Thursday, September 28, 2017

Text Play Monmusu Conquered World! part 21

And (finally!) we’re on to the last part of my Monmusu Conquered World playthrough.  The first part was way back here.

We’re right at the end.  We just have Nia’s second form (mother, sister, daughter?) to defeat.

The absolutely, positively, final boss

The game does have an anti-frustration, come-back-stronger mechanic, which should make the third and subsequent battles a cakewalk.  Nia doesn’t seem to be having any of that nonsense.  On about the sixth or seventh attempt, her attacks are finally down to scratch damage and Luka-clone can finally become the hero he’s supposed to be.

After being beaten, Nia gathers the gang and some magic happens.  I’d like to be able to tell you what happened, but I’m running on pure guesswork without translation.  I guess the invasion is called off as attention switches back to a normal fantasy world.  We get happy music and the silhouettes without art privileges seem to be celebrating.

But what about the brave hero that made it all possible…

The brave "sacrifice" of a courageous hero...

Well, I suppose nymphomaniac demon monster girls have to keep themselves occupied in other ways.  Some “sacrifices” need to be made.

And that’s that.

Overall, this was harder work than I thought it would be. The lack of machine translation was a handicap, even for a game as straightforward as Monmusu Conquered World.  To be fair, I should have anticipated this.  The Violated Hero series always occupied the middle ground between a Visual Novel and a (very) rudimentary RPG.  Take out the VN part, and you’re losing a good chunk of what the “game” is.

Many thanks to the people leaving comments shedding light on what was happening in some of the scenes.

I think in future, if I’m going to do series like this, it will be for games where there is more public interest, and where I have some form of machine translation in place.

So, how did Monmusu Conquered World shape up to its spiritual predecessor series, Violated Hero?

To be honest, without translation, it’s a little hard for me to offer an opinion and still be fair.  I can’t exactly judge plot or character depth without knowing the text.  The JRPG mechanics seemed overly simplistic, but that could have been how Easy mode was designed.

What I can talk about is the artwork and some of the games mechanic choices.

The artwork seemed a step back.  The different art styles didn’t mesh together very well.  I did like the sex animations, though, and wished the game had made better use of them.

As for the characters, I thought the first half was stronger than the second half.  I liked the spider girl, steam girl, painting girl and slime girl, and thought both the goblins and mermaids were adorably cute, even if adorably cute isn’t really a sexual turn-on for me. On the other hand, I only really liked Nia out of the endgame bosses and I felt they could have done with something like Violated Hero 2’s additional post-loss scenes to better distinguish them as more important characters.

The auto-lose-the-first-fight gimmick felt like one of those ideas that must have sounded better on paper.  I can get where they’re coming from – it does integrate the H-content better than the player having to choose to lose to get it – but it ended up being more annoying.

The dodge-and-run filler was total shite, but Dieselmine have never really found a good way to gamify the segments between each boss, so that’s no real change.  The sex animations for when you got caught made them a little more entertaining, but that vanished fast when they ran out of original snippets and started recycling them near the end.

The main problem for Dieselmine is that the original Violated Hero games (most notably VH2) came out after Monster Girl Quest had just hit cult success and there was an audience wanting more of the same.  Since then Monster Girl Quest has evolved into an intricate and complex JRPG, other series like ROBF and Succubus Rhapsodia have come out and done the same, games like Tokinokogiri’s Succubus Prison have really raised the bar in sexy-as-fuck succubus/monster girl Bad Ends, and Dieselmine’s games… haven’t kept up from what I’ve seen.

It was one of my frustrations with the Violated Hero series and now with Monmusu Conquered World.  It always feels like all the elements are there to make a really great cult H-game, but something is always botched, or overlooked, or undercooked, or otherwise not assembled correctly.

I’m planning to post my own thoughts on what I think the perfect “Violated Hero” game should look like as a sort of post-series segment this weekend.  Feel free to drop your own thoughts in the comments on that (or this) as I’m hoping it will be a useful article for any devs looking to make similar games (and it is great that a number of Western devs are building games to cater to this niche).

I hope you enjoyed this little playthrough anyway.  As always, if you enjoyed what you read, please check out my novels, short story collections and novellas.  I love writing about sexy succubi and monster girls.

Next up – Monmusu Quest: Paradox [part 2]!

11 comments:

  1. In other words,if I'm understanding what your saying The Violated hero series has no identity of it own? Let me ask this Mr.Hydra in Violated Hero. Is the main character was the same main character and part 1? What about part 3 and part 4? Do these main characters have a name? To me from what I can tell the Violated Hero series is Monster Girl Quest with out Luka or any memorable characters.

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    1. Originally, VH's identity was MGQ with better artwork and voice acting. The artwork started slipping around VH5 and I can't really comment on the voice acting as I can't speak Japanese unfortunately.

      I call the protags Luka-clone as a running joke. They're all young adventurers just starting out, but they tended to vary. VH3's protag was a fairly competent apprentice priest type. VH4 was weak, but good at getting the girls to fight for him (he powered them up with his cum). VH5 was being manip'ed by the angel.

      It's hard to top MGQ's Alice and heavenly knights, but VH didn't do too badly. Milfy & Paula were gorgeous in VH2. The succubus in 4 was good and I thought the sneaky angel in 5 was well-written if an obvious variant on Ilias.

      I think they toned down the Bad Ends a little too much. 3 and 4 had some crazy designs that were memorable if not always sexy.

      I've always liked their basic "here's 15 sexy monster girl bosses - have fun with them" design.

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    2. I see that explain things. I also call them Luka-Clones but for a different reason. To me a Luka clone any male(sometimes female) Characters in a settings that involves fighting(or sleeping with), Monster Girls who share the same qualities as Luka. Aka their Shota's are close to being one. Has a special Power(aka Luka half-angel) or Weapon(The Angel Halo)or both. And is the only who can Save the world. Yet fails to separate themselves from Luka. As in they can't form their own identity. To me that a Luka Clone. Mr.Hydra take a look at this game. http://www.dlsite.com/ecchi-eng/work/=/product_id/RE206962.html

      From my definition of a Luka Clone,and even your definition. Do you think this game can stand out compare to games like Monster Girls Quest and The VH series? Or do you think it going to disappear like the rest of the other clones?

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    3. Yup, that's probably an accurate description - shota-esque adventurer with powers fighting sexually dominant monster girls. But I suspect it also describes a lot of JRPG protagonists as well. Is the original Luka a clone of Cloud from Final Fantasy VII, or the main character of one of the DragonQuest games? I dunno. There's probably not much leeway you can have with that kind of character - young, idealistic, etc - so they're probably going to end up very close to each other. Oddly, you could probably bundle Geralt from the Witcher series in there, despite having a vastly different physical appearance.

      Succubus Frontier looks interesting, and I might check it out now I've solved some of my translation problems (I like the dev's unashamed love of big boobies). I suspect it will be another forgotten clone though. A game needs to do a lot now to stand out. I reckon the next step will be something like Succubus Prison, but with a wider range of monster girls.

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    4. True. To answer that question about Luka being a clone of Cloud. We can look this from two ways. First way is this. If you take Cloud and Luka and switch their place in their respective video game series. Story wise would game still be the same? If Cloud found himself in the World of Monster Girl Quest. Would he be able to accomplish Luka dreams of Peace between Monsters and Humans. Or would do something else? Would Cloud have the same Adventure and experience as Luka? Vice Versa could Luka have done the same exact thing as Cloud? Would Luka have the amount of anger and Hatred towards sephroth as Cloud does? Geralt of the Witcher series same thing.

      The second way to look at this. Is how memorable the main characters are. In the biggest indicator is this. Do you know the main character name? And the reason this is important is because with a name you can attach a personality and history with. And a good story or because of a good make sure you don't forget the main character name. Ether to one game like Final Fantasy 7 or through 3 games Like Monster Girls Quest,and The Witcher series. So let me ask you this question? Do you even know the name of the Protagonist for Monmusu Conquered World? If you don't know. I don't Blame you because I don't think Dieselmind even know the main character name. Cause if you go the the Dlsite page for Monmusu conquered world! This is synopsis and I quote.

      "In face of the evil monster girls that suddenly appeared,
      humanity stood no chance, life force mere sustenance
      to be devoured and their lives snuffed from this mortal plane.

      When all hope was thought lost,
      the protagonist falls from a cliff when wandering a mountain,
      in search of a haven free from the assault of monster girls...

      Oops... is all hope lost after all?

      No! Upon awakening, he finds an unfamiliar sword in his hand.
      "Use the LifeSword, and save your world from devastation."
      He hears a voice resonate from somewhere...
      Can such a weak young man like himself really save the world...?
      Half in doubt, the protagonist takes the LifeSword and challenges
      a monster in battle but... his expectations are totally betrayed.

      For he is almost instantly defeated, consecutively
      reverse r*ped and upon being sucked dry... dies...

      All hope is........... NOT LOST!

      Huh? I thought I died? What's going on...?
      That's right, he revives from the dead!
      Even more powerful than before!?

      As the prophecy tells, can this young hero (YOU) really fight
      against the evil monster girls and reclaim the world for humanity?"

      And this is Dieselmind problem! Their lazy with their stories! Ever game feels like rehash of the ones before,with just the tiniest of modification. Gameplay is important,but if you can't enjoy the story how long can you really play?

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    5. I like the "do you remember their name" as a good rule of thumb for whether a character is memorable or not. I can also understand why devs might want to go the opposite direction with the protagonist. Twilight gets a lot of shit for the main woman being a mostly a blank, but having her be a blank makes it easier for the target audience (teen and nostalgic-for-teen girls) to project themselves onto her.

      I agree on the Dieselmine problem. If they could find a decent way of linking between their boss monster girls, their games would be much stronger.

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    6. Ah! The Blank state approach. Now I see what you mean now. If that the case, doesn't this mean that Dieselmind have to work on the story even more or should I say the lore of the game?

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    7. I think the story/world building/supporting characters need to be stronger if going with a blander main character. It's what I try to do with my fiction.

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  2. I'd say when the VH series gets a girl right, it's incredibly satisfying (I'll leave it up to guesswork on which ones they got right). However, the gameplay as you said is always mediocre.

    Also, the sound effects are...really bad. Like...cumming involves a breaking dick sound. Can't really appreciate the voice acting when you're afraid to hear the hero blow his load.

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    1. Haha, yeah, I know what you mean. It's trying to force a sound effect where there shouldn't be one. I'm guessing it's an interesting problem for eroge devs. I suspect without any kind of sound the scene would be a little flat. These games wisely avoid any kind of male voice acting because the sounds of some other dude grunting and groaning might be off-putting. Having the succubus give a satisfied/orgasmic moan could work... maybe... or might have the same problem. I don't know how that gets fixed to be honest. The VH sound effect is a little ridiculous though.

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  3. Completely off topic, but can you release some kind of encyclopedia for your stories?

    Because it is kinda hard to know which stories are set in the same universe. From what I can gather I would say there are 3 universes... SS, Hentaispace and Nicole's Verse with Inari...

    But like I already said with all the stories you have written by now its hard to keep track.

    PS: Need a new Nicole story... maybeeee

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