Femboy

I'd just like to give a quick warning that I talk about some NSFW stuff in this review. Shocking, I know. Tl;dr There's an hour or two of dumb fun to be had here if you're morbidly curious and have low expectations, but once the novelty wears off, you're left with something utterly lifeless. The basic gist of Hentai vs Evil is that you take control of a very generic looking anime girl who has to shoot her way through maps covered with hordes of equally generic enemies. The game has two modes, each giving you a different objective. There's the "Rescue" mode, where you need to kill 12 grim reaper enemies scattered across the map and go rescue a fellow anime girl locked in a cage, and then "Survivor" mode, where you just need to keep yourself alive for as long as possible. You have three maps to choose from in each mode, and two difficulty settings. There's no real story mode or anything, but you need to play rounds of Rescue mode to unlock stuff like characters and maps. Like I said earlier, I did actually have some fun playing Rescue mode until I unlocked everything. Having the goal of killing the 12 reapers adds a (very, very vague) sense of strategy to what would otherwise just be mindless killing. Having to look for the reapers (and then the girl) also encourages you to explore the map and move around a bit. On a more broad level, the whole concept of an anime girl running around and gunning down hoards of zombies is just beautifully absurd and perfectly appeals to my dumb sense of humor. It took me about half an hour total to play through all three maps and rescue all three girls on easy mode, and during that time, I was more than able to turn my brain off and have some dumb, uncritical fun. But even with my "turn my brain off" setting turned up to maximum overdrive, I could see a lot wrong with this game. And you can only keep your brain turned off for so long. Everything about this game is half-assed, and I mean literally EVERYTHING. I'm hard pressed to think of even one aspect of this game that doesn't do anything more than hit the bare minimum. It's so weird to me that an actual, professional publisher decided to put their name on this. For starters, this game **** aesthetically. The graphics would have looked outdated on a Wii game. Everything looks like a generic stock asset, from the maps to the enemies to the player characters, and nothing matches anything style-wise. All the visual customizations you can make on the player characters look generic and awful and none of them have any memorable features anyway. All of the music in the game is just as soulless. The gameplay gets repetitive very quick. The guns you see in the game are the same guns you've seen in every other shooter game. Different weapons are scattered around the map for you to pick up, but as soon as you pick up the gun that's right in front of you when you spawn, there's no reason to switch. You never run out of ammo, and changing your weapon ultimately has little to no effect on the way a game plays out (except for the sniper rifle, that one **** ass). Now that I think about it, this lack of variation and change spreads to so many other things in the game. All of the enemies act the exact same way, all of the player characters play exactly the same, none of the maps have any meaningful distinguishing features. As I said earlier, I had a tiny, tiny bit of fun with Rescue mode, but Survival mode is boring as hell. It just throws you in a game, slaps a timer on it, and that's it. There's no reason to do anything other than run and hide away from enemies. Hell, even the NSFW aspect of this game is awful. There's an "Uncensored Mode" you can toggle on the title screen, but all it does is make the player characters' outfits kind of transparent. If you put on a certain outfit for each characters, you can get them topless, but otherwise it looks like they're wearing some kind of ghost dress or whatever. So they can't even do that right. Also, in the settings menu there's an option where it shows you what the controls are, and it actually shows you the wrong controls. It says its 'A' to jump, but 'A' doesn't make you jump, 'B' does. 'A' doesn't do anything. This makes literally no difference on anything, but I felt the need to include it. I bought this game out of morbid curiosity, so at the end of the day, I can't say I'm truly disappointed. But it does anger me that a game with such a stupid, fun premise ended up so boring and lifeless. I still believe in my heart that this game could have been really fun in the hands of a more competent, ambitious developer. If you're like me and get some enjoyment from playing bad games just to see what they're like, then this could make for a fun one-time thing to do on a Friday night or something. Aside from that, this game has absolutely nothing of value to offer.

I randomly bought this game when it was 90% off in the eShop and I'm so glad I did. If you're a casual gamer like me and prefer games with immersive storytelling and relatively easy gameplay, then you'll absolutely love this. Jenny LeClue is a very well-written game, both in terms of the story and dialogue. The titular main character is very likable, and gives so many fun little quips as you move through the game. The citizens of Arthurton, the game's setting, are just as fun to interact with. The game is very charming with the way it meshes all of these characters together. The plot itself is also well done. The mystery you help Jenny solve is very intricate and spiraling, and there are some serious Eureka moments towards the latter half. There are some parts that can be difficult to follow, however. The gameplay is very solid. I absolutely love the point and click elements, and a lot of the puzzles are very cleverly designed. I usually am not too great at those sorts of things, but most of them were intuitive enough for me to figure out on my own, which was very rewarding. The pieces of art and stickers hidden in various places also does a great job at encouraging you to wander off of the path, and explore things on your own. Dialogue sections that let you pick Jenny's words are also an absolute treat, and another great showcase of the game's writing. Yes, there are quite a few moments where both choices are essentially the same, but there is a small handful of big decisions that do a great job of putting you in Jenny's shoes. A few decisions you make as Arthur also feel very significant. On top of all of this, the beautiful art style (serious, some areas look AMAZING) and backing music help make this game an charming, atmospheric, immersive delight. The game isn't without its flaws, however. While most of the puzzles are easy to figure out, there were a few points where I got very lost in some big areas, and ended up having to do a lot of backtracking. I needed to look up a walkthrough to get through these parts. The magnifying glass mechanic was also way too straightforward for me. Most of the time, it only gives you the prompt to look for something when you're standing right next to it, which I feel kind of defeats the purpose. Also, while I do like the art style, there were points where it felt very limiting. This was especially noticeable during emotional moments of the game, where the characters' expressions were a lot stiffer than they should have been. There's also the issue of the game's ending, of which there is none. Like...literally, there's no ending. You get to a section where things are really starting to unravel and a lot of big things are being revealed, and then it VERY abruptly cuts to the credits, leaving so many things unresolved. It's extremely jarring. I assume most of these threads will be picked up in the sequels that have been promised, but it's so sloppy that it doesn't feel like a deliberate cliffhanger, it just feels like the game is unfinished. I wouldn't say it ruined the enjoyment I'd had with it up to that point, but I think for some people it might. So yeah, it's rough around the edges, but when it's good, this game is GOOD. If you're into story-based games and are willing to overlook a few glaring flaws, you'll get a lot enjoyment out of this. But if those descriptors don't fit, then this might not be for you. Very eager to see what comes next for this game.

Like all Pokémon games, Let's Go Pikachu has that familiar core gameplay to it. There's just something so intrinsically fun about adventuring through a region, gradually raising the strength of your team and defeating various other trainers as you do. Let's Go Pikachu does a good job at preserving this familiar setup, and I had no trouble getting absorbed in this game the same way I get absorbed in pretty much every Pokémon game I pick up. One of the cool things about Let's Go Pikachu is that it also presents a few welcome changes to the long-held standards of the franchise. For starters, catching has been completely overhauled, modified to appeal to newcomers who enter the franchise via Pokémon Go. I thought this was a pretty cool way to shakeup the formula and set this game apart from its predecessors. Wild Pokémon encounters have also been changed, so that you can see various Pokémon wandering around in the wilderness before you encounter them. Although its more of an aesthetic thing, this change really went a long way for me. Not only is it easier to avoid unwanted encounters (though they still do happen), it also adds a lot to the visuals of the Kanto region, and makes the world feel more real. Speaking of visuals, the overall look of this game is also very nice. There are a lot of new cutscenes and added animations that make the game feel much more alive than previous 3D Pokémon games have been. The designs for all the important characters (including the protagonist, the gym leaders/Elite Four, all the bosses, and a bunch of supporting characters) are all really nice looking. The environments also look neat. Pokémon walking behind you, a fan-favorite feature from HGSS, is also finally back, and actually improved somewhat. You can control which Pokémon walks behind you (instead of it just being the one in the first party slot), and you can do more than just walk with them. There are ridable Pokémon that replace the bike, flying Pokémon that let you soar through the sky (post-game only though), and various water Pokémon that'll take you through the ocean (after you get the surf secret technique). Unlike the mounts from previous 3DS games, these are all your own Pokémon, and interacting with them like this helps with the art style to make the game one of the most immersive Pokémon games. But the game is not without its pitfalls. Let's Go Pikachu adds plenty of new features to the game it's based on, but preserves many of its flaws as well. The plot is just as tacked-on and empty as the last time these games were remade. Once again, Team Rocket show up to do lots of generic villain stuff. Giovanni is just as forgettable as ever, having almost no presence outside of the two times you battle him. This should hardly come as a surprise to those who've played the originals (or most Pokémon games) before, but it's still disappointing. Similar to this, I am of the opinion that the Kanto region is the most boring region in Pokémon, geographically at least. There are a couple cool areas here and there like Pokémon Mansion and Lavender Tower, but they pale in comparison to landmarks that came in later games. So even though they look nice, they're boring to play through. Regarding the gameplay, I have two main complaints: the repetitiveness and the EXP gain. I can't recall if it was like this in previous games, but it felt like every route was absolutely flooded with trainers. Getting through areas like the Rocket HQ, Rock Tunnel and most of the later-game routes took me literal hours of fighting trainer after trainer after trainer, over and over again. And nearly all of these trainer battles have absolutely no strategy to them, requiring only mindless button mashing. Because of the limited pool of Pokémon this game has, you also end up fighting the same handful of Pokémon dozens or even hundreds of times. In spite of this forced grinding, gaining EXP is extremely slow. Even when consistently facing Mons that were ten levels above my current one, it could take forever to gain even a single level sometimes. I'm the type of person who likes to rotate Mons in and out of my team pretty routinely, and this was especially frustrating for me because it felt like it was encouraging me to just capture six Pokémon early on in the game and only use them. Also, quickly as I'm running out of characters: some of the in-game models were missing light-mapping in battles (which looked weird), and Pokémon walking behind you could get glitchy. The postgame also requires lots of grind. Like so much grind I didn't even bother. Let's Go is most fun in the beginning, when everything is new, and in the end, when your progress starts to add up. But in the middle, there's a lot of slog to get through. As a long-time Pokémon fan, I could overlook the game's numerous flaws and get a lot of enjoyment from it. But if you can't do the former, you probably won't be able to do the former.

Just a heads up: this review contains some mildly NSFW stuff (which I'm sure comes as no surprise). Yeah, this game is just not it. For the starters, there's the gameplay and lack thereof. I understand that the visual novel genre isn't the most involved category of games, but Sakura Succubus takes so little input from the player that there's barely a game to talk about here. The core of this game is nothing more than a slideshow of art with some dialogue attached to it. Most of your time playing this is going to be spent mashing the A button and reading. If my memory is correct, there's only a single (Just one!) opportunity to make a decision throughout the entire game. And it's not even an important one! Putting the near total lack of gameplay aside (which is a pretty BIG thing to put aside), everything else about this game is different shades of lackluster. The story is about as low-effort as it gets. You got your standard no-name protagonist stumbling his way through interactions with three different succubus women. As you'd expect from this kind of game, the plot is little more than a series of excuses to get all the different characters interacting with each other, and to get the romance going between you and them. This absence would be a lot less noticeable if there was something, anything to fill the gap, but there just isn't. To top things off, the game is extremely short (you can beat the entire thing in one sitting), and ends on a cliffhanger that advertises the sequel. So I can't even make a joke that "At least it has a story with a beginning, middle, and end," because it doesn't even have all three of those. The actual writing itself (i.e. dialogue and narration) **** completely awful, but absolutely nothing special. There's occasionally a slightly amusing exchange between characters or a mildly witty wisecrack from the protagonist that'll make you grin and blow some air out of your nose, but this is about as good as it gets. Sensual and romantic moments with the different succubi follow the same pattern, being mediocre in both quality and quantity. So even though it doesn't completely ****, there are plenty of games that completely blow this game out of the water, writing-wise. The visuals are just as lacking. The portraits of the three main succubi are competently done (notice I said competent, not great), and the more detailed images are about the same, save for a few moments where the characters' anatomy gets kind of wonky. The main thing keeping the visuals down is the fact that there are so many things that are just plain missing. The protagonist doesn't have a portrait and never shows up on camera. There are a few transition scenes that are set against nothing but a cloudy sky (with text describing the protagonist traveling somewhere or doing something that should probably be illustrated). There's even a moment where the protagonist is talking with his boss, who also lacks a portrait, and you end up with two invisible guys talking with each other, with nothing but the stock office backdrop accompanying it. It's just as dumb as it sounds. Plenty of interactions between the numerous succubi are conveyed entirely through text while their portraits remain static, blankly staring through the screen dividing the two of you and into your soul. At first, I didn't think it was a super big deal, but something about the total lack of movement on screen drives you a little crazy after a while. And finally, to address the NSFW elephant in the room: there's the sexual aspect to this game, which is just as lackluster as everything else. The only sex scene in the game happens completely off-screen, and aside from that, there's nothing but the occasional moment of tension that's only shocking in how mild it is. There's a brief scene between the protagonist and Cosmos that gets ****...interesting, but it's gone so quickly that it leaves basically no impact on the game as a whole. There's nothing this game does that another thing doesn't do much better. There are a million better visual novels out there, there are a million better story-based games out there, and there's so much better porn out there. Hell, it's not even bad in a so-bad-its-funny way. It's bad in a boring, "no-one even really gave a **** way, which is the least fun kind of bad. So, in a way, there are games that are better at being bad than this game. I wouldn't say that I hate this game or that it's rage-inducing in its badness or anything like that. It's just so apparent how little love and care went into it. All the different aspects of this game hit the bare minimum and happily sit there, completely lacking even the smallest threads of ambition. There's nothing here to recommend. Even if you have a morbid curiosity for the worst the Switch has to offer, there are games that will satisfy it better than this one. I'm not even mad, I'm just disappointed.