Game – Amayui Castle Meister
NOTICE: ACM is a lewd SRPG game. If not of age, do not play.
Time to 100%* (CG completion not true 100%) –
Playthrough 1: 118:59 [hr:min]
Playthrough 2: 24:54
Playthrough 3: 65:54
Total Time: 209:47
Quick statement about the playthrough time… That is only the total from active and saved gameplay. First playthrough had fallen asleep with game open 3 times, about an extra 20ish hours over what it should be. Additional time that wouldn’t be included is about 4, in a dungeon that takes a while then got game over screen. True time to complete is ~200 hours give or take.
The Main Game -
This is quite a big one hehe. Will be more spoilers in here than usual reviews.
As per usual with vnjrpg style games there is a buildup to fighting gods. Pretty normal though considering all the lore from Eushally titles. We start out with out boi Avaro, who is a half elf. Avaro is followed from start to finish… well except for a brief moment where he said ‘The waters warm come im cumin on in’. Quite a fiery event, all things considered. Avaro is a technomancer that specializes in creating tech, gadgets, repairing old tech from the previous gods era ect. He is on a job where an emergency happens which leads to the other main character Fia. Fia is the goddess of marriage but due to untold events was frozen in a crystal for unknown amounts of time. All she remembers is that she is a goddess and there is a place she must reach, Divine Mist Pillar. Oh and she can control a giant fortress which she claims is part of her inherent abilities since she is able to feel and perceive it as an extension of herself. The games entire journey is centered around reaching said destination. Along the way we are faced with several who want to take this fort for their own reasonings. Most commonly is power due to how strong a moving fortress can be to other countries.
Fia and Avaro are lovers that partake in this journey to Divine Mist Pillar. Set to uncover Fias lost memories and the truth behind the current kingdom’s religion founded around an elusive figure named Fiushia. Allies and foes are gathered as the journey pushes onwards. Fights with elves, dragons, humans, angels, old ruminants from the previous kingdom ect take place, each further expanding on the truth. Some with misinformation they believe to be true, but the player is to sift and uncover what is real as the answers are revealed.
Chapter 1 [best route] is of course the intro where our 2 main cast are introduced. Alongside the first main antagonist is shown, Girch. Girch hears and sees reports of Fias fortress and immediately realizes the potential it has. Deciding that he is the only one that can control it for his own personal gain. Briefs tutorials are given for people newer to Eushally games while showing the changes that have been made to various systems. It lays down the groundwork for how gameplay will be for the rest of the game. Going to a nearby village introduces lore for how the fort operates and why Fia is needing to gain faith from people, she is a goddess after all lol. An assassin event takes place which also introduces the main villain Gaidal that leads into chapter 2.
Avaro is on the way to see the beastmen so really doesn’t have time to be knocked off by an assassin though. Mikeyu is a beastman who we meet and shows a strong need to make money :mrclean:… but not in that way, she just a hard working grill with a passion to help Ior, as Ior helps her. Mutual kind of relationship. She joins the squad to Iors surprisement. Upon finding out, Ior gets in a bit of a pickle where Mikeyu is then taken away by the assassins master. Ior comes to the fort and indirectly asks for help. Since Mikeyu is one of the squad Fia clearly couldn’t just let her go so we go back to beastman village to save her. The people holding her captor show their ill intent but with a slight ‘why’ to their words which is quickly explained why. Anyways after all the oddities are delt with and sorted away it wraps this chapter up nicely with Ior realizing… they koo and its alright to join with them.
More events happen in the first village where we end up helping them quite a bit with various problems. Implementing fixes that should prove quite beneficial for the longevity of the place. Yuiki are spirits and entities that we come across in an earlier chapter but get more expanded upon in this chapter. An overlooking ridge is where we go to claim another Yuiki spirit, upgrading them is different than the rest of the party. These 6 spirits in total, can not change their equipment which sounds like a problem. They are not allowed to change it due to a mechanic of capturing monsters and giving them up to these Yuiki spirits in order to make them stronger. Doing so will grant new abilities and various enhancements. All Yuiki stop their variations there in that they are able to level like the rest of party. Immediately after are taken to a frozen wasteland where the third Yuiki spirit is able to be obtained. Girch time, he comes back with his devious plan. We are now to engage in a full on fight with him and soldiers that he sends after us. Kisner sort of flops a bit until realizing she needs that lil bit of Avaro in her life in that she joins the crew from here on out.
Immediately at the start of this chapter is when our main heroin Avaro decides its time to take a bath in absolute secrecy. Fia realizes whats going on and the mission to save him begins. A few maps later and we see what he been up to. He was just frozen at the moment Fia shows up in front of him is all. Ior, after this has a place she is needing to go so we help her out and learn more of her past, solving the issue that been on her mind since the beginning. Anyways this leads directly to Lauroso event where we are needing to save a bit of a flaming damsel in distress… and can pick up our 4 Yuiki who is an absolute unit once upgraded, even if he is a lower level compared to enemies.
Something strange starts happening around the fort once we are back and settled in. Got some ghosts and spookies that be scerrin the people around the fort every now and then. Alongside this the dragons decide its time to say goodbye with the old and in with the new. Katorit who is the princess of these dragons is left to wonder and is picked up by one of Avaros old mates that was working in a nearby city Katorit happened to wonder into along her way. Some more spooky things happen but we haven’t reached the ‘this needs to stop point’ yet. After a few more days though, the cast has had it and we get down to business… and see a familiar face yet again. Girch, tf you doing bud, is what everybody has running through their mind. So we try to be diplomatic with him but he says imma head out and well I guess that’s it [?] Some people are easier to deal with than others I guess. But how can we leave without bringing this lil old, especially old goth girl that Fia approves of hehe.
After dealing with these pests its onto the Tranquil Hills. Now, it’s a bit of a strange sight, Gaidal is here again, and as to why? Well he just doing business with the locals is all. They said it was alright so no problems here, carry on. Carrying on right to Mikshuana that is, but she a tough one and says we finna throw hands first.
Surprisingly things start moving relatively fast at this time for a bit. Plenty to fill the time with though. Katorit is becoming a bigger part of everybodies life and her homeland just so happens to be our next stop. We are needing to defend ourselves on the way there as one would expect since there is no easy path in life to the final goal. Katorit asserts her needs must come first and we have to applaud our not so timid princess for speaking up like this. Due to this detour though we are a bit late for the main event with the dragons. Not too big of a problem, just make sure to wait 5 turns for them to arrive if collecting all cg is of the issue. Oh and Gaidal may want to be of assistance again. You know for a villain he is very helpful and thoughtful to Avaro, who would have thunk.
All good things must come to an end though and we grow tired of these persistent assistances. So what better way to repay the man than to show him we mean business. Gaidal :rtusalute: to sum that portion up. Not before learning that the elves are right over that cliff.
Now the elves, they are always the wisest and they should know a half elf is only half as good as a full breed. They show Avaro that even though he may be different on the inside, well that doesn’t stop the judgement of what god has told me. Why you ask? Because god says it so, question why again and now you got the kingdoms involved to make this decision. Can probably guess what the others say, gods will is gods will, who are they to defy. Avaro is a different kind of special though so he just pushes on with Fia like nothing happened. Water under the bridge general, that’s all it is.
And finally here we are, our journey comes to an end, right? Well this is where all the secrets are revealed and misinformation is cleared up. Everything comes to light with this final push into the center of the action where we face a god tier enemy in traditional JRPG fashion.
However, this is a eushally game so the first playthrough is about halfway done with the game. The real fun starts from here on out where the other route gets involved and all the NG+ content gets unlocked.
Route B & NG+ Content –
Before discussing how route B differs, there are some prerequisites that need to happen. There are 2 flags that need to be set. Both being relatively simple to complete. Gaidal flag requires accepting the 2 shady people that enter into your fort offers and refuse to help the poor old helpless lady so she can come back and complain later on. Katorit flag is more straightforward and the easiest way to trigger it is to skip any star event that pops up in the fort while not leveling and pretty much neglecting her entirely. Do not associate with her and Katorit flag will be set as well. With both active youll be set onto B route. B route is bad end. Differences sprout from Tranquil village where you won’t need to fight the most helpful person at the end. Followed immediately with the angel’s event being helped by Gaidal. Katorit will leave after dragons’ event and there will not be any trials for her to go through. Also, no Gaidal fight since youll be working with him now. However, youll now need to fight the Infrus kingdom… again and with more force. Route B is by far the hardest to tackle first playthrough. Enemies are tougher and it’ll be more challenging come the end route boss maps. Once at Divine Mist Pilar it is heavily varied now. Things are drastically different than before.Alt girl Ibram enters chat though hehe. Given that route B is considered bad end can infer what will happen, wont spoil events of what and how :mrclean:
Route A has 2 different versions, one with and without Katorit flag active. When it is active, meaning she gown, then events in route A have a slight change but its mainly just dialog missing since she is not there. Not a huge difference but there are special CG only available by her not being there. For a 100% run will need to complete alternate version A route.
There are 5 different append which are pretty much dlc in a sense for the game. All require new game + to partake. Append 5 requires both route A and B to start. One method to avoid 3 playthroughs is doing a second playthrough to the end then reloading an earlier save. Would say its not as fun doing it this way though. Better to just go with a 3rd playthrough.
The way that I went about it is first playthrough had Katorit flag active with Gaidal flag off to get A route alt version. Second playthrough both Gaidal flag on and Katorit flag on. For the most part solely did main story with only minimal amount of append and newgame+ content. Third playthrough was when it got real again. Went for perfect route A, so both Gaidal flag was off and Katorit flag is off, so Katorit stayed with the party for end game.
Devils come back once again for their showing in base games NG+ content. Get to take home 2 of them to play with. Belial being one that is noice and all but that insta charm for characters next to her, *sigh* yes, I understand why, she bae afterall but cmon now, please just let them be free and not needing to constantly use potions to negate this since it skips their turn lol.
Append 1 introduces Valefor and Lili. Valefor from a previous title La DEA of Libra and Lily from Princess Hunting Dungeon Meister. These 2 encounter eachother and then come into contact with main cast for a little bit of fun fighting a devil’s lost body and seeing into Lily’s original world for a surprise since he dearly missed her, according to her kek. With them comes a couple extra maps.
Append 2 adds EX frozen wasteland maps.
Append 3 comes with yuiki expansion, door of guidance, couple more fort maps, monster mall for easier yuiki upgrades, mole fairy ~~yuela from Kamidori~~, mikshuana voice changer to her ‘this is me trying voice’ that was shown in buildup to her first lewd scene.
Append 4 debatably the worst one. Its BugBug content that feels out of place and well, gets us an extra Kisner scene and events with making and finding the best alcohol. Enemies in these newly introduced maps are a pain to deal with and just outright annoying at times. Not terribly difficult with right gear, yet still an annoyance.
Appened 5 brings 3 stories with a conclusion of sorts. First story is Ibram, followed by Rosaline and finished off with Mikshuana. The ending event that wraps everything together is short and brief but nice all in all.
Gameplay & Quests –
Well with all story related info out the way, gameplay is a turn based rpg style. Eushally games are pretty consistent with their style of rpg gameplay. Several different dungeons that spawn across frozen lands, forests, deserts ect. The variation in landscapes is very nice to see and never feels stale. On these maps there is a command point section to allow only a certain number of characters onto the field before a side effect kicks in. The side effect being your FS, which is usually consumed at 1 per 1 square moved, now doubles to 2 per single square moved, given the total CMD is being over exceeded. 9 characters total can be summoned onto the field at any given time. Mixing and matching characters as needed to best suit the map and enemies’ weaknesses to bring about the best advantage.
When deployed there are status effects that can be applied to enemies, but generally and more often they will be applied to your characters instead. Status effects such as poison, charm ect. Alongside status effects items can be used to cure them or special abilities that characters can apply if they have available. Skills are earned per character and are granted by certain titles or equipment combos. Everybody will have different skills accessible with some overlapping onto each other. Skills cannot be double dipped, meaning if equipment grants double action, then a skill that grants it will not stack. Only one will be counted. So keeping equip with said buff allows for another skill slot to be allocated elsewhere. Skills also have a finite number of points which increases with level to allow for more powerful skills to be equipped with other skills simultaneously. Only a cap of 4 skills can be had on at a time.
Down the stats side comes equipment, equipment consists of weapon, shield, armor/cloth, shoes, and an accessory. This title only allows a single accessory to be equipped at a time. Mixing and matching certain pieces of equipment can grant a link bonus trait. Only one link bonus trait will be applied at a time and is clearly shown what is what by the line and blue dots next to what pieces grant what link. More pieces of a certain set mean a greater link bonus but not always meaning it is the best overall for a character. Some will have only 2-piece sets ect, and will need to balance out how to equip items that will allow for the greatest amount of stats. End game Meister set is extremely good in that once all 4 pieces are on, heavenly meister bonus is given to the person. I put it on Avaro, may not be the best option but didn’t care too much since I was already at the point of rolling hard mode uncapped level enemies with ease. His total skills and link consisted of having the abilities to lockpick, mine, search for hidden rooms, repair, prevail 3, flash step 3, disruptor, flurry 3, great shield 3, intimidate 3, burrow, dive, firewalk, grounded, flight, teleport, and double action. Pretty much a jack of all trades. Plus, elemental resistances being phys A, earth O, ice neutral, fire X, thunder C, holy S and dark S. other characters have better resistances which is why he is not the best for meister set. But with these resistances and stats its pretty much he can’t go down un a fight easily if at all.
For core stats they are hard capped and slowly raise as a person raises in levels. Once a person levels rng pops up, grants some stats given they are able to grow with a characters current hard cap. These stats can be abused by scumming save or previous turn to get a perfect roll but really isn’t necessary and is not a must. Same as drops they can be scummed the same way as stat increases on level ups. Once a character gains access to double action, which will be early to mid-second playthrough, all these hard caps on stats are removed and are allowed to grow to cap stats of either 99 or 999, depending on the type of stat. these are capped for core stats and can again be further increased upon with equipment and bonuses that pish above these 99/999 limits.
With elemental resistances, its something that mainly equipment or personal character is going to have to live with. The fort allows for placing buildings that are crafted. Every building will offer various affects and sometimes special events, such as the hot spring or bath buildings. Once a certain requirement is met, an event icon appears which can be clicked and witnessed. Buildings placed in specific formations and are under the tab that allows for a bonus to be given if they are formed in a certain way. Bonus formations can be overlapped to make use of one building multiple times, so it Is best to section places off and try to overlap as much as possible to yield highest results. These bonuses are applied to every member with a tab that showcases all bonuses granted. Some buildings will not be included for special formation bonuses while others will be, depends on the type. With some buildings granting special multiple bonuses on top of being able to be formationed. Some non-formation buildings include ones that after X number of days a person will be given X type of items.
A shop for basic items and materials is available. These items are only certain ones and more restrictive to force players to explore and farm dungeon maps more than just buying things outright. Balancing both helps the most, mainly bought items and materials such as wood, stone ect since farming for those is a lot worse than just buying them from a time perspective. Easier to farm money then buy them than enter, gather, leave, hope for item rinse repeat. Some items on maps are forced to do this for crafting but more often than not it’ll be enemy monsters that will need to be farmed for their rare drops while the others will likely be available from normal play. Luckily, there is a building that grants increase rare drop rate, can have I believe 2 of them, makes farming faster with them. Not that any drops were that bad though, even the rare ones did not take too long to obtain by holding ctrl to skip movement with simple battle display on.
Crafting is at the core of every Eushally game and there is plentiful here to be had. From start to finish there will always be new or existing plans to work towards. NG+ content further expands and adds more plans to unlock and complete. These items crafted progressively get stronger as one would expect but may not immediately render previous crafts useless for one reason or another. Some crafts may have better elemental compliance to get that certain weakness bonus in on an enemy that overall grants more damage and others may be weaker but don’t hit elemental damage debuff so they can deal more than a stronger bad elemental match up weapon. With crafting comes a feature that allows to dismantle certain elemental stones. Some drops are meant to be dismantled and not necessarily be used in combat. They are labeled such as broken katana and such. They are easy to tell and grant a nice boost of stones for upgrades. On upgrades list, almost every piece of equipment can be upgraded. Each piece needing different stones or stone combinations to fulfill. There are levels to them that once leveling them up allow for greater stats, and sometimes removing certain negative stats while also upgrading or even adding bonus skills to said piece of equipment. Equipment in ACM plays a bigger role than in other Eushally games. When upgraded and crafted appropriately, it can make the game easier than expected. More challenge in it to not farm out tons of upgrades but really comes down to what a person wants from game and how challenging they want to be in for.
Quests pop up and appear consistently from chapter 1 through the end of append 5. Completing them will be basically second nature and majority of quests are hard to even fail. Must intentionally skip or neglect those certain quests to fail them. Any failed quest on subsequent playthroughs is able to be redone. Noting is too special about quests, except to help guide a player in the right direction for what to do next or what to finish up before end of chapter, given quest can be completed by end of chapter.
Sound and Visuals –
Sounds are pretty simplistic given the heavy VN styling of the game. There are a couple videos but for the most part is the regular ole CG that is found in any VN game. This one just so happens to tack on JRPG elements and gameplay on top to make for a more interactive experience and strategy incorporation as the playthrough goes on. Most notable for Eushally games are background OST’s since they are something youll eb listening to for tens if not couple hundred hours worth. Can mute them for own music, don’t think itll have that much an impact in regular gameplay. Would suggest games OST’s for VN portions though. They couple well and are easy to listen to which helps immersion and emotions during scenes. Not much more a person could ask for tbh, they are there, not obtrusive and can be listened to for hours on end without being annoying. There is an end dungeon OST that is up there pretty good with how an end game OST should be and really gets the feelings on a high of ‘imma beat dat ass’.
Visuals gear more towards CG and what can I say, all the CG is top notch and feels well deserved. From certain :mrclean: scenes to wholesome ones they are detailed and very nice pieces of artwork that only speaks volume for the people working at Eushally. They know how to make addicting gameplay, coupled with noteworthy CG and enjoyable stories.
Overall and Final Thoughts –
Simply put, highly recommend this game to anybody that is looking for something a bit different than the standard games being played. Or for those that just don’t feel the same rush or emotions as they did from games of old prior to all this f2p shiz that has been forcibly intrused into modern games. I found the characters fun with enjoyable interactions and with how it’s gameplay and story first, simply love Eushally games and these style of games. They are definitely long but well worth the time investment. Even after 200 hours in to complete CG, honestly wouldn’t mind doing another playthrough to cap everything out and true 100% the game but there are several other Eushally and VNRPG games that require just as much time to complete, each with their own story and characters.
Fia to a vocal minority is an annoying character… but to me she bae hehe, I found her personality and character done quite well. Not perfect but who cares since she is shown to have her own personality like the rest of the cast and keeps to it from start to end. Growth occurs but the core persona is still there and only makes route B all the more painful :sadneko:. I guess tldr is play the game first prior to listening to others bleak complaints and can almost guarantee you’ll have just as grand of a time as I and many others out there with it.
Rest above speaks for how well developed the game is and there really is something about how refined mouse controls are for VN games. They just work and are so intuitive. Now if only other major games would incorporate a scroll wheel dialog history or tag it to any other key for that matter.
Characters (main) – 4/5
Characters (sub) – 3/5
Enjoyment - 5/5
Gameplay – 5/5
Visuals – 5/5
Music – 3/5
Story – 3/5
Overall Ratings - Rec: 4/5 Raw: 80%
