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Ero Witches

A Madoka Magica erotic fan parody HRPG · By madodev

Thoughts on the game and dungeons

A topic by x-lksk created Apr 07, 2023 Views: 708 Replies: 1
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(1 edit)

(posting this here because of itch.io's tiny and invisible review system)

So, for this, not going to comment too much on the fetishes, on account of, some I had, some I didn't, and some I am slightly surprised qualify as a fetish at all. Regardless, did play through all the dungeons, so I'll be going over my opinion of each in terms of mechanics. One thing I especially liked overall though was how most dungeons had multiple related fetishes, which if you played well you could engage with one of them but mostly avoid another; wish that aspect was emphasized more. Oh, and just gonna say it: beyond surface level appearances, the characters here have little to no resemblance to the actual cast of Madoka Magica, and the plot even less... but that is probably a good thing.

Clothes Destruction: Whether despite or because of its relative simplicity, I thought this one was one of the best. Nicely shaped, not too big or too small, nice extra random stuff beyond just switches, engaging with the fetish provided new moves rather than just buffing stats or weakening you, all around good use of the various mechanics. Harder than most because of the typical early game hell where your characters can't do much yet, but this works very well with the game's system of building shortcuts and refreshing the dungeon.

Corsets/Heels: Thought this one was slightly annoying, grindy, and awkward. The mechanics for this one were just a little bit too obtuse, and a bit micromanagy as well. Despite being the furthest in the category of "This is a fetish? Well, alright, guess there's no reason for me not engage with its mechanics for the long term stat buffs...", while several later ones contained fetishes I explicitly avoided... this one was one of my least favorites overall. The bit at the end where you were caught in an infinite loop and had to drop down onto the boss was neat, though.

Cursed Equipment: This one was great in terms of enemies; they were clearly varied in stats and capabilities, clearly varied from each other at a glance, and you could easily choose which groups to engage or avoid depending on what you preferred in terms of both fetishes and trying to fight through them. Branching paths to the same next point (with optional ability to go for every path to collect items at every step), followed by line of sight stealth mechanics that you could actually avoid with skill rather than just luck. Also, was a good introduction to the cursed item mechanics used in most later dungeons.

Mummification: A multi-floor maze filled with multiple different ways to warp around between floors was a neat change of pace, and the unusually interesting equipment laying around was great. By the end, if you either intentionally engaged with the mechanics or ran into a lot of trouble with the enemies along the way while hunting down all the items, you were likely to have one character who was completely fine because of the greater tiara, one character who was slightly weakened because of the lesser tiara, one mummy who was utterly crippled but still slightly usable, and one naked enslaved character who was completely useless at best for the entire rest of the dungeon but made a great tank. This was probably the best (or at least most interesting) bunch of dungeon-specific items out of all the dungeons. Overall good, though I would be surprised if there weren't a bunch of other people who found the maze annoying.

Futa/Chastity: I could never figure out whether the whole unpredictable door warping situation was intentional, or a bug. As it is though, the layout was overall just, plain, bad. No idea whether consistent and understandable doors would make it better or worse though. I found the enemies and mechanics to be... mostly not great, though the variation between plugs was neat. Overall, another of my least favorite ones.

Weight Gain: This was a really odd one. First of all, it was slightly misleadingly labelled, since until the highest levels the focus is more on breast sizes rather than general fat (wish it stayed entirely on breast sizes the entire time, but again I'm not rating fetishes). Secondly, not only were the enemies the easiest out of any dungeon, a lot of them were much more optional than usual? I can't even remember what the differences between the various types were though, since they were all so same-y mechanically. And then there was that... dildo gag near the end, which let you very slowly disengage with the fetish (while also adding a whole new fetish I guess), for one character, while in some ways debuffing them? Oh, and the boss starts the fight with an instant-kill attack that powers it up in different ways depending on who it targets, which was kind of neat. Overall, I just, can not figure out what to think of this one.

Ponyplay: Ugh, this one. So, earlier I mentioned that it was possible with good play to mostly avoid the various fetishes as you went through the dungeon. This is the biggest exception to that (arguably even more than the futa/chastity dungeon); become horse, or die slowly and painfully. The enemies are tougher than usual, and you have to fight a whole bunch of them with no way of avoiding the fights, yet shortcuts are not opened up by getting further and further, but by reaching specific (yet unknown) levels of honse at various stages. The map is stupidly huge, even with the shortcuts, yet so dull and lifeless. Becoming horse not only opens up the most massive and impactful shortcuts of any dungeon, it also simultaneously strictly powers you up, in like three different ways... with the only real exception being basic quality of life stuff like being able to see where you're going in the pointlessly huge map... and then you get to the extra tough boss where being more horse just screws you over even more? This was just, so fundamentally flawed on so many levels. I hated this one, and I bet I would have still hated it even if I did have a fetish for "ponyplay".

Omorashi/Diapers/Babification: ...wow. Again reminder that I am not rating by fetishes used. So uhh... throughout I mostly prioritized killing the enemies who gave cursed baby equipment to the party as fast as possible, to the point where I barely interacted with that mechanic, followed by the diaper ones, followed by the pee ones. I can... certainly respect how each enemy had a specific thing that they did, each involved in a different fetish, all of which were related fetishes! Anyway, the groups of enemies seemed a bit more annoying to try to avoid than usual (though maybe it was just because I was trying harder than usual to avoid them, and repeatedly failing?), and the pitfalls for extra treasure could have been slightly neat if they weren't all accessed from near the end of the dungeon, and the map was just a little bit too big for how little it contained, but otherwise mechanically it was fine if a little mechanically dull and unambitious. Solid 6/10.

"Tentacles" (actually Bikini/Clothes Theft/Parasite-based Bondage): The most poorly labelled one of them all. By a lot. First of all, the main focus is on beach episode shenanigans, with the "tentacles" being just one of the things involved. Secondly, what the "tentacles" did seemed 90% uninvolved with the usual uses of the tentacle fetish? That bit almost instantly just turned into yet another bondage thing. Other than that though, the enemies were really amusing; they all shared a mechanic of killing themself if you didn't kill them first, but each did it in a different way, with one stealing clothes and then fleeing, one turning itself into a cursed item, and one just straight up exploding hilariously for low party-wide damage. The map was decent; though very large, the size had an actual point, with how you were searching around for the water-draining levers and items, and because of how the enemies and walls were placed it never seemed empty. BUG REPORT: Tentacles and crab girls would often get mixed up between the map and the actual battle; unlike every other dungeon, here you could go in thinking you were fighting a group of just tentacles, and instead you get a mixture of them and crab girls. Overall, I thought this one was pretty decent!

Hypnosis: Enemies here start off really weak, but gradually get tougher and tougher as things go on, especially if you don't prioritize the ones who put cursed equipment on you. Would have been so screwed without Madoka's Glitterdust, and to a lesser degree the Breaking Shot that Mami learned midway into this dungeon. The map though, I am really not sure what to think of it; it's the same thing three times (which unlike all previous dungeons there's no ability to backtrack to previous versions of the dungeon, unless I missed something?), and with each successive version being a bit harder if you try to avoid the main mechanic like I did. That thing is: a short area filled with easily avoided or defeated lone enemies, surrounded by completely unavoidable large groups of enemies protecting switches, and you need to flip some of the switches to progress or get treasure while others are traps with no indication, but you can completely and easily nullify the effects of the traps via easily accessed treasure that you gather throughout the dungeon (either by using one to instantly reverse their effects, or theoretically by using the other item to obsolete them by capping out the thing it would have boosted). Overall, I'm not quite sure what you were going for with the level design here, but it didn't work, but it failed in a completely inoffensive way. It's fine. Not great, not terrible, this dungeon is just sorta there.

For all this game's flaws though... the core gameplay is good, and the highly experimental and varied gameplay is a huge draw even if half the experiments fail. Seriously, I generally respect an experimental bad game more than a safe and generic okay game, and this one ain't even (overall) bad.

Developer (2 edits) (+1)

Thanks for the feedback/review! Feedback like this really helps me guage which mechanics work and don't work.

It's a shame Itch makes it so reviews might as well not exist. Unironically F95 is the best site for giving reviews/feedback (feel free to repost it there if you want others to see it as well [which you should want since it's a great in-depth review]).