WARNING: Spoilers abound.
Story
First of all, bbben is a very clever writer. So, I couldn't tell if the story was convoluted just because it was very cleverly mimicking the sort of esoteric plotting often found in sci-fi anime or if it was just trying to build a connection between the original PAC game in a rather strange way, but I'm guessing the former. In any case, it gets away with it because of previously established tropes in the genre, but I couldn't help but scratch my head a little during the big reveal. I'm not sure, really, what to think except that the important parts were in the individual romantic sub-plots, which fortunately made a lot more sense.
All you need to know starting off is that Minami Tetsuya is a complete bitch, and in truth, it's Minami that really pushes the story forward. For this reason, I would have liked to see Tetsuya have a bigger role than she does. I'll get to that later.
Writing (ADDED: 10/07/2013)
The game uses a first person, script format to sort of emulate a visual novel instead of a traditional 2nd person narrative often found in AIF. It's appropriate for bbben's style in this case, especially when the air gets thick with one-liners. The important thing is PAF made me consistently laugh out loud, and it rarely felt like it was trying too hard to be funny.
For everything else, the narrator, Kenji, inserts much of his own color commentary as he describes what's going on around him. It makes normally utilitarian location descriptions a little more fun to read but I can imagine some people being annoyed by it.
Writing (ADDED: 10/07/2013)
The game uses a first person, script format to sort of emulate a visual novel instead of a traditional 2nd person narrative often found in AIF. It's appropriate for bbben's style in this case, especially when the air gets thick with one-liners. The important thing is PAF made me consistently laugh out loud, and it rarely felt like it was trying too hard to be funny.
For everything else, the narrator, Kenji, inserts much of his own color commentary as he describes what's going on around him. It makes normally utilitarian location descriptions a little more fun to read but I can imagine some people being annoyed by it.
Gameplay
Pervert Action Future very nicely combines the best of eroge dating sims with what we would call "traditional AIF". PAF's various component parts all feed into each other in different ways, the combat, exploration, dating and sex, so that none felt like an afterthought. Particularly nice was the combat system, which was very well balanced as well as being surprisingly deep and entertaining. My gripe with the combat system is that I was disappointed with the meager award for beating all the monsters, which is certainly not easy. It would've been nice to have a non-interactive scene or something.
The bulk of PAF's gameplay is choosing to either build stats or romance characters between your various fights. You have three stats, Hand, Mouth and Eye, which come into play both during fights and in sex scenes. You don't particularly need to have a balanced character, and in fact the game encourages you to load up on a single stat. Eye, I find, is not only the best for combat but also unlocks anal sex. Between Hand (which lets you rub pussy) and Mouth (which lets you lick pussy) the choice is pretty damn obvious. It might be a little much to ask for each of the stats to do a little more in bed, but it would be nice.
The sex scenes, for that matter, are all very well written, well voiced and well illustrated, but simple as far as AIF goes. I am not a tremendous fan of arousal systems and so I don't feel like I lost a whole lot not having to tap "G" to see the same message pop up until my virtual avatar busts a virtual nut, but it would have been nice to see something else brought to the table in place of it, maybe some sort of clothing system, especially since your in-game avatar can't orgasm at all except in some of the non-interactive scenes at the very end of the game. Again, having the stats come into play a little more would may have helped to add a little more interest here.
As far as the romancing goes, it's all an abstracted point system with some optional puzzles thrown in, with most of the plot being told through cut scenes. It isn't bad because the individual romantic sub-plots are quite good, but even some symbolic decisions would break up the feeling of non-interactivity.
The risk with this sort of game is what I would describe as the "symmetry" between all of the characters, which is both a good and bad thing. On the good side, you can romance any character with any stat. On the bad side, once you know the trick to seducing one girl, you know how to seduce all the girls. PAF isn't hard: you spend the first half of the game developing a single stat, then, in the second half you spam romance them with your uber complimenting, chatting and/or sparring, where at some point they'll fall into bed with you. It would have been nice to see some more dramatic differences -- for example, maybe you have to defeat Taka in a fight to get her to respect you, or maybe at some point Yuri goes missing and you have to find her. I would go as far as to say I would like it if some characters were flat out more difficult than others. I know the trend is to go puzzle-lite but here it all gets given away a bit too easily.
Characters
I played both PAC and PAF pretty close to each other, and the PAF characters definitely stick out in my mind much more easily, and I can't say it was just the superior pictures. For one thing, PAF's characters are just a lot more believable even while being larger-than-life, their exaggerated personalities given more context. I think part of the reason is that while PAC seemed to purposefully mimic the sorts of archetypes typically found in eroge games, BBBen in PAF seemed to free himself a little more, having already established this strange Dating Sim/AIF hybrid and not really needing to rely on the player's familiarity with eroge games. But that's beside the point, since PAF's girls are just more likable than those in PAC.
In this regard, Chiemi really sticks out. At the best of times, she was charming and genuine, she made me laugh and be happy. At the worst, she made me sad and sympathize with her plight, being desperate and lonely as she is. Between that and the voice acting, which is just incredible and adds so much warmth to Chiemi, she stands out as the strongest character. In the end, she hits a strange mark, because while some characters may have reminded me of some real life people, Chiemi was the only character where I felt like I knew people who were exactly like her. Don't get me wrong, of all the cast Chiemi would make the best real-life girlfriend, but as a romanceable character she hits an uncanny valley where, minus the cyborg parts, she's almost not fantastical enough. It's a difficult thing to explain... I just couldn't see her as an erotic character. I think that's why, even with Chiemi really being the best character in the game, she maybe isn't as popular as she deserves to be, not even with me, and that's a shame. Poor Chiemi. She always gets left out, doesn't she?
Taka, on the other hand, is damn fine. In my case, this isn't just because Taka's character model happens to be the least cartoonish and most vixen, but rather because I find Farscape's Aeryn Sun and Katee Sackhoff's portrayal of Starbuck to be just sex on wheels. It's probably the same reason I found Misato from PAC to be my favorite character from that game. I like tough, sexy girls, and Taka's not only badass, but her voice actress has a sexy, husky voice. It's just a personal kink of mine, and Taka just hits it square.
I'm not really sure what to think of Taka's relationship with Yuri. They are supposed to be almost like sisters, but I just can't buy it, considering how deeply troubled Yuri clearly is at least in the beginning of the game. Yuri struck me as the weakest character, I found her portrayal quite inconsistent, going from cold and enigmatic at the beginning to doing drunk karaoke with Taka somewhere in the middle, without much of a convincing transition in between. She's supposed to be deeply troubled, and considering her mother is Minami she would be, but her relationship with Taka is healthy enough to undercut this. It feels like both Taka and Yuri happened to be the odd characters out and needed a threesome ending. It's also not clear why Taka would trust Yuri and not Chiemi. I would have preferred, somehow, this sisterly relationship developing during the game with the player acting as a catalyst.
The final pair is Ayane the pop star and Ami the best friend, whose relationship made a lot more sense. I really liked Ayane because she was very believably "tsundere", and the story line with the player helping her come to grips with her exhibitionism was one of the best and hooked in well to her sex scenes. Ayane's voice acting was pretty good but it had the poorest audio quality, but studio-quality recording is probably a bit much to ask for. Ami's voice acting is second only to Chiemi's and, as a character, she could have very easily become boring or forgettable were it not for her generally pretty good writing and acting. Ami is the character which most obviously falls into a specific archetype, but fortunately it isn't noticeable because Ayane adds a little bit of interest.
A little should be said about Minami, who is very obviously the villainess of the game. Despite her being an awful person, I would have liked to see a little more of her, even if it's to mess up the PC's day a little more aggressively. She never really gets her own true interactive scene for one, and I didn't find her unsexy.
A final note: all of the actresses did a commendable job to breathe a bit of life into the characters, and for that reason none of them came off as Slutty Cheerleader #6. Plus, it's not easy to make dick-sucking sounds and not be self-conscious.
Overall
"Soccer Game", my own work in progress, is heavily influenced by the tone and game play of Pervert Action: Future. If there was any testament to how much I enjoyed this game, it's probably that. I just hope that BBBen wasn't planning on writing Pervert Action: Football.
I will, however, volunteer what his next game should be: Pervert Action: Sengoku. We've already been to the future, now's the time to go to the past. Finish Super PAC first, of course.
A lot to chew on here, thanks for the review! While I could respond to all sorts of stuff the thing that made me want to reply was the discussion of the style of the game, which hasn't come up much elsewhere and so I haven't had as much chance to play around with the ideas as I would have liked. PAF was quite an experimental design structure (even despite building on PAC) so it would do well to be developed more.
ReplyDeleteThe sex mechanics of having hand, mouth and eye unlock more substantial sexual content would probably have been better if they were used for more, I agree. The main reason I didn't go more elaborate with the sex scene was a simple fear of writer's block, which the complex sex scenes in PAC brought on rather badly. From my perspective the scenes in PAF worked out very well, because I managed to write them all in a reasonable time frame and got them all done before my interest had completely run out. That said, I still would have liked to use the hand/mouth/eye thing more, if I had been able to come up with a good method for it. I was concerned that if I, say, also restricted other hand and mouth interactions (and maybe 'fuck tits' for eye) I would have made the scenes too restricted for an average run-through. Maybe it would have been worth it anyway, I don't know, but that was my thinking.
If those mechanics were more developed it would have added to the appeal of the 'symmetry' of the game that you mention as well. Courting Chiemi with a high eye skill would give a different sex scene to courting her with a high mouth skill, for example. That would have been interesting. As it is, that already does happen a little, but not enough to make a play-through worth it, so it's mostly employed to spice up a harem mode play-through (which is still a good thing, I suppose - those need to be incentivised).
I also was a shade too conservative when it came to the combat mechanics - namely the fact that combat isn't all that important and doesn't earn you all that much. My concern here (and I think I had some justification here) was that combat systems hardly ever work in IF games, and are usually pretty dreadful. I was surprised by a couple of things when I started alpha testing the game myself: firstly that the combat was taking up so much of the gameplay, and secondly that I actually found it enjoyable. Because of that I made sure to add more complex graphics and audio to those encounters, but had I known from the start I probably would have made the combat more essential in the gameplay, rather than as something you could kind of ignore if you wanted to.
In developing the characters, almost all of them worried me at some point because I wasn't sure if they were working. For example I felt that Taka's story was too superficial and not really working even quite late in the development, so I re-organised her story and added a new scene (the last one before the sex scene), and I felt that made a big difference to how it all played out. Ultimately I was pleased with the results and I'm glad to read that what you took from them was largely what I was going for (with accounting made for personal taste).
There's probably more I could say in response and I might do so when I get time later...
Thanks for your thoughts so far.
DeleteI think what PAF and Kerkerkruip have proven is that interactive fiction is not a bad medium for RPG combat, it has just been poorly executed most of the time. Good RPG games are made all the time that don't have any simulations of spatial relations, the early Final Fantasy games being one of the more obvious examples. Barring graphics, those sorts combat systems wouldn't be difficult to do in an IF game. It's actually pretty surprising there haven't been more.
Interactive sex scenes are massively draining to do, unfortunately. I think it's the breast rubbing that does it... there just isn't enough ways to creatively describe it. So, of course, as an author, you have to find a way to keep something feeling fresh for yourself. As someone writing a review, I have to manage my expectations a little bit because I will always want MOAR. Often while I play a game I'll think things like "Wouldn't it be nice if X and Y got together..." but that sort of feedback often isn't particularly useful unless it really would round out a game nicely.
I haven't replayed Taka's story yet (she's next) so I can't recall exactly what scene you are referring to. Taka's conflict with Minami and her relationship to her brother Hiroshi is the thing that really adds interest to her. If it weren't for that, I agree that Taka might have been a little flat.
I promised some more thoughts, here they are!
DeleteA more asymmetrical gameplay approach would have been interesting. Had I known the combat system would work out I may well have put in a fight with Taka (I mulled it over in the design stage). An exploration hunting puzzle for Yuri might also have been good, and maybe a video arcade mini-game for Chiemi? Regardless, a lot of the gameplay was a matter of experimenting throughout development; I played with more exotic or ambitious ideas sometimes and only some of the ideas made it into the game. Meanwhile, I actually do think the game could probably be a bit better with more sex, but I had to make a calculated design decision not to overreach with that, and I think it paid off because I actually got this game finished in a reasonable time frame. I think you're right about the difficulties keeping the responses fresh and interesting to the author.
On the Taka story that I was discussing before: it was the sexual tension between Taka and Kenji that didn't feel like it was going anywhere for me. That meant I had to draw up a new scene that bridged that gap and fortunately I actually thought it was a good one. It was their fourth relationship sub-plot scene and looking back at it I can't see how the Taka story was ever going to work without it.
I'm pleased by your response to Chiemi, even though you ultimately didn't find her sexy. It sounds like the character hit the right emotional notes I was going for and felt genuine, which is the most important thing. Oh, and incidentally, you made mention of the voice acting for both Taka and Chiemi - as it happens they were both performed by the same fantastic actress: Sacci Salt.
When it comes to Yuri, I don't know, maybe it's a matter of taste. I was fairly happy with how her story came out, because to me the fact that she has two sides to the personality was very true to the character I was going for. In my experience quiet, reserved girls often do turn out to be very different (sometimes quite wild) once you get past their inhibitions, or once they become comfortable with you. I know she was the favorite for some players, but that of course does not mean you don't have a valid point.
On Minami, I am not sure whether most players (non-completionists) ultimately encountered her extra linear sex scenes that trigger when you try to do things with a tension over 10. This might be a mistake on my part; if I did it again I'd make each of the scenes interchangeable and then made them random, so at least when they are accidentally triggered you might see a different scene than last time you did it accidentally, and before you type "undo".
Long response. Sorry, part 3 is still coming!
One thing I've been pleased to discover is that while many people have a favorite girl, there is no consistency over who that favorite is; meaning that all the characters have been able to stand up on their own.
DeleteYou might be interested to know, in reference to your Pervert Action: Sengoku idea, I was actually planning at one point to make a game that was basically that idea. I gave up on it because I didn't feel I knew the setting well enough and I didn't have the same tropey genre stuff to draw upon. Someone else has sent me a breakdown of his idea for that kind of game, but I can't speak for him as he'd like to develop it, and I wish him luck. I had my own idea for a third game which would take a bit of an unexpected sideways move on the setting. I like the idea but at the moment I'm not sure it would be as good as PAF, and I don't want to do it if it's not as good as PAF.
Finally, I'm very interested to hear that the style of PAF influenced your game in development and I'll be really keen to see how the game takes shape with an eye to seeing how the structure can be built upon. I like the concept too, and your character profiles look nicely quirky. Obviously the soccer gameplay sounds like it would replace the combat, and I'm guessing in your case you can be a little more confident that it's worth investing more importance in that part of the game. Part of my concerns about PAF's combat was that I felt that if people are playing the game for the sake of a fap then they're not going to be too thrilled about mandatory, reasonably challenging combat, so I also wanted to give those players an out. On reflection now I think I possibly shouldn't have worried, as those players will likely look elsewhere anyway, and it's better to create a more substantial game.
Thanks again for your response. It's almost as long as my review!
DeleteJust to clarify, I didn't HATE Yuri's storyline. In fact, in an average game, I would be pleased for a plot that deep. In comparison to everything else, however, I felt Yuri didn't have the same strength of character as others. And it's totally true what you say about reserved girls going wild, but at the same time, Yuri isn't merely shy and reserved, she's suffered from systematic emotional (and sexual!) abuse from her mother. And if you don't go through Yuri's sub-plot, the transformation appears pretty sudden. If I were to change one thing about Yuri, I'd make her relationship with Taka unfold during the game rather than make it defacto before the main events of the game.
Ways that Yuri DID work, however, was her tendency to sexualize people as "brother" and "sister", which again, makes a fucked up kind of sense, considering her background. Obviously, you don't want it too dark considering the tone, but Yuri's storyline is the darkest of all.
Your thoughts about the combat mirror what was going on in my head earlier about the soccer, but I took the opposite direction from you. Originally I wanted the soccer to be a minor mini-game to add some flavor, but it became so technically sophisticated that it seemed a bit of a waste to throw it in as an afterthought. Whether or not it's fun remains to be seen, I hope to get some feedback on that later this year.
I threw out Pervert Action: Sengoku as a half-joke. I don't know if you've ever played Sengoku Rance, but considering how much the Japanese mess around with their own history real knowledge of history isn't particularly required. Besides, the tropes are all laid out for you: slutty ninja girl, tsundere samurai girl, quirky bandit girl, stoic monk girl... :). But, now that I know you're going to make a left-turn, I'm really curious.
Anyways, I will continue watching your progress with interest.
I think your approach with your soccer gameplay is likely to be a better idea; had I had the benefit of hindsight back when I was designing the PAF combat I would have made it more important, probably with some kind of Minami sexual encounter as a reward, and perhaps making the money more necessary. Incidentally, a tip: I found the combat had to be challenging in order to be interesting. That forces the player to use tactics/special abilities and not just to spam "attack" repeatedly.
DeleteI'd be happy to tell you a little more about my ideas for the future of Pervert Action, but maybe you should email me about that. It's all just speculative and not actually development as of yet, so it's not for public consumption.
Thank you very much for taking the time to write such an in-depth review! I enjoyed reading it very much. Helping bring Chiemi and Taka to "life" with my voice was personally rewarding and I am so happy to hear my effort assisted in heightening your experience of PAF.
ReplyDeleteBest wishes on your work with 'Soccer Story'!
I look forward to playing your game.
Thank you too! I hope to hear your voice again!
Delete