Re: Xenotake (Vosmug game)
Okay, so I just finished through the game and I have to say, I was pretty disappointed.
The Breakdown
ART:
+Fantastic art, intro and outro sequences, and great animations..
-For what animations there are! Corners constantly cut.
If someone is grabbed during a cutscene, expect it to jump from the standing frame to whatever sex frames it'll be using. Little if any transitions between simple things, even during cinematic. Only a handful of h animations are even in the game. It's obvious that the author must have sunk considerable amounts of time into his art, but unfortunately there's not much there.
Plot:
++++IN ENGLISH!
+Works in the context of the game. Nothing outstanding, but nothing to get in the way of the game.
+Dialogue is easily skippable if you find the plot objectionable.
-Dialogue is occasionally painful. For example, the main heroine is raped AT LEAST a few times and there is barely any lines of protest, it just sort of jumps straight to the RAPE (that's fine), but then later when the robot pilot sees her naked *through a robot*, it's this big deal that's repeated again in a second sequence and THEN in the ending. Mostly, a minor complaint.
Gameplay Mechanics:
+The core is fine. It feels very similar to Prisonkage, without the demonophobia vibe which I preferred. This is the crux of the problem I have with the game; with a little more love to the mechanics, I think it could have been an amazing game. Things like the struggle-bar color changing on what the effect would be were great.
-Giant, labyrinthzine areas that often involve backtracking and respawning enemies make it very irritating to navigate certain areas.
-Dashing is overpowered.
-Save Checkpoints are grossly underplaced. I tried to rush the robot sequence and had to restart, and I think I counted 25 rooms I had to fly through to get back to where I was at (I ran into some dead ends even though I had just cleared it, because it's very confusing at times)
-Gallery is.. weird, and is missing the still picture cg, the first boss, and the background hentai (including the final boss fight one)
--The robot sequence is lazy and entirely unwanted. I liked the cute robot sprite and wanted to like it, but there's nothing good about it. It goes on far, far too long, you can fly over all but three enemies (and every one of those are trivial)
--Struggle Mechanic is trivial. If you're capable of pressing the s key a few times, the struggle mechanic means nothing to you. You basically have to purposefully not press the s key to ever be grappled, and this is a fundamentally bad design (at least on a standard difficulty). Increase the difficulty of escape dependent on the amount of health left ala Blank Blood, or increase the amount of resistance you have to give until it's reduced ala the witch tower defense game..
---Powerups are laughably bad. Going into an extra room, going down a corridor fighting enemies, going into a room with items only to find that it's +20 bullet shots that regenerate anyways is frustrating and pointless. It's even more frustrating when you use those bullets on the respawned enemies you had to fight through in the first place to get there. The multiple ammos idea is neat, but you never need to use anything but your primary ammo and both of them play the same anyways so there's not much fun from switching between them. Clothing is awarded far too much.
All of these things combined make the game feel like such a chore at times and it really shouldn't. You won't be excited to find any powerups, most of the enemies behave exactly the same and are handled the same way, and the sequences are long and labyrinth-like. The art is fabulous, but that's really the most I can say from this game. I couldn't recommend it.
for much more H content. 
