MY THOUGHTS ON ETERNUM v.0.5 (Spoiler free)
Let's start this right because I have a lot to say about this game some bad and some good. So buckle up everyone it's about to get sexy... *clears throat* I mean bumpy.
First of all; the game is good so make no mistakes there, sure they might be some stolen ideas, sure it might have reused assets and sure the graphics isn't the best out there but all that aside this is definitely a hidden gem when it comes to porn games but I do have a few gripes with it and I will go over everything in sections down below so that people that doesn't want to read the full thing can skip to what they want to know. So, without further ado:
-STORY-
Yes we are absolutely starting with the story it's like the best thing in this game I promise to ease up on the drooling part... from both ends, and say that this is indeed something ripped from 'Sword Art Online' the anime and every other popular franchise that has this kind of premise and if it wasn't for that I am so damn intelligent, I could've enjoyed the story more than I did but sadly I know where this is headed and I knew it before it even started to take action.
So yes, the story is a bit predictable but is that necessary a bad thing though?
No, of course not, it doesn't bring it down one bit. The story has it's moments of being quirky, charming, comedic, sad and serious so it has a lot of mixed flavors.
So it captivates you in a non-aggressive way. The person is leaning you into it slowly and methodically almost invisibly and it feels natural, nothing is forced upon the player (that's a good thing) so the writer is clearly familiar with writing stories and knows what he or she is doing. Natural writing is the best kind, nothing is too excessive either which you will see in 80% of the porn games to date. Of course there is a lot of *harks* "borrowed" ideas to make some events more eventful so there's definitely humor to be had and parodies to be seen but nothing feel out of place, Hell this game made me laugh out loud on more accounts than I can remember.
-CHARACTERS-
Here is where I stop being nice. As cliche as the story might be and all of it's events it comes nowhere near close the charisma and personalities with the presented characters of the game I would go as far to say that Luna might be the only one with a hint of originality to her but even that is stretching it. As so many games before have done, it starts off all sweet and nice with lollypops and sunshine but quickly turns into every character from every porn game out there.
The main character is attractive with a gigantic cock (go figure, right...) with a nice guy attitude (someone who acts like a Romeo but has nothing other than sexual thoughts about everyone in the game, it's a bit overflowing... in more ways than one) with a positive and optimistic mind, who of which everyone adores. That's not say that there isn't anything positive to say. He has humor and some of the dialogues are really well written for him and the fact that you have choices to choose from really makes it good, I guess what I'm trying to say here is that it's a bit too easy to "woo" the girl(s). Now, don't get wrong idea here the choices you have and can do DOES MATTER to some extent but given as soon as the girl(s) sees your cock they turn into the most lewdest drooling slutty whores imaginable. I get that this is a sex game and all that but would kill to add some sort of romance into at all, instead of it just being about the cock being fucking huge? I wouldn't care if the main character had normal sized cock and the characters thought that it was big because of them being virgins or because they had been with guys with smaller or something but why is having any form of romance in a sex game so taboo? Given that it's just about the cock size and not about the person and the fact that every girl(s) turns sex-crazy is such a turn off for me. Anyways let's go over the roman- sex interests in this game:
Annie; is the adorable and shy one.
Dalia; is the sporty and competitive one.
Penelope; the I-like-it-rough and snobby one.
Nancy; the motherly and experienced one.
Nova; the intelligent and energetic one.
Alex; the emo and aggressive one.
Last but certainly not least Luna; the sad and lonely one.
Of course all of them are more or less cute and some even share some traits of being shy, Luna being my personal favorite of the bunch. But again despite have all those differences to them they are still a copy & paste - yes they all have different dialogues, yes they have different animations, yes they have their own sections in the game that makes them standout a bit but it doesn't hide the fact that it's a bit annoying for them to share so many similarities to one another especially when the cock comes out or should I say in, jeez...
-GAMEPLAY-
As you would expect it's just another visual novel with some elements of Point & Click but don't get too excited, it consists of just clicking to the next room or similar action(s). I would've loved for it to be more... engaging. With how good most of the other things are and the fact that creator is making bank on this, I would've expect a little more. Maybe in further updates more action-y things will be added.
-SEX SCENES/ANIMATIONS-
Now we come to the saucy bits and something that most people wanna know about: "hOw ArE tHe sEx sCeNes", easy the tiger let's talk about animations first. You can probably guess since I mentioned animations that it is gonna have animations in the game - and that... they do! I have to admit that they are good they even added a bit of cinematography to the game which helps its case severely BUT not everything is roses and butt-plugs because the characters themselves when speaking to them aren't animated, they are just jpegs on the screen but they do have several pictures of them that they switch between so you could say they are a bit... animated? The graphics is good not the best but good definitely a passing grade that's for sure, I'd say somewhere around 6 or 7 on the scoreboard because there are a lot of reused assets (which I can fully understand) and some jagged lines here and there nothing too bad. Now for what you have been waiting for the magical, spectacular, amazing, mind-blowing... average mediocre sex scenes - yeaaah don't get your hopes up here buddy you can find better sex scenes on Rule 34 or on Pornhub if you wanted but doesn't detract from the game at all but something that does detract from the experience is that you can't choose what to do, remember what I said about this game having Point & Click elements to it? Well, they don't have that for the sex scenes instead you have to choose which scene to play and then watch it. It's bit depressing to see so many games with the same GUI and no interactivity as to choose: what you want to do with the girl, control the speed, changing camera angle, zoom-in/out etc. etc. giving the player a choice instead of turning the main character constantly to a bitch-boy, who gets constantly ordered around as long as he can get laid and that we get to see it in full glory.
YOU MUST COMPLY. How about fuck off.
-MUSIC/SFX-
Ah yes the music, it's not music to my ears. Since music is subjective and depends solely on whether people like that type of genre, I can't really say much about it other than it certainly doesn't resonate with me at all, so I did what a sane person would do and turned it off. SFX or sound effects if you don't speak game is basically nonexistent there are a few of them here and there but nothing good. Then we have that ear piercing fucking sound effect that the creator is using WAY TOO FUCKING OFTEN and doesn't realize that it's actually a damaging tone to the ear and NO I'm not kidding. That sound can quite literally give you tinnitus or worse shatter (damage) your eardrum and I wish that they would remove it from the game before a lawsuit happens.
-FINAL THOUGHTS-
This game is a hidden gem that isn't a lie - the story is rich and deep, the dialogues well-crafted for the most part, some good animations and it has some uniqueness to it especially with the humor. The only downsides are the horrible character copy & paste sex freaks, the lack of GUI options for the sex scenes and that the game doesn't have much in the way of action-y stuff. Now I know there is only so much one can do and yes I know that this is a Visual Novel but it leaves me wanting more from it and not just be like the rest which there are plenty of already.
Pros:
Story
Dialogues (for the most part)
Animated sex scenes
Character design
Choices matter (to some degree)
Humor/parodies
Uses the word 'cock' (no seriously, it's difficult to find that in these games)
Cons:
Copy & Paste characters
Buggy
No sex scene GUI choices
No real gameplay interactions
Final score: 8/10
(Also there is a bug that if you choose to kiss Annie it will lock you out from getting further with Dalia, you're welcome)