Others - Abandoned - The Secret World of Magical Girls [v0.0.7 Ether sun] [Hornblase]

  1. 5.00 star(s)

    chthonic_goat_666

    One of a handful of f95 games that I actually enjoyed playing.

    You're dropped into a bewildering universe (the starting location being hell, in the Dantean tradition) as this obvious Link ripoff protag and have to figure out what the actual fuck is going on, while meeting and occasionally banging weird people and creatures along the way. If I were asked to summarise the artistic and narrative style as a whole, I'd say it's gritty arthouse psychedelia with a very late 90s/early 00s atmosphere/aesthetic. I could speculate about influences (Ralph Bakshi springs to mind) but the dev is doing their own thing and knows what they're doing.

    There's a lot of postmodern surreality going on but it's cynical and darkly humorous, as opposed to the whimsically random variety which I generally despise. And it's in service to a coherent - albeit often borderline insane - story, instead of a substitute for the lack of one. The characters have, well, actual character... imagine that! They're not just fetish tropes adding cringey "drama" to a "story-driven" porno game. The diversity alone beats anything I've seen in h-games. There's a blue wizard-mantis, dog cops in a medieval town, cat merchants in hell, golems, a sexy snake lady... and all of them have something distinct to say and to contribute to the game world. I was left wanting more, a lot more, at the end of my playthrough. Which is unfortunate, because the game is currently on hold. :/

    Finally, a word about the 2d lewd art - like the rest of the game's art, it's drawn and animated by hand (POG!), weird and fiercely original. However, as fap material it didn't do much for me. If you're just looking to coom you might be similarly disappointed. But you should play it anyway... and that's coming from someone who usually only rates porn games for the h-scenes.
  2. 5.00 star(s)

    bethilelizabeth

    Honestly, I was truly amazed by how great this game is, especially considering that I'm writing this review after playing v0.0.3. I actually went against my better judgement, and played this game when it was so early in development, and was greatly rewarded! The art style is beautiful and unique, and the combat is intuitive, and not obtrusive. It doesn't take THAT long to get to a sex scene, and I'm sure once they flesh out the opening areas, it'll be even shorter. While the movement controls can definitely use a little tweaking, they quickly become second nature regardless. The game can be played without having to read through every bit of dialogue, but the menus can use some work. All in all, it is actually a great game for how early in development it is, and am looking forward to updates, especially once I realised it was a Hornblase game. They've done great work in the past, and am looking forward to seeing the future of this game!