Hentai Game Review: ViotoXica

This is another hentai game that caters primarily to the Ryona/Vore fetish crowd, but also has some content that might be of interest to Monster Girl/Succubus fans.  The makers, Xi, were responsible for the Viocide vore action game released a few years back.  ViotoXica is more of the same, but with a fantasy rather than sci-fi backdrop.  You play a magical girl princess attempting to escape from a castle full of monsters trying to eat her (and sexually molest her in their stomachs, because that... um... aids digestion or something...).

I wasn't able to get any translation for this as AGTH continues to implode everything it touches in Windows 10.  In this case it didn't matter too much as ViotoXica is an action game in the metroidvania vein.  The game has various upgrade paths for the main character as well as a shop system where you can buy extra sockets to upgrade weapons and armours.  This is more for higher difficulties though.  If you just want to play for the H- or rather vore-content, you can stick the game on the 'Super Easy' setting and breeze through fairly easily without needing to understand the more complex mechanics.

As with metroidvania games, a large part of the gameplay consists of finding the upgrades and keys to open up more of the map.  Upgrades include double-jump, high-jump, roll, and some kind of heat shield.  Even without knowing Japanese I was able to mostly figure out what was needed where without too many problems.  Up Arrow + Menu Button (V) to reveal the whole map is your friend when it comes to figuring out where to backtrack.  Although one improvement I would have liked to see is the colour-coding extended to front-on doors on the map as well as the side-on doors.  The one time I did get stuck was because I forgot about a locked red door on the top right of the map because it was one of the face-on teleport doors rather than a side exit.

I will commend Xi on their game-making skills.  The main character handles really smoothly and it plays like a good metroidvania game.  I almost regretted playing on Super Easy and therefore not needing to learn the nuances of the upgrade system, but then I remembered how terrible I am at 2D (or 2.5D) platformers.

One weird thing about vore games is YouTube appears to have less qualms about showing footage from them as opposed to something like Monster Girl Quest, which is theoretically possible to upload... providing you have plenty of black squares on hand to cover most of the artwork.  Anyway, there is a trailer for ViotoXica that provides a taster of the artwork, gameplay and (surprisingly good) music.

Now, onto the important stuff - the filthy snu-snu.

First off, this is a vore game.  That means a good chunk of the enemies are going to be worms, plants, frogs and the like, and they're not going to auditioning for an appearance in anyone's wet dreams anytime soon (unless those people happen have very... specialised tastes).  There are 13 enemy types total.  Six of those are what I would class as monster girls - two types of succubi, bee girl, arachne, sort-of-alraune and a butterfly demon girl as the final boss.

Most of the game is 2D (or 2.5D - some sprites look hand-drawn and others like 3D models).  Each enemy has a grab attack that will result in the main character being swallowed and a Game Over regardless of their HP total if they don't break out of it.  This is seen first as a 2D animation on the main game screen...

...and then, after the Game Over, the action switches to a much more detailed 3D clip of the heroine getting gulped up...

...and then bouncing around inside something's stomach with the obligatory ryona-style clothing destruction.

I'm not a hardcore vore enthusiast.  My interest lies in the overlapping Venn diagram of sexy monster girls being sexy-evil and dominant (in this case having a rather more literal interpretation of "I want you inside me" than most would consider comfortable).  For this type of game I'm looking for a bit of flirt from the monster girl before her victim goes down the hatch.  Or, failing that, scenes of such sublime ridiculousness (such as Demon Angel Sakura's giant farting fairies) I can have a chuckle and admire the creator's depraved inventiveness.

Viotoxica is a bit light on that.  The Bad End scenes are rather thrashy, with slobber flying everywhere as the magical girl princess gets gulped down.  The churning animations are also a little too exaggerated, unless one of the magical girl princess's magical abilities is to change into a big block of crystal after being swallowed.  Bear in mind this is a subjective criticism from someone on the borders rather than being at the centre of the target audience.  If you're more into the ryona side of things, these are not negatives at all.

Another disappointment was the sameness of the monster girl Bad Ends - monster girl opens out her tail or abdomen like a trumpet and hoovers up hapless magical girl princess.  It looks okay for the succubus-type monsters, but a bit ridiculous for the arachne.  The exception to this is the final boss.  I'm not going to spoil it here, but it was certainly different...

Overall I appreciated this more for the smooth gameplay than the H-scenes.  Worth looking at if you like your monster girls more on the predatory side.  Really worth looking at if you like a bit of vore or ryona.

Hentai Game Review: The Paradise Fortress of RePure Aria

This is a game I hope to see translated.  Part of this is because it doesn’t play too nice with auto-translation software and it would be nice to know what’s going on!

The Paradise Fortress of RePure Aria (also known as Magic Castle RePure Aria Paradise in other places) is another sexy monster girl eroge, but unlike the many RPG clones out there it’s an action game in the Metroidvania vein.  Jumping off platforms and flinging fireballs at enemies is the order of the day rather than turn-based battling.  It’s similar to another hentai action game, Nightmare Sphere, but with a male protagonist (sort of), no futa, and a stronger emphasis on female monster girls.

The ‘sort of’ male protagonist is because there is a little bit of gender bending.  The lad strikes a deal with a demon princess to share his body while they explore a massive castle.  In female form the player is highly mobile and can fight enemies with magic.  She also has multiple forms which are hidden as crystals throughout the castle.  These different forms have different abilities which, like the old Castlevania games, serve to unlock previously inaccessible parts of the castle.  For example, the chaos form can slide under small gaps and the innocent form can freeze waterfalls, making them climbable.

If the demon princess form takes enough damage she reverts back to the male form and this is where the hentai elements come in.  When the player is in the male form, rather than attacking him most of the monster girl enemies will try to do...uh...other things instead.  (If you’re not 18 and found your way here by accident, you should not read any further).

A succubus, being a succubus

There are a lot of different enemy types, each with their own sex attack to perform on the player if they can.  The sprite graphics have a fairly simplistic style, but are well-animated.  There are a couple of more conventional hentai pics/scenes that can be unlocked later in the game.

As a game it’s another example of someone pouring in a lot of love and effort to make something more than just a selection of naughty pixels.  Even without the H content this would be a pretty good action game.  The protagonist handles well, the differing demon princess forms mechanic is interesting and there is a huge castle to explore with a good range of sexy monster girl enemies to run into.  Oh, and a few creative boss fights that require a little more thought than just hanging back and blasting away.

Bosses are in thrall to the creepy red eye thing at the centre - it doesn't have much interest in sex no matter what form the player is in.

Another good thing is that the H elements are actually integrated into the game.  Being caught and forced to have sex with the various monster girls will eventually result in the white ‘cum’ bar depleting and then running out of red hearts/lives.  However, sex does bring some benefits.  Occasionally a girl will leave a present in the form of a familiar that can be equipped and grant the player additional abilities. (e.g. Fire Sprites that float along with the player and fire bullets.)

Overall there are a lot of nice ideas and there’s plenty of value as the castle is so huge.  On the downside, the huge area means it’s easy to get lost and not have a clue where to go next.  Some might find it a little too frustrating, especially with the language barrier and not understanding what items/familiars/etc actually do.  Thankfully, quite a few people have been battling through the game and this thread is enormously helpful for players that get stuck.

If you like sexy monster girl eroges, but are a bit bored of the RPG-maker-type clones, you might want to give this a look.  And also, with a bit of luck, someone like RogueTranslator or Dargoth might put out an English translation while they’re waiting for Monster Girl Quest 3 to come along.

And you thought the sorceress in Dragon's Crown was ridiculously over-endowed... Boing!