Re: Male H Game Protagonists
Depends on the design of the game ultimately, but overall I'd certainly lean towards a female protagonist.
Regarding male protagonists, taking an action oriented game as an example, you're typically to be put in either the role of an aggressor, or a more "traditional" role submissive to whatever enemy defeats you.
On one side, I tend to find I'm not as keen on playing the aggressor. As hypocritical as it might seem when enjoying all manner of other H games, playing the role of a douche-bag serial rapist isn't really what I'm looking for. The game "Virgin Invader" is an example of an overall good game where you play a male aggressor. It helps to get round my issue here by presenting things in an incredibly light hearted and non serious manner. Which works, but also cuts out any potential immersion factor, which for me personally at least, is a huge deal in enjoying H-games.
On the otherside, with games such as "Ero-Ico", that stuff obviously isn't an issue. But so far I've found that something about it just hasn't worked for me. I'm tempted to blame a certain lack of emotion from the male characters, although a lot of H-games in general often fall short on that anyway. Perhaps the particular games I've played so far have just never instilled the same sense of peril that a few others have. Perhaps I've just never cared enough about the protagonist to get any impact out of it. I can't give any solid reasons, but I've not found any examples that particularly work for me at least.
Since the other options are there, I'll mention that for whatever reason, a "monster" protagonist in an aggressor role, doesn't have the same off putting effect as a human in the same role does. Off the top of my head no noteworthy existing games come to mind. But yeah, there's some kind of psychological difference going on there.
And as for Robot protags... *shrug*
Depends too much on details.
