Source: Cashmoneys
Price: £4.79 (It’s also on Itch, but it appears to only be the SFW version, as opposed to SFW with free DLC for NSFW)
Where To Get It: Steam

Content Warnings: Bondage, Edging, Monstergirls, Rough Sex, Hair Pulling.

Isekai is, to be honest, a very odd genre. It’s a power fantasy of sorts, but one that can go many ways. In Arcadieu, it’s a horny parody, as the majority of Kavorka’s catalogue appears to be. But how is to play, and how does it look?

Well, as with the majority of the Kavorka catalogue, it’s a little short, and, if you’ve been looking at the other NSFW reviews this month, you’ll see that’s been a variable mileage on whether it’s a good or a bad thing. In the case of Arcadieu, it’s most likely the opening that will turn you off. Because it’s a biiiig old exposition dump. And it’s a videogame Isekai, so awkwardly shoehorned JRPG references abound, along with the gimmick of a separate battle area, and, as is usual for an Isekai, the protagonist, a horny virgin nerd, is… The Chosen One, the…

Wait… The Dual Bow Wielder? Yeaaah, not gonna lie, that one made me scratch my head. Beyond that… Let’s see, let’s see… The hot and cold warrior, the shy mage with glasses… Cackling evil queen… Writing is, sadly, not its strong point. Aesthetically… Honestly, it’s alright. The environments vary somewhat, from the Town that looks like it’s a beta in the titular videogame, to the forest of the demon… Although some of the environments, like the Evil Queen’s castle, are “Eh.” The character designs are solid, a different look to other Kavorka games, and the music… Okay, the music is, like pretty much every Kavorka game, royalty free stuff you’ll have heard in an RPG Maker game, or other Visual Novels, and so is the voicework.

However, I will say that the music is more fitting here, and the writing can be pretty good. The first sexual moment, a first time for both participants (a slime girl, and the protagonist) is pretty well described, both the heat and the tenderness, and the music mixes that pretty well. I appreciated that. Hell, there’s a fair few moments in the game I appreciate, like the protagonist waxing lyrical about a rope (Really good rope is, to be fair, definitely a thing that should be appreciated more. Ehehehe.) This time, it works with that short length, creating a short arc that works well, lewdness that works well… But all too soon, it gets to the end, and… This is kind of where it falls down. See, two endings exist on one route. One is a mixed villain/harem ending, cool, fine, and one is “You win, but don’t win.” Not so good.

And then… The altogether more tedious route, because it’s more Videogame Isekai. And it feels, from the first battle scene, that the devs know that, lampshading a tired Witch of the West line (You know the one… Oh, what a world, what a world, where that’s not funny), asking the protagonist if he’s the bad guy for killing a slime that wants to defend their young and actually likes humans… Well, their forms, anyway. And congrats, you missed out on showing her a better path by taking this route, and it never engages with the question again! But hey, you get the “Good” ending, and it’s still lewd!

And… The writing where it diverges is just… Less enjoyable. It feels like an entitled fantasy, just as the villain/harem ending is, and starts with lewdness because… A Magic Potion is actually Tequila, and it loosened up one of the characters enough to initiate. The other divergent scene does actually explain better why Trish is so mad at you… But by this point, the damage is done, and I find myself unengaged. And when I get to that ending (Surpriiise! It’s also a harem ending!)… It ends up highlighting how selfish the other endings actually are, and how entitled the fantasy feels. I can’t really spoil it, but suffice to say, what’s revealed on this Hero route makes you feel like a complete scumbag, even if you got the “You got out” ending. I think there was room for improvement there, and, as it stands, playing the whole show it to be weaker than its parts.

Unfortunately, like pretty much every Kavorka game, it’s made in VN Maker, and has some lacking or buggy features. Like forgetting it’s in windowed mode every time you go back to the title screen or load it again, and a lack of volume sliders.

Overall, this is the first of the Kavorka catalogue that I look at as a crying shame. I bounced off Space Love Delta pretty hard, Witch College’s protagonist annoyed the shit out of me… And this… This one had potential you can sort of see on the “villain” route, and even the “hero” route has a nice moment, partly two… But taken together, not even the solid, stylistic art, and some good music choices really save this one from what it is: A parody (pastiche?) that becomes the thing it’s parodying (rather than playing off it?) And, as such, while I liked elements of both paths (more the “villain” route than the “hero” one), the whole… I can’t recommend the whole, because it’s weaker than the sum of its nicer parts.

Can we… Can we have an Isekai that isn’t filled with tedious references?

Filed under: Adult Only Games, Game Reviews, Games Gone By by admin

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