Devious Reviews

Very low quality FPRPG. The mouse controls are clunky as there is no way to increase the turn speed. I felt very hampered. I was expecting Legend of Grimlock and got a lousy Wolfenstein clone.

Original review below, some of the issues still stand. I have found, that the game is overall more enjoyable with the Archers character than the Mage (Lyss). Short summary: - Interesting as a visual novel game - Gameplay is fun, but sometimes overly stretched with backtracking - The minimap needs an overhaul - Some levels need to be skipped ("Settings > Content > Visual Novel Only") because of bugs I am swinging between "good game", and "gem in the making, that never got finished" every other time I play. Part of it is that the game can be really frustrating, when its mechanics bite each other. But all of it gets better with better understanding of the gameplay, and better "exploring technique" (e.g. less focused on minimap). Also: Read the README.txt in the installation directory! It is a short summary of the controls, not all of which are self-explanatory. ________________________________________ I am conflicted on this game. I give it a "recommend", because I got invested into the storytelling and characters. The gameplay however, has severe issues (see below). It feels like a gem in the making, with the visual novel style being nice. The gameplay is also at its core a solid class-based retro shooter. Sadly, the focus is on "in the making", with little chance of that process ever being continued. (1) Bugs. The further I get into the story, the more often I encounter crashes, hangs, or broken encounters, that force me to skip the level (the game allows you play "gameplay only" and "story only" modes, which you can freely change in the settings at any time.) (2) Block mechanic: Letting enemies block for a few seconds, while otherwise not moving, is actually an interesting mechanic, especially for ranged characters. In practice however, it draws out the already overly large levels even more. Additionally, the mechanic has no audio feedback, and only weak visual feedback. (3) Most combat feels unrewarding: The only reason you have to kill enemies, except for the occasional boss encounters, is because they are in the way. With Lyss, you can often just brush through the levels and then nuke them with the vampiric area attack. But the lack of rewards (experience or similar), combined with their sheer number, makes removing enemies a chore. By contrast, boss-level fights feel rewarding. (4) Unrewarding exploration. Each level has you track down a key, then the door for that key, and repeat. However, the structure of the levels -- all doors are accessible before reaching the first key -- means that you'll mostly be backtracking down the same empty corridors repeatedly. In some levels, the keys open just a single room, which contains the next key. (5) Lackluster minimap: There is no distinction between unexplored areas, floors and unaccessible areas beyond walls. As a consequence, what looks like an unexplored corridor might turn out to be a piece of wall you didn't come close enough too. The issue is further worsened by levels, where fences (invisible on the minimap) block corridors. (6) Color-based keys with bad coloring. In many levels, there are multiple keys with very similar colors (e.g. green and bright green). I often can't tell from the minimap, which key matches which door, further worsening the backtracking aspect. (7) The first character Lyss constantly blocks half the screen in first-person view with her hand for some reason. That would be a nice effect while casting some cooldown spell, but not as the default at all times. (8) 4:3 aspect ratio. For a start, a weird choice for 2018. It leads to an awkwardly small field of view, and if you play in "fullscreen", everything looks weirdly stretched. When using "2x scaling" on an FHD display, it triggers a "mouse drift" bug, that makes it unplayable. ________________________________________ The game is a few years old, and isn't even listed on the developers homepage anymore, so none of these is likely to change at this point. The worst part, in a sense, is that it wouldn't take much to make the game much more enjoyable across the board: (1) The minimap just needs a color distinction between "floor" and "unexplored". Ideal would be to also distinguish "unreachable tiles" from "floor", but that would likely require changing the maps. (2) Allow skipping through doors. That would remove the "stretched" character of the gameplay and would provide a good alternative to skipping the gameplay alltogether. The forest levels are already basically like that. (3) Redesign Lyss's "hand" weapon so it doesn't occupy so much of the screen. ________________________________________ For fans of visual novels I can still kind of recommend the game. It got me invested enough to keep playing despite the frustrations after all. Look for the ini-patch to enable the censored scenes though; They are few, but feel genuinely relevant to the story.

I lost interest in this game about an hour into it. Endless clicking, boring dialog, poor H scenes and no graphic settings. A waste of money!

If you're not familiar with Top Hat games they make visual novels and dungeon crawls. This game is a mix of both, the game allows you to skip either if one is preferenced. The visual novel is based in a fantasy setting where a party of four try to save the splintering land of Nor. The story hits the standard of the usual basic novel, with a few spicy scenes thrown in for the patientence needed. The dungeon crawl is a true dungeon crawl, with twisted routes and quick unrelenting combat. There is four different types of combat, granted. The combat is simular to that of Elderscrolls Daggerfall, however there is not a leveling system, the game is more of a skill based dungeon where it comes to learning your attacks and the enemies. The game could be better on each halves, however it is a rather unique game, trying to combine both, so the game would be worth the time put into it. I'm not gonna lazily post a link to some random website, as I have a mind of my own, so if you want to play a dungeon crawl with a story and a nsfw label, try this.