[code]This game was provided by the publisher.
[code]This review is brought to you by the Steam Curator [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/45021855-Lewd-Reviewer/]Lewd Reviewer[/url].[/code]
[table]
[tr]
[th]💖 Type of adult content[/th]
[th]video snippets depicting adult activity and nudity[/th]
[/tr]
[tr]
[th]👾 Played till completion,
will keep playing or
dropped?[/th]
[th]Played till completion[/th]
[/tr]
[tr]
[th]🤐 Censorship[/th]
[th]Mosaic[/th]
[/tr]
[tr]
[th]🗒️ English quality[/th]
[th]10/10[/th]
[/tr]
[tr]
[th]💬 Is there a discord?[/th]
[th]No[/th]
[/tr]
[tr]
[th]🛠️ Modding capability?[/th]
[th]NA[/th]
[/tr]
[tr]
[th]🎮 Gameplay[/th]
[th]Straight Visual Novel with branching narrative[/th]
[/tr]
[tr]
[th]😖 Who might be interested in
this game?[/th]
[th]Power play fans will likely really like this one[/th]
[/tr]
[tr]
[th]🙎 Art/3D Asset quality[/th]
[th]8.5/10[/th]
[/tr]
[tr]
[th]🧍 Protagonist gender[/th]
[th]Male[/th]
[/tr]
[tr]
[th]💕 Number of love interests[/th]
[th]1[/th]
[/tr]
[tr]
[th]🐛 Bugs experienced
during gameplay[/th]
[th]A bit of glitching here and there between video clips, nothing major[/th]
[/tr]
[/table]
[h1]Overview[/h1]
You're tight on cash, and just came into some inheritance from your uncle. Among them were a arcade token coin with a thread fastened to it. You decide to try to peddle it to your high school friend Rinka, a girl that's into occult stuff. Of course, she's sceptical, so you decide to test it in prod...
[h1]Technical[/h1]
Engine at play is RenPy, as is quite common with visual novels. No major bugs to speak about, but the first time in quite a while that I've encountered one made exclusively with video content. The developer has, smartly, decided to go with anime style, which lends itself well to this form of presentation, giving the game a much higher 'at a glance' quality than many of its competition. Smart use of the engine all around in combination with the selected style.
[h1]Translation[/h1]
This is interesting. This game is clearly a low budget production, yet the English is flawless. I were unable to find anything to nitpick at. The game is quite short, so there's limited how many awkward wording etc there can be, but still, quite impressed all around.
[h1]Voicework[/h1]
There's no voicework here, just some sex noises and bgms. I really wish there were some, but this game manages to pull its own weight despite the lack of it.
[h1]Sexual Content[/h1]
This game is made entirely of video content. The videos are well transitioned and gives this game a higher quality feel than one would usually expect from a game like this.
[h1]Controversial Content[/h1]
Power play is potentially controversial whenever deployed, and this remains true in this game as well. The whole concept is about, though accidentally, mind controlling your high school friend. As far as hypnosis storylines goes though, this is rather tame, and we're privy to the outcome on the two "good ends", so shouldn't be anything you really need to avoid, even if you're sensitive to control play content.
[h1]Overall Review[/h1]
This game seems targetted at me directly, and as such, I love it. This gets a almost universal recommendation from me. Smart use of the engine it has chosen to use, good quality videos, and the girl is... again, it is as though this game has been made with me directly in mind. The only negative I have to put out here is the blatant use of AI for background art, the few times it pulls that out.
The store page declares limited AI usage in cleaning up, but I find it hard to believe the full screen backgrounds are not fully AI generated, possibly with some human cleanup after the fact. I don't mind that, this is clearly a low budget production, likely a single developer, so using AI to fill in the gaps in his/her competencies is perfectly fair in my book... but I feel like the declaration on the store page should be a bit more truthfull if I'm right.
As for the reason I suspect it... well, the text is distorted in a manner that I've seen a thousand times before in AI art, and there's deformations in objects that makes no sense coming from a human creator.
These could be for stylistic purposes, but it feels off as well, so I'd wager that it is indeed AI. I don't think the characters are AI themselves, though the particular skin effects look very much like AI art, but it's not exclusively used by AI, so going to hedge on that probably being human created.
All that said, the AI usage is fair, though should be better informed on the store page. The game is still very good for what it is, and everything strings together lovely. I'd absolutely recommend this game to anyone that is even slightly into control play, and maybe adventerous people that usually aren't. I also have a feeling that this game will appeal more to female players than is normally the case, so if that's you, do give it a spin.
Also... the 'consumed' ending... wow. I'll note that one down for if I decide to make a similar game. =P
In concluding this review I noticed that the dev has one more game on steam, and I didn't hold my trigger on grabbing that one, so guess that's next on my review list, and I'm looking forward to it.
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