What Games are you playing 2015?

[Veryslightlymad]

Now for the ACTUAL GAMEPLAY REVIEW:

Well, the dating/conversations/whatever suck. Like I said, it's basically a "memorize facts about people" and then give them trinkets. That's it. I will say that the voice acting is really fucking good. Not just by H-game standards, I mean, really good.

The Match 3 game is a standard match 3. You can slide a piece across either axis all the way. I like this system. It's pleasing. Game doesn't run the board out of tiles, and, since you're not playing fucking Bejeweled for points, that is refreshing. A lot of games have the "BOARD OVER" shit when they don't need it. Several pieces, most do the same thing, three do different things. enormous variety of items, but once I found 6 I liked, I pretty much sold everything else. Still, if you have a different match-3 style, you might get mileage out of very different sets. After a while, the game will eventually scale up to where it gets somewhat challenging to Meet the quotas.

You got 8 girls and 4 "secret" girls. They're extremely well voice acted. Several of them are dogshit human beings that, honestly, who would want to fuck? I'll review them in depth if anyone wants me to make this a 3 part review of a fucking H game. You go on 4 "dates" with each girl, more if you fuck up. The 4th date (conservative culture. I always heard three. :facetious emoticon:) leads to sex, presuming you had the foreknowledge to ask them out at NIGHT instead of during the morning, afternoon, or Evening. All dates are spur of the moment. I wish real life was more like that. Fuck dating, like, conceptually.

The sex "game" is terrible. It's basically zen Bejeweled with a score that constantly lowers. Once you reach the target number, uh, I guess the girl climaxes, and then you win. Yay.

I feel like this is backward. Not only is it incredibly dull from a gameplay standpoint, it also raises odd questions about the sex. Like, ideally in Huniepop, you finish in like, 20 seconds. It favors the wham-bam-thankyouma'am, John F Kennedy approach, and that just feels jarring. What would be better, both from a gameplay standpoint and also, I don't fucking know, metaphorically would be less "Zen" bejeweled and more "Lightning" Bejeweled, where you have a high score to begin with, and it gradually goes down, and when it empties, the mini-game ends. Instead of getting done as soon as possible, it'd encourage you to get bigger, better combos, stay alive for as long as you can, stay focused and generally actually be a game.

You never lose points with the girls, which is also odd. You get infinite tries. Apparently there's an "alpha" mode which soorrrrrrrrrrrrrt of does this, but just the name of that mode pisses me off to the point where I refuse to try it. At any rate, if you fail a date with a girl, you should lose a heart and have to work your way back into her good graces. There's no stakes and that's kind of lame.

So the quck review is: All in all, as an actual game, it's not bad. The main dates are a take on match 3 that I like and the scores can get challenging and the item system is robust. The question game sucks. The sex game also sucks.

[Ranmilia]

I'll review them in depth if anyone wants me to make this a 3 part review of a fucking H game.

Your tears are delicious and must be maximized.  Also, that's an oxymoron.

[Captain K]

I'll review them in depth if anyone wants me to make this a 3 part review of a fucking H game.

Go for it.  This is already the best content you've ever posted on rpgdl.

[Nitori]

I'll review them in depth if anyone wants me to make this a 3 part review of a fucking H game.

please tell us how much you love audrey

[Fudozukushi]

I'll review them in depth if anyone wants me to make this a 3 part review of a fucking H game.

Show us how much you loved them all.

[Cotigo]

I'll review them in depth if anyone wants me to make this a 3 part review of a fucking H game.

Go for it.  This is already the best content you've ever posted on rpgdl.

[Veryslightlymad]

I'll review them in depth if anyone wants me to make this a 3 part review of a fucking H game.

Go for it.  This is already the best content you've ever posted on rpgdl.

Objection. I was the Axe Man.

I just booted up Bejeweled 3 and tried Lightning Mode, and yeah, it's more erotically satisfying* than the sex game in Huniepop, and it doesn't even have anime girls moaning at you. (With, again, terrific voice acting). I also beat my high score, somehow, despite playing maybe 5 matches.
*_{I'm also the guy who gets really turned on by that knocking sound pinball machines make when you get a high enough score to win a free game, so YMMV}
~~~~~~~

MAXIMUM TEARS it is. I couldn't remember the names of the girls, so I found a wiki for it (of course there's a wiki). I found a poll for "favorite girl" with the following results.
Aiko: 276
Audrey: 99
Beli: 146
Celeste: 64
Jessie: 70
Kyanna: 97
Kyu: 69
Lola: 31
Momo: 64
Nikki: 279
Tiffany: 99
Venus: 24

So 279 people are playing this game because they're actually sad losers that are waiting for a girl JUST LIKE THEM, but they'll never find her because she's ALSO busy furiously masturbating to Huniepop.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Aiko:
The Good:
She's the other highest vote getter, and that's because she's actually fun. Her dialogue is a trip. She's incredibly no-bullshit, loves to gamble, cuss, and masturbate. She likes rough sex. :frogsiren: If I have to pick a Waifu, this is my waifu.  :frogsiren:. She comes across as a very down-to-earth, normal girl. The game description says she's depressed, but honestly, she seems to have a better worldview than most of these idiots. She's also supposedly the only Asian, because Kyu points it out, which I find WEIRD for an H-game, but Huniepop is shockingly diverse. She's really playful. Her gifts are "Japanese" and when you give her one, she'll exclaim "OH MY GOD! That's SO RACIST, I love it!" in just... a really authentic way. The voice actress nails the sort of give-each-other-shit attitude that you can have with a close friend. Assume I list "Voice acting" for basically every character, henceforth.
The Bad:
She's a university professor that wears a midriff shirt and short shorts to class. She actually has more conservative outfits that she wears on dates. What? Just switch around her defaults and it makes more sense. Also, Girl needs to learn some Poker. Gamble smart, babe. Also, cabbage.

Audrey:
The Good:
The Writing. She's such an over-the-top bitch that even though I hate her, I like hating her. She's the most physically attractive of the girls, IMO. (I'm not a big boob person). She's uninhibited (...one way of putting it). Being a megabitch is actually free of an awful lot of emotional baggage. She knows what she is and what she likes and god damn it, it's kind of refreshing. Likes (presumably rough) doggie.
The Bad:
MEGA. BITCH. Absurdly bitchy. I laughed out loud several times over how over-the-top bitch she is. We can get into a big feminist debate or whatever over whether or not the word "Bitch" is OK, but... it's OK for Audrey. She would wear it on a fucking sticker if she could (The sticker thing probably belongs in "the good"). Also, the Smoke Weed Erryday thing is a turnoff for me.

Beli:
The Good:
Huniepop continues to be surprisingly diverse by having an asian indian character. She's the second-most attractive of the girls. Sure, she's busty, but she's SUPER TALL and has crazy legs and everything just works proportionately. She's a sweetie-pie that deserves better than the faceless serial-womanizing protagonist. I like that when she asked what I would change about her, and I responded with "Only that you would ask such an insecure question" (which made me feel like a dick, but seriously, that's a SHITTY thing to ask someone), she took it to heart and cheered up.
The Bad:
Well, the insecurity. That's the main thrust of it. Is there some kind of rule that the women with the most bangin' bodies think they're all out of proportion and weird? Otherwise, I really like Beli. She's nice. But... Cabbage.

Celeste:
Before I begin, Celeste is a secret character. She's a blue horned alien chick. Kind of reminds me of the Aliens in World of Warcraft, but without the cloven hooves and backward knees.
The Good:
Fuck you, religious fundamentalists. I love that 6,000 years is a wrong answer you can give for "How old is the earth". I love that the answer to the question "What is the smallest planet in your solar system" is "Mercury." You go, freaky alien girl.
The Bad:
Who the fuck quizzes you on astronomy as foreplay? Her outfits are terrible. Her least awful outfit is an homage to the Leia slave outfit and, as you may recall, I don't like Star Wars. She sends you a picture of her being tentacle raped. (Although, on the good side, you get an amusing caption of "...in my line of work you learn to just roll with it.")

Jessie
The Good
There's a subtle sadness about Jessie. She's in her 30s, which is like, H-game taboo. Otherwise, I like her voice. There's... not a lot more to say about her, here.
The Bad
Her main hobby is "Drinking". That's just... ok, that part of the sadness isn't very subtle. Though I like her voice, some of her quotes bother me. "That's my baby." Ugh. She asked me her last name and I waffled for a while because I couldn't remember, and I wasn't going to say "Maye" because that's Tiffany's last name, and I totally remember---oh. OH NO. OH GOD NO. WHAT HAVE I DONE?

Kyanna
The Good
Huniepop continues to be surprisingly diverse by having a character who is Mexican. She has a 1 year old son that she seemingly takes good care of. None of her dialogue seems to imply that she thinks her kid ruined her life. She seems responsible and driven and is probably a good mom. She's the first girl listed who has a "normal" libido, whatever that means. Now, while personally, that's probably much too little libido, it's refreshing that the girl with the kid out of wedlock is portrayed as perfectly normal and not any kind of sex-starved ho.

The Bad
The Mexican character is a hairdresser and has a 1 year old son and 5 siblings. You give her things like Sombreros and Lucha masks and shit. Unlike Aiko who makes a joke about you being an insensitive ass (and thus making the gifts feel like a personal joke between you), Kyanna doesn't comment at all. She just loves the gifts. Not even an unironic "I'm really proud of where I come from" or any sort of... I dunno. It makes it seem like she loves Mexican stuff because all Mexicans do. Apparently doesn't wash her underwear, which, ew. Also? Cabbage.

Kyu
Before I get started, Kyu is one of the "secret" characters. Not really, because she unlocks as soon as you have a successful fourth date. But she's a magical fairy.
The Good
I fucking love Kyu. She's a barrel of fun, and is your introduction to the game's great voice acting. She's your literal wingman early on in the game by giving you pointers and playfully insulting you. I like spritely girls, and it's hard to get more spritely than a literal faerie.
The Bad
Sometimes she can be a little abusive in her word play? Honestly, there's nothing really bad about Kyu.

Lola
The Good
Lola is black (and looks black, instead of a palette swapped white or Asian girl. This is largely because of her hair, which is gorgeous. Curls > Straight hair, you have no idea.) So, again, Huniepop continues being surprisingly diverse for this sort of game.

The Bad
She's an ultra driven perfectionist, which is like my biggest personal turn-off. Even though she seems like a decent person, like, objectively, I honestly think it would be harder to be in a relationship with her than fucking Audrey. 3 of her hairstyles negate what I said above and make her look like a palette swapped white or Asian girl. Her favorite foods are breakfast and fruit, which is totally innocuous and kind of makes sense for a traveler---I mean, that's basically Hotel food. So that's fine. It's just that the food you get each day is random, so it is totally possible to have a date where you win her over by giving her some watermelon and a big stack of pancakes, and honestly that made me a little uncomfortable.

Momo
Momo is one of the secret characters, and is the mandatory Andrew's Waifu cat-girl.
The Good
She's silly and friendly. She has the largest selection of good outfits.
The Bad
Her kitty facts make me sad. I've never had an indoor cat that didn't live past 22. She calls you master and acts like a child, because she probably is one. She's "18", but... uh... bullshit. Worse, she's probably your child, since she's kind of your pet. So, congratulations. You're now an incestuous pedophile. On a lighter note, one of her facts is that cats can't taste sugar, yet she loves sweets. And vegetables for some unfathomable reason. So.... cabbage.

Nikki
The Good
I love most of her outfits. Her default posture is charming.  She realizes that school is bullshit, but unlike Audrey, doesn't waste (presumably someone else's) money. Her voice actress is an amazing and talented lady with an inspirational story and a heart-meltingly beautiful face.
The Bad
She's completely unlikable. She's arrogant, aloof, mean-spirited, and wishy-washy. She has severe confidence issues, but unlike Beli, who tries to overcome them and be a better person, in Nikki's case it's almost played up as a good thing. She's Tsundere. She wears pajamas to a carnival. I don't get why so many people want to date her. She's just... ugh. I actually have dated someone like this, and it was a disaster for about the reasons you'd expect. She's just overall kind of a shitty person.

Tiffany
The Good
Tiffany is great. She's absolutely that girl-next-door that most people probably either wish they married or did marry. She's the kind you bring home to your family with absolutely no worries that anyone will dislike her. She's easily the most well-adjusted member of the cast.
The Bad
....I'm real sorry about the whole 'doing your mom' thing. I didn't know. I... I didn't KNOW.

Venus
Venus is a secret character unlocked by sleeping with all of the not-secret characters. She is the literal goddess of love and sex.
The Good
............I got nothing. Literally nothing. She... looks like Palutena, if you're secretly or not secretly into that? Meeple Waifu?
The Bad
You'd think a sex goddess would be more... sexy. Or a love goddess would be more romantic. Or flirty. Or... at all anything but coldly detached. She's more like a goddess of observation. She just comes off as haughty and boring. There's no character here, which is just odd, because the other secret characters have characters, and Venus is sort of a final "boss"? Whatever. You're not exactly given a lot of reason to seduce her. Kyu should overthrow her and take her title.

SO:
Aiko > Beli > Tiffany > Kyu > Audrey > Not banging Momo > Kyanna > Jessie > Celeste > Lola > Venus > Nikki > banging Momo

(Cabbage gets girls wet)

[Fudozukushi]

My life is now complete.

[Cotigo]

Objection. I was the Axe Man.

...

(Cabbage gets girls wet)

that's basically all i took from that

[superaielman]

Kyu
Before I get started, Kyu is one of the "secret" characters. Not really, because she unlocks as soon as you have a successful fourth date. But she's a magical fairy.
The Good
I fucking love Kyu. She's a barrel of fun, and is your introduction to the game's great voice acting. She's your literal wingman early on in the game by giving you pointers and playfully insulting you. I like spritely girls, and it's hard to get more spritely than a literal faerie.
The Bad
Sometimes she can be a little abusive in her word play? Honestly, there's nothing really bad about Kyu.

[Captain K]

....I'm real sorry about the whole 'doing your mom' thing. I didn't know. I... I didn't KNOW.

I don't even know what this means and this is outstanding.

[Veryslightlymad]

One of the characters is literally another character's mother and it's only obliquely hinted at in the plot instead of ever stated outright, past them having the same last name. By the time I, personally, realized, the damage was already done, so to speak.

[NotMiki]

a fucking H game.

Aren't they all?

[jsh357]

I played that game earlier this year; had much the same feelings, though I wasn't familiar with the type of casual games it's imitating, so I actually thought the date games were pretty fun. While the game was at its core unjustifiably sexist (big shocker), I will say at least it didn't take itself very seriously. The presentation and voice acting were excellent and the music wasn't half bad either. It's one of the better pornographic games out there, though I can't recommend it unless you're actually interested in playing one such game. I have seen some footage of the sequel and it seems like the developers completely missed what was good about the game they made.

[Veryslightlymad]

They also took many of the crappy girls and threw out several of the GOOD girls, so I think I'm probably not in the target audience.

Funny you mention sexism, because I'd say this is the most positive female portrayal I've seen in anything hentai. Also, only two characters are teenagers. Everyone else ranges from 20-36. (Or, you know, 10,000, but that's a cop-out.) In addition, no one is a brain dead bitch.

On the other hand, having a game where the entire context is "sleep with girls" is sexist in its own right.

[jsh357]

They also took many of the crappy girls and threw out several of the GOOD girls, so I think I'm probably not in the target audience.

Funny you mention sexism, because I'd say this is the most positive female portrayal I've seen in anything hentai. Also, only two characters are teenagers. Everyone else ranges from 20-36. (Or, you know, 10,000, but that's a cop-out.) In addition, no one is a brain dead bitch.

On the other hand, having a game where the entire context is "sleep with girls" is sexist in its own right.

Well, that is what I mean. I would say the same thing about most porn, it's just very obvious in dating sims. I'm not a huge fan of how the game makes all of the girls 'objectives' with stats to manipulate through food and stuff like that. It's very belittling and puts all of the female characters below the humanity scale of the protagonist. This is pretty common across the board in the genre, though a few games subvert it. For instance, I thought Katawa Shoujo was a much more sex-positive game outside of like one of its arcs; the girls in that game had lives we actually encounter outside of the main character's existence and you just happened to become part of those--romance wasn't really a "game," at least from the characters' perspectives. Plus it made a point of calling the protagonist out when he was being a white knight or devaluing the women in the game (I would cite more specific examples, but I have not played that game since it came out). To be fair, though, KS didn't have any real gameplay mechanics to speak of, and those generally lead to questionable objectification in one way or another. It comes with the territory until someone makes something better, I guess.

[SnowFire]

Momo
Momo is one of the secret characters, and is the mandatory Andrew's Waifu cat-girl.
The Good
She's silly and friendly. She has the largest selection of good outfits.
The Bad
Her kitty facts make me sad. I've never had an indoor cat that didn't live past 22. She calls you master and acts like a child, because she probably is one. She's "18", but... uh... bullshit. Worse, she's probably your child, since she's kind of your pet. So, congratulations. You're now an incestuous pedophile. On a lighter note, one of her facts is that cats can't taste sugar, yet she loves sweets. And vegetables for some unfathomable reason. So.... cabbage.

WTF, Japan.  The romanceable alarmingly young cat-girl who calls you "Master" and shit shows up in Growlanser 4 as well (which I played for the strategy RPG part, thank you).  The thing is...  since when are cats the obedient servant pets who excitedly wags their tail when you come home and fetches sticks and the like?  That's dogs, you morons.  Or perhaps alarmingly young dog-girls.  If they're playing to stereotype, cats are the ones that ignore you when you come home and continue doing their own thing, and to the extent anyone's a servant in the relationship, it's you who have to clean up their cute messes and change their litter box.  Grah.  I wonder if the cat stereotype is different in Japan, or if the love of anime girls calling the player "master" and crap is so strong as to poke itself in everywhere even when not particularly appropriate.

[Pyro]

Playing Saga Frontier, Blue's quest. Got my ass handed to me by Timelord even after surviving Overdrive. I can not afford more than one piece of endgame equipment. Silly game, And nothing remotely interesting in Blue's quest plotwise.

[DjinnAndTonic]

SaGa Frontier doesn't do a lot of actual storytelling. The appeal plotwise is entirely based on 'holy shit this place is weird, worldbuilding/setting porn'. And at that, I feel it excels. I -still- remember all the imaginative/fucked up details of SaGa Frontier, while I only have the vaguest impression of the plotbeats in something like FFT (and the impression of having really enjoyed the story at the time, so it's kind of disappointing).

[Dark Holy Elf]

I am so glad VSM is posting about games again, this topic is a better place.

Who the fuck quizzes you on astronomy as foreplay?

Someone who is good at it.

[Cotigo]

I am so glad VSM is posting about games again, this topic is a better place.

Says the man who contributed his fair share to #FEDL

That's dogs, you morons

For what it's worth, and this may well be 100% anecdotal bullshit, but cats in Japan feel like they have waaay different personalities than American cats. Aside from the part where he does what I say, my cat is way more dog like than cat like. Just, like, a really really poorly trained dog.

[Scar]

So I played the star wars battlefront demo.

Seems fun. Friends seemed pumped for the game. Might pick it up.

Star wars of duty

[Cotigo]

Undertale - Sans beaten. Holy hell that was hard.

Thoughts haven't changed. The genocide mode was... exactly what I was looking for from the game. My thoughts haven't changed, though I will say this ending was... slightly worse than Kill-all-bosses Neutral, much better than Fru Pacifist. Thanks to the difficulty of the Sans fight, by the end I was made to feel the same as the first human. I was done fighting Sans, and I just wanted to finish the game.

Still not the best writing, and it's filled with sophistry, but I liked that it was exploring what it explored, and that it played with conventions so much.

If you want an RPG that would be called a Zenny game, this would be it.

[Grefter]

So I played the star wars battlefront demo.

Seems fun. Friends seemed pumped for the game. Might pick it up.

Star wars of duty

lords forgive him for his transgressions for he knows not what he says

(COD and Battlefield have some serious turf fighting in FPS circles and they are dramatically divergent paths of the brown military shooter genre)

KotOR2 - Finished Nar Shadaa.  Some good story beats there, but lots of annoying gameplay bits where you consistently get cut off from your ship and then get railroaded into the main plot when all I wanted to do was hand in some side quests.  I like the concept of just turning up and making a difference driving the plot forward but goddamn even when it was me driving things forwards the density of "and now you fight Visas" and "okay now the ship is full of drug runners" and then "now we need to go back to the ship because the main plot is happening" all being out of my control really stripped the feelings of agency.

[AndrewRogue]

The thing is...  since when are cats the obedient servant pets who excitedly wags their tail when you come home and fetches sticks and the like?  That's dogs, you morons.

Well... to quote from an article about Shiba Inus (the definitively Japanese dog)...

If you don't want to deal with...

-Massive destructiveness when bored or left alone too much
-Excessive suspiciousness when not socialized enough
-Aggression toward other dogs and cats -- strong chasing instincts
-Containment difficulties and preventing escape attempts
-Running away, oblivious to your calls, when an interesting sight or scent catches his attention
-Strong-willed mind of his own, requiring a confident owner who can take charge
-Heavy shedding

A Shiba Inu may not be right for you.

And then, you know, the Akita is Japanese. One of the explicit "You are not allowed to live here with one of these dogs" breeds. Even the Pom (which I believe is somewhat popular in JP?) is notoriously strong-willed and a pain in the ass to train.