NSFW Review of "Kamidori alchemy meister"

"Features":
monster girls, elf (only 1 path), loli (light, only 1 path)
If you do not like these, I recommend you stop reading, as this game is probably not for you. Otherwise, go ahead :)

Kamidori alchemy meister (henceforth KAM) is a top-down dungeon crawler and strategy H game with a crafting shop simulator.

Grade:

Plot:
KAM has an episodic story with 3 possible routes near the end. Every route is for one of the three main heroines as seen above. Every chapter has certain quests you need to complete and a couple of sidequests, as well as events based on the level of a character.
Sidequests and events usually have a chapter limit, which means that it has to be done/completed before that chapter starts, or it can not be completed anymore.
The story is about Wilfred Dion, an aspiring alchemist in a city full of them. The leader of the city is selected out of the highest ranking alchemists by the current leader, if possible. Wilfred aspires to become this leader.
On the way he meets a variety of creatures, a lot of which turn into allies. The most important ones are the three main heroines: Yuela, the swordswoman, Emelita, the small mage, and Servalwi (Serawi for short), the elven archer and healer.
The story has a couple twists and turns, but, other than when the routes branch off, no game-changing changes.

Gameplay:
The gameplay is divided into three major parts: The dungeons, the shop, and the crafting.

  Dungeons:
You will probably spend most of your time here. The dungeons can be accessed from the world map and allows your team to explore the dungeon, collect resources, and kill creatures.
The dungeons are turn-based and grid-based. Your team moves first and then your opponents do.
You can not move over tiles occupied by enemies and enemies can not move over tiles occupied by you or your allies.
Below you can see the dungeon screen of one of the earlier dungeons you will go to.

You can take up 'til 9 people with you, including Wilfred. This is not the only restriction, however, as every character takes up a certain amount of command points to stay in the field. The stronger units often require more command points. The command point cap never depletes, but it is dependent on story progress.

The minimap in the top-left shows every area that you have already explored, as well as where all the visible units are and which areas are "yours".

There is a rather unique system in KAM. The dungeon is divided into areas and those are divided into tiles. Every tile can become a color (grey being the default one) by having a unit of that team stand on the tile. If a character of a certain color is the only one standing in an area, the whole area turns into their color. Movement on an enemy color is severely restricted, while movement on your own color is normal and sometimes increased. Once you return to a dungeon you have already been to, all the tiles stay the same color as when you left, except for the tiles with enemies on them. Grey enemies do not take over areas, even if they are the only ones in the area.

In a turn, every character can either move and use a melee attack, only move, or use a ranged attack. AoE (area of effect) attacks have to recharge after using them.

There are a couple more things, like healing points, teleporters, and the like in the dungeons, but the game does a good job of explaining those in the intro.

There are 2 things in the dungeons that require special attention though. These are the mining and the foraging tiles. These can only be accessed once every time you enter a dungeon and can only be gathered from by people with a specific skill. These tiles contain items that you need for crafting.

There is a wide variety of enemies in these dungeons. Utilizing elemental weaknesses and strengths is vital for survival.

Dungeons can also have tiles only accessible by characters with specific skills. For example, lava tiles can only be walked on by characters with the "firewalk" or the "fly" skill.

  Shop:

The shop is where you sell your products and it is vital for survival and making money in the game. If you go into the negatives for the first time, you get scolded and get a loan. However, if you go into the negatives a second time, it is game over, so be careful.

The shop is divided into 4 parts: The garden, the front, the back, and the living quarters.

All of these areas have different effects and can be upgraded to a maximum of level 10, with every upgrade increasing its daily upkeep and its size, as well as its stats.

The garden can produce daily items and can sometimes show an event.

The front influences the amount of clerks you can have, the amount of items you can put up for sale and the amount of money you make for each item sold.

The back influences the cost of crafting and the mutation chance of certain items.

Lastly, the living quarters influence which items you can create.

All of these areas need to be upgraded once per chapter to go to the next one.

The blue tiles are areas furniture can be placed on. Furniture increases the stats of the shop and do not require additional upkeep.

You can assign which items to put up for sale and which characters will be selling these items. The characters you select will become clerks and will not be able to go to the dungeons with you while they are selling.

The shop screen is also where you can view new events once they pop up. They are marked by a star above the head or heads of the person or people involved.

  Crafting:

Crafting is vital for your survival, both in terms of combat and in terms of finances. You can create furniture, potions, armour, weapons, and a lot more. Some items are only meant to be sold and can not be used for anything else.

Crafting an item requires specific materials. These materials can only be found in dungeons, either by mining or foraging, or by defeating certain enemies.

The more difficult the item is to create, the more the item is worth, generally.

At certain points, you will be able to create keys and armour. These can not be created again and have very specific uses. Keys can open any door that is their type (i.e. the bronze key can open bronze doors, the silver one can open silver doors, and the golden one can open golden doors).

The armour is specifically for one of the 3 main heroines and is either focused on a single element, with its elemental weakness, or balanced for all the elements.

This armour can only be unlocked through events with side characters and only if they reach a certain level in or before certain chapters.

Every single armour that you or the 3 main heroines can equip, can be upgraded by using money and, sometimes, craftable items. This way, you can get skills and stat boosts for that character when they equip the armour. Every time you upgrade armour and get a stat boost, you can choose which one you want and this can be changed at any time in the crafting menu.

The more you craft, the higher your crafting level becomes. A higher crafting level unlocks more items to craft. Some items require your shop to have certain stats to be unlocked as well.

  New game+:

This game actually has new game plus, where you can choose between a variety of options. There are certain events, items, dungeons, and characters that are locked in the first playthrough that become available in all subsequent playthroughs.

The options include, but are not limited to: Keeping the levels of your characters, keeping your money, having all already unlocked characters unlocked from the start, and keeping all non-key items.

There is even an option to unlock the cap on the enemies' levels to give yourself a challenge in your new playthrough.

H content:

As a H game, this game obviously has H content. I chose to start with this one, because it is relatively tame (compared to the majority of H games nowadays) and more gameplay focused. The H scenes are certainly not bad though.

Every female playable character has at least one scene (usually more) and every main heroine has multiple on their respective routes. It generally takes a while to get to your first scene, but it will most likely feel like nothing because the gameplay is distracting enough. For this game, the H scenes are a nice extra touch, rather than the focus.

There is a gallery mode where you can view any scenes you have already seen, if you are so inclined.

Graphics:

The conversations and events are VN (visual novel) style. Very standard for japanese RPGs and it does not diminish the experience. Everything else is sprite-based and it seems to be quite detailed.

The combat is less fluid than the map movement, since the characters do not move during battle, but that is a minor point overall.

Endings:

Not counting game overs, there are 3 endings (that I am aware of). One for each heroine's route.

Since I have only played through only one route so far, I can not say for sure what the quality of the endings is, but I can at least tell you that the one I have seen is fitting and actually felt quite good and complete.

Tips and tricks:

• If you are a completionist, try to level up all the characters you get evenly and do the quests whenever they pop up to get as much unlocked as you can in the first playthrough.
• Want to know what levels your characters need to be in which chapter to get events? Look at the bottom of this page.
• For the shop, focus on knowledge, prices, tools, and sense when you are starting out. Getting a second clerk may be handy too.
• Do not buy anything right after the introduction. Your upkeep can easily get you in the negatives if you do.
• In dungeons, get 100% of the tiles in your color to have the game show what you need to do for additional rewards the next time you go there.
• In new dungeons, grab an area immediately when possible. It significantly decreases the enemy movement ability in that area.
• Uya and Wilfred can be very fast and are the 2 explorers of the group. Use them to find secret areas, collect faraway items, forage, and mine. Especially when they have "swift".
• You can lure enemies into a trap by having a mage standing out of enemy range and having a tank lure it over.
• AoE damage also hits your allies, so be careful when using it.
• Do not go over your command point limit. If you do, your movement cost is at least doubled.

Good points:

• Interesting, engaging, and quite unique combat system
• H scenes :P
• New game+
• Crafting system
• Shop simulator
• Interesting environmental tiles

Bad points:

• Sometimes repetitive
• Occasional difficulty spikes
• Game over when going into negatives
• Non-moving battle sprites
• Not being able to move and attack in the same turn, unless you are melee
• There are some escort missions (usually not too difficult though)
• Non-playable character allies tend to dive headfirst into danger. Luckily, these kind of missions do not appear often.

Conclusion:

For anyone looking for a H game with actual gameplay, I would highly recommend this one.  very solid game with some minor irritations. If you like monster girls, you will probably like this game and if you do not like them, I can tell you that the majority of them are optional. Their scenes are optional as well, but you would be missing out on quite some gear if you skip them. Lastly, if you like dungeon crawlers, this is very likely your type of game.