Okay I just recently finished playing this game and there were SO many missed opportunities with this game. To top it off, they go with Unity and a VN/Game hybrid.
I'm going to drop my review/rant below.
Contains spoilers!
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Rating system explained: Zero-to-Ten for the sake of easy ~100% ratio rating. 5/10 would be an average game while 10/10 is a theoretical perfect game. Below 5 is bad. Not all the categories have the same weighting. Even then, every part of the score is subjective.
Version played: Kagura Games 2.00 English
Played till 2 route endings: Hizuki pure love, and Ronin Slutty Slow Life
Overall rating: 6.5/10
TL;DR: Above average game, but failed spectacularly at ceasing the opportunity. The game tries to be too much, while delivering half-assed in almost every way.
Breakdown:
Story: 3.5/10
The story felt rushed in many parts with a LOT of lore outside of this game; such as characters from their other games. While I did not mind the insertion of characters from outside, the lore and explanation is lacking A LOT; and the flashbacks and side stories are absolutely nowhere near enough to explain enough. Multiple endings are a good thing, but it's not quite clear how to get each of them. Thank god there's a "unlock everything" button because there are A LOT of endings I cannot bare to bother playing to get! And speaking of endings, I cannot quite figure out which ending is supposed to be the "true" ending lorewise. I'm guessing it's the one that ends with MC Makuro(?) still a virgin as that unlocks an Extra episode call "Last night" (or something) which involves a flashback of Nina on the mainland.
Critical information about how the society on the island has elves and humans mixing just fine. And dark elves being supposed 1-man-army and "mythical", but then suddenly everyone is one just by "awakening". No explanation about awakening. Also, the dark elves from the mainland(?), Viktor, suggests that LOTs of dark elves are running around. I'd expect lots of warlord darkelves to be carving up continents in the lore.
Chapters 1 and 2 were super short, while Chapter 3 was noticeably much longer. Honestly could have been used to do more world building; possibly with more fetch quests or patrol quests. Instead, they feel like they were trying too hard to push our MC into a collision course with the Byanuya(?) forces.
There are parts of the game where there's time skips of varying lengths that doesn't "feel" like they flow. This is especially true on the Ronin route where it goes "a month later" or "few weeks later" a few times.
And speaking of the Ronin route, it's unclear where our girls get strong enough to fight the 9 stars in the Ronin route just doing medial tasks. They needed some special "unlocking" of their potential in the Hizuki route to be able to match up. (If there wasn't any lore for "sluttier = stronger", then maybe they need to add it.) (Way too many plotholes to even mention in the Ronin path.)
Gameplay/Mechanics: 6/10
The gameplay is an upgrade from their previously RPGMaker. There are some animations, but IMO, were unnecessary. Limiting the number of skills to 5 equipable ones is a design decision I agree with. I could not find any "Secret Arts" that can be equiped.
Their idea of combat rape is a HUGE missed opportunity - either due to not understanding how it should be implemented, or just lack of care. There should be levels of clothing break. In addition, there should be a "restained" state which prevents the MC from certain actions like attacking, and "struggle" option which the MC can choose to try and break out of "restained" state. Furthermore, the full sex sequence can only fire against a restained girl. (Also, this restained state should be reflected in the character art. Also missing bukkake state art in combat.)
The "immorality" side of things needed more difference in images and art. The CGs are very good, as per usual Oneone1. Their animations still need work. The immorality levels of the characters should be reflected in the H CGs during combat rape. (It is reflected to a very minor degree in conversations with harassers and townsfolks.)
One thing they nailed was the big stat pages and the option to "upgrade" the girls' immorality which unlocks more lewd actions. They also have the feature of making the girls become progressively more sensitivity in combat the more they cum.
There are status-effect icons that appear on the girls which are NOT explained. I don't know why they are not explained.
Enemy numbers also scale with your party size, unless it's a scripted battle. But EXP is not divided. ALL characters level together. Hence, it is most efficient to farm EXP with a party of 3.
A complaint I have is the lack of a "post-game" area where I can send 1 girl against 3 enemies that can all H them. However, given the lack of H variety this "hurts" this game less.
Also, their VN style saves can sometimes bug out! So that's a serious oversight when a main mechanic can corrupt a save file!
Art: 8/10
The Art in this game is a hard carry for the game score. They have some very nice Art - the quality which you expect to see from a good VN studio. The voice acting is also decent - though I don't know if it is from a stock gallary or not.
Very glad they cut back on the exaggerated multi-fisting and nipple-fucking. I don't mind the births and am fine with the ahegao.
There are some CGs that, IMO, were missing in this game. Such art are different stages of immorality for reactions to orgasms and combat rapes, and naked dark elf CGs.
The animations were often clucky and detracted from the product. I would rather not have had them at all if they were this quality.
Summarizing thoughts:
Oneone1 needed to decide what they want to be. They appear to want to move into the direction of a "proper" VN studio with some of that "romantic" side, while keeping their traditional "more extreme" content as another route in the same game. While there is nothing wrong with trying that, missing the mark on BOTH ends has me not looking forward to their future works; especially those that are 8GB in size! (The HD CGs, animations, and voices take up a LOT of the file sizes.)
Oneone1 needs to smooth out the mechanics and gameplay side. All the pieces are there for something that works.
Lastly, it would be nice if the H-route didn't have a super depressing arc of some MCs; those are boner killers.