Chapter One: Introduction
I remember She Will Punish Them suffered from poor gameplay balance and uneventful combat. But while the game has grown in size, it seems playability has only marginally improved.
She Will Punish Them hasn’t been updated since Feburary (about eight months at the time of writing). L2 Games went from bimonthly updates to what appears to be never again.
For the purposes of this article, I will be referring to the player character as “the Queen”. Players are prompted to name their creation before starting a new game, and the default “Succubus” will cause confusion.
To note, the footage shown in this article has a visual error not present in the game; the mouse cursor is offset from where it actually was at the time of recording.
Chapter Two: Gameplay (3/5★)
Section One: Overview
L2 Games describes She Will Punish Them as “A sensual dark fantasy ARPG”. While “sensual” is a big stretch, it does offer lots of action and a never-ending grind for slightly better gear.
L2 Games calls it “Diablo-like . . . loot mechanics”
With up to three customizable succubi and an army of “minions”, She Will Punish Them delivers grand battles to watch from afar. Up close and personal, She Will Punish Them becomes a wannabe souls-like with jiggly tits and poor balancing. When you need a break from the grind, the “home designing system” offers players a rudimentary player home to photograph collected succubi in using premade positions.
Below, a pair of foes (marked by red health bars) are locked into battle with a mob of minions (green bars). As you can see, battles in She Will Punish Them can get hectic!
Section Two: Combat
Regarding combat L2 Games wrote,
Different kinds of enemies have their own attacking style, so you will have to learn what tactics will work best to get rid of those monsters. You can choose to fight with various weapons, such as swords, maces, twohanded weapons, bows, in combination with magical skills such as casting a fireball or freezing spell. You can also implement techniques such as dodging, parrying, and sprint attacks.
L2 Games, 2023, She Will Punish Them Steam Store Page
When L2 Games says “Different kinds of enemies have their own attacking style”, what they really mean is enemies may either stand and shoot. . . or walk and swing.
Regardless, “tactics [. . .] to get rid of those monsters” are always the same — spam attack and dodge until the monsters go away. “various weapons” change the timing of attacks and dodges, but the only meaningful difference between a weapon types is whether or not they can be duel wielded.
In fact, if you aren’t doubling your damage with two swords, you’re playing the game wrong.
“Magical skills” break up the monotony with ranged attacks. . . but players are unlikely to cast more than a few spells due to underwhelming power and spell casting restrictions.
Below, I battle a boss-type enemy (affectionally called “CHECKPOINT”). Without a mob of enemies to play to the strengths of the game, the monotony of combat is clear in this video.
Regarding the companion system, L2 Games wrote,
Complete the rescue mission and acquire new companions to fight with you. Gear them up and improve their skill sets to whatever you see fit.
L2 Games, 2023, She Will Punish Them Steam Store Page
When you’re stuck, moving forward is as easy as leveling up — or bringing more allies.
Succubi can be customized, equipped and leveled up like the player character. I hoped that I could switch between them to experiment with playstyles, but this isn’t the case.
Players can also employ an army of undead “minions”. Minions deal less damage, but they’re effective for splitting enemies into more manageable groups.
Unfortunately, succubi and minions have a tendency to. . . suicide themselves.
Succubi stick too close the player and ignore nearby enemies until taking damage. To note, against over-leveled enemies, a single strike can kill an unsuspecting succubus with full life. Minions have the opposite behavior; they will sprint towards the nearest enemy no matter how far (or outmatched).
All too often, I frantically ran between minions to save them from certain death.
In the following clip I watch my minions engage enemies from afar. To the game’s credit, watching skeletons slash at each other is somewhat. . . cathartic.
Section Two: Customization
Regarding character creation L2 Games wrote,
The detailed character creation includes dozens of facial sliders such as eyes size, nose depth, mouth size, lips, jaw size, etc. And many options for the body, such as breast size, breast diameter, butt size, waist width, muscle size, skin complexion, and many more! The HD skin rendering allows you to see the finest detail of her body, even moles and veins. Finally, makeup options such as lipsticks, eyeliners, eyeshadows, blush, nail/toenail colors. All of these can help you to create the succubus of your dreams!
L2 Games, 2023, She Will Punish Them Steam Store Page
Despite “dozens of facial sliders”, individual characters won’t differ much — save for a new pair of horns, wings or a palate swap, it’ll be difficult to tell your “succubus of your dreams” apart from anybody else’s.
It’s clear L2 Games never planned on players creating more than one character.
To the game’s credit, it’s easy to create an attractive succubus using the provided tools. But when you want to brave the (allegedly) “detailed character creation”, you’ll find camera works against you; players can only view their creations from rigid angles and distances.
Hopefully, players aren’t buying this game for the character creation right?
In the following image, I show three randomized characters. If you look closely, they are different — but “many options for the body” seems disingenuous given the lack of body diversity. It is possible to adjust skin color, but the provided “facial sliders” do not allow convincing changes of ethnicity.
Section Three: Exploration
Regarding rewards, L2 Games wrote,
The challenging combat gives you handsome rewards, including powerful weapons, shields, demonic but gorgeous armors, helmets, leggings, boots, etc., to greatly boost your combat efficiency. These items may get random stats attached, for example, additional fire damage to a sword.
L2 Games, 2023, She Will Punish Them Steam Store Page
I wouldn’t call them “handsome rewards”, but a big part of gameplay is comparing loot. It’s a blast when you have nothing to your name, but the process gets old when most drops are strictly worse than what you already have. I was discouraged when I completed a level without anything to show for it.
Throughout each level are chests to encourage exploration. . . so long as you brought enough “keys” from home. Fortunately, keys are commonly dropped from slain foes. The most handsome rewards are collected at the end of missions from gold chests. Bafflingly, gold chests also require keys.
Imagine defeating a boss for fuck all because nobody dropped a gold key beforehand.
Seemingly hellbent on punishing intrepid players, L2 Games even placed deadly traps next to every chest — even gold. If you walk into trap with less than full health, it’s game over. If “Drop Equipment if Killed” is on, a surprise trap means losing all of your gear in a heartbeat — even if you already completed the mission!
In the following image, I reap the rewards of a gold chest.
Technically, traps are easily avoided; as long as you walk, check all ceilings and keep the camera pointed to the floor, players can reliably evade them. But there are typically so many enemies on screen, even if you wanted to stare at the floor traps remain totally obscured.
Who wants to stare at the floor instead of participating in “intense combats”?
In the following clip, I trigger a spike trap. Pay attention to my health bar (bottom left) before and after I set off the spikes. Shown is an ideal scenario where the trap is visible; they can be hidden in poorly lit areas or buried beneath foliage. I also have minimal foes and allies cluttering my view of the floor.
If those spikes aren’t enough reason to stop players from exploring, there’s something far, far more sinister which awaits them — game breaking collision. When characters walk from a high platform onto a lower platform, they sort of teleport onto the ground. Other than being visually jarring, no controlled falls makes crossing gaps in terrain extremely dangerous to save games.
Despite my best efforts to stick to flat, even terrain, I still couldn’t avoid several reloaded saves.
In the following compilation, my team and I get stuck. In the first clip, we are blocked from climbing a flight of stairs. In the second and third clip, I fall between a wall and stairs.
Section Three: Balance
Regarding levels and progression L2 Games wrote,
Fight through many dark fantasy levels and kill the bosses to claim dominance of the world. You can also fight random skirmish battles to gain extra gold and experience before taking on the enemy stronghold.
L2 Games, 2023, She Will Punish Them Steam Store Page
When L2 Games says “Fight through many [. . .] levels” they don’t just mean “there’s a lot of levels to play“. It takes hours of repeat “skirmish battles” garner slightly extra anything, be it level-ups or better gear.
I’m thankful players have the option to opt out of “Drop Equipment if Killed”.
About five hours into the game, I felt forced into buying “Ultra Legendary” weapons. Demanding exorbitant prices, these weapons breath fresh air into the game by removing barriers of progression.
I painstakingly saved tens of thousands of gold while I was stuck on the first half of the game. Until I could afford Ultra Legendary gear, I was doomed to repeat tired levels as my progression stagnated.
Below, I browse the Smuggler’s shop for Ultra Legendary goodies.
Regarding the companion system, L2 Games wrote,
Complete the rescue mission and acquire new companions to fight with you. Gear them up and improve their skill sets to whatever you see fit.
L2 Games, 2023, She Will Punish Them Steam Store Page
As if one scantily clad succubus wasn’t enough, players can enjoy staring at up to four scantily clad succubi at the same time! Frustratingly, they don’t come adequately pre-leveled or equipped by the time your succubus is appropriately geared to rescue them. Additionally, once you have a full team rescue missions are waste of time.
You’re only allowed to bring three succubi at time.
Fortunately, succubi are leveled up even if you don’t take them into battle. But it’s a slow, slow process — by the end of the game, none of my rescued succubi were remotely close to my player character’s level (even the ones I took with me!)
The only reason they did anything useful was because they had Ultra Legendary weapons.
It’s worth mentioning enemies can drop “experience books”, single use items which can be redeemed to accelerate leveling. They’re nice for the first hour of gameplay, but their usefulness falls sharply.
In the following image, I approach a succubus to be rescued.
Section Four: Controls
The control scheme is satisfactory, but if you don’t like it all key bindings are rebindable.
I like how spells are assigned nearby movement keys for quick access. However, players need to memorize seemingly unrelated keys. While learning the disjointed control scheme, it’s too easy to cast a “Fireball” instead of a “Heal” in the heat of battle.
She Will Punish Them can really use a “spell bar” with visible cooldowns and key bindings.
Menus can also be accessed via hot keys. The default hotkeys aren’t intuitive either, but at least the game shows players which keys to press whenever they may have a reason (such as leveling up).
Where’s the “Heal” prompt when you take damage?
In the following image, the game prompts me to spend “Skill Points” using the “C” key bind.
Chapter Three: Sexual Content (2/5★)
Section One: Content
Regarding adult content, L2 Games wrote,
Unlike many other adult titles, this game doesn’t focus on pornographic visuals.
L2 Games, 2023, She Will Punish Them Steam Store Page
Featuring nothing more than premade, static poses, it’s clear “pornographic visuals” was not a priority whatsoever. To be fair, She Will Punish Them doesn’t promise any sexual content, but skimping on adult animations was a missed opportunity. If I want to play an RPG with skimpy armor and no “pornographic visuals”, I’ll just boot up Skyrim and install a few body mods.
Below, I show off one of my best in-game screenshots to rustle your jimmies.
Section Two: Implementation
Rescued succubi can be found relaxing in the player home. L2 Games wrote,
You succubi can interact with many furniture at home, displaying a set of poses/animations and camera options for you to enjoy her grace. You can change her clothes freely during any interaction.
L2 Games, 2023, She Will Punish Them Steam Store Page
L2 Games is only technically telling the truth about “animations”. Furniture is restricted to completely static positions with no more “animations” than blinking. As for changing clothes “freely during any interaction”, there should be an asterisk(*) next to that statement — other succubi can be dressed freely, but when players use furniture cosmetic control is surrendered until exiting.
The provided “camera options” are quite nice. They facilitate quick screenshots with great composition. If you don’t like the provided camera angles, “Free Camera” grants more creative freedom.
In the following image, I hopped inside a “rack” and goofed around with the “EXPRESSION” settings.
Offering more flexibility than furniture, “Pose Mode” is an editor which can be pulled up at any time. With some creativity, “Pose Mode” can even be used to produce outright sexual images. L2 Games wrote,
And you will have many possibilities for beautiful screenshots through the free pose mode in which you can pose your succubus in any pose wherever you want.
L2 Games, 2023, She Will Punish Them Steam Store Page
Using “FREEPOSE”, players can rotate individual joints — but fine control such as bending fingers and toes is not available (so much for “any pose . . . you want”. Poses can be saved for later usage.
In the following image, I demonstrate the limitations of “FREEPOSE” in POSE MODE.
Section Three: Interactivity
Barring creative usage of “pose mode”, there is no interactive adult content in this game.
Section Four: Quality
The characters in this game are beautiful, comparable to a render from a 3D modeling program. I would hope so considering they appear to be Daz Studio assets — but the hardware and Daz assets required to render characters from She Will Punish Them in a modeling program in real time is expensive.
I’m impressed by how well this game handles such detailed characters given the action-packed gameplay. It’s a shame there aren’t any sexual animations — She Will Punish Them could be an accessible software for recording customizable sexual animations like HoneySelect2Libido DX.
In the following image, I showcase a variety of poses using POSE MODE. I couldn’t be bothered to unequip my succubi’s items beforehand; there isn’t any way to edit succubi once inside POSE MODE.
Chapter Four: Story (1/5★)
Section One: Overview
Interestingly, the Steam Store page doesn’t entertain any story.
From what I can gather in-game, the story follows an unnamed succubus on a quest to become the “new queen of Natith”. She sets up shop in “an old human castle” and subjugates the surrounding land with hired hands and rescued succubi.
In the following image, I show the opening exposition screen.
Section Two: Plot
After her father’s death, the protagonist’s unnamed “brothers and sisters . . . fighting each other for the throne” has resulted in a war erupting in the kingdom of Natith. Bizarrely, these events aren’t revealed until at least halfway into the game.
As players complete missions, brief “DIARY” entries offer some semblance of plot progression. After completing all missions, the protagonist declares herself the new queen everyone lives happily ever after. . . I guess.
In the following image, I show the most relevant DIARY entry regarding the plot.
Section Three: Characters
The main protagonist and her partner, Kira are the only characters shown in-game. Only one of them participates in DIARY entries, effectively bringing the character count down to one.
Section Three: Writing
Fortunately, the exposition wasn’t written by the same people that writes L2 Games‘ Steam pages. DAIRY entries are competently written English, while everything else is seemingly machine translated.
In the following image, I show one of my favorite spell descriptions. The English is definitely good enough, but it’s obvious no native speakers had a hand translating this title.
Chapter Five: Sound (2/5★)
Section One: Soundtrack
The music is thematically appropriate, but it gets old. This game would benefit from a wider musical selection. Hearing the same generic tracks loop on repeat is a grating experience.
Once I felt like I heard the two tracks enough times, I couldn’t find the motivation to keep my headphones on.
Section Two: Sound Effects
Holy overkill! When armies clash a cacophony of swords, bones and footsteps crushes whatever music is playing. But in spite of how many sounds are stacked on top of each other, I didn’t notice any obvious distortion or clipping. Mileage may differ by soundcard and headset, but I was pleasantly surprised.
I didn’t mind voracity of sound effects, but they don’t make for a pleasant listening experience. I imagine for a lot of folk, they’ll be another reason to play the game muted.
Chapter Six: Visuals (4/5★)
Section One: Title Screen
The main-menu is neatly organized. The graphical elements are amateur, nothing more than flat shapes with flat colors.
Showcasing a stunning succubus, the title screen beckons first-time players as they create a new game and enter the character editor. However, I’m very disappointed that she wasn’t usurped by the character I made. I hoped the title screen was not a pre-rendered animation.
Section Two: User Configuration
Options for graphical settings are poor. Players can only adjust screen resolution and flip between preset “Graphic Qualities”. For a game with graphical fidelity like She Will Punish Them, you’d think there’d be options for anti aliasing, shadows, viewing distance or texture quality. Different players are willing to make different compromises for their experiences.
In the following image, I show the laughably pathetic “GRAPHICS” tab.
Section Two: Navigation
The user-interface is overwhelming at first, but once I figured out how to navigate the menus with keyboard shortcuts I found myself flying through screens. Players familiar with the Diablo games may find themselves at home managing loot in this game.
In the following image, I deliberate weapons, gear and consumable items to equip my new succubus.
Section Two: Graphics
She Will Punish Them is a graphically impressive game (for the time, 2020). No doubt, L2 Games went through great pains to build a world ideal for in-game photography. Using “Pose Mode”, players can pause the game at any time and explore the immediate area of their succubus for impromptu photo sessions.
Notably, Pose Mode lacks basic visual effects and quality of life. There isn’t any “depth of field” or means to adjust lighting, rendering most photoshoots not much better than taking screenshots.
The following image is a nice example of why depth of field is important; it’s difficult to distinguish the details of the front-most succubus against the detail and lighting of the background. Overall, this image is cluttered.
Here’s the same image, but with a simulated depth of field.
As you can see, the subject and her outfit stands out better against the background.
Though the outfits in this game are graphically high-quality, they aren’t artistically coherent. To be clear, I’m not discussing the dichotomy of lingerie and equipable armor — I’m strictly referring to the armor itself.
I recognize a lot of assets from the Daz Studio store. It’s perfectly fine to outsource content, but it also explains why the outfits are so difficult to mix and match. In my experience, it takes some work to “kit bash” work from various artists. She Will Punish Them reminds me of another game, Princess&Blade. Both games suffer from extensive wardrobe failures due to mismatched, premade assets.
The following image depicts my team during my first few hours of gameplay. My succubi look more like super hero rejects than sexy warriors!
Chapter Seven: Verdict (2.5/5★)
If you’re looking for mindless hack-and-slash with tits, She Will Punish Them has its moments. I had a lot of fun watching “minions” do my dirty work as my creation wagged her ass back and forth. But once the novelty of playing a naked succubus wears off, what’s left is monotony.
Hour after hour of grinding the same few missions for money to purchase better gear.
She Will Punish Them has improved since release, but this ambitious project suffers from too many flaws to be a better experience than say, Skyrim with mods. This game has nothing to offer that Skyrim (with mods) can’t do better. Seemingly abandoned by L2 Games, it may be best to forget about this game too.
If you buy this game, I recommend setting the difficulty to “Easy”. You’ll thank me later.
Performance
Given the gameplay, I’m really impressed by how well this game runs. It’s obvious She Will Punish Them utilizes assets from Daz Studio. Assets intended for Daz Studio tend to be designed with photorealism in mind. As a result, games that leverage Daz assets are notorious for poor optimization. But my ancient laptop with an RTX 2060 was able to run this game no sweat!
A similar range PC with more efficient airflow could run this title on high settings at a great framerate.
I experienced two crashes; one while saving, and one while loading after roughly eight hours of gameplay. Fortunately, I only lost progress from the latter mishap. It’s important to save often in this game, but crashes are uncommon.
System Specifications
I installed this software on a Windows 10 machine with an Intel Core i7-8750H CPU, an RTX 2060 GPU and sixteen gigabytes of RAM. The software was installed onto a preinstalled HDD (manufacturer unknown).
