Recent reviews by icedwarrior

This rating isn't so much a "this game was awful, don't play!" but more of a "eh, it was okay... but go play the later games instead" type of rating. The missions felt sparse and random... and unfortunately I had a bug where the cutscenes wouldn't play at all (and only display a black screen with no audio) about 33% of the time I started a mission. They do give you a lot of miscellaneous things to do - from finding packages, to depositing specific cars, to firefighting, amongst others - and I do very much appreciate that completing them gives you a nice reward that corresponds to what you've accomplished. The worst thing about the game, I feel, is the traffic. The cars usually handle terribly (not to mention how easily they blow up), often make no sense in randomly changing lanes, stopping at intersections and going when it's not their turn... just... ugh. It was nice to see early iterations of the franchise, but I'm eager to get into Vice City and San Andreas now, for sure.

Fun and addictive. Interesting characters and effects for the balls/fusions. The base building stuff feels a bit underdeveloped, but engaging enough to tinker with for a time.

~18 hours to beat, ~30 hours to get every achievement.

One of the best in the genre, easily. Highly recommended.

This is a neutral review.

I really like the idea behind this chill game, and it mostly works. My issue is that it becomes very tedious (seriously, how many books and articles of clothing are you going to make me unpack every stage?), and some of the items are a complete mystery to me, which makes it very difficult to understand where to place them. Okay, it's a white box with multiple drawers... but I couldn't make heads or tails of where to put it—only through a lot of trial and error did I figure out where it belonged (and I still don't understand what it is). There is something satisfying about placing objects down though and organizing things, though.

In my view, the game would be better with more frequent, smaller levels featuring more varied objects. Everything felt very samey; again, I can only place 21 books before I start to get bored. Why not have a room dedicated to music, for example? Instead, you often get rooms that are just full of objects with no real sense of cohesion.

The achievements were a nice touch—like making me write out a math equation with magnets on a fridge, for example. It is a rather short experience—I clocked in at 3.5 hours played, with every achievement and a little bit of AFK involved. Finally, I feel like $20 is a bit steep for the asking price... again, you'll probably get about 3 hours out of it. Maybe look for it in a bundle or on sale.

Pros:
- Cute
- Relaxing
- Numbers go up (upgrades, currency, unlocks, etc.)
- Colorful and vibrant
- Teleporters, extra workers help tremendously

Cons:
- Could use more guidance on what to do at times
- The map is awful
- Post game is mindless and boring
- "Rush mode" is infuriating and needs a major rework

Overall: 7/10, recommended.

Skip this game, even if you enjoy the series - it's only contains PvP, and it's... not great. More importantly, it appears that the player base is completely dead; I had to find three others in a Discord channel to coordinate playing, otherwise I don't think I found a *single* other player playing. IF you're achievement hunting, it is only 4-6 hours, depending on how efficient you all are so at least it's reasonably short. But... yeah... it was a pain; can't recommend this game.

The best Vampire Survivors type game out there (including Vampire Survivors). If you liked VS, pick this up without question. Fantastic.

I found some enjoyment out of this game, but it could and should have been a lot better. The writing is bad, the scenarios are boring (just how many times can the MC trip and fall and "accidentally" knock the top off of a woman? The answer is just about once per girl), the gameplay is awful (it's a memory game with little to spice it up. I played the game in windowed mode and just used the Snipping Tool to screencap it because I didn't care)... the art is good, I'll give it that. There is a free R18 patch that you can download that gives you more nudity, but they still censor the genitals, so I'm confused as to why it exists. And to top it off, if you actually make the mistake of reading the dialogue, it takes 15-20 minutes to get through the introduction/tutorial, which was a big drag. Basically, if you're looking at this game, do yourself a favor and play HuniePop 1 instead... it's this game, but better in every aspect.

For future reference, I am writing this review on the first day that the early access version came out, so expect things to change. Oh, and I'm around five hours in, having just completed the first chapter.


So, what is Subverse? For those that don't know, I would categorize Subverse as 50% visual novel, 25% shoot-'em-up, 25% XCOM. When you're experiencing the story and what-have-you, you'll be reading it similar to a visual novel. When you're doing gameplay, you'll be doing one of two things, starting with shoot-'em-up. You control a spaceship and have to dodge enemy projectiles while firing them down in turn. I found this aspect exceedingly easy, and I don't even play the genre at all; just spam left-click to attack, right-click when you can to fire a powerful missile attack, and momentarily run/boost away (or, alternatively line of sight behind asteroids) so that your shields recharge and you won't be taking damage. I can't think of a single instance that I was in jeopardy of dying in this section. Now that's not to say that this section is particularly bad - it's not, I just think it's far too easily exploitable and needs more variation. However, when it comes to the XCOM ♥♥♥♥? Sign me up. There's not much changed from the XCOM formula, except for one major thing: there are no hit percentages. You perform your action, it will hit. You get attacked? It will hit. Maybe this is XCOM blasphemy from hardcore fans, but I welcome this change, as nothing was more enraging than missing a point-blank shot and having to pay the price by losing a unit for it. The only other thing that I will mention about this - and it very well could be because it was only the first act - is that a lot of enemies die in one attack. I would vastly prefer a few stronger enemies over six enemies that die in one attack, for example. Also, since I'm nitpicking, I would also say that I believe the game takes a bit too long to let you vary up your units; while you can switch your waifu fairly quickly, you are stuck with the same three supporting units until the start of the second act, which is what, four hours in?

So... the story. For this game it exists in this weird place where I simultaneously cringe, yet intrigued the entire time. Unfortunately, this game loves to throw around the word "cuck" - hilarious, right? I don't have anything against it, but man, cuck this, cuck that... no thanks. It's not funny, it's just... cringe. I guess I'd liken the humor of this game to Borderlands, although I remember hating Borderlands more in this regard. In terms of quests, the side quests were pretty fun; even if they were functionally identical to every other mission, it was fun listening to Randy Pitchford or Gordon Ramsay (although, come to think of it, this probably was more due to the fact that I enjoy Ramsay, and hating on Pitchford and not the actual dialogue itself...). The main story, one chapter in, has been pretty entertaining thus far. While it hasn't blown me away (nor do I expect it to), it has been interesting and each beat served as a good reason as to why things are happening how they are happening. My only disappointment in this area thus far as that the mechanic for the ship wasn't a woman... which, really, isn't that much of a disappointment (okay, maybe it was, but for... different reasons, let's say).

As previously mentioned, this game is currently in early access. As such, there are bugs, problems, and unfinished things. The most glaringly obvious issue the game has for me at the time of writing is that there are literally zero mouth movements, so when characters speak, no animation plays. Now, for some characters, such as a robot, you could explain this away (or, as one character does, cover her mouth with fabric), but it's especially distracting when they're doing animated poses that convey their mood... and don't move the lips. Again, not a huge complaint, but something that took me out of the game. During the shoot-'em-up sections of the game, I've had a few weird cases of pop-in. I'll be honest, I don't know much about this term, nor have I experienced it much elsewhere, but I've noticed it during this game in very small quantities (although it's never caused me problems... just distracting is all). Lastly, some things are not in the game. I cannot tell if some things for me are simply not implemented yet, or if I'm not far along enough in the story to unlock them, but according to this wiki, as of posting, only six of twenty two chapters are implemented. All of that said, I think that this is a pretty polished first few hours of game, and while I am normally very wary of early access, this game has done pretty well in that department.

So... I know why you're here, you know why I'm here, so let's just talk about it: there's porn in this here video game. Yeah, I know. The quality of the animations are pretty good - the studio working on this game has put out some pretty good stuff prior (google "StudioFOW" if you're curious and/or unaware, just be aware that it's NSFW, obviously). The problem for me is that while some of the animations themselves are hot, I want more outside of the animations. Like... the scenario - why is she banging this random alien? And, more importantly, who is this character? While the characters thus far do have character to them, I don't feel like they have much going on for them, outside of the obvious "she's a hot scientist", or "she's a hot woman that wants to fight". But, again, I want to stress that this is only the first chapter in, so I expect more to be done in this regard later. If - and I expect, when - this happens, I totally retract this criticism. One thing I thought was clever is that after battle, you level up a character's "devotion" level - for every one level, you gain one, uh... currency... that you can exchange for a sex scene, which can range from anything to teasing, to aftermath, to penetration. So, in addition to leveling up my character and gaining stats, I also had some extra incentive to complete a mission.

Honestly, I'm impressed. Short of better/not cringe writing, I'm not sure what I would do to improve upon the game thus far. That's not to say that it's perfect, but damn, this game really feels like the first "AAA" porn game, and I'm very excited and optimistic about that. Here's hoping that the rest of the game delivers, and that more games follow suit. Thank you for reading my rambling about a porn game. Cheers.

Aragami is a fun, co-op stealth (as in you want to stealth, but have tools to escape and won't get game over explicitly for being spotted) game that is pretty jank. If you can get past said jank, it's a fun distraction from the sea of shooter co-op experiences.