Once Ever After

Once Ever After
N/A
Metacritic
86
Steam
62.75
xDR
Our rating is calculated based on the reviews and popularity of the game.
Release date
14 October 2022
Developers
Publishers
Steam reviews score
Total
86 (124 votes)

Red Riding Hood wanders out of the woods... and into an infinite number of alternate dimensions twisting the classic fairy tale in countless ways.

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Once Ever After system requirements

Minimum:

  • OS: Windows 7+
  • Processor: Intel Core2 Duo or better
  • Memory: 2 GB RAM
  • Graphics: DirectX 9/OpenGL 4.1 capable GPU
  • Storage: 500 MB available space

Recommended:

Recommended requirements are not yet specified.
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jaykinchan
jaykinchan

Would have loved to see more interactions with Ingrid and her alternate fable counterparts. I also agree with other reviewers on the combat. It is rather annoying, and it feels like a slog to get through so that I can enjoy the writing.

Would have love to read more dialogue instead of fighting again and again.

eMpire (current nXt champion)
eMpire (curren…

New Hen-Tie game, new review (tldr at end):

The Plot

Set in parallel universes of the "red riding hood" tale, this game explores what happens when they collapse on eachother. Unlike other games in this genre that try to reinvent everything/go outside the box, the dev went extremely tame with it. Sure there are a lot of surprises/interesting plot turns, but everything serves a purpose with very few "loose ends".

The Characters

One of the other good things about this game was how the characters interact, or more accurately "evolve" around eachother. The main protag starts as an extremely weak/stereotypical "hen-tie princess", who seems reluctant to be in her role, gain more confidence. A few of the other characters, normally cold/heartless, gain more compassion. It's stuff like this that makes the characters far more memorable than other ones, even if they follow the same tropes as other hen-tie games.

TLDR

Ultimately there's very little not to like about this game. The story's really good, there's a ton of content, and there's a lot of nudity if you prefer stuff like that. For the first game I've played from this dev, it has me interested to see if the rest of their games are good or if this is just them hitting lightning in a bottle.

DragofLord
DragofLord

Alright, so I'll start with the Sierra Lee disclaimer. Ahem. "Sierra Lee games are incredibly intelligently written, insightful, well themed, charming, and accessible. They are also porn games, with NSFW content that cannot truly separated from said incredible writing. In my opinion this in no way makes them any worse for it, but if NSFW is a dealbreaker for you then you will want to give them a skip. If you are on the fence, then you should absolutely give them a try, as they are excellent at being NSFW games for people who don't like the usual creepiness that comes with much of the genre." Alright, now for the review of the game proper.

As is usual for Sierra Lee, an incredibly well written story. In particular in this case it has strong themes of self-discovery, self-improvement and embracing one's own sexuality on one's own terms. For those coming here from the Last Sovereign (which is both excellent and FREE), this is a very different story. Sexual themes are still there, but without the emphasis on politics, and the story is far more of a personal journey than an ensemble grand fantasy story. Also it has an excellent ending, which anyone familiar with RPG's knows is about as easy to find in that genre as a unicorn.

The bad, in this case, is unfortunately the gameplay. The main positive thing to say is that it is highly functional, has some challenging fights without requiring complete optimization, and greatly de-emphasizes rng (with much of your build incentivized to reduce its presence even further, treating it like the enemy of progression that it is). It is also *relatively* quick. If you can't stand turn based combat with minute long cutscenes where a simple encounter takes 5 minutes, then you won't have that problem here.
The two main issues are grind and ease. This game has respawning enemies, and while the system of archetypes is neat (you level up and draw abilities from what are effectively different fantasy archetypes), the time it takes to level them is tedious. The fact that many archetypes are weak while you have them equipped to level them up, but have powerful abilities that can be used when you don't have the archetype equipped also incentivizes fighting weak enemies to level up your abilities, rather than leveling up naturally in hard fights that engage the brain and aren't completely boring. This leads into the second problem, which is that when you have 20 completely trivial fights to get through before the next one that is even possible to lose, you ignore a lot of the game's options to gravitate towards maximum efficiency. Not to mention the amount of time you spend just plowing through enemies that can't fight back, trying to get to the next dialogue scene.
Finally on the bad, I had a number of crashes on area loads. These weren't an actual problem, as the game autosaved before every crash (and its an rpg-maker game so you'll be able to be back to playing within a minute), but it was annoying.

I've spent a fair bit criticizing, but I do think this is an overall good game, just one to go into with your eyes open. And the game is a solo job by a developer I'm a tremendously big fan of, so if nothing else get it to support them. Even if you don't end up liking the game, you WILL have things to talk about and remember from it.

SmilePic
SmilePic

Great:
Great worldbuilding and story (especuially if you like what-ifs scenarios or enjoy the works of Jasper Fforde)

Good:
Varied monster art
Progression
Combat system

Ok:
H-art

Bad:
Repetitive dungeon combat, doubled down by monster respawn and "guess a lever combation" mechanic. Seriously, doing the same fights over and over again makes me take a break from completing a dungeon.

Anonymous
Anonymous

The standout feature of this game is, first and foremost, an excellent story filled with interesting and engaging characters. It plays with tropes in fresh ways, it subverts expectations, and to some extent it even empowers. The game is absolutely worth playing for the story alone, ignoring other factors.

Gameplay-wise, it's a perfectly competent and enjoyable RPG Maker (RPGM) game with good artwork and music. It's a little light on tutorials so it's probably not the best first-time experience with RPGM (I think typically the kind of person who is keen to struggle through the strange aspects of RPGM would probably be very familiar with it already), but if you've ever played an RPGM game before and didn't hate it, your time will be very, very productively and satisfyingly spent on this one.

From an erotic standpoint, it's fine. It's an adult game with explicit (and quite competently produced) illustrations, but I found them to be more icing than a central focus. The scenarios and pairings are fairly tame; the odd female/female pairing is inclusive as it gets. But what it depicts it depicts with heart, and simply avoids (rather than ostracises) less mainstream content. Personally my main gripe is that despite wolves being a central theme of the story, anatomically they follow humans rather than canines. One or two scenes or some type of optional toggle would have been nice, but that's minor personal preference.

Overall, I enjoyed every minute of play, and was sad (but satisfied) when I reached the end. I have no doubt I will play this again once I've let it sit long enough for the memory to fade a bit, and I'll enjoy it just as much the second time.

『MEM』
『MEM』

I adore these Sierra Lee games, I truly do, but this one just didn't quite have the same impact on me as the previous games.
On paper the story is as grand and filled with tasty layers of lore as ever, yet the execution isn't there for most of the time.

I guess the focus should have been more on getting the story told. Lots of maps just felt like lifeless padding and would have been better off done differently. Combat and many enemies were also surprisingly uninspired, with the AP system an unbalanced mess.

Also lots of random crashes on map changes.

Prismwind
Prismwind

This game is story and game first, with the porn almost an afterthought. That said, the porn does fit well into the story. Don't expect it to be a furry porn game, despite the presence of Wolves all the ones in sex scenes are extremely human, the one in your party is the anime ears and tail style of animal person.

The story and gameplay are actually very good. Nothing truly groundbreaking but the class system and skills are well done and your power growth is well paced. You don't need to grind until going for the true ending, and there's an easy way provided if you check one of the late game areas right before the end thoroughly. And the rewards for quests feel good.

Overall I spent a good 70 hours or so completing it to the true ending, so the amount of game you get for the price is very good, and with a very story first approach it gets better the further you go... the porn scenes are rare though and not the meat of the game, so while it has them expect more dirty jokes than sex scenes. Overall a great game with the occasional porn just a pleasant added touch.

Royal Roses
Royal Roses

TLDR version: Great game. RPG Maker turn-based combat, many areas have consequences for the actions you take, Plenty of Builds to run with, multiple classes. There *is* a "best class" for each individual character, but earning skills from other classes is a fun concept. The Story is great imo, a good story about being allowed to live and progress as you desire. There is no moral, really, except that you are who you strive to be, even if that concept just means "you"

So yeah, good game.

Right off the bat though, there is no "unlock everything" for a gallery. Heck, you need to beat the game to unlock the gallery, and it's not an insignificant amount of time, easily 10+ hours, I think. I spent a LONG time playing this and it turned out very fun. There is a post-game filled with more adult scenes, more fights, harder content, etc., and there is a 2nd "True" ending, though you can unlock all End-Game mature scenes without that ending. It actually has a very good story and premise, and I highly recommend not skipping any dialogue, as it's all wonderful. Yes, even mature scenes.

Small downside: I think there's some kind of memory leak somewhere, because if the game is open long enough, I've had it crash on me. It may be related to a specific stage since, eventually, it stopped happening. Also, not everything you can do is obvious? As in, you're gonna want to be interacting with most every graphic on the screen at times.

I decided to follow a guide on where to find items, how certain actions effect the tales and the subsequent rewards. I thought it was worth it, and they all had outcomes I ultimately enjoyed. Just Google "Once Ever After Guide" and it should be the first result, on The Last Soverign wiki.

staralberio
staralberio

I started this game up at around midnight expecting to just put in an hour, 8 hours later of solid gaming through the night and I can say the combat system is on par with the most addictive class systems out there.I will also mention the writing is top notch, I felt feel genuine feelings of love towards the characters introduced to you.

Prax
Prax

I really enjoyed Once Ever After. It has a strong character driven narrative, which are my favorite type in RPGs. The story explores themes of sex, violence, abuse, control and personal identity in a mature and entertaining way. There are a number of sex scenes in the game, but that was not what drew me to the game. I was intrigued by the concept of multiple versions of the Red Riding Hood story interacting with one another and I was not disappointed with the execution of that concept. Ulfina is definitely one of my favorite characters in any game now.

Mal
Mal

Looks beautiful but ultimately disappointing still. You can tell there is a lot of work done just not the sort of work that would justify such a price tag. If you wanted to make a serious game then please make a serious game, but this is not it. Pick a direction and stick to it. The slow drip feed of minimal still images may as well have not been there to be honest.
The amount of time and lack of change from when this game went into ea till now also does not instill any confidence. The only major change is to add cheat items because of criticism over combat issues instead of actually balancing the game dev just added cheat items...great job guys.
Verdict is wait for a big sale. This is barely a $15 game.

unseen
unseen

-1 RPG Maker style combat
-1 Unexpectedly low mature content from the initial presentation

Why then do i give it a thumbs up? The story line somehow pulled me in. There are very few plot holes and the characters act in ways that make sense. Sprinkle in the little bit of mature content in tasteful ways and it completes the package.

I certainly didn't get what i thought i was purchasing but this alternative product is acceptable.

Sir Nilbog
Sir Nilbog

Genuinely a good JRP with a neat premise and world building of a multi-verse of fairy tale worlds coming. You have some worlds that are super violent and grimdark and others are cheerful disneyfied worlds with no concept of violence. Enoyable story too

TigersquashDonut
TigersquashDonut

This is a hard one to review, no pun intended. If you liked Ouroboros and The Last Sovereign, you may like this one. But Once Ever After feels like the weaker game overall. The art is really nice, and the story is compelling enough. Just be prepared for a lot of combat.

Enemies can see through walls and run straight at you. Because of the way they yeet themselves at you, you can enter a new area or chat to an NPC and enter combat straight away. It becomes a nuisance, especially when enemies respawn. I really feel this game needs a bell like Desecration of Wings, something to repel enemies for a bit. Or have enemies flee from you once you're a certain level.

It really marred my enjoyment of the game. So much so that I don't want to go back for the post-game content. If you're a Sierra Lee Stan, give this a go. But I'd recommend any of her other games over this one. I've played all her games so far, and was eagerly waiting for Once Ever After to leave early access. I feel disappointed, but I hope other fans enjoy it a lot more than I did.

Sethern
Sethern

WARNING::

Please read reviews before buying.
TL;DR
Pros -- Cute story line

Cons -- Everything else

~~~~~~~~~~~

More Details:

Game severely unbalanced and in some cases abilities you use don't work at intended. Criticals do 4x damage, so when you have AoE mobs, they just blow up your group. Just use the cheat clothing in the beginning or you'll find *SOME* fights, if not impossible, then just luck to get past. Some mobs are way easier than they should be, some mobs are legitimately a nightmare to get past, and it's kinda random, don't know what you'll get until your entire party keeps getting one shot.

***To parrot everyone else, *NOT A HENTAI GAME.* Try to do sexy stuff, and game actively rejects, and somewhat punishes you for it.***

Game is a railroad, no real choice in the matter. Have a corruption intelligence gauge for some reason, but it's useless, because all items that you'd think would corrupt, or make your character a bimbo, are just joke items and in fact do the opposite, lol. And as mentioned, there is no choice in the matter.

No costumes, period. Any gear you change into does not alter your characters appearance even the items with no stats called costumes, lol.

Much more...

El gato sonriente
El gato sonriente

Solid game with a good story and likeable characters.
It has decent combat and an intresting skill system.
The art is also very good, but the maps are very linear.
The corruption system is strange and has no explanation in the game, so you learn it by playing.
All by all, very good.

Don Lord
Don Lord

A nice little game. Very charming.

Sierra's writing is always interesting. I actually laughed pretty hard at a couple of points. I'm just disappointed it was so short.

Definitely worth picking up if you like clever games.

rp_christian
rp_christian

This game kept me up ALL NIGHT LONG... with its interesting story and fun Archetype (job) system! As many others have stated, if you came for the porn you'll discover it's not as frequent as you think, but you get a awesome RPG out of it!

Basically, the RPG is like an delicious apple pie and the erotica is a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top!

LyKen
LyKen

its great but im currently soft locked out of the arena as it turns out if you leave in the middle of a competition theres no way of getting back into it but otherwise ive been enjoying the game play and the overall versatility of the skill trees

110%CRAZY
110%CRAZY

Its a great Sierra Lee game. That being said, as expected of a game from this dev it is more heavy on story than on mature content.

Pros:
-Awesome story
-Interesting Characters
-Lots of small details to find
-Nice images for scenes

Cons:
-Traveling between destinations can get to be a pain in the late game
-Sometimes feels like you should grind to be able to get all content (some VERY hard battles that are near impossible without farming)
-Being corrupt can be difficult if you don't like losing.
-Not a ton of scenes and some feel a little repetitive with the art work

Overall I would give it a 8.5/10 as a game with a side of mature content and a 6/10 if you are looking for mostly mature content

Midnight Page
Midnight Page

A great RPG with wonderful characters and an interesting twist on a classic story. I would highly recommend this!

♥☉RetroKitty☉♥
♥☉RetroKitty☉♥

♥Follow our Curator page if you are looking for eroge where the sexual content is integrated well in to the gameplay.♥

TLDR: Buy it for the story, but not for the gameplay or sexual content.

This is such a huge disappointment for me. It could have been another Karryn's Prison, they had the option to integrate the sexual content in to the actual gameplay very well, they had the art, the settings, the characters...but they didn't. For playing a blonde bimbo, you can't really do a lot of fucking around. Not in battle, nor outside of it, aside from a few VERY SHORT scripted moments.

So since the whole sexual content things were put to the side as an extra, what else do you have in this game? Well, the best part of is, is the story....and that's it. You play as a bimbo little red hood in a bimbo world, who can only think of sex and big thick hot rods....then she gets taken out of her story, sees things she doesnt understand, than when she gets back home, she suddenly bored of sex and wants to leave her dimension and explore others, and she becomes a Slider. (thumbs up if you actually know what that is)

The gameplay, is extremely boring and primitive, bare bones basic RPG maker combat, enough said. Oh yeah, and zero controller support.

The art is pretty good, Iris (the main protagonist) is sexy and looks really good, the others are passable, but a the same time, there are some characters who look outright horrible. The art consistency is all over the place, and it hurts the overall presentation pretty bad.

There is nothing much here to say really. Does it worth its asking price? No way. For the same price you can get Karryn's Prison which is a MUCH better hentai game, with a lot of effort and work put in to it blending the gameplay and sexual content very well.

heftwswe
heftwswe

Good game, but not so much mature content.

The game has a compelling story and intresting class mechanics, however,
if you focus the mature content, you find it's limited to showing main char in a slutty outfit,
and the occasional short scene once in a good while. I'd rather play through this game from a different normal tale and keep the rest going.

You start off in a town of a tale that shows some promise and help build expectation for how the game will turn out, only to have your character turn away from the betean path and become the direct oposite, with it's core class never seeming to advance. If you wanna justify the mature tag, I'd recommend looking over some adavcencement in the core class, many games use stamina is secondary way to drain your enemy and win the battle, or transform the class into a buff/deff class. Buffing your allys with your assets or use them to debuff and distract or confuse your enemies.

PeacefulZealot
PeacefulZealot

The game is fantastic. It starts off slowly and I wasn't sure if it would really connect but the story and characters started engaging me rather quickly. If you're looking for a game that has a an actual point and heartfelt message while also being good smut, well, you'll be rather pleased with what you find here!

Ace42
Ace42

A lengthy JRPG made in RPGMaker, with an interesting metafictional story, and a novel progression system; but let down by lame H-content and some frustrating design choices.

I found the game to be quite buggy though: There were regular crashes-to-desktop every couple of hours or so of gameplay. One side-quest was rendered impossible to complete when the target NPC failed to spawn in the proper location.

The game has some "story mode" special armour available from the start to make the combat easier (it can still be very tricky in some places, despite that), which can help cut down on the delays caused by losing fights.
Even so, getting to the end takes about 15 hours (most of that is meh RPGMaker combat; and a fair bit is wandering around confused because of unhelpful instructions in the quest log). However, this is very much a false ending - as there's another 12 hours of post-ending content following that to get to a "true ending", and this is where most of the H-scenes get unlocked.

The vast majority of the game is fairly standard JRPG combat

Usually this is a terrible choice for eroge, as fantasy combat has nothing to do with sex or eroticism, and is pretty unrewarding in terms of repetitive disengaging gameplay too.
This game sidesteps some of the more common pitfalls found in eroge:
The levelling up system is relatively deep and interesting, and the item system is tolerable too, giving you some room for customisation; the game features a party of characters, so customising their builds for synergy adds some depth; the combat skills themselves are varied and have different usages, etc.

So the combat's more satisfying than in most RPGMaker games, far more so than in something like Magical Girl Celesphonia. But ultimately, it's still time-consuming busywork; and it's the core part of the game. It ends up making the game feel padded, and a bit bloated, with the more interesting parts of the game seeming threadbare by comparison.

The plot is above average, but also misjudged for an eroge

There's some sharp incidental dialogue throughout the game from a few of the more interesting main characters, with some nice attention to detail.

It's kinda interesting and somewhat novel to have your characters trying to escape the narrative conventions of the stories they find themselves in; and it works as a serviceable plot for a JRPG adventure.
It's very convenient as a tool for deconstructing and parodying the ridiculous tropes found in hentai.

The problem is that it's not very sexy. Most of the game just involves eye-rolling at the erotic conventions of the genre; to the point where it deliberately frames the very occasional nude scenes it does show you as disappointing and unsexy. Then it tries to replace that with some slow and contrived romance plotlines which are dull and workman like.
Finally the game tries to eat its cake and have it too, by throwing the vast majority of its H-scenes at you in a big clump right at the end.

The H-scenes aren't particularly good

The artstyle is fine and all, but the depiction of the scenes fails to capture the eroticism of the events happening. The staging is all very underwhelming and "meh".
This is helped somewhat by the attempt to build a narrative in the text during the sex-scenes; but it's all very perfunctory and workman like and never really manages to tap into the kinks it's trying to evoke. So it comes across very flat, lifeless, and unerotic.

This is exacerbated by the game's insistence on parodying hentai clichés - which is an ill-advised mood killer, so that when it's time for the game to come up with the goods - it's just so bland and tame and sterile.

The exploration and puzzle elements of the game are the most fun part of it, but also the most disappointing

The game does a decent job of scattering secrets and challenges around the townships you can explore - with a load of the locations being interesting. But once you've completed the game and realise how little there is to do in them once you've finished the handful of interactions in each, they all feel very hollow and superficial - almost to the point of being Potemkin Villages.

Focus is constantly pulled away from interacting with the NPCs and the towns they inhabit, in order to go into another dull generic RPGMaker dungeon filled with typical RPGMaker mobs.

The game design is frustrating

A lot of time is wasted walking in circles because the game is coy about telling you where the next stage in a mission / side-mission is, with vague or unclear instructions.

To get the "true" ending, you need to top-out two meters:
The game basically inverts the genre's typical "lewdness" bar, having your character lose "corruption" whilst having increasing amounts of kinky sex. Which doesn't really make sense, and doesn't really serve much purpose.
It pairs this with an "intelligence" bar - which ends up just being a frustrating obstacle to performing tasks: "Oh, you want to interact with X? Tough, you need to bumble around aimlessly before stumbling on Y to get an extra 5 intelligence points - now you can trek back to X, and maybe get some intelligence points from THAT so you can now do tasks Z".

I think I've managed to lock myself out of getting the true ending by missing a couple of crucial +int bonuses somewhere in the game; which makes the prospect of starting a new save from scratch and grinding out another 20-odd hours an absolute nightmare.

The game feels like a waste of time

After the first 90 minutes of bland RPGMaker combat in the game, I was pretty much ready to refund it. I regret giving it the benefit of the doubt: The pacing of the story got a bit better towards the end; the combat got more interesting once additional party members were added.

But it never really stopped feeling like a chore; and whenever you achieve a plot point (or an H-scene), it always ends up going off like a damp squib. Unspectacular, and disappointing.

If you love JRPGs, then the combat and the progression system will probably mean you get a kick out of this game, so sure, get it.
If you've got more free time on your hands than you know what to do with, ditto.

But if your free time is at a premium, then you'd be better off saving your cash - as this game is VERY overpriced for what you get.

Wandering Mania
Wandering Mania

TLDR:

Get it on sale if you must, but be prepared to follow the guide to get anywhere.

The Full Review

After playing through the entire game, and doing everything there is to do, seeing almost all there is to see; My thoughts are as follows:

This is another one of those games where I wish there was more than just a 'yes' or 'no' option in the Steam reviews. I'll explain:

The Good

- Interesting story
- Decent artwork for the 'AO' scenes
- The Combat system is on par with some of the better RPGs out there*
- Varied gear and build options

The In-between

- *Some fights are downright 'cheater AI' level that require seeking outside assistance just to know how to attempt it
- A lot of this game also requires the walk-through/guide to explain it as none of it is fully explained in the game itself

The Bad

- No clear difficulty settings, if you want an 'easy' game you have to equip an item that locks out an entire equipment slot. Then later that equipment slot is also used for some other 'key item' pieces that block the zone's persistent damage debuffs for one party member. Not to mention, it also only removes a few of the 'key' fights, and really changes nothing else. Making it not so much of an 'easier' game at all, but having the reverse effect, because you can't remove it once equipped.

- No 'New Game+' that allows you to carry over all your equipment/skills

- A 'Mass Effect 3' style quest log, that tells you next to nothing about what your suppose to be doing, and there's not even a 'hint' system to supplement

- Bugs: I saw 3 random CTDs, and a fight that glitched out in the arena almost causing a full system lockup but the game did lockup and I had to re-do the fight.

Overview

All in all, it's an okay game. But with the lack of explanation, the requirement of the game guide/walk-through to even know what your suppose to be doing next, and a 'hidden' assumption of 'well, you should already know this because the guide' kind of mentality; If you must get it, get it on sale.

Grim8P
Grim8P

This game is fantastic and you should play it. I don't like writing long reviews so I'm going to hit the most important things in a few categories quickly so you can go play the game already.

Note: I have played a (completed) beta version of this game to completion twice. You can ignore Steam's stated time played. I've played this game for a little over 100 hours.

Art: This game has an immense amount of custom art: sex scenes, map sprites, maps, battle backgrounds, battle sprites, etc. And the art is fantastic. It honestly wouldn't surprise me if you forgot that you were played an RPG Maker game.

Combat: The combat is fast and fun. You have a large number of varying skills at your disposal that you gain access to at a good pace throughout the game. These skills allow you to successfully employ different strategies based on who or what you're fighting. A personal favourite of mine is that you can hold down the Shift key to speed up battle even further. As someone who usually turns animations off in games like Fire Emblem, this is a massive bonus.

Archetypes (Jobs/Classes): There are a good number of major and minor archetypes that grant access to skills and also change your stat distribution. Each archetype unlocks skills that support different playstyles. Each skill does something interesting or is useful in some way.

Plot/Characters: I don't want to spoil things, but the plot is interesting and the characters are great. Characters have interesting arcs. Things you think fall into the same old trope don't actually. Sierra Lee is great at deconstructing things and playing with your expectations in ways you will find satisfying.

Sex: Like all Sierra Lee games, sex is woven well into the story, characters, and the world itself. Sex scenes aren't there because it's time to see some tits. They work together with everything else to deliver a satisfying experience. There are few games that do this well in my experience but this is one of them.

Grinding: No, not really. You can grind experience or archetype points if you want but it isn't needed. If you fight every enemy once, you'll end the game at around level 37 and the cap is 40. You may want to do a bit of grinding to complete some of the hardest, completely optional content, but that's it. A lot of enemies are gone for good if you fight them once which also makes traversing the same area again later feel good if you're just trying to get through. Some enemies do respawn though so you can always grind if you want to.

Final Note: I like this game enough that I wrote a complete walkthrough for it. Take a look a the Steam Guides section if that interests you. I've done technical writing for a number of years but never decided to commit to a public walkthrough before now. Go play it already! =D

Andrew R
Andrew R

I'm still extremely early in the game ( Grandmother's House ) but what I see, I like.

Wish they would have implemented full controller support.

Alexstraza
Alexstraza

I for one am glad Ingrid chose violence instead of bimboification

LOLtohru
LOLtohru

(⊃。•́‿•̀。)⊃ Hugs for Ulfina! (⊃。•́‿•̀。)⊃

Memes aside, what is this game? Overall I'd say that it's an RPG with a genre-bending story and sexual content deeply integrated into the narrative. It would absolutely be a fun game without the sex scenes but it would be very hard to create a SFW version of it.

Gameplay: This refines the RPG wheel instead of reinventing it. There are modern features like visible enemies, autosaves, and a quest log. You have ATB turn-based combat with a heavy emphasis on manipulating the combat order, interrupting enemy attacks, and various other wrinkles. Equipment includes some standard upgrades but with three accessory slots there are lots of more strategic decisions. Characters learn skills from various classes and carry those skills forward so there's tons of customization potential. It's not going to change your mind if you hate RPGs but if you like this type of thing it's a very satisfying gameplay loop.

Story: By contrast the plot is something that feels very fresh! It takes place in a world composed of endless stories that runs on fairy tale logic. Characters who gain awareness can manipulate this to their advantage but it can also turn against them. There are a lot of lovable characters with unusual twists (like Ulfina the innocent wolf!) and more depth than you'd expect. Overall it's a very meta game about what stories mean to us and how the characters in them might feel about that.

Adult Content: You could make a list of all the fetishes but I want to argue that this has a kind of diversity you don't commonly see. There are a lot of adult games where you have various fetishes but all the scenes have essentially the same emotional content (ie there's a different sort of dong but the heroine is repeating basically the same lines). This one is remarkable in how it can be both really naughty and really wholesome along with all kinds of other flavors. If you like your sex with a lot of personality you'll have a great time!

Art: The primary artist is Crescentia and you can see your work for yourself! I want to highlight how much work has been put into the details. The villagers aren't just the generic ones you've seen in other games: they're actually unique sprites customized to match the faces and altered for each different dimension. Details all throughout have been changed to match the game's spirit and it's clear this is a real labor of love.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I supported this game through development and played an earlier version. But I enjoyed it so much that I bought it here and I'm going to play again on Steam. :)

empty-empath
empty-empath

This is such a wonderful game. I previously played a demo version and was enthralled, and I'm excited to finally finish it. The art is lovely, but what I loved most was how attached I felt to the characters. The story is very engaging, which is very important to me. The gameplay is enjoyable, and the game is well paced so far.

I should note that I've been successfully playing this on Linux using Steam's Proton support.

zhanne_omega
zhanne_omega

Ignore the time played: I've got a couple dozen hours in the Patreon Alpha for this game.

"I came for the 'Plot' and stayed for the plot," is a trope in hentai, but it applies here, as it does to basically every game Sierra Lee has made. This is quality porn, thoughtfully and intelligently put together. Highly recommend, and I look forward to what it'll be once the full release comes about.

Funkwolf
Funkwolf

I intend to play this game through to completion. There is nothing to dissuade me from doing so. I enjoy the subversive writing, the gameplay is functional and works as a good hook, I haven't yet found a bug, I enjoy the world that Sierra Lee has created and I like that the pornography in this game is built on good writing and fun characters. Once Ever After feels like a breath of fresh air compared to most other games in the genre.

Lunarectic
Lunarectic

It's a little HARD, but once you get to GRIPS with it, you'll have a good time.

grizzlyThresher
grizzlyThresher

It's a Sierra Lee game. If you've played any of her games before that should be all you need to know.

If you haven't, be prepared for some amazing characters, fantastic worldbuilding, well written subversions of classic tropes among the erotic RPG genre, and the sexiest existential dread you've ever experienced.

Sere
Sere

Have been looking forward to this release for a while now-- after playing the first few hours of the game, I'm definitely enjoying my time so far. Buying Sierra Lee's games will always be worth it to offer support for providing TLS alone-- the fact that this comes with another great story with nice art and CGs is just a cherry on top.

The combat system is fairly good too-- my only complaint would be that there's no fast mode for being able to rapidly skip through animations and whatnot, but it's not like the individual fights take up too much time anyways.

General_Jeno
General_Jeno

What is this game?
OEA is an RPGMaker based game, but with none of the default art or music. It's an adventure rpg with adult tones, but it's far from the main attraction here.

How's the gameplay?
It's quite standard for the most part, if you've played rpgmaker games before. But still, OEA offers some interesting angles. The Archetype system is a bit akin to Yakuza Like a Dragon. You can train up in different archetypes and use their skills. Worth exploring for and training.
Unlike the other big title of this developer, TLS, in OEA you can grind. Enemies respawn when you reload an area so you can just grind away. This is a downside for me, but it is what it is.

How's the story?
So far, really cool! It's a really interesting take on the classic red riding hood. It mixes alternate realities with time travel and more... It engages you really quick honestly :)

How's the art?
It's really well made! From the environments, character art, battle art and the CG's, I really dig the style.

Overall, really worth your time if you like this type of game!

Runtime Error
Runtime Error

I love how this games plot and gameplay have gone so far.

I like Sierra Lees games, but have often put them off to the side in favor of other things.

This game? I don't think I will.

drdahliarose69
drdahliarose69

I really love this game. The artwork is really hot and I'm looking forward to seeing more of it. Also the story is pretty interesting and I'm looking forward to playing more. :)

Orpheus
Orpheus

Pros (AKA reasons to play this game):
- Seriously great writing. Story is intriguing. Characters are colorful and interesting. There's a great balance between humor and drama.
- Customizable characters. The "Archetype" system for gaining new skills leaves each character distinct while also allowing for a lot of customization. It's a great system for party-building JRPG.
- Art. The artwork is simple and very charming. Sprites and maps are distinct and fit the setting. The occasional chibi art in cutscenes is great (the ones of Ingrid training with Brunhild as well as Ulfina's introductory scene are especially adorable). The artwork during the sex scenes is well made and vividly shows the emotions the characters are going through during the act.

Neutral (AKA things that are pretty good but not ones I'd consider a major factor in the game's enjoyability):
- Music is adequate, but nothing spectacular. It fits the scenes but never awes me.
- Sex. The sex scenes are ok. The art itself is very well-done, but it's not a game I would play just for the erotic content. A weird twist compared to most porn games - the actual plot is substantially better than the "Plot". It's far from bad though,

Cons (AKA reasons to be cautious about buying the game):
- Only real negative I'd consider so far is that the difficulty scaling is occasionally a bit wonky, going from quite easy to unexpectedly hard. This is only a minor quibble though, since I was able to overcome the more difficult parts with a little grinding and better use of the skills I had available. It's also worth noting that a number of the most difficult parts are either optional content, or optional failures (where failing the gameplay segment still results in progression through the story but worse gameplay rewards).

Conclusion: Overall, a great experience. For someone who's into JRPG style combat with an intriguing story about parallel universes and the nature of stories (plus some nice sex), this is a great pickup.

Tapdancing Kerensky
Tapdancing Kerensky

More RPG than adult game. The narrative is quite interesting and game mechanics are well developed. Can be quite challenging at times unless you take care to build your party up. The idea of skipping between worlds/stories with different tones felt refreshing - would have preferred slightly less combat to get to the next story element faster.

Trisk
Trisk

This is the sort of adult game where the adult content is the icing on the cake. It's very much worth playing for the story alone.

It's basically the story of a fictional character awakening. Becoming aware of the ways her world doesn't make sense, and its limitations. Learning to grow beyond the role she was made to fill. That original tale she comes from just happens to be a porn parody version of Little Red Riding Hood.

ruff1298
ruff1298

Hey, you like JRPGs that have more modern conveniences, designs, and tuning to be less of a chore and much more diverse with actual depth?

Do you enjoy Final Fantasy Job systems, where you switch between Jobs and unlock useful skills to gradually build and modify your party how you want them to play?

Do you want a sexy, NSFW story that isn't all about constantly fucking and having a world completely obsessed with sex, with serious heartwarming moments and real emotional connections between the characters when they have sex and discuss sexuality, along with a horrifying and dark twist on the nature of Fables, Fairy Tales, and their ever changing, ever recurring retellings and modifications?

Try this game out. It's trying something very different from other NSFW games you might have seen from RPG maker--a game that doesn't feel like an RPG with sexual content, but one that melds and weaves them both together for plot and porn.

Mage the Observer
Mage the Observer

When a slightly-dirty variant of Little Red Riding Hood goes off the rails, so begins an adventure exploring the story's meta, sexuality, and self-identity in a multiverse that almost actively enforces cliches.

Minor issues with spontaneous crashing in the mid-to-late game, especially during extended play. But you'll be so sucked into the story by then that you'll want to keep playing anyway. Save often, and remember that the first three files cycle an autosave.

The sex scenes are there, but sex itself isn't really the driving point of the story after the first five minutes or so of play. So if you're just looking for shallow fap material, this might not be your game.

But if you're looking for an engaging and challenging RPG that explores storytelling from the perspective of the characters? You'll want this game.

Lily Haze
Lily Haze

As can be expected from all of Sierra Lee's projects, Once Ever After is an incredible game. Its a rational and fun take on becoming aware of one's own reality, it's rules, and it's flaws. It is, broadly, the tale of Ingrid, and her journey of sex, shame, self-awareness, and learning to be yourself without shame (sex driven or otherwise).

It's also a fun and very competently executed RPG. Classes, abilities, secrets, bosses, puzzles - it's all here.

Can I recommend this product? Absolutely. Due to my support on Patreon I was entitled to a free copy, but I purchased this one anyways because I love Sierra Lee's works that much and want to see them succeed.

Rydd
Rydd

First, the usual review stuff:

Mechanically, this is a very good 'JRPG style' RPG. If that's a mode of game you enjoy, you will probably enjoy this one. If it's not, then you will dislike it for all the reasons you dislike others of its kind. That having been said, it does do some interesting things mechanically and has substantial replay value if you play the game blind. It also does not require grinding except - possibly - to overcome optional challenges. I had to do a little grinding in the post-game to beat the more challenging areas, but it might be possible to do it without that grinding if you were better at the game than I am.

This game has sex in it. If that bothers you, don't buy it. If that's the part of the reason you want to buy it, then I presume nothing I say here will have as much impact as whatever other criteria you use to judge such things.

More than most, the mechanics of the characters are tied into their personalities.
Each of the 4 PCs can be viably customized in variations along their core theme by choosing which abilities you take, and which you choose to activate at any given time. This limits the variability in that you can't, say, change a fighter into a mage, but you can specialize each character within their general type. In this instance, I prefer this to something that would have given all characters potential access to all (or most) abilities, but would have then made them much less unique.

The combat was challenging, but not excessively so.
It wasn't unusual to have to change tactics to overcome a new enemy, and this continued to be the case throughout the game. However, except for some optional fights, changing tactics was generally sufficient to overcome each enemy - except when I was trying to take on a challenge intended for later in the game, changing the approach to the fight was a better solution than simply trying to get higher levels.

The plot is fantastic, and each character is well developed.
Even secondary characters saw as much or more development than that usually given to main characters in titles by large studios. The two-dimensional characters were intentionally two-dimensional, rather than cyphers created by incompetent writing and poor development. The plot certainly has the potential to surprise, and it takes up the tropes it deals with in interesting ways. There's a lot of creativity and heart to the writing, and it gets my highest recommendation. Most importantly, its actually interesting.

Much like finishing a really good book, having played through to the second (real?) ending makes me want to sit down and talk about it with someone else over a cup of tea. The game has strong mechanics and would be worth recommending merely on those, but its real draw is the strength of the writing and the interesting, character-driven story.

The very best games use their mechanics to bring greater impact to their narrative; this is one way that good games distinguish themselves from visual novels punctuated by interludes of gameplay. Once Ever After succeeds at this very difficult task in a way that remains compelling from start to finish.

Orpheus
Orpheus

This game is a gem.
Unlike other H-games, it has a marvelous setting, characters, and ACTUAL plot to keep you engaged far beyond the sexy time (of which there is plenty). Everything from the emotes to the mechanics are thoughtfully bound into the "storybook" motif. Your PCs can swap freely between archetypes, such Woodsman, Wolf, and Girl (Slut) essentially allowing you to multi-class fairy-tale roles. Beyond being a cool mechanic, it defines the characters you meet along the way, turning a trope into a law of nature.
And speaking of tropes, Sierra Lee does an excellent drop of turning them on their head, which anyone who's played many H-Games will appreciate immensely. What if sex -wasn't- everything a girl needed to be happy? What if a guy -didn't- take advantage of a girl's self-worth issues to get laid?
Without giving any of the plot away, I can say that this is well worth the price of admission.

evan.carden
evan.carden

Excellent so far. Quite a lot of content, no bugs. Unlike the usual adult game, it has a plot which is both interesting and good.

tactiletour
tactiletour

This game is amazingly written (as is standard for Sierra Lee titles)! Compared to her other Steam released titles, this has all the existential nihilism and philosophical conversations you may have come to expect, but compared to a title like Ouroboros, the sex scenes are much better integrated into the story and are a more important part of the storytelling. With a small core cast of characters you really come to know and care about, Once Ever after is a story of self-discovery and self-definition, no matter how many godlike beings you piss off or rules of reality you have to violate in order to carve your own path. Sierra is a passionate and innovative fan of RPGs and always brings that creative energy not only to her narrative writing, but also to coming up with unique and fun gameplay mechanics both in combat and out of it! And as always, she loves sticking secrets and secret variables throughout the game that give it replay value and gives the game's world a feeling of depth and reactivity to your actions. I would definitely recommend this game to anyone, especially those who like games with porn and adult themes, but still like to engage their brain and get sucked into a world and narrative!

ryplinn
ryplinn

A delightful, sex-positive exploration and deconstruction of authorship, tropes both fairy tale and porny, and grappling with one's own nature, with adorable characters. As bonuses, the combat is varied and engaging, and the RPG elements provide a wide range of interesting choices. This is also one of the most gorgeous RPG Maker games I've ever seen; custom UI and assets abound.

Nasredin
Nasredin

Amazing game.
It blends the comfortable familiarity of a story you all know with crazy innovative spins. It explores new interesting ideas in a very meta sense. The balance of fights and puzzles are always good. You need to think for certain fights.

I came in for sex and stayed for the story.

Candy Cultist
Candy Cultist

Not having voiced / sound effects on H-Scenes is not forgiveable nowadays.
Same goes for not beign able to rebind controls and million other things.

As with msot Indie Games (and especially sex games) this is a very cheap, poorly executed piece of work that could be so much more...

Also the story has been told a million times already, coming of age, breaking out of old habits etc etc etc blablabla

Anonymous
Anonymous

Sierra Lee has a knack for taking mechanics and story tropes that in any other game would be well worn conventions, and flipping them on their heads so that they become fascinatingly new and deep. I actually thought this game would be a bog standard eroge (nothing wrong with that), but within 15 minutes it was clear Once Ever After is something special. I was captivated by the story and characters really quickly, it's really clear that the developer, Sierra Lee plotted this game out meticulously, almost everything is engaged in the plot in some fashion or another. I won't spoil the plot, but the level of meta-commentary on stories and specifically RPG and Eroge games is hilariously well integrated into this game. She was even able to integrate that into the game mechanics! Mechanically this game is based on RPGMaker MV, but it diverges far enough that the gameplay always feels fresh and exciting. The character development system uses something called archetypes, similar to the Final Fantasy Jobs system, to allow characters to access new skills which is actually very well implemented.

Overall the game is extremely well polished and executed, the art is impeccable, the gameplay is fun, the story and characters are incredible. The only critique I have is that in the beginning the difficulty curve is actually kind of steep, but there's a clear story-based reason for this so it gets a bit of a pass from me at least. It does require some focused grinding to get over the steep level of the curve. The erotic aspect is well woven in and tasteful, in fact you could say it drives the plot. Overall it's an amazing game, good erotica, and a wonderful story! Longer than I expected also. By quality standards I would not have guessed this wasn't developed by AliceSoft or another larger indie developer. The fact that it was pulled off basically by a one woman shop is just amazing!

jamesthemighty4
jamesthemighty4

It's Sierra Lee, and if you're familiar with her work then that should be a sign you're in for a good time, if you don't know who she is, she's the maker of a number of other incredibly well-written games like Ouroboros or Desecration of wings. The price is a bit higher than usual, but that's just reflecting the amount of time and polish that went into making what's probably her biggest finished adventure yet, plus the custom assets used for almost everything. I'd highly recommend you look at ouroboros if you're not sure about the price, since it's only 5 bucks for a nice 8-ish hours as a test of sierra's style.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I came for Crescentia's awesome artwork but got sucked in by the colorful characters, superior storytelling, wonderful world-building, and the tight, strategic turn-based battles. Will be checking out more of this Dev's works in the future.

Ulfina best girl.

corpsmarine99
corpsmarine99

Sorry but too much of a grind in this game, very little guides, extremely hard to stay alive in any aspect and there's no actual animation for sex at all. Worst $20.00 I've ever spent.

Empathaur
Empathaur

There is a complete game here, which is unusual for Early Access (a good thing lol).

If you are familiar at all with the developer, buying the game is a no brainer. If you're not familiar, don't let the RPGmaker format turn you off immediately. There are thousands of games made with these tools, but the dev really gets the most out of them.

There is porn in the game, yes, but I wouldn't really consider it a "porn game". If that is what you are expecting, you'll be let down. If you're in the mood for a clever, well made, j-style rpg that has some 18+ themes, then you really can't go wrong.

Frosty
Frosty

Most if not all Sierra Lee games are the literal phrase of "I play for the plot". The sexy stuff is simply a bonus.

kulnaro216
kulnaro216

Played before it came to Steam. Great game.

Desertopa
Desertopa

If you're already familiar with Sierra Lee, you probably have a pretty good idea what to expect from this game, and don't really need any reviews to tell you if it's worth checking out.

If you're not already familiar with Sierra Lee, here are some things you should know.

-Don't let the adult content fool you into thinking this isn't a legit RPG. Most 18+ RPGs are basically porn gated by extremely half-assed RPG-style gameplay. Once Ever After is an artfully crafted classic-style RPG which *contains* porn.

-It's actually well written, and not just "well written for a porn game," or "well written for an indie game." If you go into it assuming it's only trying to live up to the standards of porn games, and that the intended audience consists of people who self-identify as degenerates, you may not enjoy it very much, but if you go into it hoping for a game with wit and character, it'll probably exceed your expectations.

-It's not a game with porn chucked into it as an extra. There are at least a few games out there which have genuinely worthwhile gameplay or story, and also have some sexual content thrown in on the assumption that it'll play better with the target audience. The whole Utawarerumono Strategy RPG/VN series for example started off with an 18+ game before the studio decided to retool the series for general audiences. Once Ever After could not be retooled as a SFW game without making nonsense of the plot. If you want a game which will deliver a constant, uninterrupted stream of sexual content, this probably isn't the game you're looking for, but if you find the sex more enjoyable when it's actually integrated into the narrative, it's definitely worth checking out.

Paper Rabbit
Paper Rabbit

I enjoyed the dev's other games and thought this one would be right up my ally too. The writing is still the best part but then there's that other thing...

Even though Steam says I have 31 hours of playtime, my actual ingame timer finishes at around 10 hours in. What are those other 21 hours coming from? Me bonking my head against the game: loading from an earlier save point, restarting the prologue because I thought I missed something, dying a lot... There were also a lot of resets. So so many resets... I did NOT enjoy the RPG part.

The very bad:
RPG combat is painful.

The deal breaker for some:
H scenes placement / pacing issue

The good that's really undermined by the bad:
Le plot

Lacking RPG combat

Everything above a mid-boss seems to outgun AND outrun you easily about 30-40% into the game. Optional enemies basically jump the fucking shark when it comes to difficulty too. Everyone else has every possible status debuff attacks except you. At most you get a Slow and a thing that disrupts enemy's Charge. Enemies' Charge in stacks, so you need multiple skills to disrupt that one POS while I should be healing. Can't even slow down the enemies because Slow isn't always consistent or working as intended. So I just wasted a skill slot and a turn for no reason while this walking nuke is easily squeezing his turn inbetween my attacker/healer. The Arena is a painful reminder of how little you are given to work with while I was getting easily spammed with AOE spells that would wipe my party in 2 hits by Sonic speed assholes when team heals are not readily available until quite late in the game. Meanwhile the amount of HP feels woefully inadequate. At near max level (39/40) the squishy character is around 2200 and the "tank's" 3k were getting hit easily by normal attacks that can do 1-1500 even with the best shop bought gears possible. If enemy crits basically it's GG, and their crit chance is stupidly high. So even my group heals could barely if at all keep up with the damage being dealt. Recovery items may be cheap, but the damage AND speed of it being dealt outpaces these singular use items. And since level cap is low, grinding to overkill things isn't possible either. Though considering how much I fed stat boost items to characters to make the game feel 'fair', there's a balance issue.

The piddly stat boosts from skills and armor feel incredibly negligible. The game only started to feel balanced after I used save edit to feed my characters stat boosting items by the twenties. The amount of resets I need to do pre-save edit was just absurd. Enemy crit chances are ridiculously high for late game content when those same assholes will spam you with plenty of status ailments. This game loves its status ailments and added even more to them. Do I get any of these cool status ailments to even the playing field? NO! Cripes. If you really want to make RPG battles complicated and still fun, you give the players something to work with too. Status effects in Shin Megami Tensei and the Dragon Quest series are actually USEFUL and FUN when available to the player. For fuck's sake I'm controlling a literal bimbo character and she can't even fucking charm any enemies?

Class system

Archetypes is this game's Class system. Pick a class, dump points into it to learn useful skills. The usual stuff. Except... Not always that useful. Presentation is a problem. I do not know what the skill tree is at a glance. New skill and its description only shows up after you learn a certain skill that's not even marked as a pre-req. And as briefly touched upon in the earlier section, not a lot of options to work with. There are the stat boosting/ailment blocking passives, some basic variety of damaging attacks, 0 status ailments, magic fire attack 1, slightly different magic fire attack 2... Picking specific Archetype does affect character's stats in different ways, so the game does encourage you to experiment. For whatever little there is to play with. Frankly, even with all skills mastered I don't feel the party is particularly buff or anything. Some thoughts are obviously put into making this system, but it just feels underwhelming. Desecration of Wings (dev's previous RPGMaker game) had a better balance of everything and made sense. That game I do recommend, this not so much.

Guide required

I felt I need to constantly have a guide open in the background to avoid missing potentially really good items. I did even with typical map exploration. All because of damn event points. An actually useful and very good accessory I missed in a very early game event. Yeah I'm salty about it. It's not a fun way to play. But this game doesn't operate on the usual RPG principles due to its narrative.

Is it a porn game?

I would call it a Sierra Lee game, but not a porn game in the traditional sense.

I enjoyed the story aspect. There are some very interesting topics and directions worth going into. PC's character development makes sense, but... There's a pacing issue. More of PC's personal conflict (that could lead to plausible sex encounters) could've been introduced before the ending. For the post ending content PC's events practically exploded in many ways, including lewd content.

This game is in a very awkward place. Because it is in the same space as all the other JRPG adult games, people tend to have certain expectations: High concentration of sex with maybe some semblance of plot. OEA is the reverse. Writing first, sex follows. Even though it may not necessarily announce itself as one, but the store's screenshots tend to give potential buyers the wrong impression: "Slutty bimbo character. Lots of sex. Oooh la la~" 5/14 Steam store screenshots depict sexual acts, with nothing that points to how the writing may be this creator's strongest forte. For some, having the steamy stuff spaced so far out is a definite minus. I'm a buyer who has played dev's other games and have a different kind of expectations so that's not a big factor to me, but it will be for NEW players. Yes the game have dick and boobs, but the way the sex is used here is... I find it difficult to call it a regular porn game because the kind of utility people might expect isn't... at that level or necessarily intended for it...? It's a marketing problem really.

Not recommended as an RPG game

Because I did play Desecration of Wings I do have a certain expectations for this game. The combat killed whatever enjoyment I had for this game. The sense of progression feels wonky not only because of the Archetype system but also how PC meanders through the levels plus the problems being presented to her. The main antagonists feel lacking despite how powerful they are. The sense of urgency just isn't felt. Heck, even with the best ending it still feels like there are still some unresolved business. I don't feel very satisfied or fulfilled from the ending, or maybe the RPG part killed it. Hard to say at this point. The RPG elements could work but it requires some simplifying or at the very least, some serious balancing. Some games do have options that turn on/off the combat option to just allow for a Storyteller mode. This game could use that. Would've saved me hours of pointless resetting/guide crawling.

VC3 Blackheart
VC3 Blackheart

Under normal circumstances, I would give this game an up vote. The story is interesting enough, the combat is difficult but fun, and the art is great.

The issue is this is not what I bought the game for, It (at least according to the images) is advertised as a sexual game, but you see 3 scenes at the start and then nothing after 2 and a half hours later. When they do pop up its meh at best. I wish I timed myself playing this because I would ask for a refund but sadly I passed the 2 hour point.

Anonymous
Anonymous

plenty of content and story. thank god for the "cheat" item assistance to help speed combat along.

Fireball
Fireball

good story but too much grind. H-scene is just 5% of this game or lower

joshuatheonewatkins
joshuatheonewatkins

This is some of the most fun I've had in a video game in quite some time, Highly recommend.

ThroatSlop
ThroatSlop

I have to say this is probably one of the best games I have played in quite some time. As you can tell I have dumped several days into the game and still have yet to beat it. I find myself trying to explore all the possible avenues and the story is quite refreshing. I am looking to see more what the creator has in store for the content!

Pros:
Satisfying Story
Satisfying linear leveling system
Satisfying choice
Meaningful 'adult' choices
Unpredictable story (when first playing through)
Good music choice for combat

Cons:
The outfits don't (currently as of 23 Apr 2022) change how the characters look.
Lack of bad end paths
No map (would enjoy a diablo overlay perhaps or even just a map tab)

[CTY] eepness
[CTY] eepness

Amazing story telling, awesome game play. Dev actively working on improvements, i look forward to it all!

ELDT
ELDT

First of all I have to say that this review is coming from someone who has played Sierra Lee's games before off of Steam, specifically The Last Sovereign, Ouroboros, and Desecration of Wings. So I already know I like their general writing style and design method. I'm just going to go over quickly the highlights of the game and some of the problems I did find.

-A really good story that I found to be interesting with interesting characters and themes. Imagine that the power of Plot is an actual metaphysical force in this world that the characters must either escape from, use, or live with this force. The world itself is fascinating and does follow rules that can be observed and makes me genuinely curious about other fables and worlds in the lore. Add to that a quite thematically diverse main cast and you've got an entertaining story

-Gameplay wise it's a relatively standard RPG maker game, using turn based combat and a job system. Each party member has a set of Archetypes (think FF Jobs) they can utilize and thee standard equipment and levelling to gain power is here as well. What's unique about Once Ever After however is in its execution. The fluff around the game mechanics is quite excellent, meshing well with the themes of the story. Each character has a subset of unique set of core archetypes that come with skills that can be slotted in or removed by the player's choice. AND then there are minor archetypes you can gain throughout the story either by purchasing them or doing an optional sidequest to get them. These minor archetypes can be learnt by any party member. The combination of major and minor archetypes for each character make for an extreme amount of versatility for each party member, allowing a lot of player choice to contribute to overall power.

Finally the last thing of note that I found in the gameplay section is the optional challenges. There are many optional challenges in the game that I found extremely fun to crack and offers pretty cool rewards. (As a minor spoiler, near the start of the game in one of the first true combat areas, try to get through the dungeon without any help.) I found myself using the archetype system extensively trying to mix and match skills to tailor my party for each optional challenge and found that pretty rewarding.

-Regarding the NSFW content, I deeply enjoy Sierra Lee's writing of sex scenes. It is text heavy and plot heavy though, with a lot of mention of the emotional state of the people having sex as much as the physical acts themselves. I found the characters and relationships in the game very good as well, with some good synergy between the people having sex if you're into that aspect of porn. I found the CG art for the sex scenes to be quite good, though I lack any experience with the artist beforehand.

-Now I do have some minor gripes and caveats for the general customer.

First of all, if you don't like NSFW content beyond just the CGs and sex scenes, you might not enjoy this game. A lot of the story resolves around the main character's sexuality and how she discovers herself after discovering her entire world is a set piece in some story. Therefore I'd say the idea of sex and sexuality is deeply ingrained within the story and if that makes you uncomfortable then you probably won't enjoy this game.

Second, this game is very plot and text heavy. If you enjoy reading and interacting with the story, this will be a feast of a game for you. If not then there are a lot of elements in the game you will NOT enjoy.

Thirdly, there is a bit of unstability in the game resulting in crashes usually near the end of the game. It didn't bother me however as the game does come with a robust auto-save system with three slots and save every screen transition. So whenever the game crashed for me I never lost any real progress. Still it's something to keep in mind.

Finally the game does have an easier mode through the usage of some over powered items given early on. It's up to you whether you use them, but I found that they will invalidate many of the genuinely well thought out encounters in the game, so there are elements lost by doing this. As stated before, something to keep in mind.

TLDR: A pretty good story with some interesting character progression systems make for a game I didn't regret spending money on. The story is the star here and if you don't like reading or deep though regarding plots, then this might not be the game for you.

gcle1979
gcle1979

The story is quite interresting but... 1 H Scene every hour of gameplay, no repetability ... Very linear.

I dont ask a refund cause I want to support creator of porn game but i'm sad about this one.

PingZing
PingZing

First: this is not a porn game. It features pornographic content, and the main character is a self-described "slut", but the writing takes great pains to examine what that actually means, and deconstruct many common "porn game" archetypes and tropes.

Instead, this is a remarkably thoughtfully-written RPG, with the occasional sex scene, not terribly unlike many headline shows on HBO.

It is relatively standard JRPG fare, but with a degree of tight coupling between gameplay and story elements that I find deeply satisfying. It features an "Archetype" system not unlike one of the many Final Fantasy's Job systems. Adding to the narrative heft, however, each archetype is associated with in-universe characteristics. A Woodsman is a stalwart protector, while a Wolf is a powerful force of violence. For a person to adopt an archetype not intrinsic to them takes a good deal of introspection and self-exploration.

The combat is sparse, but punchy--most enemy encounters are different enough that some consideration to skill choice can make the difference between a slog and a breeze, and grinding is discouraged. There is the occasional difficulty spike, and one or two sections that turn into a bit of a slog, but between the developer's ongoing balancing efforts, and the addition of "easy mode" items, these are forgivable sins. There are occasional "guide dang it" moments, where it's clear that one strategy is the True and Correct answer, but happening upon that answer is not necessarily intuitive. And unfortunately, many of those moments are early in the game. It rarely blocks progress, but it can result in less-rewarding outcomes for certain events, which can make subsequent sections slightly harder.

The story, as I alluded to above, is refreshingly thoughtful. It has major themes of exploring who you are, and what it means to break away from the roles and archetypes that life sets for you. Its four main characters have real chemistry, and the story takes the time necessary to develop it between the four of them, using both dialogue between each other, as well as supporting characters. The broad thrust of the story is simple: you begin as Sexy Red Riding Hood. Soon, you learn that you are merely one of infinite variations of Red Riding Hoods. After a brief misadventure, you return to your little town, but suddenly life seems a little duller, a little less fulfilling...
What follows is as much a typical Hero's Journey as it is a journey of self-understanding.

In short? If you like games with good writing, are willing to tolerate occasionally-frustrating (but mostly good!) combat, and find the occasional sex scene a welcome distraction, I'd highly recommend this game.

KielDawnset
KielDawnset

I can for the adult game, half way through the game i skipped through all the adult content and focused more on the gameplay. story is pretty good, and I would equate the battle system with an old Final Fantasy game. this game is amazing and well worth the buy. cheap for a good 20-40hrs of game play (even holding speed up mechanics etc, I found full game + post game to be 33hrs of gameplay. which makes this well worth the investment. you get alot less from some games in this category for a heftier price.

sin0chain
sin0chain

ive never reviewed a game before, but this one actually felt like it needed it. honestly one of the best porn games ive ever played. the trope "came for the PLOT but stayed for the plot" fits it so well, since the story is amazing, well worth the 15$ i got it for

Albinobadger
Albinobadger

I found Once Ever After pleasantly different from other porn games. The gameplay and story are both more complicated than most of the games in the genre.

FakeKraid
FakeKraid

This is a JRPG with some adult content, not really a hentai game. For me, that's a plus, not a minus, but if you're looking for a game with quick, easily accessible H-scenes to get off to, you're going to be disappointed with this game. If you're looking for one with good writing, pretty decent gameplay, and interesting and evocative world-building, you're going to be very, very happy with both this game and most of Sierra Lee's other games as well, because that's what she makes. The sex scenes are there for flavor, and usually reflect story themes in some way.

To be honest, I'd categorize this as an "adult game" more in the sense that it's a game for adults than that it's porn, particularly since one of the major themes of the game's story is the literal childishness of pornographic portrayals of sexuality even from a generally sex-positive standpoint. It would be impossible to tell the story as it's written without the H-scenes, or at least without heavily implying them, because it's a story in part about sex and the different roles it can play in stories and in people's lives. If you've played any of the developer's games before, you won't be surprised at any of this because that's true of most of her games.

At present, I have frequent issues with performance and stability playing on my Windows Surface, but I think that has more to do with RPGMaker than it does with anything special about the game, and chances are if you play it on a real PC you won't encounter anything like that. You may encounter some bugs and there is content still to be added to the game, but on the whole it's a complete product now and absolutely worth the time and money.

Robi Nico Nii
Robi Nico Nii

If you want game with some challenge and decent amount of sex screnes (Not over the top) then this is right choice for you

PringleMan
PringleMan

That one time you bought a porn game, and totally forgot to fap because it was just too much fun to actually play.

Johnbowethejoker
Johnbowethejoker

Another Sierra Lee banger, pun only slightly intended.

Steve
Steve

Okay first thing, I have played for over 6 hours. Love it so far, the story is good the battle system is good. This game by this Dev is the first one i have played. Great story telling mechanics keep it up!

Waxer
Waxer

Solid Game. Great story, Great art, Great combat. I'm a short way in so far, and I'm excited to see what else is coming.

As5Hat
As5Hat

Sierra really is one of the best adult game makers which focus on story and have adult content woven in naturally, not super akward and cringe like 99% of these types of games. This one is great. Use a guide if you need help, theres one online available

HappyDalek
HappyDalek

TL:DR review
Great story that plays on a multiverse style of (generally) 1 story. But don't expect a lot of porn and don't expect any monster/tentacle porn. No censorship, well drawn. Buy for the story, not the porn

-Game play fights use the basic RPG maker turned based battle format - there is a lot of it, but the maker has given items to allow players to avoid the grind if you just want the story. Since there is no GAME OVER scenes, there is no reason not to get these unless you really want to grind grind grind.
-Archetypes are Jobs/Classes. Annoying to remember that points earned on 1 job doesn't transfer to other jobs, but is a fun idea on the idea of the characters, mainly Ingrid, branching away from being a bimbo and becoming more than what "god" wanted her to be.
-The game has had some updates to help players get around the grind and collecting money issues. But I won't hold it against you if you use RPG save editor to boost your stats and gold. >.>

World exploration - It isn't very rewarding for those who explore heavily before going to next goal. You might get some chests, but there aren't many places where going off track is rewarding. It's pretty linear until the end where loose ends can finally be tied up.

Sex scenes - all humanoid. Good for those who want vanilla, but there are so many adult games with the RPGmaker setup where sex gets more... unique that if I had to suggest an adult game to someone who wanted to try their first, this MIGHT just make the list.
1 scene implies an orgy of girl on pack of wolves. NOPE, all humanoid with tuffs of fur here and there. There is an orc scene, but it's still humanoid at the end of the day.
Overall this game is more about the story than the sex scenes and that's not bad, but the store page on a quick glance can be misleading for what a horny pervert might be looking for.
The art style is well drawn but knowing that the scenes where vanilla and generic, they just didn't grab my attention
Also it might feel like hours between sex scenes.

The story - I love it. I have thought about stuff like this when it comes to a multiverse. Red Riding Hood on the other hand wasn't in that thought process, but still fun nonetheless. The grinding can slow it down a bit.
-At the beginning of the game the player is shown the 2 bars that will show Ingrid's growth throughout the game. When I saw it I groaned for a overused concept... That said, I love the twist with it shortly later on. But I made trying to "max" out this bar so much that I was backtracking just to see if 1 piece of growth would apply more growth to something else that I couldn't do earlier on.
-I would kinda like it if there could be a play through where Ingrid goes through her story unaffected by the external events.

Overall I love this game for all the reasons I didn't want, nor expected, it to be. I wanted a porn game, I got a great story line instead, but I don't recommend it for people looking for wank material.

tfreeves9
tfreeves9

Great game so far. Actually good story and concept. Challanging and fun.

gray_dana
gray_dana

I've been following SierraLee for a while now, playing the awesome games they've made available for free up until this point. When this game was released, I didn't hesitate to spend a little money if for no other reason than to support more games like The Last Sovereign. The game certainly doesn't disappoint!
If you're a fan of story driven JRPG's, this gives you a rich, captivating story with well written, thoughtful dialogue. Don't let the fact that there are NSFW parts to this game fool you into expecting the usual "main character runs around collecting art" games that most people put out. The hentai aspect of the game seems to truly take a back seat to excellently executed game mechanics and the story at the heart of the game.
Take it from a penny pincher who hates paying for anything: This game is worth every penny!

derpadoodle
derpadoodle

dont waste your time or money. its a asinine grind. daughter of essence is a much better game

Anonymous
Anonymous

Another great game by Sierra Lee

Bookman
Bookman

When it comes to RPG Maker games, what sets them apart is the story. Right? Well Once Ever After has a story worth your time.

It starts from a seemingly simple idea, but one with a lot of depth, and then seizes that idea and runs with it to explore all sorts of possibilities. You journey far away from home, meet friends, fight enemies and learn a great deal about this world of magic and fables and very human problems. The writing is top notch, the mysteries worth solving and the humor is fun and saucy without crossing the line, at least IMO.

As you can tell from the trailer and screenshots, this game also includes mature content in it. You can expect quite a number of well-written scenes to go along with those pictures, but I must warn players that if you pick it up expecting a dozen scenes within the first hour, then you will be sorely disappointed. This game makes you work for these scenes, (well not counting some freebies from the prologue) and I count this as a strength, not a weakness, because scenes with content and meaning to them so much better than just losing to random monsters to get plowed.

The world is also quite large, although individual areas are small enough that they remain easy to navigate, and as you explore and revisit old areas, you get to see what changed, which enemies got stronger, which NPCs have new dialogue lines, etc. I needed just around 27 hours to reach "an ending", but I sometimes returned to check if I cleared out old areas, or I stuck around to grind a little, so I'm sure you could beat it faster, in 24 hours, maybe in 20 if you follow a guide? But that just brings me to start the postgame, where many loose ends await tying up, many a tale still needs its happy ending.

Finally, this is a game from Sierra Lee. If you already know her, you know that's she makes high quality games (RPG Maker and not only), particularly when it comes to writing likeable characters and weaving a fascinating story. So if you like this one, there's more awaiting, particularly The Last Sovereign, which is free.

Big thanks to Sierra Lee for making this amazing game, and good luck with all your other projects. ^_^

Celestyn
Celestyn

Familiar tale but with a VERY different spin on it. Gotta love the meta approach to the storytelling as a setting in it self. The initial sillyness quickly gives way to very intriguing story which incorporates the unique mechanics along with it, building on the concept, rather than just being there for the sake of the combat part of RPG Maker games, even becoming sort of meta commentary of the usual RPG elements of grinding for experience points. I would recommend this game to anyone old enough to see past the "porn" elements that are very much part of the overall story, and enjoy it for what it trully is - a great game.

Hope the creators have an idea for a sequel, cause I'd very much love to revisit this setting, with all its endless potential, and perhaps see the loveable characters again.
10/10 - its a steal for its asking price.

Mixed Feelings
Mixed Feelings

It's the first Sierra Lee's game I bought and I loved every aspect of it from start to finish.

-This game is a very fun turn based RPG to play.
-The story is an interesting twisted narrative of a fable that we know.
-The art is superb and the porn is well integrated in the story without it being the main focus.
-The characters are unique and grow through the story.
-The music is good to listen to and is different in many parts of the game.
-The mechanics are about character stats, picking skills/gear and blocking status effects/debuffs.
-The grind is average. It's easy to reach max level and get the best ending in a single playthrough.

OVERALL

I highly recommend it if you are a fan of RPG turned based games with a great story. This game might be for you. I don't recommend it if you are looking ONLY for fap material. I took my time and completed everything it has to offer thus why I have over 50 hours of playtime. It is worth every penny.

zodac01
zodac01

This game does for Little Red Riding Hood and fairy tales what the spiderverse did for spiderman. It is an intriguing, imaginative rpg with a good amount of humour, good art, and artfully told story. I'd recommend it.

Damien Bloodstone
Damien Bloodstone

This is a very good game! The store was great, the graphics are very good-including the sex art ( done without any kind of censorship at all, the best, for that is what truly makes an adult game-adult), the music was fitting and good, the game mechanics are pretty good, but do need some ironing out, it kicked me out a few time and shut down, but this is an early access game so I was expecting some problems, but other than the flickering at certain point and shutting down a few times they worked and worked well! Now the only thing that this game truly is missing is what most of these games are missing and that is full and solid animation in the sex scenes, if you can get a handle on that you would definitely have an edge on a lot of other companies out there! I really do enjoy this game though, but it will be a while before I play it through again! I need to forget a lot about it! Hope everybody else has as much fun with it as I did!

Jambus
Jambus

Sierra Lee consistently proves what an excellent storyteller they are with this game, especially when it comes to deconstructing genres and subverting expectations. The plot, the characters, and the gameplay all weave together to create a fantastic experience, along with Crescentia's amazing artwork. If the porn aspect doesn't bother you (and I'm guessing if it does you would have already left), I highly recommend this game.

If I had to pick one thing I love most, it's the layers of meta the story reaches. It is laid out in a very straightforward way, but it breaks through the meta in such a way that sucked me deeper into the universe of the game. Again, though, the characters are incredible.

Prexot
Prexot

First, the positives. The whole setup of the world is conceptually very interesting. I don't want to spoil, but I'll say that it's a genius "twist on a twist". It's also, conceptually, refreshing unusual to have a game where an important goal is the debimbofication of the protagonist.

I say "conceptually" because while the story sounds cool in theory and it has some very good ideas, it is not enjoyable to play whatsoever. First off, it's made in RPG Maker, and I say that with all the disgust I can muster. The menus are poorly laid out; they're a pain to traverse on keyboard/gamepad and everything takes two clicks for no reason with mouse. Every battle is a drawn-out stupid basic slugging match where you repeatedly have each party member use one of two attacks or heals turn after turn and you hope that the enemy doesn't kill you with a random crit. There's like a whole "archetype" class system which is, again, conceptually interesting but it's pretty much obsolete past the early game, as the main archetypes give you better stats and passives that do five times as much as the smaller archetypes at no downside.

Even putting aside my gameplay related complaints, the rest of the game is not well designed or enjoyable either. The sex scenes are placed sparsely and suddenly, and as far as I can tell they're not even repeatable. They're also written very flowery and poorly, and I personally don't like the artstyle. Speaking of the artstyle, the in-battle art is an eye-hurting mixture of several different styles, with pixel party members (that only have like three animations each), static non-pixel enemies and backgrounds, and stock RPG Maker visual effects.

I bought this game because I liked "Don't Save the Princess", and I have to say that I couldn't possibly be more disappointed. This game is mechanically trash and I wouldn't recommend for anybody to even waste their time playing it even if it was free.

todpolle
todpolle

I was having difficultly writing this review. Mainly cause I don't understand the corruption flavor enough and I've seen other stories where the characters are aware they are in a story. Plus the combat is the standard RPGMaker with only simple class system. So I guess it's a quick review.

Pros:
-The prologue is brilliant.
-Ingrid is a great main character. It's nice to see a character who learns that it's okay that she likes sex and that she's smarter than she realises at first. I just think she's neat.
-I'm a sucker of opposite attract so of course I think tragic angst ridden Wilhelm and adorable attention starved Ulfina are an adorable couple
-Dungeons are short but they do the job well and most bosses require some strategy to beat them which is always a point in a RPG's favor. Also, until the end-game
-Despite almost area being a forest, the different themes, set-pieces and even shading and lightning make each tale unique.

Neutral:
-While I understood some of the lore like what tales and fables are, what a dreamer is, other stuff just went over my head.
-I think it also leads why Hood is my least favorite party member despite being very useful in combat cause she feels like an exposition fairy at times. At least she and Fenris are a healthy couple so they have that going for them.
-I really like the UI. It's no Persona 5 but it's simple, clear and I like that the background colour changes depending if their targeting friends or foes.

Cons:
-While I understood the easy mode equipment would be impossible to remove, it never told me it would remove boss fights. I only put them on during the end-game quest and I was surprise when I didn't fight a monster that was built up throughout the game. Also I think I skipped the real final boss.

Ildun
Ildun

As usual when come to Sierra Lee's game, please ignore Early Access, tags or art you dislike and try it. This game has very good and unique story, world building and character. It will be an amazing journey. The game play and music also help make it an even more enjoyable journey.

However I have to be honest, I'm feeling a bit bit disappointed. I knew it is unfair to compare this with The Last Sovereign, but the impact that latter game gave me is too big.