Written by Soul Tsukino, edited by Otaku Apologist
Girls and Dungeons, developed by Nebelsoft, published by Top Hat Studios Inc. What will this faptastic hentai game bring to the world of hack and slash dungeon crawlers? Let’s talk about it, the good, the bad, and the pixelated ugly. This game is available for PC Windows operating systems.
STORY
You play as Hiro, a self-described “Maidenologist”. He is looking for a rumored dungeon filled with alcoholic girl prisoners. A short video explains that these girls were duped and kidnapped during a ceremony, to the god Yashaumugi. The god himself used the ceremony to entrap the girls using strong alcohol. Each girl is kept captive with the power of a crystal gourd, but you can’t just break them, or else they die.
GRAPHICS
The art is a mix of MS Paint and 16-bit graphics. The maidens you are trying to rescue, are rather pixelated. Whatever titillation this game promises is lost in the bad art. You can see the game designers wanted to push the sexiness of the maidens. But the girls are animated so badly, they lose their sex appeal. Other parts of the game look much better, like a 16-bit Zelda, or similar game from the 90s. On the offside, there’s only a limited number of areas to go. You can make sense of the environments, and move around without trouble. The tent you sleep in looks like a tent, the barrels look like barrels. The enemies, from the lowly Slimes and Mimics, to the Gods imprisoning the maidens, are creatively designed, with better animation.
GAMEPLAY
The basic controls use the arrow keys to walk around. The ENTER key is used to interact with things. That’s it! The fighting mechanics are just like in any other turn-based RPG. For each character in your party, you choose an action: Attack, use item, use spell, defend. You fight the enemy team, until everybody on the opposing side is dead. The enemies in the first part of the game deal such little damage, that there’s not much sense of danger. There are hidden doorways, puzzles, box and barrel pushing, and even a fishing mini-game to. Along the way, there are little details that keep the story entertaining, like one of the maidens being drunk off her ass, acting like an idiot, or one of the gods giving up halfway into the journey out of frustration. It is things like that, that take away from the monotony of dungeon grinding.
MUSIC
The cave scenes are dark and moody, and the goofier scene music is upbeat with wood xylophones playing. The songs match the emotion of the scenes they play in, but overall the soundtrack feels artificial, like it was composed with computer software. The music was alright, but nothing too memorable, surprising, or something I’d download to my ipod.
VOICE ACTING AND SOUND EFFECTS (SFX)
There is no voice-acting in this game that I found. All the dialog is text-based. The sound effects are alright, even if a little silly. Everything sounds like you would expect, through a synthesizer. There are some fun surprises, like the gunshot sound when you save your game. There’s also a sound for sword clangs, a BZZZT sound for electric attacks, all that good jazz.
HENTAI
The game is more “ecchi”, than hentai. This game isn’t like turning on your TV porn channel. The developers have a sense of humor that makes it feel like an episode of Benny Hill. You don’t see any people having sex, but cracking dirty jokes, and stuff. Hiro is, of course, a pervert, and other characters make note of that to him. Some of the naughty jokes are genuinely funny, like in one of the rooms holding a maiden, there is an odd hole in the wall, with a note “stick in something long and hard”. Hiro calls it just a “glorified hole” – get it? Okay, it’s not very funny, but my favorite was when Hiro refers to himself as a “Maidenologist” in dialog, which Loreley counters with “are you sure it’s not Boob Inspector?” and Hiro does not deny it! Was that funny? It was for me, but maybe I’m weird.
CONCLUDING WORDS
This game has a neat story, some funny twists and turns. If you enjoy grinding monsters and loot in dungeons, you’ll have a good time. The game’s goofiness and tendency to not take itself too seriously, makes it a fun romp. Old school hentai fan, you will appreciate its retro aesthetics. It’s an affordable budget title that will keep you engaged through its 8+ hours of play.
Download Girls and Dungeons because you want to.
