I don't bother writing reviews often, but Super Lesbian Animal RPG has spoken to me. Intimately. Gayly. I absolutely loved this game and I wanna give it a good word. I'm always up for an indie RPG once in a while and this one was special. I was drawn to it by its 24-karat no-♥♥♥♥ name (CHECK IT OUT THEY'RE GAY FURRIES) and no, it isn't ironic. This is exactly what it promises on the can, love it or leave it.

OK I'm keeping this review as spoiler-free as I can but the basic outline is that you are the vaguely anxious healer Melody, and you and your punk-as-♥♥♥♥ girlfriend Allison have signed up for the adventurer's guild in your hometown, encouraged and abetted by your messy witch friend Claire. Things start to happen in earnest when she makes a little practice dungeon for you in Allison's basement. A weird glitch guy with a VHS for a head shows up while you're in there, and he's obviously bad news. ADVENTURE beckons thereafter! Gay adventure!

That adventure takes your party places, again, no spoilers, but everything looks and feels right, if a bit garish sometimes (there's a lot of pink and lilac, surprising no-one). The locations are not tremendously exciting in concept – you'll traipse through forests, visit a mysterious floating island, walk around dungeons, climb mountains, you know the drill – but they're incredibly well dressed and the world building is impeccable. Everything is creative and cool and I have to give a shoutout to the music, Beatrix Quinn's soundtrack is excellent (you can buy it on Bandcamp btw, I did). Without going too far into it, some of the dungeons feel like they'd give Crypt of the Necrodancer a run for its money if they were actually rhythm-based. Sometimes they're a bit overlong but that might just be me wandering in circles and not checking the map enough. The music makes up for it.

Enjoyable writing is subjective of course, but nothing in the game felt forced to me, for what that's worth. Emotional moments feel earned and impactful and jokes land well, though they can come off as a bit "online" which some might not like (I am online. I'm online writing this now. Works for me). In case anyone was wondering from reading the game title alone, the game is not horny but there is a ton of gay drama. It's really well done, I swear, but you WILL be sad and gay with some frequency so be prepared for that. Frankly I appreciate that the characters just exist in their pleasant little off-brand Equestria, normally but also gayly. It is OK to be gay, after all.

The combat is turn-based, Mother/EarthBound style with encounter entities on the map that you can avoid rather than random battles. Let's be honest, you'll be playing this for the vibes and the character writing more than the gameplay but what's there isn't bad! It hews kind of easy, I only died while fighting the optional bosses in act 4, but whatever. The spellbook mechanic mixes things up a bit and gives you a bunch of options on top of the party's innate abilities. The monsters are funny lookin'. I lost it the first time I encountered a mimic. THE GAYEST MIMIC EVER

The shortcomings of the game are mainly technical; I played this in its entirety on my Steam Deck (luv too play indies while snug in bed) where it runs... FINE... It works. it functions. It isn't Deck verified for a reason. Worst I can say is, I'd really prefer to use the d-pad to control a game with grid-based movement like this and could not do that on the Deck – thumb stick and face buttons only – and the weird lag spike whenever you skip text is awkward but livable. The bright graphics really pop on the OLED screen though for what that's worth. I believe the issues are due to its being made on an older version of RPGMaker, which is unfortunate but what're you gonna do? I'm too lazy to mess around with a custom control profile or whatever so I just dealt with it. On the upside, everything is very parsable on the Deck and none of the text rendering is too small or anything like that, which is more than I can say for some "verified" games.

Mechanically a lategame criticism I have is that the experience levels cap out at lvl30, which takes no effort to reach if you're covering enough ground. I'd have appreciated if they'd kept going to lvl40 just so it didn't feel like encounters were a waste of time and resources after that (unless you are collecting scrap or filling your bestiary, of course). As mentioned above, you can just avoid them so it's not the worst problem to have, it's a pacing issue more than anything. Narratively, the endgame (as in the final act and epilogue) hits just right, no anticlimax or anything like that.

Also, this is irrelevant to how the game plays but SLARPG doesn't have Steam achievements or badges and you know I'd craft the badge for this at least once!!! I'm just saying!!!!!

Anyway, if you got something out of OMORI or Undertale you'll probably like this a lot. You do not need to be LGBTQ+ for SLARPG to touch you but it certainly helps. It has SO much soul and it is SO gay.

tl;dr: My ♥♥♥♥ fell off a couple times while playing this game and I wouldn't have had it any other way. Ponett please make a sequel so this can happen again love you bye

[h3]What's poppin'?[/h3] I don't bother writing reviews often, but Super Lesbian Animal RPG has spoken to me. Intimately. Gayly. I absolutely loved this game and I wanna give it a good word. I'm always up for an indie RPG once in a while and this one was special. I was drawn to it by its 24-karat no-shit name (CHECK IT OUT THEY'RE GAY FURRIES) and no, it isn't ironic. This is exactly what it promises on the can, love it or leave it. OK I'm keeping this review as spoiler-free as I can but the basic outline is that you are the vaguely anxious healer Melody, and you and your punk-as-fuck girlfriend Allison have signed up for the adventurer's guild in your hometown, encouraged and abetted by your messy witch friend Claire. Things start to happen in earnest when she makes a little practice dungeon for you in Allison's basement. A weird glitch guy with a VHS for a head shows up while you're in there, and he's obviously bad news. ADVENTURE beckons thereafter! [i]Gay[/i] adventure! That adventure takes your party places, again, no spoilers, but everything looks and feels right, if a bit garish sometimes (there's a lot of pink and lilac, surprising no-one). The locations are not tremendously exciting in concept – you'll traipse through forests, visit a mysterious floating island, walk around dungeons, climb mountains, you know the drill – but they're incredibly well dressed and the world building is impeccable. Everything is creative and cool and I have to give a shoutout to the music, Beatrix Quinn's soundtrack is [i]excellent[/i] (you can buy it on Bandcamp btw, I did). Without going too far into it, some of the dungeons feel like they'd give Crypt of the Necrodancer a run for its money if they were actually rhythm-based. Sometimes they're a bit overlong but that might just be me wandering in circles and not checking the map enough. The music makes up for it. Enjoyable writing is subjective of course, but nothing in the game felt forced to me, for what that's worth. Emotional moments feel earned and impactful and jokes land well, though they can come off as a bit "online" which some might not like (I am online. I'm online writing this now. Works for me). In case anyone was wondering from reading the game title alone, the game is not horny but there is a ton of gay drama. It's really well done, I swear, but you WILL be sad and gay with some frequency so be prepared for that. Frankly I appreciate that the characters just exist in their pleasant little off-brand Equestria, normally but also gayly. It is OK to be gay, after all. The combat is turn-based, Mother/EarthBound style with encounter entities on the map that you can avoid rather than random battles. Let's be honest, you'll be playing this for the vibes and the character writing more than the gameplay but what's there isn't bad! It hews kind of easy, I only died while fighting the optional bosses in act 4, but whatever. The spellbook mechanic mixes things up a bit and gives you a bunch of options on top of the party's innate abilities. The monsters are funny lookin'. I lost it the first time I encountered a mimic. THE GAYEST MIMIC [i]EVER[/i] The shortcomings of the game are mainly technical; I played this in its entirety on my Steam Deck (luv too play indies while snug in bed) where it runs... FINE... It works. it functions. It isn't Deck verified for a reason. Worst I can say is, I'd really prefer to use the d-pad to control a game with grid-based movement like this and could not do that on the Deck – thumb stick and face buttons only – and the weird lag spike whenever you skip text is awkward but livable. The bright graphics really pop on the OLED screen though for what that's worth. I believe the issues are due to its being made on an older version of RPGMaker, which is unfortunate but what're you gonna do? I'm too lazy to mess around with a custom control profile or whatever so I just dealt with it. On the upside, everything is very parsable on the Deck and none of the text rendering is too small or anything like that, which is more than I can say for [i]some[/i] "verified" games. Mechanically a lategame criticism I have is that the experience levels cap out at lvl30, which takes no effort to reach if you're covering enough ground. I'd have appreciated if they'd kept going to lvl40 just so it didn't feel like encounters were a waste of time and resources after that (unless you are collecting scrap or filling your bestiary, of course). As mentioned above, you can just avoid them so it's not the worst problem to have, it's a pacing issue more than anything. Narratively, the endgame (as in the final act and epilogue) hits just right, no anticlimax or anything like that. Also, this is irrelevant to how the game plays but SLARPG doesn't have Steam achievements or badges and you know I'd craft the badge for this at least once!!! I'm just saying!!!!! Anyway, if you got something out of OMORI or Undertale you'll probably like this a lot. You do not need to be LGBTQ+ for SLARPG to touch you but it certainly helps. It has SO much soul and it is SO gay. tl;dr: My dick fell off a couple times while playing this game and I wouldn't have had it any other way. Ponett please make a sequel so this can happen again love you bye