). Occasionally you may be given an access to a list of menu options that let you recover more HP/MP/TP or a guaranteed chance to break out of grapples/restraints at the cost of TP.
The current published trial version has 6 scenes (exactly as advertised), three involving rebel soldiers and three involving goblins. There is also a small variety of short generic H-attack scenes (on top of the aforementioned six).
Overall the game is much better steamlined compared to the first game. Animations are more fluid both in and out of combat, and it's easier to recover MP/TP now. Breaking out of grapples is also less annoying. Scenes are extremely well-animated. Heck, I'll give credit where it is due and commend Ahriman for being the best ever RPGMaker scene choreographer (involving map sprites). It's really top-notch work, even if it can get excessively long at times.
Map selection also feels more natural now (you move around on a campaign map as you pick your targets instead of just picking from a menu from your forward base), and map travel is even animated, at least on the first visit. It does make saving between combat slightly more annoying though.
The
free trial is a well-polished demo, and is worth your time playing it, even for non-fans of the first game. I reserve my judgment for the actual game itself if it ever gets released in full.
(Though I admit I'm not expecting much.)
