Ren'Py - Fourteenth Fantasy : Harem Reborn [v0.3.1] [PopotoProductions]

The dev's love for FFXIV shines bright in this game! The UI details, the lore details, the characterization... all great.

The art is pretty, although it feels very sparse - a natural consequence of committing to gender and platonic variants, I imagine.

Playing this after Dawntrail meant I was really craving a strong post-Endwalker story, and I think a main story would be awesome for this game, albeit potentially out of scope for the project.

There were a few typos here and there - the misplaced apostrophe in Miqo'te being a recurring one - but the writing was very solid. (I say this as a hypocrite, having put an errant apostrophe into Au Ra too many times myself.) The text did feel a bit brief though, like the writer was charging per word. Text could have been 1.5-2x as long to not feel barebones, and could probably have been even longer comfortably.

I was actually impressed with the gameplay, though the combat seemed weaker gameplay-wise than the DoH and DoL jobs. The crafting minigame surprised me with really good minigame design - quick, simple, a good feeling of cleverness when you take a second to really think about it, and it makes sense in the context of crafting.

It's fine.

I think the most concerning part is the grind (which I'll get into a bit later) and the monogamy/polygamy thing. Though the "select your sex" thing we've all seen fail spectacularly before (you basically have to make two games instead of one) is up there too.

They both sort of go hand in hand. Encouraging multiple playthroughs is fine, though most won't take you up on that offer, which means forcing it is kinda rough. So if you want your harem, you have to share, which isn't my thing.

But regardless of taste, it's hard to imagine this ever finishing. The fourth update is going to have to involve cases where you're platonic with the first, in a poly relationship with the second, but not the third. While also handling the everyone-poly situation. And handling each monogamy relationship. Twice, because you'll have a male and female playthrough. By the time you get to the sixth update, it'll be a nightmare.

But the biggest reason I'm knocking one star off? The resting system. Literally FFXIV 1.0. Literally this exact game. The same game this game is parodying. That game used to do THE EXACT SAME THING by penalizing not resting instead of rewarding resting. Word for word, bar for bar, this is the same mistake this game made when it was the biggest commercial failure of a major video game series. It's documented! And it was like one of the first things they fixed because of how bad it was! And it's in this game! I recognize that few played 1.0, BUT THERE WAS A REASON.

I'm editing this because I think it's a little unfair to say the game won't get done and pre-blame the dev. That's uncool of me. I do have concerns that it's going to bloat out to a project that I wouldn't want to subject any human being to, and seeing how often games get abandoned, I'd hate for such a promising start to go to waste.

But man, it's just so on the nose that the exp penalty, something that just make the grind worse, is here.

Absolute banger, I've wanted a ffxiv game to show up here for the longest time, but honestly wasn't sure it ever would. And yet here one pops up of actually astounding quality for a 0.1. I'm extremely excited to see what comes next (fingers crossed for Gaia some time soon).

Amazing art quality
Amazing attention to detail

Only thing I was a little disappointed by was the lake of frames in the scenes, if there could have been more penetration during the first time scene with y'shtola it would've been amazing, but with the quality of the art I really can't complain too much.

Notes:
I would appreciate it if the alchemy leveling was a little less grindy, but that's a small thing in such a great game.
I accidently teleported to Coerthas many times because my monkey brain assumes the first area will be the furthest to the left, a quick sleep or at least quick teleport to the inn would be fantastic.

Amazing first release, recommend the game highly. It delivers on everything it shows with very few issues. Excited to see what happens with the game next! The art is amazing and scenes are hot. I hope that development continues and what characters are added to the game! Hope you all enjoy it as much as I do.

That was an outstanding first release, arts very nice, the grind wasn't too bad although got abit much towards the end. Having to choose to either share or lock into someones route would be a big downer though.
Big thing I'd ask for is either more beds or a quick sleep button