Game Impressions: Monster Souls - Chains of Chimera (v0.3.5)

Monster Souls: Chains of Chimera (version 0.3.5)

Began: 2/13/2025
Completed: 2/15/2025
Playtime (0.3.5 - Chapter 3 complete): 5 hours, not including reloads for alternative scenes
Demo played via itch.io. There's a Steam page but the demo isn't uploaded there.
This game is really close to my ideal of a porn game. Entirely M/M, minimal on the furry (particularly the “bara furry visual novel” style, which isn’t my thing) but comparatively heavy on the monsterfucking, and extremely enthusiastic about the noncon. Not only does it encourage you to lose to the transformation monster at least once, it's actually expected that you do so because it unlocks new classes for the protagonist earlier than the end of the chapter. There's just not a lot of variety-M/M-noncon porn games out there and I’m glad something as good as this one exists.
The art style and designs are also really great. The background art is incredibly pretty. The protagonist's armor is revealing but not overly so? The bottom is kind of a garter belt setup and his ass is entirely exposed, but his top is mostly covered. Several characters point this out. I just think the design is hot, and the way everyone sexualizes him is really hot too. Ash also has revealing cutouts in his outfit but people don’t really point that out. But I appreciate him.
And on top of all that, it's a decent RPG with a great art style. The UI could use some more work but the fundamentals of combat design are there. There are also several fights you are intended to lose for the sake of progression, and while it’s used a bit too much in Chapter 3, that one's also still a work in progress and the nature of the game kinda necessitates “completing” the chapter before circling back and filling out content and polishing things up.
If I could list out things I want more of, it would be 1) a romance system with the party members, 2) more (repeatable) sex scenes with party members/Caspian/others, 3) more characterization surrounding Lyric, 4) more polish surrounding some of the later sex scenes, and 5) maybe more loss/surrender scenes for some monsters so you have a reason to lose to them again. Most of these I think are coming anyway. My particular gripe is just with 3 - Lyric doesn’t get much interaction with the hero or Ash, and there's very little dialogue from him in general, so his dynamic especially falls flat when he’s available for a scene at the end of Chapter 2 (he just came off as overly pushy when we hardly know anything about him or his character). Also, if possible I think it’d be neat if the chimera forms unlocked new sex scenes with characters that leaned on the monster aspects, but that’s something for later down the line and I’d rather the dev prioritize a basic romancing system first.
In general, I just really enjoyed the experience and look forward to seeing more updates. The dev is doing some great work here.
Also there are catboys and the catboys go nya. 10/10.