unassumingtentacle
Jungle Girl
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- Sep 1, 2010
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少女の生きる道2-血色洋館- (The Way for Girls to Survive 2)
DLsite (has a very short demo):
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Story/Gameplay:
Shifting from the first game (an RPGMV game with survival mechanics, AFAIK no thread on ULMF), this time the protagonist Milk Tea is separated from the rest of the team and must traverse the "Scarlet Manor" (not really all that scarlet/blood colored) to find them in a 2d scrolling platformer. Whether she makes it out corrupted by the enemies/futa monster girls is up to you! Gameplay mostly surrounds some light platforming and enemy encounters, with animated H-scenes coming either being knocked down by enemies (after a few hits or special boss attacks, usually not GOR in and of itself) or from interacting with characters/objects. Not a long game by any stretch as getting through without any unnecessary H encounters will probably take you 30 min - 1 hour, tops, if all goes well (see below), but the animated pixel scenes and dialog are pretty nice.
Controls:
Z: Melee Attack (Range improves when transformed)
X: Fire Weapon (or some weird stomp move when transformed)
C: Jump
V: Transform (after defeating the first boss, drains MP while moving)
W: Interact
Space: Inventory/Status
Q/E: Shift Weapon
Shift: Change Item (MP/HP Recovery)
Crtl: Use Item/Skip Dialog (Left Crtl Specifically)
Gripes (as of current base version):
For reasons completely inexplicable, the game uses the "novel approach" of determining what language to use based on system settings (specifically the Region Format in Windows, and possibly other sources), rather than any in-game setting. YMMV, but for me this meant getting a mix of Chinese and English dialog at first. Also, the translation isn't optimized. Sometimes overflow happens and it's hard to tell what's being said at times. Worse still, there are certain unskippable events where text is presented slowly. In Japanese this is still in the "kind of bearable" range since kanji is a bit information-dense. However, that same dialog in letter-by-letter English is downright excruciating. Thankfully this doesn't happen too often, but it's still a serious pain in the ass.
With its incredibly limited range, getting used to attacking with the crowbar is a bit of a learning curve. The trick is to hit Z a few frames before you meet the enemy, then walk in their direction. Standing still next to the enemy and attacking is usually not viable since you practically have to stand a couple pixels outside of the opponent's hitbox (ironically more easily managed with bosses since most of them down move around as much).
Due to your very, very limited invincibility frames, it is ridiculously easy to get juggled by an enemy/attack. Thankfully you are invulnerable (usually) when knocked down, usually after three hits, but it's still an irritating aspect. Also, knockback from getting hit can be problematic for other reasons.
Most notable, though, is the fact that unfortunately the developer doesn't seem to have a strong grasp of the difference between RPGMV and Pixel Game Maker MV, because there are--
Numerous (potentially game breaking) bugs:
- Boss health isn't particularly responsive to damage at times (though even still, most boss encounters aren't that difficult)
- Having the catgirl maid kiss you for the second time causes the game to stop displaying (and counting) status changes. AFAIK there is only one one-time event that can fix this (or at least still works properly).
- There are times when the status page in your journal/inventory will not display properly. Sometimes this can be fixed by reloading, others you are simply SOL.
- Reloading a save after losing the bunny girl boss fight loads you with a black screen (with HP overlay). You're fucked if you don't have a separate save.
- Certain dialog events (PC, catgirl maid after PC) cannot be skipped without ruining your ability to interact with objects. This can completely lock progress, and if you saved over an important file before properly talking to the catgirl.. well, at least it's not a super long game.
- Transitioning from certain areas while the game is full screen causes the game to minimize. Sometimes, this causes the camera or your character to be set in the wrong spot. Will fuck you over.
- Falling onto the boxes in the stage after calling the boat can (will?) cause your character to be stuck in a permanent fall. Enemies will not get close enough to hit you out of there.
- Numerous events can cause the game to "forget" you have save files. To fix this, rename the save folder (like "save-restore"), start the game (you may or may not need to make it to the first save point and save a file), close it, and rename the folder back to "save". While this doesn't absolutely fuck you over, it is not enjoyable to encounter after some other bug just did.
Is it still worth playing? Well... the pixel animations are pretty good, inclusion of corruption mechanics is commendable (unfortunately AFAIK this only effects the end and maybe 1 event), and I do think the presentation is more engaging than the first game. At the same time, though, if you were to ask me if it's worth ~$9 dollars as its currently priced with all the shit that's wrong with it... well, I'll leave it to your imagination.
