Alright this is going to be more first impressions than a review, but I assume the English speaking yuri fanbase needs this. Overall this is looking to be a very strong DRPG, that will hold my attention to the end.

Its a very basic form 5 party members and go into a first person dungeon crawler, fighting monsters and solving quests. The unique factor in this is the fact the girls form relationships. After you return from a dungeon, you can have your party members train, cook, or gather materials together. Doing this increases their fondness and then a character will ask them on a date. At first they'll reject them all the time, but eventually they will go after their fondness will be high enough. The rejection dialogue will vary based on the personality you choose, as nicer characters will do so politely: "Sorry, I have plans," to harsh: "HARD PASS."

The art style is personal preference, but I like it. Character portraits are done in MagoDesu trademark style, with creature designs being horrific. I personally like the contrast, as the game story tells you fact this dungeon is dangerous and showcases character death, but its a preference thing.

This game is fun and I definitely want to keep playing it after 2 hours, so that's a good sign. I'd recommend this game if your a fan of classic DPRG or Yuri games, but I am only 2 hours in, and haven't experienced any of the bond mechanics (the gameplay differentiation) yet.

IMPORTANT THINGS FOR ENGLISH PLAYERS
- When you open the game, its automatically set in Japanese. To fix this, go to the furthest tab in the settings and change the first option to English.

For the devs, some adjustments for the full release, as this is early access:
-give the ability to speed up the text scroll
-Auto battle function (doesn't even have to use AI to pick moves, can be a simple basic attack auto.

It's extremely Etrian Odyssey inspired in basically every way it could be, except it doesn't have manual mapping. It's missing obvious QoL features like autobattle, which is... weird. I get the impression they launched into Early Access so that obvious omissions could be hand-waved away while they finish them up, which isn't a great feeling.

But it's still quite fun, with great art, and a fun concept/twist on the regular DRPG. If only my girls would do anything but turn each other down. ;_;

Not sure why the reception is mixed so far, this feels like a solid DRPG. I think my recommendation is pick it up if you LOVE DRPGs, or wait a couple months for QoL improvements if you're more on the fence.

I loved the idea of a DRPG with prominent relationship mechanics but sadly what's present seems sadly shallow. Combined with the price tag + the lack of certain elements makes this more of something to come back to later when the kinks are ironed out.

[THE CONS]

* The game is pretty messy in weird areas such as the map glitch that occurs if you take a shortcut but it immediately fixes itself as soon as you take another step, the numerous, NUMEROUS bits of jumbled text that pops up with words randomly smushing together in dialogue or menu text stacking weirdly, or the text that straight up just didn't get a translation like a scene where two of my girls were interacting and it was all in Japanese. It's glitchy as hell but ironically not my biggest issue with the game as the glitches I encountered in my short playtime didn't impede my enjoyment.

* Unlike some of the reviewers and people in the discussion forum I did get two of my girls to date but it was pretty lackluster with each girl only having one line of dialogue before the narration goes on to state "...And [A] and grew closer!" This may grow more detailed in the later game but I expected a bit more from the start considering all the emphasis on personalities and so on. I would have liked it more if the girls started out as friends THEN started doing romantic stuff together at like, heart level 3 or something but having everyone immediately jumping into wanting to date is kind of goofy and with everyone turning down these dates its also a bit repetitive.

* Speaking of personalities, I think this may be a translation thing but "Totem" seems like it should be "Personality" as it seems to dictate the girls actual personalities while "Personality" just dictates their combat yelps and other assorted voice clips. Not a real "con" but maybe something that needs to be retranslated? The character creation tutorial did say "Totems" determined how girls get closer but I thought it was just something they found valuable in their lives that would get integrated in their conversations or something.

* The audio presentation is lacking in all areas except music. Sound effects in battle are limp and without impact, party member voices seem badly mixed, and the lack of satisfying sounds for menu navigation just gives the game a very stale feeling. This seems like a weird critique but when half of your game is spent in menus having nice SE goes a long way and the abysmal sounds used for battle is just strange, the immersion is simply not there.

* Presentation in general needs more touch ups. The side menu UI is fine but stuff like the hangout UI where you decide who does what is just boring and the skill learning screen seems too big?? Like if it was a traditional skill tree where hovering over the skill would show what it does instead of having an almost mobile game style ♥♥♥♥ huge menu I think it would look less cramped. The girl's portraits in the dungeon are also too small--I don't think they need to be Etrian Odyssey big but at least a little bigger so it's easier to see what status effects they're suffering from. Scenes also need more proper transitions for things like battle and cutscenes.

* Some more information would be nice, stuff like a step counter so you know when you're next encounter is and health bars or other health indicators on an enemy. Not a major one as the lack of these two didn't irritate me but I would have liked to have these features.

[THE PROS]

* The art style is very cute! I'm not usually into this style of anime but it works with the game's theme of cute girls growing together and the juxtaposition of this style with the horrific dungeon monsters works well so I like it alot in this instance.

* The music is nice, especially the main theme that plays in the main menu.

* I actually enjoy the automapping over having to do the mapping myself.

And that's about it.

I think i'll come back to this game once it is out of EA but as of now it's a bit too 'weak' for the price and needs alot more punching up in presentation for me to come back to it and it would be nice if the relationship mechanic was reworked so the girls became friends before the clam smashing instincts kicked in, it would make the date rejections less irritating I think.