Just played through a good chunk of the game, but I wanted to get a criticism rant out of the way because, much as I love so many ideas here, I feel the game suffers a LOT of issues which can make it monotonous. Unfortunately much of this is too ingrained into the game to be reasonably changed. I'm sure much of this has been covered at some point or another in this or like topics so sorry if I'm retreading the same ground, this is more just to get things off my chest, keeping in mind I actually really enjoy this game quite a bit. That said, let's get this out of the way.
-The equipment system feels incredibly underdeveloped. There's just not enough hardpoints available. We've got two sets of undergarments, armor, an accessory, and a ranged and melee weapon. That's it. Keeping in mind that an accessory can cover anything from a headset to a jetpack to a coat to a complete separate companion. Like...what? There doesn't seem to be a reason all of these can't be a thing and allow us to customize ourselves further. Further, numerous pieces of gear seem completely misclassified. For instance, a lot of skin tight outfits (some of which will even remove your undergarments if worn) are classified as your top layer of clothing. It's like the idea of layering equipment and the possibilities that could allow for completely went over everyone's head. Then there's more basic things like how so much feels same-y. No matter the weapon it feels like it all devolves into single number stats. Some have circumstantial bonuses, but rarely anything special. Does something that is supposedly rapid fire hit more? No. But it might have more accuracy or do slightly more damage or something else which doesn't make it feel any different than swinging your sword. It's some of the most basic fluff in the game, lucky to even get a few words description in the appearance menu or a repeated line in a combat menu, but with extremely little substance or content beyond that. What's the difference between walking around in power armor, walking around in a high-tech latex omnisuit, and walking around naked? Remarkably little.
-Progression feels artificial. You begin on a jungle world which is wild, untamed, rife with both opportunity and danger. Shame the described apex predator of the planet can be safely trivialized by spamming the attack button by level 3, 2 by characters who bother to equip easy-to-obtain gear. But there is that dangerous deep forest, where you need to level up before...what do you mean you reached level 2 before even arriving at the planet? You ran into a pirate ship on the way there? And both leveled up and got enough money to nab some of the best equipment on the planet just from that? So yeah, planets are tied too close to certain levels, and the exceptions on those planets are typically one-off quests which just so happen to revisit said planet. On top of this, while combat abilities are tied closely to stat numbers, conversational abilities (which is the bulk of the game) often isn't. What do I mean by this? Well when a story section checks for Intelligence or Willpower it doesn't check for your stat number, it checks for the percentage of what your possible stat at your current level. Meaning if you create, say, a strength build then it feels like you're wasting points any time you level up intelligence even though there are multiple story sections which check for it. It's level-scaling at its absolute worst.
-The game is sloppy with combat in general. Long paragraphs are often repeated which makes me want to skip through them, but then every so often a truly important detail will get lost because of this. The only answer is to carefully read each and every line, but that would be unreasonably boring. More concise messages and logs which don't reset every round would be far better. On top of that, the game doesn't take good advantage of many of the possibilities present. For instance, if an enemy is flying and you're not then you can't melee. So can you grow wings or get a jetpack to do the same? No. Or an enemy disarms me, can I then punch them or grapple or use these dangerous-looking claws I grew? No. Because of all this there's rarely much strategy required or even desired for most fights, and that makes them rather boring. At least in the ship to ship combat you have to balance how and when you do things, and with what, but there's not much ship combat in the game.
-The game is lopsided in its herm content. In terms of raw numbers, sure, the females outnumber them. But there's still a distinct lack of males within the game and the dick girls are thrown front and center, especially early and often. Wander around Tavros at first and you'll probably be visiting a lot of shops to see what's available. Going from Sera clockwise is a gauntlet of chicks with dicks, with the bar as your reprieve, until you finally reach a female a few shops later...who happens to be in a chastity belt, followed by a strip club, which happens to have a good deal of futa entertainment. Go to Mhenga and your first stop is likely to be a bar featuring Syri, Kelly, Kiro and Erika. These are the places providing a large bulk of your early game characters and conversations and it sets a definite tone. Even with the female characters, a significant number of those with more content have the option to have a dick of one sort or another, which they pretty clearly tell you they'd prefer. At the end of the day, this largely comes down to development. There are quite a few females, yes, but most lack options or story, and many of those who do have them have development stunted if they remain female. I far from mind futa types, but they seem less special when it feels like most those we get close to are futa.
-The game is seriously geared toward submissives. There are times you can take control and even have a dominating role, but there is almost always the option to be a submissive and rarely an option to turn the table and take control over some of the dominating sorts. Become an Amazon off the treatment? Zephyr will still treat you like a breeder cow. I love submissive content, but it grows old quick when I'm in a more dominant mood and can't turn the tables on what is, often, little more than an overly cocky jerk. If I'm an 8 ft muscle-bound goliath, it very rarely feels like it.
-Writers often get stuck writing their story rather than writing for a game. What I mean by this is I never know when a new encounter will be a pages-long interaction with no prompt, or three short paragraphs. And these interactions...well frankly, they're kinda mind numbing. It's weird to me how so many of these characters wish to relay an extensive backstory. That isn't how to differentiate characters. Characters are remembered for what they do, not the backstory they tell. Far, far too often writers become stuck on the latter because they don't know what to do with these characters other than make them have sex and it becomes a drag when you encounter your nth shopkeep whose only interaction beside buy/sell is asking them about how they came there, what their place is about, what is their personal story, and oh would you like to have sex? The better characters in the game have encounters where things are happening and you're not simply conversing about the lore in what is little more than exposition. All the worse when this exposition is hundreds or even thousands of words and multiple pages followed by nothing more than the choice of clicking Next.
-The transformatives are skin-deep. While I get that it is supremely difficult to account for everything Steele can become, it's still disappointing how many of the more strange or unique abilities which are pretty-well ignored. Whether you're 4'2 or 10"11 nobody bats an eyelash. Loaded with aphrodisiacs, you'll be lucky if the text even states in three words that your body is excreting pure lust from ever orifice. Other things go ignored entirely. Have a genital slit which makes it so your dick is hidden when not in use? The game will still frequently talk about your massive bulge or partners will still grab hold during vaginal/anal sex. Managed to get a not parasitic cock tail? Not according to most the game text. Best you can hope for is scene specifically geared toward whatever trait you have, but most the writers wound up surprisingly vanilla for most scenes.
-On the topic of transformatives...they're kinda...dull. That's oversimplifying it. The things you can become and how you can change your body is beyond the scope of what I would have imagined any game would ever attempt. But how you actually transform is usually pretty boring. You take some sort of transformative and are given a number of random effects, usually immediately. That's it. With very few (though certainly notable) exceptions. Most of these effects tend to be unwanted, too, but there's very few ways to get specific transformations without save-scumming like mad. Pretty much the only specific ones you can get are those which add or remove genitals, and even then you get little choice in which genitals. Sure, there's the dong designer, but try for a specific vagina and your options are: get lucky. Anything beyond that is a crapshoot. Mind you, I don't have a problem with randomization. What I have a problem with is how it is utilized, how poorly the game offers alternatives, and how...frankly unsexy it all is. What would have been good is if you can get your hands on cheap transformatives which will give you completely random transformations within a certain type. Then you'd have massively expensive custom transformatives (like what Sera supposedly offers) which can give you exactly what you desire. What would have been the best (and is, I'm afraid, likely far too late and time-consuming to enter into the game proper) is to transform Steele based on encounters. So if you get into a fight and be transformed by them through one method or another. So if you were to fight a zil and win you might have a minor transformation from being exposed to them such as increased reflexes or libido or possibly turning your fluids into honey. If you lose then the increased exposure would give you bigger changes such as changing your hair/eyes/skin/genitals/etc. This could be further countered by wearing a protective suit (which they could discard during defeats) or expensive immune boosters so they can no longer affect major changes to you. Bonus points if you could in turn gain attributes which in turn transforms others. That is the sort of thing I expected and would love to see out of the game, but instead it's often more of a game of, "oh hey, a new item, what's this do? Eh, don't want that, savescum."
-Finally, I personally can't really get into Steele's story. We're this sort of chose one type whose future is fairly set. They'll go on an adventure where you play an easter egg hunt set up for you to win, then proceed to become a billionaire CEO. There's not much excitement to it. You're retracing the story of your father in this rather artificial way rather than...telling the story of your father, this self-made billionaire who went on a grand sexy adventure across the galaxy. The story is best when I can forget for a moment that I'm this famous rich inheritor who's lucked into everything. It's really a shame that's the route they wished to take as it somehow makes the universe feel so much smaller when everything feels predestined. It also comes off as strange when you choose a class which makes it out like you've gained this experienced backstory, yet never really encounter a situation which much relates that backstory. You spent years as a such-and-such, but everyone you meet is brand new. Kinda off-putting.
Anyway, as I said, love the game, but it's not perfect and these were the things that really nagged at me.
