Despite what the carton and blurbs might tell youpersonally, hentaigame is not truly a game on piloting giant robots. I mean, sureyou can struggle massive swarms of all building-sized creatures hellbent on total destruction in an alternate-universe 1980s Japan at some point. However, these apparently model-kit-ready metallic combat matches are just a plot device, a cog from this narrative. Actually, hentaigame is really a character drama: a twisting, turning sci fi epic leap through dimensions and time as it follows the lifestyles of its countless teen protagonists. Missiles, Gatling guns, and armor-crushing metal fistcuffs are merely a negative event to the regular play of highschoolers who find themselves unwilling pawns in a larger game using all the fate of the world at stake. And you also know what? That is fantastic. Once the story of hentaigame sinks its hooks into you, then you would like nothing more than to move along for that ride up until the climax.
hentaigame can be a very specific, genre-mixing experimentation. It carries aspects of point and click experience game titles, visible books , real-time strategy video games, and tower protection matches , mixing them together to make an adventure which is really unlike anything else out there. Matters get rolling out when young Japanese high-schooler Juro Kurabe is called on in order to battle a horde of alien invaders in 1985, simply to get the narrative to flash back to earlier this season, then again to younger soldiers in 1945 wartime-era Japan, then to 2 school-girls seeing a catastrophe at year 20-25. You instantly fulfill a huge cast of personalities across different eras, learning that there is one continuous: the existence of Sentinels, gigantic human-piloted robot weapons that exist to protect the planet from otherworldly creatures.
The game has been split in to three areas: a Remembrance mode where you discover the narrative bit by piece, a Destruction style wherever you use giant Sentinel mechs to safeguard the city from intrusion, along with also an Diagnosis mode which gathers all of the advice and narrative scenes that you have detected through game play. Remembrance is presented as an episodic series in which you explore and interact with different environments and characters to progress the plot. Destruction, in contrast, is an overhead-view strategy segment where you employ the Sentinels to shield an essential Under Ground entry stage from invading forces.
The storyline strings of Remembrance constitute the excellent majority of the game’s playtime. Each of the 13 chief personalities’ specific experiences occurs at an alternative time and set, but every story finally intertwines, using some crucial functions playing out through the viewpoints of various members. Gameplay is quite simple: You also can walk around to speak with additional characters, stand around to watch that the surroundings, and also look at particular items in a location. Sporadically, key words will soon be added to your personality’s”notion cloud,” which behaves like an item stock; you could ruminate to the topics via an inner monologue, draw up thought cloud topics into others, or even utilize physiological items. Progress comes about once you reach on the most suitable dialogue or activity.
You simply control a single character at a time, but you can swap between characters’ stories since you see fit–however you may possibly wind up locked out of a character’s course and soon you’ve made significant progress in others’ storylines and the mech conflicts. The nonlinear, non-chronological story telling gift ideas you with many questions and puzzles which you must piece together to get a problem of what’s in fact going about –and how to save everything from full wreck.
hentaigame does a terrific job telling an engaging story in several viewpoints; perhaps not only does what match, but also the personalities also have different, well defined backgrounds and personalities to help prevent confusing your viewer. Every one of those 1 3 personalities’ personal experiences is really a cure to unravel as increasingly more essential occasions, revelations, and also amorous entanglements come into mild.
There’s Juro, a nerd who loves obscure scifi B-movies and chilling out together with his very best friend afterschool. He stocks a course using Iori, a significantly clumsy girl who keeps falling asleep during faculty because frightening fantasies maintain her up in the night. Meanwhile, the resident UFO and conspiracy nut Natsuno could have just discovered the secret of a time-travelling mysterious culture from girls’ locker room. She simply satisfied Keitaro, some man who seems to have now been spirited here from wartime Japan, and also who additionally might have anything for her. Shu is really a kid having something for your own school’s resident tough woman, Yuki, who’s overly busy exploring puzzles around faculty to watch over his advances. However, why is Ryoko bandaged up, constantly monitored, and gradually losing her sanity? And is Megumi listening to a speaking cat buying her to attack her classmates?
That’s only a sampling of many personality mini-dramas you visit throughout the match, as the lives of these kids become turned upside down down and a massive, reality-changing puzzle unfolds. Fundamentally, but the story works as the individual persona drama is therefore done well, with each personality’s story playing a vital part in the bigger, overarching literary plot.
Additionally, it ensures the narrative strings in hentaigame are fantastic to have a look at. Developer Vanillaware is popularly known because of its vibrant, vibrant 2D art in matches such as Odin Sphere along with drag on’s Crown. Though hentaigame happens place primarily in a more”real-world” setting compared to these fantasy-based matches, the attractiveness of Vanillaware’s 2-d artwork continues to be on whole show. The environments are filled up with very little details that actually make them appear alive, even by the reveling drunken bench-squatters by the train station entrance for the crumbling, shaking foundations of ruined buildings at the Malaysian futures scarcely standing among the husks of deceased invaders. Character animation is also great, with lots of characters including interesting little body and facial movements quirks which bring out elements of the personalities.
Most likely the greatest problem with the narrative sections, nevertheless, is they are especially more enjoyable compared to real-life strategy section, at which the gigantic Sentinels are supposed to truly shine. The Destruction part of the match is actually a mix of quasi-RTS and also Tower Defense mechanics: You command up to six different Sentinel components in a usually-timed struggle to safeguard a defensive node out of a protracted enemy battle. Each and every unit includes a technical purpose (such as melee, flying, support, etc.) and defensive and offensive skills, which can be individually upgraded to a liking by way of”meta-chips” acquired battle and by finishing narrative episodes. If you either wipe out every one the enemies or manage to contain the fort to get a given period of time, then you triumph.
These battles have their seconds. It is immensely satisfying to find out a strategy and also see it play out–or even to decide to really go HAM along with your best weapon and also watch out a couple dozen enemy drones burst at the same time in a flurry of fireworks (which can be sufficient to earn a normal PS4 model decrease ). Finally, but the overall game ceases introducing new and intriguing threats, making these plan pieces really feel less stimulating as you advance. The magnificent 2 d visuals and cartoon are additionally replaced with a dull, blocky 3D map which isn’t anywhere near as agreeable to check at for extended stretches of time. While there’s a superb quantity of inter-character bantering and vital narrative revelations before and after these combat sequences, you can’t help but really feel as they can often be considered a road block to appreciating with the interesting story parts of the match –notably since clearing specific enemy waves at Destruction is imperative to open regions of the narrative in Remembrance.
But the most significant issue with hentaigame is that a chunk of the game is merely good whilst the majority of it appears outstanding. The tales of these kiddies and their giant robots definitely absorbed me during my playtime, and now today, I am ruminating around specified plot points, activities, and relationships, wanting to know if I should go back through the archives to find out what I’ve missed. I don’t think I’ll forget my own time in the hentaigame world, and I doubt one are going to either.