I'll be honest - I like porngames that are more game than porn. If the gameplay isn't up to snuff, then the porn usually won't hold my attention either.
...so this one's right up my alley. Mamatoto has some really fun turn-based strategy/strategy RPG gameplay, and it's a great game even without the porn. (in fact, Alicesoft even made an all-ages remake a few years later)
But the game *is* 25 years old. Literally from the previous millennium. The gameplay and sprite art aged well, but... the CG art? Even as someone who likes this oldschool stuff, I'll admit the CG art is pretty dated. Everything from the slightly drab colours to the somewhat understated style practically screams "this is not from the 21st century". If that puts you off, then the porn in this one isn't going to impress you.
Anyhoo, let's get down to business...
Story & Writing - 5/5
Even though the setup sometimes feels a bit childish (I mean, cutesy cartoon warriors named Kids? Even characters in-game are commenting on that. And a name like 'Mamatoto' feels more appropriate for a daycare than for a mobile fortress), it... actually works.
The setting wasn't meant to be particularly deep. But it nonetheless has enough characters and content to keep a reader interested.
There's 20 playable characters (the recruitable generals) along with roughly a dozen non-playable characters on your side, and they're all nicely distinctive. All of them get their time in the limelight too, so the story segments feel lively.
People who are familiar with the Alicesoft games (and especially the older ones) will spot a few familiar faces. Mamatoto isn't part of the Rance continuity, but that didn't stop the writers from inserting alternate versions of Rance-series characters.
Rick is the most obvious one, as he's part of your initial crew (and he's every bit as much of a beast in combat as in the Rance series). But there are others. Patton, Kabachahn and Barres are lifted straight from the Rance games, and Patton and Barres are even stated to be from the 'Elman empire' (i.e. Helman) and 'Leaz kingdom' (i.e. Leazas) respectively. And of course, Pluepet is running his sordid business in this continuity as well.
Then there's Pitten Chao, who's not from the Rance games per se, but who's nonetheless from a game in the same setting (Kaeru nyo Panyon).
Other characters were recycled but tweaked. Barbazza is basically a middle-aged Hubert Lipton. And Nozomi is one of several distinctly similar maids named 'Nozomi' that have shown up in various Alicesoft games.
Stourin Wald is an odd case, as he's an original Mamatoto character who was later recycled in Sengoku Rance as Sanada Tourin.
In other words? Alicesoft wasn't too concerned with creating something 100% original here. Mamatoto was more of a side project with recycled ideas.
There's nothing wrong with that, though. It still makes the setting accessible and enjoyable.
The basic plot is also simple but well-written. King Kakaro is secretly the villain (though that already becomes apparant to the player in the wrap-up of the first campaign). And he's a well-written villain. The Alicesoft people know how to write a proper convincing villain, and this guy is certainly an example of that. When he shows his true side, he's just this completely irredeemable evil bastard.
The character interactions, romance segments, and epilogues are pretty good too.
The story segments where you can talk to the female characters as either Nanas or Kakaro are also done well. Though they could have done much more with this - it does come with some plot and character development, but it's still mainly just a romance/sex mechanism.
Gameplay - 5/5
There are two types of gameplay in this one: battles with a single commander + Kids and (if available) underlings, and battles featuring only commanders.
The Kids are (mostly) expendable troops. You need monster cards to create them, and those are obtained randomly from killing monsters. And as most enemy standard troops are monsters, you're basically guaranteed to get some monster cards during the regular campaign missions. You can get additional ones through random monster battles between campaigns.
There's several types of Kids. One of them is a generic fighter, and all the others are combat or non-combat specialists.
The commanders are all unique characters with plot relevance. You recruit them over the course of the story. Commanders aren't missable, so you're guaranteed to have all twenty commanders during the last few campaigns. Commanders have extra high stats, specializations, a nice amount of variety (Kinggear and Hero are great tanks, Arvy and Maitrea are squishy but hard-hitting mages, Patton and Sienna are high-movement bruisers, Lamika and Stourin are archers, etc.). Each commander also has a special attack, which can only be done once or a few times per battle. Commanders also can't die in battle (they'll just miss out on XP if they're beaten) - though at least one of them can die in an optional late-game story event, and another one becomes permanently unavailable if you lift her curse.
Then there's underlings. Underlings are unique units that can be deployed alongside Kids during normal missions. They're basically bargain bin commanders; they can't hold items, and most of them don't have a special attack, but otherwise they're mostly the same. Like commanders, underlings also have to be recruited over the course of the story - but unlike commanders, *all* underlings are missable. In fact, most of them require very specific circumstances during missions (deploy a specific character, allow a certain enemy to break through your lines, etc.). The only underlings you're likely to get without using the wiki are Goricky and Duke Ete (whose only condition is that your relationship status with Raisen isn't too high at the time).
Underlings are also finnicky. For starters, they're only available to a specific commander. Goricky and Duke Ete can only be deployed by Nanari, Macaroni can only be depoyed by Lamika, etcetera. The only exception to this is Card Lady, who can be deployed by everyone.
Another troublesome thing about underlings is that they will die permanently if they are defeated in battle. This is very much unlike commanders, who will always survive no matter how badly they're beaten. The fact that underlings can die is also not really mentioned anywhere except Card Lady's dialoge. You get no warning beforehand, nor will you get a notification after an underling has died; you'll just be like "hey, where did Milkymay go?". On that note: Card Lady is also the exception on this one - she's immortal (she even tells you as much when you recruit her), so just like commanders, she'll remain available if she's beaten once.
IMO the game could've done more with underlings. As it stands, they're a nice little extra and that's it. They can't even be used in commander-only missions.
Then there's levels, XP and unit strength...
The commanders each have their own level and XP gauge. They get XP through combat, and the can be levelled individually. This also means that it's easy to have some of your commanders fall behind if you don't deploy everyone frequently. You definitely don't want that to happen, because underleveled commandes are borderline useless and some of the later missions force you to use everyone.
The country itself also has a level, which is the average level of all your commanders. This average level impacts a lot of things, and that's another good reason to make sure that you don't have underleveled units.
Kids and underlings don't have XP or their own levels. Instead, their level is always the same as the country level.
Enemies during campaign missions have fixed levels. But the level of the enemies in the optional random monster battles is always the same as your country level.
Aside from raising your country level, there's another way to boost the strength of the Kids - after the wrap-up of each campaign, you get a management phase in which you can also build new facilities. Most of these facilities are for producing Kids. More facilities = stronger Kids, and sometimes they'll upgrade into a better variety. Base facilities can also get destroyed if enemy combat engineers get through during defense missions, but that's so easy to prevent that you'll rarely have to deal with that.
The management phase also allows you to buy weapon upgrades for your commanders. Each commander can get three upgrades, and these are well worth it because they'll boost both stats and the special attack.
But that's all there is to the management phase, though. Even though you're technically running a country, the management stuff is simple and combat-oriented.
Lastly; almost all parts of the game are well-balanced, and it's even quite easy to get overleveled if you overdo it on the monster missions. But there's *one* exception - the final boss.
How hard is the final boss? There's a ridiculously strong optional superboss - the Gunagan - and the final boss is actually worse. You basically need to be overlevelled by 5 to 10 levels before you can deal with him without too much frustration. The contrast with the rest of the game is just huge.
Porn et al - 2.5/5
I already mentioned that the quality of the porn in this game is not impressive by today's standards.
But the one thing that actually kinda bothered me about the porn in this game is that the romance segment and the porn segment are completely separate.
Nanas gets all the romance. That's not bad per se, but - AFAIK none of his scenes actually involves any sex. Not even in the endings. He's lucky to get even so much as a kiss.
That just feels unsatisfying. You go through all that trouble to get him together with one of the girls, and all you get for your trouble is a sappy but perfectly worksafe epilogue scene.
Meanwhile, Kakaro happily plows his way through the game. Every woman he can get his hands on will get a feel of his gnarly cock.
Kakaro's scenes are well-written, mind you. I got no complaints about that. But the fact that all the sex in the game is about him in some way, that just makes the porn in this game feel a little... disjointed.
...and a frustration that I had with both the porn and romance segments is that there's a ton of hidden requirements to progress a character's storyline.
You'd think that talking to a character in the post-campaign Nanas & Kakaro segments would be enough, right..?
Wrong. Talking to characters is important, yeah. But you also need to spend Nanas points on them (whose main function is to give a character extra special attacks in campaign missions). And most character progress tiers are locked until you reach a certain mission.
And even then, some characters won't progress unless you've reached a certain relationship status with a different character. Arvy and Murat, for example; if you want one of them, you basically have to pursue both. And some characters won't progress unless Kakaro has been talking to them... which is even more counterintuitive, because once Kakaro gets to fuck someone, she usually stops being an option for love.
Oh, and did I mention that Nanas and Kakaro only get to talk to two characters each, per campaign?
The whole sex/romance mechanic in this game is just overly convoluted, and you're basically forced to figure it out through trial and error.
Seriously. Unless you were checking the wiki, it's very likely that Nanas doesn't get any girl on your first few runs. Unless you were gunning for Nozomi (who doesn't have secondary requirements, and who doesn't even need Nanas points because she's not a commander). But she's probably not the most appealing waifu in this game because who the fuck wants sloppy seconds from Kakaro's mindbroken cocksleeve?
Meanwhile, the segments you'll get if you try to talk to girls when you can't progress their relationship level yet can make you think that you've hit a dead end. One of Murat's segments even implies that she's getting cozy with Pitten and that you no longer stand a chance with her.
The sex/romance part of the game would have been a lot better if either the requirements would have been simpler, or if the post-campaign socializing segment would have been more elaborate.
-----
But, all things considered?
I'm still giving this one a 5/5.
It's just a really solid turn-based strategy game. Its story is simple but enjoyable, and the whole thing just has tons of character.
...so this one's right up my alley. Mamatoto has some really fun turn-based strategy/strategy RPG gameplay, and it's a great game even without the porn. (in fact, Alicesoft even made an all-ages remake a few years later)
But the game *is* 25 years old. Literally from the previous millennium. The gameplay and sprite art aged well, but... the CG art? Even as someone who likes this oldschool stuff, I'll admit the CG art is pretty dated. Everything from the slightly drab colours to the somewhat understated style practically screams "this is not from the 21st century". If that puts you off, then the porn in this one isn't going to impress you.
Anyhoo, let's get down to business...
Story & Writing - 5/5
Even though the setup sometimes feels a bit childish (I mean, cutesy cartoon warriors named Kids? Even characters in-game are commenting on that. And a name like 'Mamatoto' feels more appropriate for a daycare than for a mobile fortress), it... actually works.
The setting wasn't meant to be particularly deep. But it nonetheless has enough characters and content to keep a reader interested.
There's 20 playable characters (the recruitable generals) along with roughly a dozen non-playable characters on your side, and they're all nicely distinctive. All of them get their time in the limelight too, so the story segments feel lively.
People who are familiar with the Alicesoft games (and especially the older ones) will spot a few familiar faces. Mamatoto isn't part of the Rance continuity, but that didn't stop the writers from inserting alternate versions of Rance-series characters.
Rick is the most obvious one, as he's part of your initial crew (and he's every bit as much of a beast in combat as in the Rance series). But there are others. Patton, Kabachahn and Barres are lifted straight from the Rance games, and Patton and Barres are even stated to be from the 'Elman empire' (i.e. Helman) and 'Leaz kingdom' (i.e. Leazas) respectively. And of course, Pluepet is running his sordid business in this continuity as well.
Then there's Pitten Chao, who's not from the Rance games per se, but who's nonetheless from a game in the same setting (Kaeru nyo Panyon).
Other characters were recycled but tweaked. Barbazza is basically a middle-aged Hubert Lipton. And Nozomi is one of several distinctly similar maids named 'Nozomi' that have shown up in various Alicesoft games.
Stourin Wald is an odd case, as he's an original Mamatoto character who was later recycled in Sengoku Rance as Sanada Tourin.
In other words? Alicesoft wasn't too concerned with creating something 100% original here. Mamatoto was more of a side project with recycled ideas.
There's nothing wrong with that, though. It still makes the setting accessible and enjoyable.
The basic plot is also simple but well-written. King Kakaro is secretly the villain (though that already becomes apparant to the player in the wrap-up of the first campaign). And he's a well-written villain. The Alicesoft people know how to write a proper convincing villain, and this guy is certainly an example of that. When he shows his true side, he's just this completely irredeemable evil bastard.
The character interactions, romance segments, and epilogues are pretty good too.
The story segments where you can talk to the female characters as either Nanas or Kakaro are also done well. Though they could have done much more with this - it does come with some plot and character development, but it's still mainly just a romance/sex mechanism.
Gameplay - 5/5
There are two types of gameplay in this one: battles with a single commander + Kids and (if available) underlings, and battles featuring only commanders.
The Kids are (mostly) expendable troops. You need monster cards to create them, and those are obtained randomly from killing monsters. And as most enemy standard troops are monsters, you're basically guaranteed to get some monster cards during the regular campaign missions. You can get additional ones through random monster battles between campaigns.
There's several types of Kids. One of them is a generic fighter, and all the others are combat or non-combat specialists.
The commanders are all unique characters with plot relevance. You recruit them over the course of the story. Commanders aren't missable, so you're guaranteed to have all twenty commanders during the last few campaigns. Commanders have extra high stats, specializations, a nice amount of variety (Kinggear and Hero are great tanks, Arvy and Maitrea are squishy but hard-hitting mages, Patton and Sienna are high-movement bruisers, Lamika and Stourin are archers, etc.). Each commander also has a special attack, which can only be done once or a few times per battle. Commanders also can't die in battle (they'll just miss out on XP if they're beaten) - though at least one of them can die in an optional late-game story event, and another one becomes permanently unavailable if you lift her curse.
Then there's underlings. Underlings are unique units that can be deployed alongside Kids during normal missions. They're basically bargain bin commanders; they can't hold items, and most of them don't have a special attack, but otherwise they're mostly the same. Like commanders, underlings also have to be recruited over the course of the story - but unlike commanders, *all* underlings are missable. In fact, most of them require very specific circumstances during missions (deploy a specific character, allow a certain enemy to break through your lines, etc.). The only underlings you're likely to get without using the wiki are Goricky and Duke Ete (whose only condition is that your relationship status with Raisen isn't too high at the time).
Underlings are also finnicky. For starters, they're only available to a specific commander. Goricky and Duke Ete can only be deployed by Nanari, Macaroni can only be depoyed by Lamika, etcetera. The only exception to this is Card Lady, who can be deployed by everyone.
Another troublesome thing about underlings is that they will die permanently if they are defeated in battle. This is very much unlike commanders, who will always survive no matter how badly they're beaten. The fact that underlings can die is also not really mentioned anywhere except Card Lady's dialoge. You get no warning beforehand, nor will you get a notification after an underling has died; you'll just be like "hey, where did Milkymay go?". On that note: Card Lady is also the exception on this one - she's immortal (she even tells you as much when you recruit her), so just like commanders, she'll remain available if she's beaten once.
IMO the game could've done more with underlings. As it stands, they're a nice little extra and that's it. They can't even be used in commander-only missions.
Then there's levels, XP and unit strength...
The commanders each have their own level and XP gauge. They get XP through combat, and the can be levelled individually. This also means that it's easy to have some of your commanders fall behind if you don't deploy everyone frequently. You definitely don't want that to happen, because underleveled commandes are borderline useless and some of the later missions force you to use everyone.
The country itself also has a level, which is the average level of all your commanders. This average level impacts a lot of things, and that's another good reason to make sure that you don't have underleveled units.
Kids and underlings don't have XP or their own levels. Instead, their level is always the same as the country level.
Enemies during campaign missions have fixed levels. But the level of the enemies in the optional random monster battles is always the same as your country level.
Aside from raising your country level, there's another way to boost the strength of the Kids - after the wrap-up of each campaign, you get a management phase in which you can also build new facilities. Most of these facilities are for producing Kids. More facilities = stronger Kids, and sometimes they'll upgrade into a better variety. Base facilities can also get destroyed if enemy combat engineers get through during defense missions, but that's so easy to prevent that you'll rarely have to deal with that.
The management phase also allows you to buy weapon upgrades for your commanders. Each commander can get three upgrades, and these are well worth it because they'll boost both stats and the special attack.
But that's all there is to the management phase, though. Even though you're technically running a country, the management stuff is simple and combat-oriented.
Lastly; almost all parts of the game are well-balanced, and it's even quite easy to get overleveled if you overdo it on the monster missions. But there's *one* exception - the final boss.
How hard is the final boss? There's a ridiculously strong optional superboss - the Gunagan - and the final boss is actually worse. You basically need to be overlevelled by 5 to 10 levels before you can deal with him without too much frustration. The contrast with the rest of the game is just huge.
Porn et al - 2.5/5
I already mentioned that the quality of the porn in this game is not impressive by today's standards.
But the one thing that actually kinda bothered me about the porn in this game is that the romance segment and the porn segment are completely separate.
Nanas gets all the romance. That's not bad per se, but - AFAIK none of his scenes actually involves any sex. Not even in the endings. He's lucky to get even so much as a kiss.
That just feels unsatisfying. You go through all that trouble to get him together with one of the girls, and all you get for your trouble is a sappy but perfectly worksafe epilogue scene.
Meanwhile, Kakaro happily plows his way through the game. Every woman he can get his hands on will get a feel of his gnarly cock.
Kakaro's scenes are well-written, mind you. I got no complaints about that. But the fact that all the sex in the game is about him in some way, that just makes the porn in this game feel a little... disjointed.
...and a frustration that I had with both the porn and romance segments is that there's a ton of hidden requirements to progress a character's storyline.
You'd think that talking to a character in the post-campaign Nanas & Kakaro segments would be enough, right..?
Wrong. Talking to characters is important, yeah. But you also need to spend Nanas points on them (whose main function is to give a character extra special attacks in campaign missions). And most character progress tiers are locked until you reach a certain mission.
And even then, some characters won't progress unless you've reached a certain relationship status with a different character. Arvy and Murat, for example; if you want one of them, you basically have to pursue both. And some characters won't progress unless Kakaro has been talking to them... which is even more counterintuitive, because once Kakaro gets to fuck someone, she usually stops being an option for love.
Oh, and did I mention that Nanas and Kakaro only get to talk to two characters each, per campaign?
The whole sex/romance mechanic in this game is just overly convoluted, and you're basically forced to figure it out through trial and error.
Seriously. Unless you were checking the wiki, it's very likely that Nanas doesn't get any girl on your first few runs. Unless you were gunning for Nozomi (who doesn't have secondary requirements, and who doesn't even need Nanas points because she's not a commander). But she's probably not the most appealing waifu in this game because who the fuck wants sloppy seconds from Kakaro's mindbroken cocksleeve?
Meanwhile, the segments you'll get if you try to talk to girls when you can't progress their relationship level yet can make you think that you've hit a dead end. One of Murat's segments even implies that she's getting cozy with Pitten and that you no longer stand a chance with her.
The sex/romance part of the game would have been a lot better if either the requirements would have been simpler, or if the post-campaign socializing segment would have been more elaborate.
-----
But, all things considered?
I'm still giving this one a 5/5.
It's just a really solid turn-based strategy game. Its story is simple but enjoyable, and the whole thing just has tons of character.