Euclyca

Playing status: 100% achievement, finished the game
Grindy Achievement(s): No.
Optional Achievement(s): No.
Difficult Achievement(s): No.
Intro
Euclyca is an RPG Maker game that features optional NSFW scenes. However, although it's a hentai game, I won't review the game for that particular content.
Pros:
- Optional NSFW scenes
- Side quests to know more about your party members
- A lot of customizable battle options
- Autosaves are helpful
Cons:
- Class upgrades are not explained thoroughly in the game
- Bugs on some extra contents
- Some fights rely on RNG to beat
- The game will automatically reset your party build at some point
Specs
Intel Core i5-9300H 2.40GHz, 8GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650
Should you buy this game?
Yes.
If you have the itch to play RPG Maker games or simply want to play for the NSFW content, go for it when it's heavily discounted. You might want to play the dev's previous games first to know more about the story though.
In-Depth Review
Visuals
Designing towns seem to be what the game does best, presenting you with three great-looking towns with a distinct look. The background for visual novel-style screens also looks beautiful and varied. However, dungeons are just plain lazy - they are either a big square with borders or a vast area with almost nothing but decorations in it. Some portraits are also drawn in a different style from others and some looks stretched out.
Story
You will be given too much information at the same time, especially regarding characters that are introduced in other games. Yes, Euclyca introduces characters from the dev's other games and refers to events that were happening with a quick recap. Since I haven't played this particular game, it was hard to keep up with the characters, especially with how short the recap was. Imagine seeing someone that suddenly shows up out of nowhere and everyone seems to proceed with it as normal. The thing is, they are also vital to the story in this game, and their sudden appearance just makes their character feel weak.
A lot of information is buried beneath side quests. Although most of them are related to the NSFW scenes, they also include some bonding between characters, letting you know about their background and concerns. You'll miss a lot if you don't do this since the game will proceed as if you already know about them afterward. Some quests will also pretend as if you are accessing it at the moment when you can access it for the first time, making it feel weird when you do all side quests right before you beat the final boss.
Negative things aside, the writing is decent. The characters might talk a lot, but they get their point across smoothly. Some characters also give off a different vibe from the way they talk, whether it's because of their serious or cheerful nature. I also noticed a lot of typos in the dialogues, although I usually can figure out what it means before realizing it.
The ending feels insignificant for whatever the character is going through. There are 2 endings, but they only differ in one or two dialogues and you are forced to defeat the final boss again to experience both. Moreover, you need to beat it a few more times to experience other minor variations to it. I gave up doing it after the second try since the time it took to beat the final boss doesn't worth the few dialogues that I got afterward.
The Game
Gameplay
The game is highly customizable. You can change the battle system to be the traditional turn-based, active ATB, or wait ATB. You also can change the encounter rate in areas with random encounters, battle speed, and many more. Most of it seems to be the basic feature of RPG Maker MZ, but combat becomes easier with these options, especially for those who are not good at it.
Class promotions help to give a customizable feeling to your party members. However, there is no explanation about them nor any "trial" period to give a feel of the two different classes that are available to each character. Moreover, this doesn't matter in the end. You are forced to change to a certain class after a certain point of the game, giving you an illusion of choice.
Combat
Enemies can be accessed through touch-based and random encounters. Touch-based enemies won't respawn after you defeat them, and the random encounters help to increase your level. Enemies give out a lot of exp, making it easy to level up after 1-3 battles. Furthermore, you will be fully healed on level up, so you don't have to worry about running out of MP.
Combat becomes RNG-based if you are low-leveled. Some enemies can kill one of your party members in 1-2 hits and there are hardly any revive skills early game. Moreover, some status ailments couldn't seem to be treated by a skill that claims to treat them.
Bosses can be very repetitive. Buffs and debuffs will be vital for them, and you need to keep them up at all times to prevent getting a lot of damage. However, all bosses feel the same - you just need to cycle through the same skill set to beat. They still provide some sort of accomplishment after you defeat them, but they are mostly due to the RNG that can kill your party members if you are unlucky.
Length and Difficulty
I finished the game in 17.3h. Some fights can be difficult - I even got game over several times when I played. Luckily, you can quickly grind levels to make them easier. There is a replayability value if you want to get all NSFW scenes, but you need to replay the game as a different character to unlock them. There is a way to do it while retaining your party members' level and equipment, but the feature is buggy. I got a black screen after playing it for a while since I triggered an event that recruited a certain party member twice before allowing them to leave. Story-wise, there is no replayability value aside from different responses from both characters regarding the same event.
Problems
The game always shows an error when you start it. The developer states that they can't fix it because of engine limitation, although it's weird to see that the early build works without the error. Some extra features that are not related to the main game are not being tested properly and were stated in the game. Lastly, you can't skip the event with a timer. You need to wait for ~2 minutes for a song to end or wait for a timed event before the next one starts.
Conclusion
Well, it's another tough game to rate. NSFW content aside, the game is a solid RPG Maker game if you are itching to play a game in that engine. However, people who can't tolerate any NSFW content won't enjoy the game to its fullest because of the subtle reference outside the NSFW scenes. Moreover, some useful dialogues are buried beneath the NSFW scenes, forcing you to watch them.
The game isn't without many issues though. The story can be a lot to take in for people who never played the dev's previous game. It took me a while to organize my mind to understand everything, and even after that, the story was still somewhat vague to me. I couldn't relate to the final boss' reasoning, for example, since I felt as if there is nothing serious that is happening to them. It was kinda hard to recommend the game, but since it's still a mediocre game, I ended up recommending it. Make sure to get it at a sale though, and only if you don't mind with the NSFW scenes and issues that I mentioned.
This game was reviewed with a key provided by the developer for free

So this is an interesting game. The game play itself reminds me of my younger days, when almost every game that came out pretty much looked like this. A few things to note: 1. be sure to turn on auto saves. I could not find a way to manually save the game anywhere. Not by pressing buttons or opening up the menu, no magic crystals access points, nothing. Thankfully i thought to turn on auto saves when I began the game (I believe auto save is defaulted to OFF so be sure to turn it on!) 2. This game likes to introduce new party members, without warning, and making you fight with them solo with ZERO preparations. Honestly if it werent for the afore mentioned auto save feature it would have been game over for me several times just from that mechanic alone. NOT a nice way to get to know someone new. 3. I also could not find any pause option. Which means all battles are "real time" and you dont get a chance to think about what you want the character who is currently up to do. If you dont pick quick, your holding up your whole team, while the monsters continue to beat you to a pulp. Also instead of picking the monster you want to attack from a list, you have to actually click on them, and some of the hit boxes are small / off so that trying to get your character to hit the monster becomes frustrating. Combine that with the no pause active battle system and it leads to alot of needless casualties. Also some of the monsters are excessively hard for where you run into them at. Farm experience, and dont attack strange powerful monsters unless you just want to see how hard they are so you can work up to being able to take them out at some future point (as an example i got one shot killed by a multi armed smoking gorrilla! sht you not lol)
Ok you say but what about the AO content. Well i havnt seen much of it yet. You have to put in some serious game time to even get to the point where you can access it. Oh and of course, all the quests related to getting some are tied in to some serious combat. Be sure to go to the shop next door to the barracks, and buy new weapons/armors potions and class skills makes things ALOT easier. In this game you always want to be over prepared So you have to earn it. As for the one character's quest i saw, Ill say the writting for it was pretty good, but the Art needed some work. Personally i felt that getting it on so easily with them (combat not withstanding, cause that was a couple of rough fights) so quickly was a bit much. Id really hoped for a much longer drawn out romance line(s) that progressed along with the main quest. I havnt completed the game yet, so maybe thats there. But usually when ya get the goods that easy, its because there is nothing else to see there.
All in All its not the best game in any of the categories it might be tossed in. It needs some more user friendly options (like real time pause, come on not all of us are 18 any more) and the introduction of all the party characters would be a lot more interesting and enjoyable if we werent having to figure out which of their skills we need to use Right Now not to game over when we dont even know what their skills are or what they do. Also seriously just a bit more party interaction that wasnt completely centered around combat would be nice too. all in all i'd give this a 6.5 7/10 (dev's are responsive and have a sense of humor)
Edited 02/23/21 after being educated on where to find that save screen (thanks again), and for a few typo's I noticed.

As the game is now completed I am changing the review to match the finished product.
The gameplay reminds me a lot of the old school RPGs I played back in my teenage years, and I really enjoyed it from start to finish. I strongly recommend it especially if you like oldschool RPGs like Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger. All in all my experience of the game was a really good one, even if I found some bugs along the way the game was in Early Access so finding bugs was really normal for me haha. So that's my review of the game hope people try it out and see the game for themselves.

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Euclyca is an RPG game seemingly based around something relative to a shattered world driven into ruin by alien invaders. However, once you start playing, the whole tone of the game says otherwise. Nothing I was seeing hardly at all suggested aliens, so I feel maybe that part of the story was lost in the theme when creating the world.
Despite the seeming lack of direction in the art style of the game, Euclyca is not an ugly game. Most of the areas were actually very well done and enjoyable to see. Admittedly, a few zones just looked too busy and it was hard to tell what a floor tile was opposed to a wall or other type of tile. It’s worth noting the character styles are all interesting and exactly what I feel you’d want to see in a game that is 18+. You have lots of variation all of which seem like they’d fit very nicely in an anime themed world.
Of course this title is an 18+ game, but it is worth noting that you should not go into this game expecting to have tons of lewd scenes thrown your way. On the contrary, the NSFW scenes are more so like supporting characters in this game. You’ll get one here, you’ll get one there. Euclyca really does try to keep its own personality as a game first with adult themes thrown in, which in its own way is refreshing to see.
With this title being an RPG, you need to know it is an RPG styled around a combat format that does not wait for people to take turns attacking. If you sit still, the AI will keep hitting you, so you do have to be fast with your choices in combat, which leads to an issue I have with the game. The enemies in this game are brutal 90% of the time. Everything the CPU does buffs themselves or debuffs and hurts you, while nearly everything you do leaves minor scratches. Combat in this Euclyca feels very unbalanced in the AI’s favor. On top of the AI having the clear edge, your attack options menu is not static, so sometimes if you’re in a tight spot having to hurry, you have to kind of chase your menu. It may not seem bad, but to me this grew quite annoying.
Much like the attack menu moving around, the enemies are also not static, meaning that you have to click whom you wish to direct your attack. Many times over, I clicked the wrong enemy because a different enemy’s body moved over top the enemy I was choosing to attack. This could mean failure in clutch situations.
When it comes to Euclyca, I stand in a strange place. By no means do I think the game is trash or hopeless, but on the same note I do think the game suffers from a bit of identity crisis and annoying design. With that I will say that, I am sure there is a crowd that’d enjoy this game a lot, but they would have to probably be the type of people who really enjoy RPG titles that are built to be brutal and obnoxiously hard to play due to the scale being tipped in the AI’s favor.

This game has obviously had a lot of effort put into it. I played 6 hours over the course of a week and have not gone back, but I do plan to.
Euclyca is a "turn-based" rpg with erotic elements. The story is fairly interesting and the art is pretty damn cool. I enjoy the grind of the battle system, which starts you off with 1-3 characters for a while before really starting to jump you into some bigger boss battles with a whole party of people. Referencing back to the art, I do not recall if it was a side quest for Kein or Mina but there was some gorgeous art in a conflict with some wolves, and the music was really good.
The game can be played fully as a RPG without the adult scenes if you are looking to avoid it. I'd say depending on the player the first 3-4 hours do not have any erotic options. Those are locked off in the game until you get to your HQ in a different city, where you then have sidequests open with each character. Unless it is more fleshed out than I am aware and more options come in the future, there is a platonic sidequest for each character as well as an erotic sidequest. This is a selling point for people who do not want anything other than a vanilla erotic situation than what they prefer in real life.
As far as the erotic scenes themselves, its a still image with visual novel descriptions. Perhaps it is just my computer, but I did check out one of the scenes before putting the game down for a bit. This is where the only issue I had with the game at all came up, which is the still image of the erotic situation. The display format was actually a bit stretched/warped, so it didn't fit/form on the screen properly. Small potatoes there and not the meat of the game itself, but notable if that is something that could bother you. I also had some framerate drops and performance issues in some boss battles when the full party is there, but that's more likely a result of my bargain laptop than the game itself .
Worth the money and as I lead with, you can tell how much effort was put into this game.

Consider it an 18+ Final Fantasy
I don't like to give 0 out of 10 reviews for early access games just a buy/not buy based on the current content And from what i have played of this game (2 hours) i would say definite buy, i gave a review early on in my gameplay because this genre of game needs support. It is (or will be) a fully fleshed out RPG game with NSFW sexual content on the side and i for one can't wait for more games such as this.
So if you are looking for a 100% adult oriented game (there's a ton of swearing, lewd jokes etc.) then this ones for you.

Loved the game. Lots of twists and turns in the story and I liked how you also get to play from the perspective of the other characters during some scenes. The game is fairly long, however my playtime isn't accurate as I had left it open while working from home :) I still definitely think that the game length justifies its price. I recommend it for those looking for these type of rpg games but for those who're just in for the adult oriented content you wouldn't be satisfied as it's really just an optional part of the game. This is my first game from Team Syukino and I'm now fired up to try your other games. Thank you again for this amazing game.