REINCARNATION ASURA ZALANDARA Journey of carnage and redemption is a lewd bullet hell about a cursed king and his wife that must save the world from total annihilation.
At-a-glance
(Adult) Content?
(FxM) Sexual content.
Censorship?
Mosaic’d genitalia.
Hours of Gameplay?
Two or three hours.
Modding Support?
No.
Patch Available?
No, not necessary.
Gameplay
Dodge baddies and bullets and beat bosses. There are six stages total, each culminating to a boss fight. Each stage begins and ends with long visual novel portions. At least a third of the game is reading — but you can choose to toggle all cutscenes before starting a stage. By collecting “Zeptomachines” (dropped by foes), you are able to upgrade your base stats and unlock new weapons. Weapons are fueled by “magic”, which passively regenerates. Your regeneration can be enhanced via sexual intercourse, and when you climax all of your stats are fully restored!
This game has some. . . balance issues.
There was maybe one time I actually used my orgasm powers. It takes a long time to gather enough “Orgasm Points” to climax, and ttophe end result is neither arousing or worth the investment. There is a variety of weapons to unlock, but the only two you need are the “bubbles” and “fist”; these weapons cost minimal magic points, and together they’ll annihilate any and all foes in the game. When I started a new game, I was able to unlock and max-out nearly all of my abilities (thereby rendering any form of grinding moot). Enemies are just distractions; there’s no reason whatsoever to fight them.
Story
The English isn’t great, and the story isn’t told very well. A metric ton of information is thrown at you, making it difficult to piece together the overarching story. I suspect the poor writing has to do with a less-than-stellar translation. There is no proper “skip” button, or a means to “rollback” text. This makes reading dialogue more tedious than it needs to be.
I’ll do my best to put together a coherent preview of the story.
The Anantal Ring, a network of orbital weapons has gone haywire. Dubbed the “Black Carnage”, hundreds of thousands of unmanned drones have been unleased upon the world, along with nine GigaFlameMachines (or “False God Machines”). The Black Carnage isn’t just some technological hiccup; in fact, humanity is chump change in the face of what’s at stake. Armed with the mysterious Spear of Mara and his devoted wife, Zarandala is the world’s only hope. Like the Carnage, he and his beloved Vrinda are more than what meets the eye.
Visuals
The titlescreen is messy. There’s text everywhere, and I haven’t a clue what the “hukkatu” button does (which is apparently nothing). Though the art isn’t “AAA”, I did enjoy the overall composition; I feel as though I’m entering a dramatic RPG (which isn’t far from the actual game). From “Configuration”, you may adjust audio, display and resolution preferences. There is no gallery to review strictly CGs, but you are able to replay cutscenes (which may contain adult content) via “Event” (after starting the game). The English isn’t well translated, but you can generally understand what’s going on. Misspellings are commonplace.
The in-game visuals were kind of hit or miss for me.
Each stage is rendered using 3D models. However, the player character and minor enemies are rendered using pixelated sprites. On the other hands, bosses and on-screen animations are rendered using high resolution, anime-style artwork. Seeing each of these visual elements together was jarring. Most bosses are comprised of a single sprite that’s sort-of dragged around. Honestly, it’s really lame. I would have preferred a more consistent choice of styles, and better-animated bosses. If the whole game was produced using pixel art, that’d be be awesome!
The Goods
There are a handful of sex scenes, each comprised of dialogue and a handful of CGs. The artwork is okay, but censorship is a major buzzkill. I found the lewd artwork to be amateurish. I didn’t see any major rape scenes, but there was one I remember that was abnormally gory. There are a few scenes with pregnancy, and one with childbirth. One of the core mechanics of gameplay is that you recharge magic via intercourse; however, there is only one animation to showcase this mechanic (or two if you count the pregnant variant). Overall, I found the sexual content to be underwhelming.
Verdic
Wait for a sale and updates. This game is grossly unbalanced, but I still had fun. There is no reason to fight outside of boss battles, and boss battles are stupid-easy. There are a few overpowered weapons that can be used to breeze through the game, and strategy typically boils down to “mash attack”. Much of the game is reading, but the English and storytelling fall flat. Not only that, but many of the story scenes are just black backgrounds with text! But at the end of the day, REINCARNATION ASURA ZALANDARA Journey of carnage and redemption is a promising title. I think with some added features and general balance, this could become a challenging and interesting title. But until then, I’d hold off on buying this game.
