IF you expect a hardcore smash and grab with bonus sexy harem, look elsewhere. That's not what this is and I can absolutely confirm a large majority of the negative reviews seem to be based in that same assumption. You cannot play this game and smash out all of the content in a single night, nor can you indefinitely farm materials as you please. There is a bit more tact required in this, I have found.

Yes, there is a harsh wall after a few chapters; But frankly, I thought those chapters were already generous.
Yes, there is a grind after that if you don't WANT to spend real money on the game.
No, you do NOT need to pay to play. Period. It takes a little clever farming, and hoarding resources that become important, but it's not bad once you have a plan. For example, twice a day you can pop in and pick up a FREE energy potion. Once a day, every 10 minutes for an hour, you can claim free materials, coins, health potions, mana potions, AND energy potions. As you level your "castle" so to speak, those rewards get better.

Treat this like an idle game, with bonus plot. You'll be much happier. Sit it up for an hour a day, grab your resources, do your dailies (Which are the same, very consistent and easy to predict) with the girls (Some of whom give you rewards you need to complete the others), and if you are feeling frisky, time that visit with at least ONE of the two daily energy potion drops. Trust me, you will be FINE. It's still enjoyable. If you want to go full idle-game, keep it up and watch your energy refill as it does over time, smash out a quick few rounds on auto-play, build materials through the day to use during quest reset.

The plot is simple, but enjoyable. The voice acting is on par, if a little cheesy and sometimes sound unnatural with a few of the sexy lines that maybe the actress wasn't used to saying. The graphics are surprisingly good for what this game is. And, frankly, even the handful of grammatical errors are not enough to dissuade me from further play. I am thoroughly enjoying this not-idle idle game.
A
uthor's note: A play diary was originally planned in lieu of an old fashioned review, but was too long to fit Steam's constraints. The diary has been posted on the Escalation! forum.

TL;DR

10/10: The kinkiest visual novel ever made. This game also has the most positive male and female role models ever encountered in a video game. (Or visual novel for that matter!)

Attention ladies! Men love being treated like the MMC. That's the reason they buy these trashy visual novels!

Overview
A fully-animated visual novel with full voice acting and more kink than the player can beat back with a riding crop without being cheap and nasty like Strange Passion - My Boss, My Mistress?? WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE?!! The story starts with the male protagonist realizing he's a natural submissive, and his girlfriend, being like any WAG of the future should, dominates the protagonist in all sorts of kinky ways with the kink not only being frequent, but also "escalating" into kinkier acts as the player goes further into the story. (Hence the title Escalation!)

Graphics and Sound

The Kawaii-O-Meter registers Saki as a 9.04305... As in, hot and humid like the entire peninsula of Florida! The shine of Saki's PVC clothing is really something, and the glare realistically follows Saki's every single movement.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2422018837

The only downer in the graphics is that there is some bleed-through, which is far less common than some other games played by ol' Il Pallino, but it's still enough to criticize developers who don't know what should go where or how to code.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2415109118

Despite being fully voiced, only Saki's voice is heard, which is a good thing, because only the dom should be talking, right? Just like (almost) every Japanese woman, Aruha Kotone's voice acting is sweet, along with her laughter, moans, and squeals. The smacking sounds of implements that are used to smack all sound realistic. Admittedly, ol' Il Pallino decided to just totally mute the music since the reader will probably also be inclined to do the same thing. (Music would only ruin the mood regardless if it was classical, ambient, lounge, or even music played on a toy musical instrument made for the toddler market.)

Positives

Other than what was mentioned in the Overview?Almost everything... ASSuming the player loves being tied-up and beaten by a sexy woman. (You wouldn't have read this far if you didn't!)

Negatives

Escalation! is distinctly Japanese, which means that even animated depictions of genitals have to be blurred-out. But this is less of an issue compared to some other visual novels on the market, since about the only nudity the player can expect to see is ... But somehow, there's still some people out there who's clueless enough to blame the developer when their complaints should be directed towards the Japanese government.

The scenes often aren't broken up correctly, and some single scenes tend to be very long, as opposed to many of the scenes, which are a first and second half of one another, which may not be a problem for anyone playing or replaying the game, but was a problem when ol' Il Pallino was keeping a play diary, and wasn't sure which scene was which due to some incorrect partitioning.

Given the extreme nature of Escalation!, there could potentially be one scene that grosses out the player, and the game gives no warning of what the player is about to witness, and ol' Il Pallino had to endure something that totally grossed him out. (Edit: Make that two scenes that totally grossed-out ol' Il Pallino!)

Does the developer know that gifting copies of their games to curators (such as REXCurse) result in more positive reviews? Or maybe the developer knew ol' Il Pallino was going to buy Escalation! anyway, and were so confident of their game that it would only garner positive reviews. One thing is for certain: It sucks to be getting free games for nearly two years with the only stipulation being that a review is to be written, and then lose this ability!

Escalation! contains enough Engrish (sic) to be on par with mid-1990's visual novels and dating simulation games. While this may have been excusable twenty-five years ago, this is inexcusable for a game of the quality (and price) of Escalation!

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2415109161

Conclusion

Buy this game and serve your goddess well. Remember that joke people make in reviews about Fap Queen in that it's family entertainment? For a game involving BDSM, sex, and nudity, Escalation! does provide not only family entertainment, but also edutainment! If the player were to play beyond the demo, every man, woman, boy, and girl would see how much better the world would be if men kept their bodies hairless and submitted to dominant women who wear PVC clothing and are in full control of every aspect of sex.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1919143476

The honest word of Il Pallino... OR ELSE!

This review has been provided independently by an admin at REXCurse (REXnetwork).
No compensation was provided.

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(Especially if you're the developer of a game or VN as good as Escalation!)