Pervert Action Future: A Belated Review

I've been replaying a bit of Pervert Action: Future and I decided it never really got the sort of in-depth review it truly deserved. So I'll do a belated review of it. I won't be rating it at all because, really, it's a free game, and so you're not exactly sacrificing anything by checking it out. You can check out his website on the top right.

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.

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.