*A code was provided for this preview of Concubine
Concubine is an experience I was hoping would have something good in there to draw me. Visually, and I guess substance-wise, the game treats itself like many of the games on Steam, catering to, we will call them, certain sexual proclivities. The kind you lock your door for and turn off your Discord account so people don’t know you are playing them. Well, you do maybe. I stopped caring years ago when it became more work to hide in than explain it. Concubine is not one of those games, though, at least not if you play through the playtest, which, in fairness, is very limited in what you actually have access to. Stellar Blade and Wuchang both have sexualized characters alongside good gameplay that feels well-crafted and deep so the combination can work, but far too often do we find that games that dial the sex appeal factor to eleven do so to distract from the fact that there really isn’t a satisfying loop to experience, and sadly, while I would need to see more as any game can fix itself, the Playtest doesn’t make for a compelling first look.
The game allows you to create your own character, a Concubine, with all the sliders that you are probably hoping for. The game also has a nudity option that you can turn on or off, with players getting the option to set gear with stats, any gear as an aesthetic outfit, and then the option to hide both, which was the only factor that the nudity choice affects at this point. What’s arguably the most interesting, least to me, aspect of the game is its setting, with you being a Concubine in the service of the Sultana, though the Sultan himself gives you orders. From there, the typical expectations of your social class drop to the wayside, with you and the rest of the women in service seemingly forming an assassin ring of warriors that are sent on missions to protect the land… I assume… They really don’t explain much.
The player gets two tutorial missions that offer little in the way of explanation, made worse by the game’s lack of a location map and the areas being rather big and bland, blending together till you have returned to the hub map a lot, which is expected. The game also doesn’t explain almost any supporting functions, taking me much longer to realize that sell and buy gear or that I could upgrade my stats in the main menu. Knowing these functions helps A LOT, but can often feel pointless as the game still features extremely unbalanced levels at present. The hub area has some stuff to do, like buying decorations for your room or purchasing added areas to explore, but in the demo, these were limited, only seeming like I could buy a stool if I wanted to buy anything to put in my room. I didn’t since there is very little going on in the Hub, so much so that some NPCs are stuck in animations like pouring water on their head, the bowl to do so with forever stuck over their head.
Combat is fairly simple, playing as a hack-and-slash with two sets of combos and skills. Skills tended to make me a sitting duck, so I shied away from them; killing one enemy will get you destroyed by many. The combos seem to be the same, more or less, with one being light and blockable, and the other using stamina to break guard and damage with almost zero drawback. The reason you will be using this second one more, though, because the game just sort of throws enemies at you, to the point you might open a door in a level only to be swarmed by 20 enemies that all start attacking you. Attacks have a wide swing, so you will clear swatches of enemies, but the game will amount to spamming attacks while desperately spamming healing supplies as you try to let their DPS outpace yours. There is also the issue of inventory management, as everybody drops gear, but it takes a long time for good gear to drop. Since you earn almost nothing for completing a mission, selling and buying because the most viable ways to increase stats, making the pickups almost valueless.
Levels in the game are instanced stages around the world map that, once you unlock the first, they just unlock as you complete them and move on. Each is capped off by a boss that is insanely easy compared to the hordes that surround you in the main game. Each level jumps in difficulty a lot and pits you in a situation where it is hard to grind the previous stage, but also hard to stay alive in the new one. Even with a higher gear, survival can come down to how fast you can spam heal rather than any skill. You get a bow as well you might think allows you to long range, but can take 20 hits to kill one enemy, that running in just feels like it cuts out the middle man. Item spawn is random, which proves to be annoying as well. In the first stage, I got a good skirt that I lost when my game crashed. I tried to get it again, but it took me nearly 20 runs to actually find it again. The first level also has the most consistent potion drop, so you will play that a lot. It is also the most dynamic level, having some depth, but with very little to actually do on stage; this means little. The final of the four stages had multiple paths, so maybe after that we will see more, but I’m not sure.
Then there are the features that didn’t appear despite being told they exist by the game. According to the control menu, there is a button to seduce, but pushing it did nothing. The game also states it has allies, which might make the grind better, but I never saw them. I assumed seduce was kinda a way to recruit an ally, but this is me just speculating. The Steam page suggests Allies will be female, maybe co-op, so we will see. If they are in the game in its current state, I’m not sure what it says that I never found how to use them despite clearing the entire playtest. The game also has a quest and skill menu you cannot access, so it’s possible they might heavily correct the lack of content, or add some content that doesn’t feel like you have much more. I would assume some form of a story will appear in the finished product, given that the game plays into the RPG genre more than anything else.
If I’m being completely fair, combat wasn’t awful, just generic. It’s every other aspect of combat, from the hoards of enemies charging you to your abilities feeling less than useful. With little explanation as to why I should care about any of the tasks I’m completing, except for maybe, hey, you’re a sexy chick, it was hard to fully commit myself and click with the task at hand. It would have been cool (and I’m not sure where they plan to fall on the NSFW stuff) to see some political intrigue as a lowly member of the royal courts as well, but all of that is absent. There are places they can go with all this content that could make it more interesting, but based on what Concubine plays heavily into, I’m left wondering what can be expected in the future. But hey, it has a photo mode, wink wink.
Remember to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Bluesky to keep up to date on everything we have going on!
