This game started off amazing. Well-animated cutscenes (for an RPG Maker game), scene transitions, walk animations, timing of music and SFX, comedic timing, everything. Then combat starts and you see it has a very nice, deep combat system (complex but doesn't overwhelm you with its complexity) with decent enough animations (the evade animation is a bit wonky though).
I began to have nagging feeling that something's wrong as I played through the game though. First, there are no actual dungeons to explore; you just go a location and pick a scripted sequence of battles to fight through (there is some variation of enemies though), which can get tedious after a while due to how encounters are set up (you generally face hordes of enemies without being able to spam AoE attacks, so combat takes a while, even if you don't get literally tied up). Evading fights is also impossible, naturally. Then there's also the (lack of) character advancement; there are only a small number of skills to buy and buying character levels (you don't level up automatically from EXP) does nothing except give you more HP and MP (the latter of which is nearly useless because skills that use MP cost a fixed percentage, so costs scale up the more MP you have). There are no equipment whatsoever. I was worried that later fights might be too much of a slog because enemy stats scale up while the player's don't (except for HP).
Still, overall, it was an enjoyable experience, and again due to how wonderfully animated the cutscenes were.
Then everything came to a screeching halt as Ahriman pulled a
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and the plot comes to a abrupt screeching halt after a mere two story stages (and exactly like Dark Matter, it gives you a face full of TO BE CONTINUED and LOOK FORWARD TO THE NEXT EPISODE). No resolution to the main story whatsoever; Nord (the MC) is still cursed, and the entire plot thread is left hanging. Oh, so that explains the lack of character advancement—it wouldn't even be necessary, that's why.
This game is fucking UNFINISHED. And no, no mention of it or that the game would be episodic on the DLsite page or in the author's blog (as of current moment of writing) either, exactly like Dark Matter (it bears mentioning thrice).
Oh well, I would actually have been pissed if I actually paid for the game, but luckily this was preceded by Aoi, and we all know how much of a debacle that was, so I was already wary. Fool me once, etc. etc.
TL; DR review: Game is fun, but not worth the money (priced slightly lower than the average DLsite/DMM fantasy RPGMaker game) because it's exceedingly short and unfinished. Wait for sales, unless you must absolutely support Ahriman for some reason.
For each individual enemy on the field they can either attack or call for help, which increases their numbers/health, so every time an enemy calls for help another dude shows up and is added to the group. I think this caps out at 3-4, and once it caps out instead of calling for allies they have a chance to try and surround you, and failing to defend properly results in lewd things, so if you're out of TP you won't be able to properly defend. Failing to defend against lewd attacks increased your yielding/surrender level, and every time it raises you get into more interesting bondage situations.
Only the mook-type enemies (those without any other special abilities, and they're usually the most common enemy type) can call for reinforcements, which just change them to a stronger enemy (visually, more people/monsters are added to the group). And yes, they get access to a capturing special attack once they become a full group. You can also use MP to defend, but doing so has a higher chance of failure and you don't get to counterattack.
The other enemy types include beefgates (these have high HP, and their AI usually involves charging up to land a devastating on the next turn), rogue types (high chance of preparing fast lewd/bind attacks on the next turn that you can't intercept unless you use a high-priority move), and leader types (can cause other enemies to use lewd/bind attacks on their next turn; also have a chance of breaking stun for them) . Enemy types are generally visually obvious.
This makes the stage 1 bonus stage annoying to go through, as it's filled to the brim with rogue types that like to spam bind/capture attacks (get hit twice and Nord will get kidnapped and hit with almost every single status debuff), which you can only intercept reliably with a kick... and you can only kick twice in a turn. Seriously I think it's the hardest (well, tedious, because escaping is trivial anyway) stage despite only having 2-star difficulty.
Combat-wise, it's usually not the best idea to spam all your attacks. It's best to use normal 'green' attacks on low HP enemies (especially rogue-types) while waiting for opportunities. Generally speaking once you get your HP high enough you can sort of ignore most HP attacks, and charge/bind/capture attacks are usually telegraphed well in advance. Enemies that can do such attacks will usually take a turn to "psych up" (indicating a charge attack for more damage; they also get a yellow growling wolf symbol) or to "do something suspicious" (indicating a bind/capture attack; they also get a nasty-looking face symbol). You can hit 'psyched-up' enemies with an 'assault' (magic, requires MP) 'red' attack for extra damage; they are otherwise resistant to all other types of attacks while in that state. 'Suspicious' enemies are instead weak to purifying (requires TP) 'blue' attacks.
Note that purifying 'blue' attacks also heal your MP on hit.
Wait a second, what the hell? His pixiv is listed?
When I put stuff up on DLSite, I was explicitly told I couldn't have any links to any websites in the info of the game, did DLSite change their policies recently?
Pixiv of the partnering artist. Not sure about DLSite policies, but maybe they allowed it to give credit to a third party? Usually the circle/group's websites go under the circle/group's page, so maybe that's why they don't allow it normally.
i really doubt the second half will got better, i think its just same repeat like this or aoi game, its shame with so much time he do its still not better than last game (that flop) and even not come as par on swordman asagi.
the lack of persistant status effect and magically escaped without effort when in confinement/imprisoned is actually really kinda bad for me, seeing that usually the main point from ahriman game
nb : yes the CG is improved a bit, but i really dont mind his usual CG too (maybe the + thing from this game is the CG? but what i want to see from this game is the story and gameplay tough)
The CG is done by a partnering artist,
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. Said artist does a good job of emulating Ahriman's artstyle though (especially the faces).
Try to add an exception to your AV.
Most of the game from the dev are shutdown at start by AV, dunno why...
Ahriman uses WhiteFlute RPGMaker modules, which sometimes trigger AV heuristics because of encryption/code obfuscation. The culprit here (as is the case of all Ahriman games) is wfAudio.dll. The particular version he uses has some... odd behavior (wouldn't even start in my sandbox, despite not triggering my AV), so maybe it does some weird DLL hooking or injection for debugging/monitoring hotkey purposes. Should be completely innocuous, but I'm paranoid, so I just replaced it with a different wfAudio.dll from another game instead of running it out-of-sandbox.
the orc fuck her until she's pregnant...
Seems to be offscreen though.
...But I'm greatly on the fence about this price, as yet again it feels more like it's hiked that high because he was paying off a VA who wasn't going to work -cheap-, ..
If that were true, then that's money unwisely spent. Not much voices anyway, and removing them wouldn't really diminish the experience.
Rather disappointed with the game, feels more like a demo for the combat system. Very short with only 4 stages, the focus is on bondage with some black screen implying sex, the only real sex shown is in a few of the cutscenes. Looking at the screens on DLsite and the description, one could have thought this would be a full game such as Asagi, but it's barely 1 hour long if you play to win, maybe 1½-2 hours to see everything.
I hope he goes back to the Asagi style game, more story and RPG than this. Combat doesn't need to be as complex as this to be fun.
Yeah, seriously, I think there are demos with more content than this, like Wings of Lohrdia, or the recent Tsuki no Mizu games. Both H and story-wise.
(Asagi was really underpriced though, for some reason.)
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Some character info:
1. Main character is Nord (ノルド), who's some sort of high-ranking Crest Knight who derives her power from the Black Flame Crest tattooed on her belly. Her other epithet is "the Silver Reaper".
The crest knights go around the world getting rid of impurities (kegare), with lewd debauchery being one sort of impurity (all impurity seem to be connected with supernatural, 'demonlike' forces). The impurities seem to require some sort of catalyst (called "nether") to spread, which is usually a person or monster (who usually ends up as a boss enemy you must defeat). Severe cases of impurities will result in a miasmatic cloudlike substance covering entire regions and corrupting the personalities of people caught in it. The crest knights targets these 'nethers' to prevent further spread of impurities, followed by beating up (and capturing) remaining hostiles to purify them and remove impurity entirely from that region.
Nord gets cursed in the prologue, causing her powers to weaken (via literal level drain) as well as making her, well, lewd over time. Her Crest's appearance also gets affected and will sometimes transform into a heart shape (associated with in-universe brands used for cumdumps).
Nord's sister (a higher ranking Crest Knight) tries to get rid of the curse but couldn't do so immediately (due to some sort of backlash protective magic setup). So it has to be done gradually, and meanwhile Nord is reassigned to 'keeping house' and taking care of low-level threats while she's still in her weakened state.
Personality-wise, Nord is the usual prideful 'Lady Knight' type (and affects a certain type of speech pattern that is somewhat reminiscent of smug princess/empress types like Fate's Nero/Red Saber), 'though she's surprisingly meek around her sister.
2. Est is Nord's elder sister, despite her younger (read: flatter) appearance. Higher ranking Crest Knight, and the overall commanader of the region. Her crest, IIRC, is the "White Thunder". Personality-wise, well, she's like the usual Asanagi girl (before the latter gets broken), Which is to say, extremely prideful with sadistic (in both the usual and BDSM sense) tendencies. Likes dominating men, crushing the balls of criminals... that sort of thing. Technical virgin. Also trolls Nord from time to time (like that scene when Nord walks in her doing frottage with a cardinal).
Oh, she's also a bokukko (refers to herself with the pronoun 'boku', which is usually used by males).
