General Info:
Developer: [Circle Group] Kokage no Izumi
Language: English
Progress: Complete (Finalized)
Series: [Series] (2) Domination Quest
Type: 2D Gameplay ## Adventure, RPG ## Happiness (slight), Drama (slight), Cruelty (slight), Serious ## Fantasy
Engine: Unity
Voices: Full Characters (Main & Unique characters)
Fetishes: Femdom, Vore (Oral & Anal & Unbirth & GTS (Giantess) & Absorption & Misc. (Stomach-mouth, Monstrous body parts) ## Male MC ## Human & Monster & Demon & Angel Girls ## Kinky, Foreplay, Sex ## Multiple Partners (Slight) ## Lips & Pussy & Breasts & Ass & Thighs & Monstrous Fetish, Smell & Taste Fetish ## Mind Control (Slight), Size Difference, Tentacles (Slight), Water Sports
We've got MGQ:P at home! MGQ:P at home:
Repeat above meme for "H-Pokemon".
From one of the Circle Groups I nostalgically played past games from, here comes another game series. Well, there was another game made prior to this, "Lilian's Adventure", but that one's more of a Yuri Ryona, and I'm not that into it (still provided the Full Save for it in the "List of Covered Games", if you need it). So, will this new foray, into the RPG genre this time, work well for them? Find out down below!
Review Contents (links to each part):
Review TL;DR:
All Scores:
================ Plot = 7.5
======== Story = 7
======== Characters = 6
================ Gameplay = 7.62
======== Mechanics = 8
======== Complexity = 7.5
======== Uniqueness = 7.5
======== Replayability = 7.5
================ Scenes = 8.37
======== Visual = 9
======== Written = 8
======== Interactivity = 7
======== Replayability = 9.5
================ Development = 6.75
======== Stability = 7.5
======== Communication = 6
================ Obtaining = 8.75
======== Price = 9
======== Methods = 8.5
================ FINAL SCORE = 7.79
QuickView
A decent new series from this Circle Group, with a good gameplay loop of medium-size, detailed H-scene visuals of impressive quality (another improvement from previous entries from them), albeit with simple-ish H-Scene writting (Main Characters are more favorised here), and a more-understandable Story, too! If you have the funds to support this Circle Group, it is quite worth the buck to purchase the Integrated Edition, which gives both games at a reduced price.
Full Review
Plot = 6.5
Story = 7
The story starts a bit more differently than most basic RPGs. You start with a brief tutorial on the RPG mechanics of this game, after which you're given a "Flashback", in which you play through the actual intro of the game, leading to the scene from the beginning tutorial.
Recently, you, Kuro, have awakened your powers as a Dominator, a type of being that specializes in controlling other monsters to obey them in battle. So basically, a Pokemon trainer. Which makes it morally questionable, since in this world, the Monster Girls you end up controlling are quite sentient... Your caretaker from your childhood, Shiro, guides you around beginning your career as a new adventurer (whilst hiding the fact you're a Dominator, since humans would like want to use you if they found out). All of this while trying to help quell fears of demi-humans (the monster girls) of this world, by taking care of them yourself so that tensions between humans and demi-humans don't increase.
 |
| A certain menacing demi-human awaits in the distance... |
To keep it brief (and from what I can still recall; it's been a while...), in actuality, you're a reincarnation of a being that is meant to become the Demon Lord, and take control of the demi-humans both from the Human World and the Demon World. Shiro was grooming you to be able to fulfill this role in the future, but shortly as you start adventuring, you're ambushed by an overly-strong demi-human, and thus she has to stay behind to allow you to run away (she does not die, you find her back at a further point in time). This demi-human herself was part of another faction that is backing up another dominator to attempt to take over the role of the demon role. That faction ends up being lead by Mio, a very strong Dark Slime girl that was the daughter of your past incarnation. Her motivation to oppose you it's a bit complicated, a bit of a twisted love situation.
 |
| No real Japanese game is complete without some pseudo-Incest, right?... |
In the end, you manage to defeat the entire opposition, take control of the demi-humans from both Worlds that you come across, and even show your grown power to Mio. however, situations get even more tense in the Human world between Humans and Demi-Humans, until Demi-humans get banished from human settlements. You finally take your role as their leader, thus opposing Humanity directly. Not quite the glorious hero ending. The ending is open-ended, showing you'll keep leading the demi-humans and grow stronger to be able to protect them against the humans.
The story is quite non-standard, typical from Kokage no Izumi's abstract-level storytelling. It does start a lot more normal, and overall it takes more inspiration from Monster Girl Quest's (Original's) Humans VS Monsters rethoric, and generally from Fantasy RPGs with Monster Girls. At least, by comparison with the previous series they made, which was some pretty abstract allegories to birth cycles, to female birth, and whatnot.
Possibly because of the inspirations from other Fantasy RPGs, this story ended up being more consistent overall and easier to understand, so it definitely is an upgrade from the storytelling seen before from this Circle Group. It still retains enough unique-ness from this circle to make it different enough from the basic Fantasy RPG monster girl stories, which is a plus in this case.
Characters = 6
Not that fleshed out, as it should be expected when seeing a higher number of them in this series. However, indirectly they are also improved by the story itself being more consistent. Thus, their connections and their development feels a lot more organic, since you can also follow the story much easier and see how the characters interact and change through its course.
Gameplay = 7.62
Mechanics = 8
In many ways, it resembles a basic RPG game made in RPG Maker, just ported with the system in Unity. In fact, the map movement, the menu style, the in-combat menus, are all reminiscent of that. Makes you wonder why they really wanted to make their own RPG engine instead of using the one strikingly similar to theirs...
The RPG system similarly uses the 4-party system, EXCEPT you, Kuro, are NOT a normal Party member (unlike, say, MGQP, who simply forced Luka (the MC) to always be part of the party). Instead, you, as a Dominator, are the "Leader" at the very left, and the one main stat (the only stat, aside from Level), that you have, is Mana. Mana is used for Kuro's unique skills, which are either Defense-ignoring attacks, skills that raise the recruitable enemy's Connection (related to recruiting them), and the main Skill to use for Recruiting, "Dominate" (which has 0 Mana cost). Kuro's Mana is also used to refill your allies' SP (needs to be done manually, per each ally, using their "Ejaculate" skill). Besides that, in-combat, Kuro's unable to do Normal Attacks, but he's able to use "Placement" which allows, at no Turn Cost (you can choose another action afterwards) to switch allies between the Main 4-party and the backup 4-party. Aside from this, he can do what the other allies can do (including Defend, use Items, and Run).
Also notably, Kuro CANNOT EQUIP ANYTHING! Thus, he's solely reliant on his Allies and their equipment. He is, obviously, a mandatory part of each fight (since he's outside of the normal "Party" scope either way).
Finally, Kuro does not get targeted by enemy attacks (unless the whole party's already wiped out, in which case, you lose in short order). He does get targeted by Grab attacks however, which drain progressively more Mana (by percentage of Max Mana; even a low-level enemy can defeat a high-level Kuro via a Grab attack) per each turn spent in the Grab and prevent him from acting. His allies need to keep attacking the enemy to release him (by reducing the Struggle bar above Kuro), done more efficiently (reducing more Struggle points at once) by stronger allies. Using skills does NOT make it faster to free Kuro, and considering the enemy also does not take HP damage during a Grab, it's best to just use Normal Attacks quickly to free Kuro. Not many enemies have Grab attacks (no non-recruitable enemy has one!)
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| Example of a Grab attack. The "men" bar over Kuro is the remainder of the Struggle. (Normal) Attack to reduce it! |
Allies, by comparison, have normal stats, including HP & SP, and can equip items (an A (Attack-stats) gem, a D (Defense-stats) gem, and 2 accessories). Each turn end, the SP of each ally gets drained a bit, depending on their level. Think of this as an "upkeep" cost for them. If their SP reaches 0, they IMMEDIATELY DIE, so be mindful of their SP consumption. Ally skills can have no cost, an SP cost, or even an HP cost. Besides that, all allies have a default "Ejaculate" 0-cost skill, used to drain some Mana from Kuro (via a very-brief H-CG) to refill their SP fully, Mana used also being dependant on the Ally level. Considering the Upkeep cost, it's best to have fast, low turn-count battles. One notable thing to keep in mind is that each Ally, Kuro included, gets their own "Run" option, and the "Run" check is done per each ally that used "Run". Thus, even if you're low-level, while normally, you'd have a lower chance to Run from a fight with a high-level enemy, you can effectively do the "Run" check 5 times per turn! Thus, if you want to run from a battle, use "Run" with everybody available for the best chance at a quick Escape!
Among the enemies, there are non-recruitable ones (common mooks, not girls), and demi-human monster girls that are Recruitable. You notice if they are recruitable by their "Connection" value written below their HP&SP bars. Like in MGQP, a higher value increases the chance of your "Dominate" skill succeeding (keep in mind you can use "Dominate" repeatedly, until you capture an enemy; but you first need a real chance to capture them...). However, unlike in MGQP, the main scaling for the chance of "Dominate" skill succeeding is the remainder HP of the enemy. Like in Pokemon, you first need to get the enemy HP low, to then have real chances at Dominating them. If a Domination is succesful, the enemy gets Captured by you and defeated instantly, then becoming available to put in your Party after the battle (if you already recruited this species of enemy, you'll simply defeat them instantly). Certain bosses are immune to Domination, much like in MGQP, requiring you to defeat them via normal combat first. You shouldn't bother trying to Dominate species you've already recruited, just focus on defeating them from that point on.
Enemies also have size values, "S/M/L". This is relevant for the allies of yours with skills capable of Predation, since those Predation skills may have size limitations. Either way, those skills are generally rare, and stronger enemies are immune to them.
Outside of Combat, each Ally has the basic RPG Maker stats (including Levels and Exp), with the difference being that there's 3 versions of "Atk & Def": per physical attacks (normal Atk & Def), per magical attacks (MAtk & MDef), and Special/Sexual attacks (SAtk & SDef). They also have, a bit similar with MGQP, Passive skills, although a lot less of them than you'd see in MGQP, with more of them per each character unlocking at higher Trust levels. Aside from that, similar to MGQP, they have 2 Affection-related stats: Affection, which unlocks the request-able H-Scenes for that character, and Trust, which, as mentioned before, unlocks the rest of the Passive skills for that character (usually, only a few more Stat-ups, with certain exceptions at certain Trust thresholds).
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| Example of a Fully-unlocked Passive list of a random character. BUG: each time you close and re-open the same Passive list, the text of the simple Stat-ups (those with (+X) ) copies itself (only a visual bug) |
Affection and Trust are increased, per each character, by having them in the active party, by having them participate in fights, by using certain use-items, by having them participate in some Minigames that become available later in the Story (this is, by far, the most reliable way to grind Trust later), or by Skinship. Speaking of Skinship, whilst walking on the map, you can choose 1 character out of ALL the characters recruited (they don't even need to be in the active or backup party!) to do "Skinship" with: they "carry" you, each in its own way, in a looping mini H-animation that loops in the bottom-right corner (you can choose from the Options the size of that animation). At times, a character can have Passive Skills that are conditioned by being in a Skinship with them. However, you can only have a Skinship active with only a character at a time! Skinship passively increases Affection and Trust of the specific character as you walk on the map, and can be ended / switched at any time. You should always remember to start Skinship with one of your allies when travelling on-map, for passive Trust grind.
In the example above, I temporarily changed the option for the Skinship to show Solid and at Full size (personally, I keep it Small and Translucent).
The game, indeed, does have some Minigames, that you can grind for certain rewards at certain thresholds per each, while also passively grinding Trust for the Ally chosen to participate in the minigame (if it's a minigame requiring an Ally). In Ally-played minigames, you generally rely on some specific stats of theirs to "compete". I left more details about each Minigame in the "Info" files. There are 2 Minigames in Part 1, and 2 Minigames + 1 "duel" type of fights in Part 2.
On the topic of grinding, if you plan on playing both games, I recommend not grinding character progress that much during part 1. Getting to Level 27-30 by the end of the game with your main party should suffice. You'll want to leave the real grind for later during Part 2. Trust me, you'll thank me later.
Lastly, you can find and buy equipment, and you can even Synthesize (craft) the Gems equipment. The stats of the gems will depend on the component items used in their crafting, while their Level will depend on the level of the Ally that crafts them (certain characters are better at crafting than others, boosting the Level given). You can dissasemble the Gems crafted to get back all the components, so it's advisable to periodically uncraft the previous best equipment and re-craft them, possibly with better components, since either way your Crafter Ally will have leveled up in the meanwhile.
On the whole, the gameplay loop is pretty decent. Grinding is a tad bit easier in this series, compared to MGQP, as this one has an easier-to-reach Cap than MGQP, since it has fewer gameplay mechanics to complete. The minigames are also mildly interesting (personally, I like the 1v1 Duels the best; possibly since they are the most optimal to grind Trust in), and the general RPG loop of this game at least is a bit more different than other RPGs, mostly in the beginning. Towards the endgame, it will become a competition of applying strong buffs on the whole team, debuffing enemies, keeping party-healing up and laying damage with the damage-dealers, much the same as other RPGs. Overall, the gameplay doesn't really overstay its welcome.
Complexity = 7.5
Decently simple to understand, but has a decent amount of complexity to enjoy and learn your way through.
Uniqueness = 7.5
Whilst being, in many ways, reminiscent of standard RPGs, it does combine MGQP-styled and Pokemon-styled ally recruiting, which are unique-ish in themselves. Yes, nowadays there have been a number of other RPGs using such Recruit mechanics, a number of them from [62 Studio] circle group. Still, a bit above average for the RPG genre.
Replayability = 7.5
There's an amount of grinding you can attempt to do, including grinding the Affection stats of each character, playing the Minigames until you get all their standard rewards, or even an end-game endless dungeon ("Nursery of the Magical Tree"; at the very end of Part 2). That endless dungeon has level-scaling randomly-generated enemies, which get 1 level more per each Area traversed. At each start of an area, you get a Heal-point and a Crafting station, to be able to keep going. You can easily keep grinding in here until you hit the likely lvl cap of the enemy, which, if it ressembles the one in the "1v1" duel Minigame, should also be lvl 99.
However, the endless dungeon is not talked that much of, quite an optional thing, with only 1 more new recruitable character inside. There are 1-2 Superbosses that you can defeat if you wish to recruit them, and they are not that hard to defeat, either. Certainly, you may not replay this game on the level of MGQP, but still, there are reasons to come back to it from time to time.
Scenes = 8.37
Visual = 9
Here's where this series overtakes MGQP, by quite a lot. Almost each character has at least 2 H-Scene, each recruitable character has 1 Skinship mini-animation, and most characters have, within their H-Scenes, at least 1 Animation. Between the 2 games, there are 60 Recruitable characters, and 5 more extra characters with H-Scenes. Simply by having animations, it should be of better overall quality than MGQP, and it has them in spades.
It also seems that this circle, by this point, has gotten far enough into their career to be much more consistent with their artstyle, and the overall quality of it to have increased. No more nostalgic-looking beginner-drawn characters like in the early games of their first series!
It is a bit annoying that this game has non-H enemies, but the fewer H enemies are each more fleshed out in their H-Scenes, and you don't get as much of the feel that some enemies are just filler content made en-masse (which was a flaw with MGQP H-scenes of their insane amount of recruitable characters). All-in-all, an upgrade from both MGQP and from this circle's past works.
Written = 8
Quite short and simplistic. The scenes focus mostly on direct-description of immediate emotions and senses, but really barely anything else to flesh them out further. Considering the solid-ness of their Visuals, they can coast on a lower quality of Writing, although in fairness, it's more-or-less the same quality that could've been seen in this circle's past series. Possibly a bit better for Main Characters, since they are more tied into the main story, which itself is an improvement, but basic characters get the more simple-written H-scenes. They are serviceable, at least.
Interactibility = 7
Most of the Scenes are either Defeat-Scenes or requestable ones. However, by having the Skinship mechanic, and a few Grab moves in-combat, there's a bit more immersion when it concerns them.
Replayability = 9.5
There is a Gallery accessible from the Main Menu, in which you can see all your currently-recruited charactes from the story. You can even Force-unlock the entire gallery from the very beginning, if you wish (from the "Etc" menu in Main Menu). From within the Gallery, you can find each character either on-map, or by interacting with any of the Signposts to teleport to their Areas, or even teleport to each individual character. You can even request scenes from the recruitable characters during normal playing, too!
All of this, coupled with a decent number of individual scenes to check, with quite an amount of variety between them (not even that hard reliant on just Vore, this time around!), makes this game a decent choice to re-play its scenes from time to time.
Development = 6.75
Stability = 7.5
There was a period of 5 years between the 2 games of this series. However, at the middle of this period, they did release "Lilian's Adventure", more of a mid game by comparison, but at least it's a bit more understandable that they took a bit more time to finish this series. It did help keeping things within a certain established scope, unlike a certain long-time-in-the-making series, whose Part 3 overshadeows the first 2 parts.... (MGQP trembles in the distance).
Communication = 6
Well, on one hand, they do have a Ci-En, but on the other hand, there's barely any post on it... At least they also have their own Website, right? (although that one's also hard to find normally...)
Obtaining = 8.75
Price = 9
Before, this would've been a bit of an issue. Their prices were a bit more on the steep side, especially by comparison with MGQP's analogue parts, which only costed a bit more each, but gave vastly more gameplay and more Scene variety, if not quality. However, by releasing the Integrated Edition last year, you can get that one for a much more reduced price than buying each game individually. About 40% cheaper, to be specific, since individually, they now cost $20.18 and $17.19 respectively (yes, the 2nd one costs less; probably less H-content inside?), and the Integrated Edition costs $26.15 presently.
This way, with the number of total Scenes and their quality, it's extremely worth making the purchase, even more so if you generally enjoy works from this Circle Group!
Side-note: The circle did also release 2 mini-games, each with one character from this series (Isari and Nine-Tails), for a modicum price of $6.73 each, although they are simply a glorified scene gallery for 4-5 scenes each. You can consider buying them if you really want to support this Circle group, and are thirsting for even a bit more content from them.
Methods = 8.5
Basic DLsite deal, and with the option of combining the games if you have both of them (you do so from the Options menu of the Part 2 game). Alternatively, you buy the "Integrated Edition", which already contains both of the games. Really, you only buy the Integrated Edition price-wise, and only consider buying them separatedly if you already bought one of the Parts from before.
FINAL SCORE = 7.79
The Circle did improve with this new series, and I can recommend it to people that enjoy their works, Vore in general, or just want more recruit-style RPGs to play!
Saves
A save slot saved after finishing the Story (in the Demon World, in this case), and also with the meta save giving you the Full Gallery.
Info
Specifically info for the Minigames present, and how to grind them best. Much like MGQP, it even has a Casino Slots minigame, although this one's a bit more finnicky to cheese. Still, using a Speedhack, and a bit of a strategy, makes this an easy cheese to unlimited funds (which I then proceeded to cheat in, after proving I can obtain them with Speedhack cheesing).
Another entry catalogued within my Library.... (I've also been eyeing this series to cover for a while, glad I finally did it!)
Meta_Review,Meta_Files,
MetaFiles_Info,MetaFiles_Saves,
Developer_CircleGroup,
Language_English,
Progress_Complete,
Series_Series,
TypeGame_2DGameplay,
TypeGenre_Adventure,TypeGenre_RPG,
TypeMood_Happiness,TypeMood_Drama,TypeMood_Cruelty,TypeMood_Serious,
TypeSetting_Fantasy,
Engine_Unity,
StyleAnim_2DAnimation,
StyleCGs_2DCGs,
StyleView_2DView,StyleMiscView_XRay,
Voices_FullCharacters,
FetishMain_Femdom,FetishMain_Vore,
FetishVore_OV,FetishVore_AV,FetishVore_UB,FetishVore_GTS,FetishVore_Absorption,FetishVore_MiscVore,
FetishMC_MaleMC,
FetishChars_HumanGirls,FetishChars_MonsterGirls,FetishChars_DemonGirls,FetishChars_AngelGirls,
FetishSex_Kinky,FetishSex_Foreplay,FetishSex_Sex,
FetishSubSex_MultiplePartners,
FetishFocus_Lips,FetishFocus_Pussy,FetishFocus_Breasts,FetishFocus_Ass,FetishFocus_Thighs,FetishFocus_Monstrous,FetishFocus_Smell,FetishFocus_Taste,
FetishSub_MindControl,FetishSub_SizeDifference,FetishSub_Tentacles,FetishSub_WaterSports,
Links_DLsite,Links_CiEn,
================================================================
UniqueDeveloper_KokageNoIzumi,
UniqueSeries_DominationQuest,
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