Visual Novels #4

Noble Works (2010 - Japan, 2015 - translated)
By: Yuzusoft Genre: Visual Novel Players: 1 Difficulty: N/A
Featured Version: PC
Also Available For: Nothing

I haven't had the greatest of luck with visual novels so far. Most of the ones I've tried have either been way pervier than I had expected or simply weren't very good due to short lengths and/or limited routes. I was determined this wouldn't happen again so this time sought out a highly-acclaimed VN that I could spend some time getting stuck into. One I saw mentioned a lot was Noble Works, released a few years ago in translated form. In a shocking twist from the norm, it sees you take on the role of a schoolboy, in this case Fujishima Takumi. As seems to be common in manga/anime, despite being of school age he lives on his own for one reason or another, and struggles to hold down part-time jobs in order to make ends meet. BUT THEN!! Fate decides to intervene.

Visual Novels #2

Sakura Swim Club (2015)
By: Winged Cloud Genre: Visual Novel Players: 1 Difficulty: N/A
Featured Version: PC
Also Available For: Nothing

It was a cold, stormy night, many moons past. Panic-stricken beetles scurried to take refuge beneath errant leaves, themselves being battered by the large globules of clear water that plummeted from the hazy sky. Observing this chaos safely from within the confines of a nearby residential structure was a portly oaf named RetroKingSimon who had just unexpectedly taken advantage of the latest splendid deal offered by Humble Bundle which was themed around visual novels. For eons did these novels lay dormant in the darkest corners of his computer's storage device. And some things that should not have been forgotten were lost. History became legend, legend became myth. And for two and a half thousand years, the novels passed out of all knowledge.

Adult Games #8

Imouto Paradise! (2011)
By: Moonstone Cherry Genre: Visual Novel Players: 1 Difficulty: N/A
Featured Version: PC
Also Available For: Android, DVD

The first title screen I've ever had to censor here - eeek!

Despite the best of intentions, my experience of visual novels has remained fairly limited since I first discovered them a few years back. The few I have tried all seem to have some sort of pervy content too, and few more than this one. I think it aroused my interest (no pun intended) when I saw a few screenshots somewhere and liked its visual style. Upon playing it, however, I quickly found that it's premise was one of a highly questionable nature. You play as high school student Soichiro Nanase who lives with his parents and five younger sisters. The game takes place during the summer holidays at a time when their parents have gone on an overseas trip leaving the six siblings alone. This leaves you, as Soichiro, to pursue inappropriate relations with whichever of his sister takes his fancy.

Adult Games #7

Strip Fighter II (1993)
By: Games Express  Genre: Maze  Players: 1-5  Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: NEC PC Engine / TurboGrafx-16  First Day Score: 388,100
Also Available For: X68000

It was only a few weeks past that I finally got around to looking at Street Fighter II properly here at Red Parsley, and not before time. It is of course a true classic which, as mentioned in its review, had an enormous influence on pretty much every other developer around at the time, and soon they were busy releasing similar-looking fighting games of their own. Unsurprisingly, these varied in quality a great deal and even included direct rip-offs and spoofs. Ticking all these boxes is Strip Fighter II. There is no Strip Fighter I - it was named purely to riff on Capcom's most popular and successful instalment in the long-running series, and it does this by injecting a bit of sauciness into proceedings (as if it wasn't obvious from the name!). So, after the worryingly-pornographic content of the last 'adult' game I looked at here, we're back in more familiar territory for this PC Engine release it seems, and that's fine by me.

Adult Games #6

Amorous Professor Cherry (2004)
By: ZyX Genre: Visual Novel Players: 1 Difficulty: N/A
Featured Version: PC
Also Available For: Nothing

All of the so-called adult games I have covered so far here at Red Parsley could really be categorised in the same way: they're all arcade or arcade-style games and they would all be perfectly playable with the modest adult content removed (which usually consists of a few boobies here and there). Games such as the one featured here are a whole different deal, however. It's a visual novel - a type of game very popular in Japan but which I have limited experience of so far; I've only played one in fact, namely Kanon, which itself has a very small number of pervy scenes, although there is also an 'all ages' version. Amorous Professor Cherry, on the other hand, definitely does not have an all ages version. As I discovered within seconds of starting it, we're in full-on 'erotic' game territory here. In other words, porn (or specifically, hentai). But is there a decent game beneath it all?

Adult Games #5

Lady Killer (1993)
By: Yanyaka / Mitchell Corporation Genre: Action / Puzzle Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: Arcade First Day Score: 155,700 (one credit)
Also Available For: Nothing

The distinct lack of originality I've found while looking into these so-called 'adult' games thus far has been... not entirely unexpected to be honest, but here I may have found one that's had at least a little effort put into it. You play the part of a diver called Gonta and it's his job, quite simply, to de-robe a succession of lovely ladies! Well, reveal their splendour in pictorial form at least, and he does this by... ummm... diving into them. Allow me to explain in more detail. First you must choose a lady. There are six available who apparently reside in various cities across the world. Choosing one sees our hero fly to that destination where he's met by a series of single screen stages. Each initially features a watery silhouette of your chosen lady which is revealed by the aforementioned diving. Yes, it's as weird as it sounds.

Adult Games #4

Celery (1989)
By: Parsley Genre: Action Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: NEC PC-98 First Day Score: ???,???
Also Available For: Nothing

Many of the few 'adult' games I've looked at so far have been obscure arcade titles but most of them have also been Japanese. I guess our Far-Eastern friends are a little keener on mixing gaming and nude girlies than us Western prudes - so much so, in fact, that a few of the systems native to that region are positively heaving under the vast weight of games featuring saucy minxes of all descriptions. One of these is NEC's Windows-based micro, the PC-98, so when I decided to start covering more of its games I suppose it was inevitable I'd encounter a nudey example at some point. It was actually the rather amusing name of this one that caught my eye but it didn't come as too much of a surprise to find... that's right, naughty girlies!

Adult Games #3

Gals Panic! (1990)
By: Kaneko Genre: Puzzle Players: 1-2 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: Arcade First Day Score: 38,000 (one credit)
Also Available For: Nothing

The more I look into these so-called 'adult games', the more I discover the same old formula. Take a liked, well-known, simple title, copy it, and add some naked (or at least scantily-clad) girlies while doing so. It's not a very complicated process and neither are the games that generally result from such unions. Arriving courtesy of the reasonably-prolific Japanese arcade outfit, Kaneko, this effort graced a small number of the world's arcades at the start of the 90's and followed a similar trend. The game on which it's based is Taito's classic 'space-filling' puzzler, Qix, and that means that, unless executed with exceptional incompetence, it should at least be a pretty darn addictive game!

Arcade Round-Up #2

It's been a while since I took a look at an 'adult' came here at Red Parsley - it's not really a subject I invest much time or thought in I suppose (no, really!) - but I did kind of stumble back into the murky world recently when I discovered... well, let's leave that as a surprise for a later post shall we? Before we get there, however, I thought it might be spiffy to return to the setting of the first such game I looked at and investigate some more of the few risqué arcade games that made it out, purely for the sake of completion you understand!

I had intended to look at each one individually, but as I should've guessed from my previous experiences with the genre, limited as they might've been, games that feature any adult material are generally rip-offs of existing games but with some boobs and stuff tacked on as well. It would've therefore been a bit of a waste of effort to devote a whole review to each one. To that end, here's a round-up of the five somewhat dubious examples that probably no one has ever played:

Block Gal (1987)

Any regular visitors here at RP should know of my fondness for bat 'n' ball games, so simply adding a bit o' skin to such a title must mean I'd still find it at least semi-spiffing, right? It makes sense in theory at least, but this effort, published by Sega no less, is the oldest game featured here so I don't hold out too much expectation for the adult content. Indeed, aside from a slightly sultry-looking (but fully-clothed) young lady on the title screen it was a while before I even saw anything at all, for Block Gal initially appears to be a completely normal, non-adult Breakout clone. Its stages feature all the usual stuff and there's a few minor innovations such as the colour of the bricks denoting how many times they need to be hit, but the only adult stuff I found was a pink-haired young lady sprawled on the ground after each stage. She's obscured by flowers at first but each stage you win removes one line of them until after the tenth stage she can be viewed in all her glory, but it's no more explicit than what's been seen in countless anime shows. As a bat 'n' ball game I quite enjoyed this one at first but after a while it reveals itself to be a bit limited and rough around the edges. Passable but don't play it if you're after sexy girlies doing inappropriate things! ... 6/10

Adult Games #2

Divine Sealing (1991)
By: Studio Fazzy / CYX Genre: Shooting Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: Sega MegaDrive / Genesis First Day Score: 128,200
Also Available For: Nothing

Unsurprisingly, the first entry in this series of features proved to be rather popular so I think another entry is in order! This time, the game in question is a shoot 'em up, which isn't a genre you might think of as a potentially adult one (not even the superb Sexy Parodius!) but this unlicensed release manages to achieve it with ease. Studio Fazzy have somehow housed the promiscuous girlies in a vertically-scrolling shmup, but since it's a Japanese-only game I have no idea why. There seems to be a fairly lengthy story which is detailed before play begins and between each stage where you'll see a scantily-clad young lady before many pages of Kanji text. Luckily it's possible to speed them up, and doing so will finally reveal a game!

Adult Games #1

Pocket Gal (1987)
By: Data East  Genre: Sports  Players: 1-2  Difficulty: Easy
Featured Version: Arcade  First Day Score: 9,300 (one credit)
Also Available For: Nothing

Love them or hate them, videogames are big business. Those of us who partake in their wonders, however, have taken a lot of stick over the years for the sake our 'nerdy' hobby so it doesn't really help matters when developers release blatantly pervy games featuring titillating girlies in various states of undress. Most of the time this is of course a less-than-subtle attempt to grab the cash of lonely gamers with a bare minimum of effort. Indeed, the games that facilitate these giggling girlies are usually utter trash - the flimsiest of excuses for the nudity and immoral material contained within, and that's when there even is a game at all! But could there be any genuinely good games hidden amidst this nonsense? In a series of new features here at Red Parsley, I will bravely attempt to uncover an answer to this intriguing mystery!