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Quick Review: Demon King Domination (PC) (NSFW)

Demon King Domination | Cover art

CW: Discussion of sexual content. Has passing references to rape and slavery pertaining to sexual content. Lewd images are pixelated for the purposes of this review, and are uncensored in-game.

I did not initially plan to review three hentai games in a row, but I couldn’t help but become curious when a mutual of mine gifted me this game on Steam. It also helps that this is a fairly short game, and thus won’t prompt another 2000+ word review. Demon King Domination comes to us from Belgerum, a small team making English language nukige. Demon King Domination is a brief visual novel set in the world of a typical JRPG/fantasy series. The game mostly takes place during the climactic showdown between the warrior Princess Dianne, and the Demon King Malos. In true hentai fashion, you are playing as the Demon King himself, and each ending involves turning Princess Dianne into your slave.

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Celeste (PC/PS4/XONE/Switch/Stadia): A Steep, Treacherous, and Beautiful Climb (Detailed Review)

Celeste | Chapter 9 Opening

And here we have yet another overdue review that I have been planning to get for quite some time. Specifically, this review was requested by former patron Winter. While they have since canceled their pledge due to financial difficulties, they were the first patron of mine to meet the current requirements for a review request, which require someone to be a patron for more than six months and contribute at least $120 total. Yes, this is a steep requirement, but it also ensures that those who are supporting me are doing so because they either really care about me or my content. Also I have tendency to take a long time getting to requested reviews, but I do plan to honor these commitments even when a patron in question is also an abusive ex (no, that’s not Winter, but that is the case with another patron).

As for what my excuse for taking so long this time is, it’s that I had initially tried to play the Steam version of Celeste several months ago (which Winter also gifted me because they are a total sweetheart), but I had some issues with the controls that made the game virtually unplayable to me. Specifically, I had this problem where, when using a PS3 controller, the game would just stop reading my button inputs for a second every other minute. While 1 second doesn’t sound like much, Celeste IS a platformer that requires split second timing and accuracy.

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Games&Girls (PC): An Embarrassing Train Wreck (Detailed Review)

CW: Mentions of Nazism, pedophilia, incest, antisemitism, and kidnapping

It seems as if the games I play are constantly trying to push the envelope for different ways to be absolutely fucking awful. I am at the point where if someone asked me the worst game I ever played, I’d ask what criteria they are basing them on. I could go with the game that was so disgusting and scarring that it made me suicidal, I could go with the no-budget “experimental” game that included real life gore in it, I could go with the RPG Maker game with no battles, levels, dialogue, or ending, or I could go with the game that required you to manually rename the game’s exe file to even play it.

Games&Girls is now among those games as “the visual novel that I almost didn’t review because I didn’t think I could review it without insulting the developer.” And even approaching this review is difficult because I’m not sure if I should do what I usually do and start describing the story, writing, presentation, or open with the fact that the 4th episode has you trying to seduce a fucking Nazi?

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Quick Review: Super Win the Game (PC)

Super Win the Game | Logo

God damn, I wrote my review of You Have to Win the Game six years ago. I was either 19 or 20 when I wrote that review. More time has passed since I wrote that review than has passed between the original release of You Have to Win the Game and its sequel, Super Win the Game. No, that’s not a jab saying that the game was made too quickly after the original, it’s a two year gap. It’s just… time goes by so slow yet so fast.

So I recently decided to check out Super Win the Game to see if it’s any better than its predecessor. Super Win the Game is, in fact, better than You Have to Win the Game. While neither game is a must play by any means, it is nice to see that a lot of the issues I had with the previous game were resolved in this one.

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Secret Little Haven (PC): A Deeply Personal Masterpiece (Detailed Review) #TransDayofRemembrance

Secret Little Haven | Logo

CW: Transphobia, parental abuse, gaslighting, depression, violence, and suicide.

So here we are at another Trans Day of Rememberence, the day where cis people can bitch about trans social justice warriors and bathrooms while trans people mourn their friends and family who were murdered by cis people, or who killed themselves because cis people felt inconvenienced by their desire to, you know, live.

I’ve used Trans Day of Rememberence as a framing device for my work in the past. Two years ago, I used it for a highly emotional piece where I let my anger and disgust front and center. This time, I’m going to do something a bit different. It just so happened that the next game on my schedule for a review is also very much relevant to Trans Day of Rememberance. Not only is Secret Little Haven made by a trans developer, but it is also a trans centered title with a lot of highly relevant subject matter. It’s also an absolute masterpiece that comes strongly recommended even if you aren’t trans.

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Standard Review: Serena (PC)

Serena | Logo

Serena is a very brief yet powerful point and click game that leaves a large emotional impact on the player. It has received a lot of support from the adventure fan community and has had some high profile people involved such as former Sierra staff member Josh Mandel, and the character Serena being voiced by Sarah Wilson, otherwise known as Pushing up Roses. This game was also the first to be developed by Senscape, who is headed by Agustin Cordes. When compared to Agustin Corde’s previous game, Scratches, Serena’s story is far more compelling and deep yet the game itself also has far less content. The one important aspect to note about Serena is that the game can be beaten in less than an hour. However, the game is free to play, and as a result, I cannot think of any reason not to recommend Serena.

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Standard Review: Asphyxia (PC)

Asphyxia | Logo

Asphyxia is a rather conflicting game for me. It, at first, seems like a recipe for a hit given its odd premise of being a yuri dating sim where the girls are based off of British authors from the 1800s and early 1900s (which is going to be lost on anyone who is not an English major, so I’m not going to be talking about it much). It also tells what by all means should be a very engrossing and compelling storyline with deep characters and mature themes. There is a lot to like about Asphyxia, but for once the problem with a story is not that it is shallow or amateurishly written.

Instead, much like those works of “classic” literature that we we’re forced to plow through in school, Asphyxia’s writing is plodding and stuffy. The characters do not talk like real people, there is an unnecessary amount of description put into insignificant details, and I just found myself trying to speed read through as much as I could in order to finish the game. In the end, I was curious enough about the storyline to get every ending, but it is not a game I plan to replay nor is it one I can recommend.

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Aozora Meikyuu (PC): A Beautiful Trainwreck (Detailed Review)

Aozora Meikyuu | Title screen

Aozora Meikyuu is a short and brief ecchi visual novel by developer Yume Creations, a team name that I’m not sure exists because Dream Creations was taken by a rhinestone trimming company or if the devs were just total weebs. One can definitely get the impression that it is the latter since Yume Creation’s other games are also short ecchi visual novels with anime girls.  I want to make it clear I have nothing against anime tiddies and actually kinda liked Aozora Meikyuu, but it’s not a good game.

Aozora Meikyuu, which means “Blue Sky” in Japanese and leaves me once again unsure if the name was left in Japanese to avoid confusion with the similarly titled visual novel “Always the Same Blue Sky” that I also reviewed or if the devs are just total nerds, is something that I enjoyed in a “so bad its good” kind of way. More specifically, it is a poorly written and overall stupid mess, but it also has a unique charm that appeals to me as an otaku turned feminazi.

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Steam Greenlight Landfill: The Path

The Path | Logo

The Path is…. weird. I was considering just not reviewing this game because normally it doesn’t look like good form to say “Fuck I don’t know” in a game review, but that’s basically my thoughts on The Path in a nutshell.

Image result for The path game

For those unaware, The Path was the first major title of the indie studio Tale of Tales. Tale of Tales is basically the equivalent of if Coda from The Beginner’s Guide actually existed and sold his games. This was a major issue I had with the first game they released, known as The Graveyard. The Path is an improvement over The Graveyard in that there is actual longevity and an overarching story to it. There is actual shit to do and some aspects that are almost kind of like a game. But The Path is not any more enjoyable to play than The Graveyard.

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Steam Greenlight Landfill: The Graveyard

It really blows my mind that any developer could release a game like The Graveyard and think it is a good idea. I do not even mean that in the sense that it was an incomplete game; I mean that as in this game was dead on arrival (no pun intended). In concept, one can already tell that The Graveyard does not even attempt to be a good game. I will do my best to keep this review from devolving into a rant, but I cannot make any promises.

In The Graveyard, you play as an old woman who is walking slowly to a bench. You then sit down on the bench, wait for five minutes while a very bland and droning song sang in German plays. Afterwards, you get up and walk out of the graveyard; that’s it. One may naively think that I am just being snarky and leaving out exactly how these events occur, but I am not. That is literally all that happens in this game.

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