BeelzeRog Adult Game Review 13: Lust from Beyond
On February 26, 2023 by beelzerog
0
0
*Warning, This review contains spoilers for the first game, “Lust for Darkness”*
Video originally created in April 2021.
A while ago I reviewed the original “Lust for Darkness” game and the two prequels for the sequel “Lust from Beyond”. Now the full game has been released. So how does the full version stack up? Let’s find out.
To recap, “Lust for Darkness” focused on the Cult of Ecstasy, which was obsessed with a dimension called Lusst’ghaa, with the promise of eternal ecstasy. You spend most of the game as Johnathan Moon, who is there to rescue his wife Amanda, who has been a prisoner of the cult for a year. You arrive just as the cult has managed to open a dimensional portal to Lust’ggha and you must deal with members of the Cult, including their leader, William Yelverton, as well as the monsters from Lusst’ghaa, known as the Changed. Through the events of the game, you manage to defeat William, rescue your wife, and the Cult’s mansion ends up burned to the ground.
The events of “Lust from Beyond” take place a little over 2 years after the events in “Lust for Darkness” and we start out once again controlling Amanda Moon like we did at the beginning of “Darkness”. As is revealed in the end of “Darkness” and the “Prologue” mini-game, she has embraced her role as a Seeing, a person who is especially attuned to the vibrations emulating across the multiverse from Lusst’ghaa. Through ceremony, she reaches out and finds another Seeing, Victor Holloway, who runs an antique shop in New England. From that point, you control Victor as he attempts to deal with the crazy dreams he suffers from and his eventual meeting with the Cult of Ecstasy and their break-off group, the Scarlet Lodge.
As Movie Games has mentioned before, you do not need to play the preceding games in order to enjoy “Lust from Beyond”, but you will have a much greater understanding of the lore of the game and their mechanics. Previous player-characters figure into story, but the full “Beyond” game gives you the needed information in-game. Johnathan Moon is a very large part of the game and it is interesting to see what happened to him after the events of “Darkness”. My personal opinion is you should play the previous games before getting to this one as it makes the lore deeper, gives an appreciation for the evolution of gameplay, and the Prologues will set things up very well.
As stated in the review of the “Beyond” Prologues, the graphics and gameplay are a marked improvement over “Darkness”. You now have an inventory system, healing items, and weapons. There is finer detail in the character models and in the environments. There are also larger environments, especially in the beginning with a large open area in Lusst’ghaa and also the town of Bleakmoor. Bleakmoor is especially nice in its atmosphere, as you can practically feel the humidity of the warm summer night around you. It gave me serious New Orleans French Quarter vibes, down to the Hustler Barely Legal strip club across from the Hotel Desire. And while the game still focuses on a lot of stealth and puzzle solving, there are some action sequences which will definitely get your pulse racing. One section especially captures the frantic disorientation of a chase. It does it’s atmospheres very well. Plus, there is some extra replayability, because decisions have consequences in how the story finishes and there are different combinations depending on what decisions line up.
But with each upside comes a downside. While a marked improvement, the game is glitchy. Sometimes the opening door mechanics don’t work quite right. Bodies frequently clip after killing them. While it is nice to have weapons, they don’t make it easy for you. First you must have the weapon out, then you have to press one button to bring it to the ready and then press another button at the same time to actually use it. Again, your character is an antique dealer, not a special forces badass, but at the same time it hinders you greatly in those few big action moments. While you start off with some big set pieces, you are soon limited to the Cult’s mansion, the Lodge’s theater, and even a few areas in Lusst’ghaa repeat (though consistency isn’t a bad thing). And biggest problem of all, the game just isn’t properly optimized. Framerate drops can be frequent, though the motion blurring can help disguise that, and loading times are just too long even for the smaller areas like the mansion. Now, as I was playing for the second time, an update was made available and there were some improvements, plus another mini-update came down as I was writing the script, with teasers to more content, so I am assuming they will continue to work on the game at least for a little while.
Now, there is something I feel needs to really be focused on. This is an Erotic Horror game and I think that both the erotic and the horror are equal in that title and frequently mixed. As another reviewer said “It makes my penis confused”. When I called the first game “Horny Lovecraft”, I wasn’t kidding and they have since dialed it up. I mentioned before that the game is very much atmosphere. There are set pieces that are very disturbing, especially in the Scarlet Lodge. Dead bodies will be piled up with their own guts around them, to the point you can almost smell it. Most of the Lodge cultists have severe scaring from lashes, several are mutilated, and you will find scenes reenacting fetishes that usually fall under the extreme category. There is rape, necrophilia, torture, implied vore, and… well, if it’s an extra-dimensional being with questionable sentience, does that count as beastiality? Plus on the lighter end, there’s some gay and trans sex as well. I shouldn’t feel the need to mention that, but we all know there are some players who will have no problems sticking Victor’s dick in a Changed, but will freak out when a dude drops to their knees in front of them.
Lastly, and this is going to sound weird, but I want to know more about Victor’s supposed sex addiction. He mentions his browser history being disturbing, but not why. He throws away one single Fleshlight. When he has sex with Lily, he goes faster rather than slowing down like she asks, but that’s no different than most frat boys on a Saturday night. While he mentions that his mother said things to him, what were they? Does Victor have terabytes of porn stashed somewhere? Did he have a lot of one-night stands or a bunch of girlfriends before Lily? Or did he just spend a lot of time masturbating? Does he have strong fetishes or just a really high sex drive? I’m just confused on this point, because for someone who is a Seeing, that consuming sex drive doesn’t seem all that consuming, at least from the outside.
If there are things I’d like to see, well, I have a few. Optimization would be the highest on the list. Secondly, I wish there was a save system, as well as the ability to hold onto the history side stories you’ve discovered if you decide to play through again. The save system would be nice if you don’t want to do things like play through the opening segments over and over again. To use “For Darkness” as an example, if I could have a save set early in the game so I didn’t have to go through the Moon’s house again or the sneaking through the gardens at the beginning every time, it would be very convenient. Even the ability to go back and play different Chapters after you’ve played through the first time would be helpful. Thirdly, a couple of models are a little… off.
Regardless, I’d still recommend this to anyone who’s not completely put off by the subject matter. First Person Exploration, Stealth, Horror, Sex, Good Story, Great Atmosphere, this game has a lot to offer. This is a marked improvement over the first chapter and, while not perfect, is an ambitious, strong game. The multiple endings suggests this might be the last installment, which is a shame because the world they’ve sketch out is fascinating. Maybe we’ll get a prequel, set in the 1920’s when the Cult is formed? Are there other similar groups around the world trying to do the same thing? Though there is room for a sequel if they decide on one of the endings to be canon, or maybe multiple sequels, who knows.
Oh, and one last thing I’d like to see. Those Scarlet Lodge outfits. For Sale (at a reasonable price, obviously). Not big on the scars, and the masks are a bit too big, but I think you could pair them with the Cult’s masks and, um, yeah, I think I need to make a trip to Lustt’ghaa….
All VIDEO CLIPS, AUDIO CLIPS, AND STILL IMAGES WERE UNDERSTOOD TO BE FAIR USE (17 US Code Sec.107) IN THIS NOT-FOR-PROFIT, TRANSFORMATIVE WORK.
Please contact us if you feel anything has been unfairly used so it can be removed.
