What is a good game? What is a good hentai game?
Story Time
The story is kind of like Mario where your friend gets captured by an evil succubus and you have to find her and save your friend. There is not much explanation apart from that and some new characters are introduced as level bosses but the story never gets really interesting but that's not what the game is focusing on. This game is a hentai game in it’s literal sense it’s not a good game sprinkled with some hentai scenes to spice it up.
Gameplay
The game is really monotonous and very easy your character walks really slowly through the 5 available levels and fights a boss at the end starting at level 2. Your character has some tools at his disposable to interact with the enemies. You have your jump which is very floaty and keeps you in the air for a long time but the horizontal distance that you can travel with it is rather small. You can punch which is a projectile attack that can hit back or destroy certain enemies which has sadly a abysmal start up and a lot of end lag. You also get a slide which is very strong you destroy most of the enemies instantly but it has a cooldown so you cant spam it and lastly you have a special attack that can wipe the entire screen but you can only use it three times.
While that sounds like a lot for this kind of games the options are poorly implemented and some traps are really difficult to get through without using your limited special attack and that's why it is good that the game is very easy because it would frustrating to repeat the level over and over just to get hit by a few luck based traps that are borderline unavoidable.
Hentai
Apart from the gameplay the hentai scenes are good there are about 4-6 per level and all of them have a game over animation. They also cover a lot of fetishes you have slimes, futas other traps and tentacles for the most part. The pixel art is also very well done you can zoom in and enjoy the action at a decent quality. You can do all that in the levels or by visiting the gallery. At the time of writing this review level 5 was not added in the gallery because I played the game one day before 5.2 came out and i don’t plan to revisit it that fast.
There are some bugs in the gallery or some things are not pointed out properly so I wasn't able to see how to avoid getting stuck when watching the game over CG at manual because you are, as far as i know locked in the cg and can only get out by exiting the gallery entirely, it’s not a deal breaker or takes much time at all but it feels very unpolished.
Closing thoughts
The game feels like a relic of old times where a lot of hentai games were made like this but I think hentai games have evolved over time to keep the players engaged with things like story or a good or innovative but fun gameplay loop. Max the Elf is a good hentai game if you look for a quick fap but the gameplay is very boring I think it would be even better without the gameplay and just the gallery with all the enemies. The time the game is already in develpoment is kind of long for what was delivered. It was posted nearly 4 years ago which also means that you get around 1.25 levels per year. Which is in my opinion not much but I’m not versed in game development and I also don't know how the resources are being distributed.
TLDR: Good hentai scenes bad gameplay
Story Time
The story is kind of like Mario where your friend gets captured by an evil succubus and you have to find her and save your friend. There is not much explanation apart from that and some new characters are introduced as level bosses but the story never gets really interesting but that's not what the game is focusing on. This game is a hentai game in it’s literal sense it’s not a good game sprinkled with some hentai scenes to spice it up.
Gameplay
The game is really monotonous and very easy your character walks really slowly through the 5 available levels and fights a boss at the end starting at level 2. Your character has some tools at his disposable to interact with the enemies. You have your jump which is very floaty and keeps you in the air for a long time but the horizontal distance that you can travel with it is rather small. You can punch which is a projectile attack that can hit back or destroy certain enemies which has sadly a abysmal start up and a lot of end lag. You also get a slide which is very strong you destroy most of the enemies instantly but it has a cooldown so you cant spam it and lastly you have a special attack that can wipe the entire screen but you can only use it three times.
While that sounds like a lot for this kind of games the options are poorly implemented and some traps are really difficult to get through without using your limited special attack and that's why it is good that the game is very easy because it would frustrating to repeat the level over and over just to get hit by a few luck based traps that are borderline unavoidable.
Hentai
Apart from the gameplay the hentai scenes are good there are about 4-6 per level and all of them have a game over animation. They also cover a lot of fetishes you have slimes, futas other traps and tentacles for the most part. The pixel art is also very well done you can zoom in and enjoy the action at a decent quality. You can do all that in the levels or by visiting the gallery. At the time of writing this review level 5 was not added in the gallery because I played the game one day before 5.2 came out and i don’t plan to revisit it that fast.
There are some bugs in the gallery or some things are not pointed out properly so I wasn't able to see how to avoid getting stuck when watching the game over CG at manual because you are, as far as i know locked in the cg and can only get out by exiting the gallery entirely, it’s not a deal breaker or takes much time at all but it feels very unpolished.
Closing thoughts
The game feels like a relic of old times where a lot of hentai games were made like this but I think hentai games have evolved over time to keep the players engaged with things like story or a good or innovative but fun gameplay loop. Max the Elf is a good hentai game if you look for a quick fap but the gameplay is very boring I think it would be even better without the gameplay and just the gallery with all the enemies. The time the game is already in develpoment is kind of long for what was delivered. It was posted nearly 4 years ago which also means that you get around 1.25 levels per year. Which is in my opinion not much but I’m not versed in game development and I also don't know how the resources are being distributed.
TLDR: Good hentai scenes bad gameplay