Witch Hunter Izana

I know this game has full frontal nudity, but I’m having trouble calling this what many would consider an “adult” game. It doesn’t have any sex or violence, no real horror element, there are bad endings for losing fights but they're mostly played for comedy and not for…other reasons, and the transformation just happens instead line after line of descriptions of the process unlike RoP. Unless there's something I’m missing, this seems “M for mature” at worst in terms of nudity. I know this seemed like a random rant but it’s been bugging me on how to catalogue this game. Story: Simple enough plot with an evil vampire named Verand invading an island and turning locals into her monster minions who are massive simps for her and the titular witch hunter Izana has come to investigate and kill the vampire along with a local witch named Cyrano and a travelling knight called Caelyn. Pretty standard stuff. Got some pleasant locals, some hammy villains, and Izana has a pretty good dynamic with her party members. Which is good because unfortunately- I don’t like Izana. I was worried I wouldn’t like her from trailers when she branded Cyrano a heretic as soon as they met and after playing the whole game she never won me over. Aside from the whole high and mighty attitude which made it obvious the church was evil from minute one, I got the impression she would have murdered everyone on the island if she wasn’t focused on Verand. It honestly made me prefer all the bad endings where Izana ends up working for the vampire queen instead of the good endings despite the crap she pulls. Gameplay: While there are similar elements from RoP like the gems for added stats and the stealth past enemies, there are a few differences like you can’t knock out enemies with stealth or the elite enemies blocking omega dungeons. But the big thing about this game is how you lose. During a fight an enemy can infect you and eventually after you get five points of one monster, you’ll become a monster girl and join the enemy side until you beat them up. I like this unique system as while it does mean those monster girl forms are mostly cosmetic for most fights, just having one gives you a type of armour from infection. Or if you're fighting the same monster type, instant death. So a werewolf fighting a dragon has more chance of survival than a werewolf fighting another werewolf Presentation: If you played Runes of Pandemonium, you’ve already seen the overworld artstyle and it mostly hasn’t changed. Battle sprites look less shiny and simpler and there’s a noticeable difference in quality or at least scaling when people are talking but that isn’t too distracting, and the music is good and that title theme is a bit of a banger. Also, it’s nice seeing a chubby girl being shown to be just as good looking as her slimmer partners. But if I rant about something that isn’t a real issue but it did bother me which was the sudden shift from nudity to no nudity. I don’t mind that there is a toggle for the nudity since it’s not a big deal in the end(And the original method didn’t stood out at all even when your told how) , but it’s distracting when you turn on the nudity but when the party is chatting, they use their censored sprites even though both sprites are in the game. Maybe it’s not as easy to do as adding censor bars to the mummy form which doesn’t have a SFW version or that one talking sprite with Vampire Izana which has her tits out. As for best looking Monster girls: In general: Insect, Dragon, Demon, Zombie Izana: Skeleton, Vampire, Hulk Caelyn: Werewolf, Ghost, Harpy, Cyrano: Alraune, Fish Verdict: Pretty standard but enjoyable RPG with some monster boobies. If only I liked Izana herself 7/10

Witch Hunter Izana is the very definition of a diamond in the rough. On paper it has pretty much *everything* that constitutes a hit classical 16-bit style RPG -- all original assets, incredibly catchy and well written music, extremely solid gameplay and encounter design and sharply written dialogue and event pacing. That is enough to recommend. But it's held back by its somewhat unintuitive player progression -- which WILL punish the inattentive -- a very clunky menu interface and almost being unplayable with a controller. (though I do recommend a controller for long exploring/grinding sessions) The story is extremely tightly presented and I love how you very much feel the progression of it as you go, with a clearly defined antagonist whose presence is constantly *felt*, but she always seems to be just beyond the shadows. You play a church inquisitor (the titular Izana) as she teams up with a knight errant (Caelyn) and what I'd most closely describe as a druid (Cyrano) as you investigate an island shrouded in mist. One nearly conquered by a vampire queen named Verand and her gathering army of conversion-happy monster girls set to take on the world if she's not stopped. Every story step you take in the game is pushing against Verand's foothold and just about every combat encounter, as such, is arguably ideological in nature. I LIVE for that in a game. Emphasizing this epic struggle is a very strong OST that I'd describe as something like a Gaelic take on Diablo or Castlevania, with classic RPG influences. It's worth recommending for the story alone -- it's got an extremely tight focus that doesn't stray from its goal but it doesn't feel stagnant thanks to the incredible banter between the main trio and their evolving understanding of each other as people. (ideally growing in parallel with the player learning how to best use each of the three) Finally, I wanted to recommend this game on its own merits, but I feel like it's worth mentioning -- it's a spinoff of a free game called "Runes of Pandemonium" which you can also find on Steam. It's set more or less in the same setting/world, with converty/transformy monster girls abound. It has much of the positive qualities this game has (including the incredible writing) though very different combat feel and story tone. I guarantee you that if you enjoy that game, you'll be rushing back here to buy Witch Hunter Izana just to see the developer get at least some money they damn well are overdue for. I was grinding my teeth waiting for this game to come out so I COULD do exactly that, in fact. That definitely informs this review. ... Oh and there's lots of bare titties I guess. You can censor them from options if you want. But this isn't a super horny game or anything. It's just that monster girls don't share a lot of human taboos about female bodies. I don't know, I just think that's a cool touch.

An enjoyable game even when you aren't going to 'enjoy' it, 10/10. There's 20 forms for the enemies to transform the party members into, so there's always something new to look forward to during battles. The game itself is mostly about those battles, but the story between them is told well and is high quality. I always wanted to see what would happen next. I was a bugtester for this game and my first playthrough took about 20 hours, and that was before the developers added in even more content.

[h1]これがTF（変身）ゲームだ！[/h1] モンスター娘化TFを中心としたセミアクティブターン制RPG！ 19種のTF（ウェアウルフ、ハーピー、アルラウネ、ゾンビ・・・石化や人形化も含む！） そしてそれぞれのドット絵と、各２段階のキャラ絵、29＋α個のエンディングを収録！ パーティメンバーが敵に寝返らないように、戦略を立てて先に進もう！ ・・・それとも、自ら堕ちに行っちゃう？ [h3] 良かったとこ！ [/h3] ・フィールド上では、背後からの先制攻撃がとれるシンボルエンカウント形式、戦闘時、近くの敵グループが乱入してくることも ・戦闘中、呪いの段階に合わせて、絵柄が3キャラとも２段階、エッチなモンスター娘姿に変化していく！ ・変化した際には、戦闘中のセリフにも影響していく！ ・変身は、フィールド上の見た目にも反映される緻密なドットアート！ ・完全に呪いの影響を受けると、敵に寝返るシステムが面白い！ ・変化の呪いは、変身先によって互いに干渉し合う、よって変身を防ぐために他の変身を利用する！とっても斬新！ ・適度なボリューム！ [h3] もう一息なとこ！ [/h3] ・本作では、セリフや見た目の変化以外に、ゲームシステム的なステータス・スキル・アビリティ変化は残念ながらありません＞＜。が、派生元作品ではその辺りをしっかり作り込んでいますので、本作はやはり上記のユニークシステムに焦点をあわせているようです！ [h3] その他 [/h3] 予定情報（プライベートBeta版:PumpernickelBreadでアクセス可、バグに注意） ・MODサポート（オリジナルキャラの絵柄、モンスターなどを追加できる！） ・日本語ローカライズに対応予定（のお手伝い中！）

(Heads up this review was written as a friend of the developer and as a bug tester.) Witch hunter Izana is an eastern style RPG with a transformative status effect as it's main combat feature. You play as a fanatic witch hunter trying to stop a vampire from conquering an island with her transformative mind control curse. Story: Strong, the aloof witch hunter is immediately saddled with more grounded companions and the personalities interact well with those of the antagonists. There's a mystery to uncover and some plot twists. The writing is enjoyable and the characters are pretty memorable. The tf content: The majority of the TF content is delivered via in combat transformation. There's bad ends if everybody gets TFed that are per form. These are fun and some of them change based on story progress. The TFs themselves are mostly described via in combat callouts. All of them are excellently drawn and sprited. You can run around as a monster form to get more turns before being converted while being super vulnerable to being converted by that thing. It rules, there's like 20 forms. Also most importantly has insect girls, including a really great moth girl. As a heads up there's no content beyond suggestive here. Gameplay: Good but combat expects you to very much pay attention. Fairly standard rpg combat with a couple of tweaks to make things flow faster. Your HP and MP resets every battle. One character has her MP regen per turn. (She should be casting spells every turn so that evens out.) You level pretty fast but since most of progression is equipment based it rewards exploration and a little bit of grinding. Where the game demands your attention is that things can quickly spiral out of control. A character that gets too much TF goes over to the enemy side until you whack them back to rightousness. This means that if you don't effectively manage HP or infection you will get outnumbered. A party member at 1 HP gets hit for a lot of infection next attack. Beyond that the game is always ramping up in difficulty, with every area being harder than the last. It even manages to surprise you gameplay mechanic wise a couple of times. Screw dragons and dolls, and more generally the ice caves. Thankfully there's a couple of truly busted builds and skill combinations you can use. On the whole I recommend playing the demo. It's a fun demo. If you really like it, buy it.

This game is marked as 'Adult Only.' It felt like there was a direction of lewd and horny stuff here but then something happened to where development steered away from it. The game is not bad, but it is disappointing on the direction it went knowing that. As for more technical stuff: 1.) The Gem Cutting system is very tedious. Scrolling for the right gems is abysmal, especially when we have multiple items that carry multiple gems for all three characters. 2.) There are sections that are really well hidden as well, I would like an option to know about whether all those hidden places are found somewhere since the completionist in me feels there is more. 3.) I found out about the 'Omegas' way later than usual. How is that info not in the Combat Glossary? I don't actually believe Tiro should be the guy handing out the info here. If it were in the glossary on that journal, then people wouldn't be getting clapped as hard since they are found pretty early in the game. Basically that is BS, and not going to go into the whole beach thing (the one near Heronstradt) as well since they are pretty overpowered early game too. If something can be done about those three gripes, then the game will be better than before. And if there is future DLC, put that 'Adult Only' tag to use and make it steamy already. 😔

Hey, I played this game during the late stages of development (was asked to do some late game sprites and was given a free dev build to play with as thanks) and I can confirm that it is indeed very good the writing is sharp and witty the tf forms are plentiful the gameplay is deep enough that you can take it seriously but without having to spend time grinding and whilst it borrows a bit from runes of pandemoniums bank of sprites, a lot of care was put into the art it is on the whole, a well rounded experience that I would recommend to anyone after a decent tf game

Rock solid RPG that presents a tightly written story and world while integrating its primary kink into the gameplay loop in an inventive and interesting way that lets u play stanky as hel. shockingly for a kink game, the mechanics are fun to engage with and present interesting if not varied challenges that keep the game fun for it's middling runtime. Game so nice i bought it twice.

extremely good game. 10/10. fun rpg with cool mechanics, pretty monster girls, loads of fun endings, hidden stuff, bonus extra hard post game content, really cool world with awesome and detailed lore, well written characters, absurd amount of detail, the list goes on. couldn't recommend it enough.

Really great game.