The LEVEL
- Full nudity
- Visible sex/acts
- Non-interactive sex
- Sex is a supporting theme
The TYPE
- Full consent
- Mildly lewd dialogue
- Non-human partners
You finally get to settle in with your lovely lady friend for a night of passion and some a-hole demon has to swoop in and ruin it all! Always the way isn’t it? Well for Astarte it is and she’s not going to take this lying down (for the most part anyway). In Inheritance: Ladeina’s Path from Kinky Lemur Games you’re a feisty warrior tasked with protecting the power of the Goddess Ladeina and that fateful night of interrupted nookie is where the story all begins. Let’s see how the first leg of this journey pans out shall we?
The game in its current state doesn’t hold a great deal of sex overall. If you purchase the available DLC pack then the main character will appear naked instead of clothed on her journey, though to my knowledge it doesn’t add any extra sex scenes to the game. However, in the base game there are maybe three or four distinct moments where you’ll enter a cutscene and watch the onscreen characters do their thing. All of it seems to be consensual as far as I can tell, no one seems to be putting up any sort or protest at least. There’s full nudity and visible sex, so a Level 2 for the amount of adult content seemed like a good fit. Nothing really funky happens during those sex scenes either, other than Mr. Demon Cockblocker popping in to ruin the moment so Inheritance gets a Low Kink rating. There’s some mildly lewd dialogue but for the most part it’s just two people making the beast with two backs, as they say.
This game is still in early development so there’s still a great deal that needs polishing, before I can give any real official judgements. However, what is there as of right now has plenty of positives that not only made me want to continue playing to the end of the “season”, but it also assured me that any new updates that rolled in between now and release would only improve the experience. The most attractive feature Inheritance is currently sporting is the artwork and graphics. Everything looks fantastically crisp and colorful. There does seem to be a lighting issue where despite being in broad daylight areas can be so dark, or on the flipside, so overexposed when standing next to a lightsource that I can barely see my character, but generally the ambient lighting is perfectly fine. The few puzzles I encountered seemed clever, but never too brain busting by any means. I hope there will be more added in the future.
As I said earlier since the game is still in early development it’s hard to be too critical with it overall, not to mention it’s currently being offered for free on Steam so there’s literally no risk in giving it a try for yourself. However, that doesn’t mean that negative feedback doesn’t have any value here. With that in mind, in its current state there are a lot of issues that might drive away potential players. The biggest one is the “lock-on” system. It just doesn’t work like it should for a game where you desperately need to rely on your dodging as much as your attacking. When you lock on to an enemy all it really seems to do is have Astarte swing in their direction. If you move or dodge she loses focus and your back is now exposed for a higher damage attack from the enemy. Super frustrating when you are fighting an especially difficult enemy to say the least.
I also kind of feel like the last boss is wildly overpowered. Maybe if locking on worked properly he wouldn’t immediately cut poor Astarte down in just a few hits but conversely I didn’t seem to be able to do a whole lot of damage to him even when I could land a blow. I had the sword upgrade, the ring, and a strength potion and still only did maybe 30-ish damage to him. Given he has 1000 HP that’s a long assed battle to whittle him down. As a Soulsborne aficionado I certainly don’t mind a tanky boss battle, but there’s a fine line between fair and punishing and currently this game leans way too far into the punishing side of things.
I think something to keep in mind is that Inheritance isn’t really an adult game per say it’s more of a game that contains some adult content. If the adult content were to be removed you’d still have a pretty darn serviceable storyline and gameplay loop. What’s there though is still nicely done and definitely serves to spice up the game in the best way possible. The third (?) sex scene did glitch, no matter what I did, where the character models would be doing their thing with another set of their character models T-posing almost right on top of them the entire time. But that’s not something I imagine would be left unfixed.
The potential for Inheritance to be something pretty amazing is loud and clear. While there is clearly a great deal of work that still needs to be done, what’s there shows that there are good bones for future groundwork. I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on progress updates and eagerly awaiting a finished product. Two optimistic thumbs UP.
What’s NEW
The hardworking devs over at Kinky Lemur Games have been well… hard at work. They’ve recently released a patch for Inheritance: Ladeina’s Path that has really improved a whole lot of things. I just finished playing through Season 1 from start to finish and it was such an impressive difference.
Combat has been given a major facelift for starters. You can see an icon when you are locked on to enemies now and Astarte (and the camera) will actually follow the enemy’s movement. You can even strafe around and do back attacks, as well as dodge more successfully to avoid being back attacked yourself. Not to mention that enemy damage and HP have been balanced in a big way so that enemies no longer crush you into the ground nor are they damage sponges themselves. Now combat feels pretty darn smooth and it really improved my overall experience. I was much more inclined to explore every nook and cranny of the maps and that’s what you want with an RPG, right?
Combat was definitely the Big Kahuna of changes implicated through this update but there were also some smaller (but still important) fixes I noticed. For instance, the crouch button has been moved to RT which is much more manageable for us controller players than holding Y and then having to press X to assassinate. A loot-all option was added to the loot menu which is super nice to have when you just want to loot on the fly. Also those pesky T-posing extra models have disappeared from the final sex scene meaning you’re free to enjoy it unhindered and in its full glory!
What’s NEXT
So, lots of really great improvements that not only make the current game a much better experience but instills an enormous amount of confidence in the development team! They listened to their players’ complaints and came through for us in fine style. That’s what I like to see and I can’t wait to see what comes next on Astarte’s journey for justice.