The Curse Of Mantras

First, the pros: -The art is very pretty. It definitely has the highest production value of Winter Wolves games. The backgrounds are gorgeous, and for the most part the characters are attractive. (Then you get to poor Ash. I think the artist spent too much time making his abs perfect and not enough time on his face.) -The music is great. -The main plot is interesting, although the ending left a bit to be desired. -Winter Wolves continues to refine their card battling system. On easy, the fights are a breeze - but be prepared to focus if you up the difficulty. And now the cons: -The description says "with optional card battle gameplay." While true, this is misleading. Sure, you can play it on Visual Novel mode, but it will only take you about an hour to play both Chaos and Order. You can even romance all of the characters at once on each side, so you only have to play through twice to see them all. -The "romance" is shallow and boring. Most of the romance plots go from nothing (or even outright dislike) to "I can't stop thinking about you, lets ♥♥♥♥" in one scene. There is very little build up or tension. Mercurio and Ash stand out as particularly jarring. Final opinion: Its really not worth the $25 unless you are a big fan of card battle games and are focusing on that aspect. I was hoping for more romance and tension, but was disappointed. Maybe one day Winter Wolves will produce another game like Loren, but this isn't it.

One of the better Winter Wolves games. A diverse cast of romanceable characters (male and female), choice of gender, an original and mysterious setting, plus a really fun card game that's actually challenging if playing on hard difficulty. Card game not your thing? You'll be missing out, but you can play in visual novel mode. I highly recommend this one.

So I'll admit that the 'everyone's dead' genre is not one I particularly enjoy, but I've played almost all of Winter Wolves' games, and have liked all of them, so I wanted to give this a try. And I do recommend it. I honestly found the game a bit of a slow burn, and it took me a while to warm up to many of the characters (including the main character). I'm glad I persisted because once the choice between order v chaos is made, the story really kicks into high gear. Before that you spend several short chapters learning the game mechanics, meeting the characters, and having them try to convince you which side you should join. The card games are entertaining and challenging, if you don't like card games or you're on your third play-through it is possible to chose 'visual novel' mode and just play without them. But personally I like them, and it's nice to have something to break up the trauma reveals. That's not to say there isn't hope and joy in the game, but there's no shortage of sadness and pain (as one would expect, everyone you're meeting here is dead, and the plot revolves around finding out their history and how they died). The characters are varied, so there's a nice assortment of people to get to know and fall in love with. Most romances have two versions, the submissive and the dominant versions. So whatever pops your cork really. The artwork is visually appealing, the adult scenes short but tasteful. The characters are pretty varied and have interesting backstories, no one is quite what they seem. Though I will note that the only two black characters are both placed within the 'chaos' faction, and fall into the 'angry black woman' and 'primal warrior man' tropes (though as I said, there's always way more to a character than first appearance), and this was certainly... a choice. One which I think the person who made it should have a think about WHY they made that choice. All in all while this isn't may favourite of the Winter Wolves games, that largely comes down to personal preference rather than the quality of the game, and I still heartily recommend it.

If you're wanting a review of the card gameplay - skip my review. If you want a review of the story and individual characters romances though, read on! The Good: -The intro song <3 Music in general is very nice, I find myself getting the main menu song stuck in my head sometimes. -The story premise is awesome, unique, and well written. I've loved Winter Wolves games for a while now and this is no exception, I've had a blast reading this. -The romance scenes themselves are detailed/explicit enough to get the point across and be intimate but not too detailed or too risque and all CG privates are 'tastefully covered'. This could of course be seen either as a good thing or a bad thing depending on what you want. It reminds me of a sort of toned down version of the optional DLC of Planet Stronghold 2 (I personally love how Planet Stronghold 2 handled that, were it was optional but quite detailed. This is not quite to that caliber). -Many different facial emotions and even different stationary poses for each character which may seem small but adds a lot to their personalities to me. -I am NOT a fan of PC card games. I will up front say I played about 5 matches and then turned it to story only mode because I knew I wouldn't finish it otherwise. But from what I did play of it it seemed balanced well and like there was a decent amount of variation and strategy to it. ----- The Bad: -Playing in visual novel only mode (no card game) the routes kinda fly by. You can read an individuals route up to the romance point in probably 30 minutes, so the card aspect obviously adds a lot of filler which I understand. However I think back to other WW games like Planet Stronghold 1/2 (my fav) and Loren the Amazon Princess and even Cursed Lands, and those games even on visual novel mode were quite lengthy. There are however TEN romances in Curse of Mantras so... That's a lot of work. -I noticed multiple times a reference to a scorpion tattoo that Ace was apparently supposed to have on his forearm, as the text describes Ace looking down at it while watching his own memories, however his actual drawn sprite nor the CGs have this. Small thing, but would have been cool to actually see since it's referenced multiple times. -Aces' order visual is a big turn off for me. This is of course an opinion and others may disagree which is fine, but I tried really hard to get used to his order look (thank god you can remove the fedora...) but it just didn't look right paired with the other order people in CGs and it continually made my brain go "Ugh I wish he still looked like neutral Ace... Or anything other than this really". Not my cup of tea apparently lol. Aces' Chaos visual is at least better, and love the horns. But I go through the routes each time wishing I could look like neutral Ace the whole time. ----- Individual Route Opinions (No spoilers): ----- Chaos Side: Gambaron - Favorite. Personal story really hit me and made me invested and emotional (this one made me cry. In a bittersweet way, even knowing all these people are dead dudes.), on top of that the characters actually show some forms of flirting with each other before the 'final' scene which makes it feel like a more natural progression to me. As Ace, both choices are good but I personally felt that Ace taking the submissive roll felt a bit more intimate and fitting. Both very well done though. Polly/Aquaria - Loved her personality and the flirty but friendly nature of her and Aces relationship as you discovered her memories. (I couldn't stop calling her Polly because she looks so much like Polly from Monster Prom.) Her memory reveal did not give me any real emotional reaction like some others did, it was still somewhat interesting but not to the same level as others imo. Her romantic scenes were also not my favorite honestly, though I did enjoy Ace being submissive to her more than dominant. I liked her a ton as a character, but didn't feel a real connection with her as a romantic partner. Alpha - His story was nice and topical for the release date of the game, as it deals with a virus of sorts. But it had it's own twists that kept the story fresh and unpredictable. I had the hardest time getting through Alphas romantic route (As Ace, maybe it's different as Lily) because there was almost zero indication of any flirtation or attraction before the last day or two. It just went from 'yes we must discover my memories to figure this out' to: 'Oh you can't stop thinking about me? Okay lets do this.) It just felt a little sudden. On top of that, as someone in my mid/late 20's, he LOOKS like a d*mn kid and I couldn't really get past that, it sorta ruined it for me even though I know logically he's meant to be probably at least late 20's as well. (Only 1 option sub/dom wise as Ace, Ace is the dom.) And it was okay. Cute once I could rationalize that he IS older but not much of an emotional connection to him. Cute CG though. Order Side: (GOD I DON'T LIKE ACES ORDER LOOK why did you make him look like a m'lady boy *sadface*) -Insert that Neutral Ace and Lily are best forms of both- Ash - My second favorite (Gambaron being the first) but the first character I pursued. His memories had a good build up that you could sort of predict but also weren't exactly as you thought. His story was one of the ones that made me emotional during it as well. The romance felt paced out decently, not as much flirting as just stating the facts of that you 'can' get physical even in the afterlife and hey, why not. His romance was good both ways in my opinion. As Ace I liked both the sub and dom routes, they were both written well and didn't feel off either way. Mercurio - I did not think I'd want to go through Mercurios route initially because he came off so wily and cocky, but I gave it a go after listening to his first memory and ya know, it was pretty decent. His story itself is bittersweet, and his romance is pretty good. For Ace I felt that both the sub and dom were pretty equal here, I had a slight preference to the sub CG but text based both were good, not my favorite route but definitely not my least favorite. Kraken - "You wouldn't even know what to do with me" Great line lol. Haven't finished his yet, half way through, but will update review as I finish them! "looking over, Kraken watches thick dark crowds roll in like a curtain." Supposed to be clouds I assume ^^ other than that one I've noticed VERY few grammatical errors though! Winter Wolves is one of those developers where I get super excited when they release new content. I don't always like the art style they choose, but this one along with the others I mentioned in this review have really stuck with me and hold a special place in my heart. Thanks for making this! And if anyone actually read all the way to the end here, you should probably just get the game and try it out :)

This game is a good way to waste time but that is about it. The romance doesn't seem to really lead anywhere substantial. I'd give this a 2/5 if i could.

Usually I like most of Winter Wolves Games, but this one, I feel like I am falling asleep. It's not very fun. We need more like Loren, or the cursed lands. those are my fave games from Winter Wolves. I tried this one, but it's just not for me. Nice art and stuff though.

Surprisingly good card game. Surprisingly interesting characters. It's all very... surprising:)

I really missed Orions 2 the moment it wasn't playable anymore, The moment I saw this game I knew it would be somewhat similar and I must say that this way of making a card battler is simply amazing! It might seem really challenging at first but you'll need to stop and rethink your strategy. The core is really good, and I would love to see a multiplayer version of this gameplay one day, doesn't really have to be a serious thing just something to play with sum friends and stuff like that. Amazing job making a rather simple yet deep card system! Aquaria best grill~

[b]이 게임은 제작살부터 큐레이터 커넥트 받은 게임입니다.[/b] [h1]보1지 보여줌. 꼭1지 보여줌(잘은 안보여줌). 카드게임에 비쥬얼노벨을 더한 게임.[/h1] 일단 이건 카드게임입니다. 게임 대부분의 시간이 카드를 사용한 전투파트이며 한 전투가 끝나고 다음 전투가 시작되기 전의 숨돌린시간에 비쥬얼 노벨이 나오는 방식이며 거의 마지막에 가서야 H씬이 나오는 게임입니다. H씬의 분량은 적어요. 제작자도 카드게임 파트쪽에 신경을 많이 썼습니다. 사용할 수 있는 카드도 많고 카드 레벨업시스템까지 다양한 기술을 사용하는 다양한 방식의 카드가 아주 많아요. 등장하는 인물들이 많은데 해당 인물들의 특성에 따라 사용되는 카드들이 다릅니다. (주인공은 네크로멘서 계열) 이런 카드들을 얻어서 자신의 덱을 조합하고.... 그.... 특정캐릭의 카드는 역상성의 다른 캐릭터에게 아주 쉽게 밀리기 때문에 한쪽 파트만 튼튼하게 만들었다가는 재수없이 나온 역상성에 무너질 수 있으므로 다양한 경우를 생각하고 카드를 조합해야 합니다. 한번의 엔딩으로 모든 CG를 볼 수 는 없는 멀티엔딩 시스템을 갖추고 있는 게임으로 여러번 플레이 하도록 설계된 게임이고, 성우는 없습니다. 단 CG는 숫자는 많아요. 남x여, 남x남, 여x여 등 여러가지 H씬을 보여줍니다만 위에 적은것처럼 이 게임은 야게임이라기 보다는 카드게임입니다. [h1]관심이 있는 분은 할인 많이 할때 한번 생각해 보시기 바랍니다.[/h1]

Really fun Deck building and card game. The story is cute and the variety of romance is pretty great.