Re: Gameplay?
So here is what I am asking, what do you all think makes for a good H game.
So speak freely, do not care what others may think just spit it out of your head and share thoughts on this subject
Thinking about this over the years, I'd say there's more than one area that H-games can succeed by managing to do well in. Many examples of the most popular H-games actually vary in design and key elements quite a bit. Some excel in certain areas whilst lacking in another. If I force myself to try and identify and label some categories for key elements, I guess I might call them...
- Conventional Gameplay Mechanics
- H Art, Animation, and Sound.
- H Mechanics/Gameplay
And it's the last one there I'd say I'm personally most interested in, and would like to see more H-games pay attention to. I'll explain them in turn though.
That first one is pretty obvious. A game with solid and enjoyable conventional gameplay mechanics will be typically fun regardless of how good or lacking it's hentai features are. Games like
Kurovadis,
Nightmare Sphere, or perhaps
Sengoku Rance, are all examples of games that you can play simply for their value of being enjoyable as regular games. It takes skill and good design to pull off, but if you can nail this in a game, you're on pretty solid ground. Conventional gameplay alone though, can't make a truely great H-game.
The most obvious and direct ways to mark a game as an h-game, is of course, hentai art and animation. Good general graphics help a lot, but it's even more crucial for an h-game to make sure the erotic elements of the visuals do their job. This can be either general character art style and design, in game or game over h-scenes, animated or non animated. Sound is also important. Games like
Parasite in City,
Fairy Fighting, or
Iris Action, all hold themselves up well on their overall art quality and their animation. Parasite in City maintains an overall high level for both, whilst Fairy Fighting boasts a huge number of individual animations for each opponent. And Iris action boasts some of the best semi animated game-over screens in the h-game genre. It's of course important to have a valid game behind your visuals and sound though, or else you can end up with a short lived slideshow or movie.
And finally that last criteria.
"H-Gameplay". I consider this an important offshoot of the general gameplay design. It's separate enough to be distinct, trust me. It's the part that makes the H content in the game feel relevant and exciting, and a central part of the gameplay, rather than just a series of animations that occasionally occur alongside regular gameplay, or on a game over scene. At risk of sounding fancy, you could call it the H-immersion element, perhaps. It's also the part I feel a lot of games cut themselves short on.
I'd dare to say that both of the otherwise excellent
Kurovadis and
Parasite in City are fair examples of this. In each game enemies will occasionally hit and knock you down. The hit deals damage to a traditional HP bar, and then the enemies will come over to rape your character. In both games you get a button mashing struggle bar, which can be easily filled 100% of the time by anyone that tries. With one or two exceptions, in both games you can also choose to not bother struggling, as you take no additional damage during the h-animation anyway. The damage came entirely from the initial knockdown or grab action. The fly enemy in
PiC is an exception due to the other (fun) consequences it brings, and there's at least one enemy in
Kurovadis that drains your health during the process, but that just nets you a game over screen anyway. There's not really any substance to the H-content or how it's placed in the game.
To pick out an opposite example, I'll use
Succubus Nests. The game neither has the best art/animations (using 3D Custom Girl for art, and hit and miss animation work), nor the deepest gameplay. You don't even get to directly control the fights, merely choosing when to use a special attack, and when to retreat from the level. It's h-content wouldn't carry much impact if viewed outside of the game, and playing the game if it had no h-content would be hollow and kind of pointless. Where it shines despite this, is how it paces and dishes out it's h-content.
You can go the entire first half of the game, and get virtually no H content at all, spare the odd half second grope from an enemy or two. At first your party of two has high stamina, and are incredibly resistant to violation attempts, and will quickly struggle off or swat enemies from their partner if grabbed. But the further they go into each stage, the more their stamina starts to deplete from the fights. The lower their stamina gets, the slower and less resistant they are. It's your job to try and judge how far to push them, and when to try and escape the stage. By the time something eventually goes wrong, and your poor sword girl loses her virginity to forest monster, it gives the otherwise very simple animation so much more impact. For me at least, it manages to make what's going on far more exciting and extends the value of the limited h content dramatically.
TL
R
H games need to work more on how they incorporate their H content into the gameplay. Stop trying to tack h-animations into regular platformers and such, and instead make it a central part of playing the game.
