Dreams of Desire is like one of those trashy hentai OVA you told yourself you’d watch just for the “plot”, then suddenly it’s three routes later and you know everyone’s bad habits, favorite underwear color, and exactly how far they’ll go if you whisper the right words into their ear. The setup is simple enough: guy doesn’t want to get shipped off to some dead boring military academy, stumbles over a creepy old book that basically says “hey, you can hack people’s brains if you’re horny and irresponsible enough,” and then everything around him turns into a playground of lust, lies, and a bit of morality yeeting itself out the window. What I like is how it goes from kinda normal slice of life to “ok, this household is one wrong decision away from a full-on corruption spiral” without making a big dramatic show. One minute you’re talking about chores and dinner, next minute you’re peeking through doors, catching somebody fingering themselves, and the game asks you if you just walk away or stand there like a degenerate and enjoy the view.

The corruption stuff is the real meat here. It’s not like, instant brainwash with glowing eyes and everyone turns into sex drones. It’s slower, messy, and sometimes awkward in that way only this genre really knows how to do. You try pushing someone a little too hard and they snap at you, or you say the “wrong” suggestion and instead of sexy obedience you get guilt, weird tension, and you sitting there thinking “ok, I kinda deserve that.” Then two scenes later that same character is giving you this shy little striptease, pretending they’re in control while clearly melting inside. Some of the best moments are small things, like when the “good girl” character starts swearing when she gets fucked rough for the first time, or when the dominant one suddenly blushes when you flip the power dynamic and tease her feet until she begs. The game really loves watching you turn hesitation into addiction: first a stolen glance in the shower, then mutual masturbation, then blowjob in a place that’s absolutely not safe, and then suddenly you’re sharing a bed with three women who should absolutely not all be okay with it, yet nobody is saying no anymore. And the worst part is how natural it feels inside this world, like the book didn’t just unlock manipulation, it pulled the mask off everyone’s hidden kinks and said “go on, you already wanted this.”

Pale Carnations feels like someone took a very proper medical student, stripped out his sense of safety, then tossed him face first into the kind of club you normally only see mentioned in Telegram chats that vanish after a week. You start as this uptight guy who really believes he’s still on a straight path, and then your old friend drags you into the Carnation Club, which is basically a brothel pretending to be an art space. The game doesn’t even try to warm you up slowly. One minute you’re talking about exams, the next you’re standing in a “performance hall” where three women are being judged like twisted idols for how well they take pain, shame and a whole lot of cum. The first night, when you have to guide one of the girls through a show, pushed to choose between making it romantic, cruel, or just filthy efficient, that’s where it clicked for me. This isn’t just porn with clicks. It’s about how far you’re willing to go when everyone keeps telling you it’s normal to choke a girl on stage while rich assholes clap in the dark.

The sound in this thing really surprised me. Not “triple A” surprised, more like “why does this muffled moan in the background feel more real than the entire Spotify sexy playlist I’ve got”. There’s this scene where you’re backstage with an older woman who clearly knows the club better than you ever will. She presses your hand to her ass while she quietly instructs you how to handle your “performer”, her voice soft but absolutely in control, and in the distance you hear the audience roar when someone gets spanked hard enough to cry. The track underneath is this slow, slightly dirty lounge loop, a bit off tempo, almost cheap, but it fits so well that I ended up replaying that scene just to hear the way her breathing synced with the bass line. Then later the game swaps to this almost tender piano piece while you’re literally arranging who gets groped on stage and who gets humiliated in private. I liked that a lot. Or maybe I didn’t. It made it harder to pretend this is just mindless fap material when the music keeps whispering “you’re kind of a bastard for choosing the harsher option, you know?” and then rewards you with the wettest, messiest creampie CG three clicks later. The game loves that contrast. Romance on the surface, anal and public bukkake in the back room, ahegao faces in full view while the MC still tells himself he’s a good guy. It’s not subtle, and it’s not trying to be. There’s cheating, masturbation breaks that feel a bit too honest, toys pulled out at the worst possible time, and a lot of rich people treating human bodies like decoration. I wish the little clicking sound on some menu wasn’t so loud, actually, it annoyed me from the start and I kept meaning to change it, then got distracted every single time some milf in heels called me “doctor” and bent over a piece of BDSM furniture like it was a confession booth. Anyway, the club keeps going, the performances get rougher, and your choices keep twisting the knife, mostly in you.

Free City is trashy in the best way, like that one bar where the floor sticky, the cocktails weak, and somehow you still end up naked in the bathroom with someone you met ten minutes ago. You play this private eye who is supposed to care about some "suicide case," but baby, the man investigating is thirstier than the whole police department. Every time I tried to follow a clue I ended up following a pair of tits instead. And the game knows it. It throws curves at you all the time, big boobs everywhere, big asses trying to distract you while you pretend to be professional. You question a widow, she is crying, mascara running, and two clicks later she is on the couch with her legs open, asking you in that fake innocent voice if you can "comfort" her. Sure, girl, I bring the comfort and the condom. The whole visual novel flow is slow enough to tease, but not that boring otome slow where you need three hours just to see a hand touch. Here, one wrong answer and suddenly you have her on all fours, her ass up, and the screen full of thick cg that looks like it came straight out of someone’s secret folder named "do_not_open". Then you realize she has a husband. Or had. Or has a boyfriend too. Honestly I lost track, because everyone cheating on everyone and I was sitting there sipping my iced coffee like a messy therapist watching a live soap opera.

The best part is how the game keeps pretending it is a serious noir story while you are busy corrupting half the city. One moment you talk about crime, motives, evidence, being all "hard-boiled detective", the next you are balls-deep in some interracial group scene where you forgot why you came there in the first place. There is romance if you want it, that sugary "I care about you" vibe, but the romance quickly turns into "tie me up and spit in my mouth" if you push the right dialogue options. Some of those bdsm scenes come out of nowhere. You flirt a little, do the soft hand touch, then boom, she is naked, wrists bound to the headboard, big tits pressed together with rope, and you decide if you want to be gentle or absolutely ruin her. And sometimes the game just goes, "Oh, you like girls too?" and hands you a lesbian scene with a side of voyeurism, while you stand back like a sleazy director watching two women go from shy kisses to full tongue, fingers, and one of them riding the other’s face until the bedsheets look like a crime scene by themselves. The group sex bits are wild but messy in a fun way, people grabbing whatever body part in reach, someone taking it in the ass while moaning about how they should not be doing this, someone else with cum dripping on their big boobs, and the story still trying to tell you, "hey, remember, murder mystery?" No, babe, I remember her legs shaking when I picked the "harder" option. The only thing that annoyed me was one tiny sound effect during a climax that sounded like someone stirring mac and cheese in a plastic bowl, threw me right out for a second, and now I cannot stop thinking about it. But anyway, every time I thought I would play just a bit and close the tab, suddenly I am six choices deep into another affair, lying to one character while fucking another in an alley, my detective morally bankrupt and my browser history screaming help.

The whole thing feels like someone took a trashy discipline fetish manga, threw it on a lonely island, and then accidentally added a half-decent management sim on top. You play as the guy in charge of one of those “special education” facilities where all the washed out students get dumped. On paper it sounds kind of dry, but this place is basically a pressure cooker full of horny, pissed-off young adults who think they’re too old to be treated like schoolkids… and you are exactly there to prove they’re wrong. They sign forms, they pretend they have rights, and then you walk them into a “classroom” that looks more like a club backroom with cameras on every wall and a stage that absolutely isn’t for PowerPoint.

What hit me first is how quickly the tone swings from fake-official to filthy. One moment the game is talking about attendance and study plans, next you’re dragging a lazy student out in front of the others and telling her she can either pass her “oral exam” or spend the night in public detention. There was this scene where I cranked her “obedience level” too fast in the management screen and suddenly the next event had her standing on a table, collar on, being ordered to strip while the rest of the class watches and “takes notes”. The CG there is ridiculous in the best way: her face trying to look tough, body already betraying her, skirt around her ankles and the teacher’s hand sliding up between her cheeks like it’s the most normal thing in the world. They really lean into humiliation, not soft, not romantic, just raw “you’re ours now” energy, especially when other students are forced to watch and join in. It’s not even subtle voyeur stuff; half the time the door is wide open and there’s a security camera light blinking in the corner like a bored pervert.

The management layer is half shallow, half weirdly addictive. You juggle class schedules, “special programs”, budgets, all that. Send this girl to “disciplinary counseling”, throw that one to the group “practice session” in the gym, mark another for a private “consultation” in the teacher’s lounge where the couch is obviously not for sitting. Some days you’re basically running a porn studio disguised as a remedial school. Raise her corruption stat and suddenly she volunteers to bend over the teacher’s desk while two other students hold her wrists, pretending it’s extra credit for teamwork. Push it higher and she’s the one dragging a shy new girl into a locker room, groping her through a half-unbuttoned uniform while laughing too loud because she knows the security staff is watching through that tinted window. I liked how sometimes an event kicks in that you didn’t plan at all, like walking past a classroom and catching a bunch of students “rehearsing” a strip show with desks pushed to the side. You can barge in and take control, or just sit in the dark behind the one-way glass and quietly crank the voyeur options higher. It’s messy, it’s inconsistent, some scenes feel copy-pasted and one of the UI buttons annoyed me so much I kept clicking the wrong thing, but then you hit a night scene where the whole class is lined up on the rooftop, collars glinting in the city lights, getting inspected one by one, and yeah. This game knows exactly what kind of rotten little island it wants to be.