Thursday, September 12, 2013

Games for Adults:The Greatest Inventions of the Sexy Era!


The Greatest Inventions of the Sexy Era!
 


                Well, here I am reviewing another softhouse-seal game, a company I admit I’m a tad cautious about after the geyser of crap that was Super Secret Sexy Spy. Still, a lot of people who had played this game before it was localized seemed happy about its announcement and I had more assurances that this would be funny (though to be fair, I had no assurances with SSSS), so I preordered The Greatest Inventions of the Sexy Era! and come its release date of June 21, 2013 began to play it. Upon completion…maybe SSSS was a fluke after all…


Pros:  The comedic stuff is genuinely funny and mostly works, the main characters are good enough, the artwork is good, the music has a couple of nice tunes.

Cons:  The minor characters could have been handled better, harem ending is a let down, WHERE’S MY SAKURA ENDING DAMN IT!?!?

WTF?!: One of Kyousuke’s inventions is the Asura bun (extra points to those who get the original pun)…

Considering what it grants you to make you like Asura, does that mean in Asura’s Wrath…?

 

                In The Greatest Inventions of the Sexy Era! you play as Kyousuke Daiguuji, the gym teacher of Hanabatake Academy with a secret passion for inventing many a wacky contraption in the name of science (and who bears an uncanny resemblance to the title character of Toriko). When it comes time to reform the school’s science club, Kyousuke is mortified when the school’s science teacher is picked to be the head of the club instead of him (gee, I wonder why?), so he decides to form his own science club for the purpose of taking revenge on the school for this great offense with the aid of his trusty (but not too bright) new club recruit/minion, Fuuka.

                In the case of this game’s story, we see SHS essentially use a similar set up to Sexy Demon Transformation by taking a much used genre of countless dark eroge and/or hentai OVAs and manga. In this case, it’s the “evil rapist teacher” genre and while the writer does turn the trope of the main character of said genre on its head similar to SDT by having Kyousuke be a foolish but not really so bad guy, it’s both distinguished from that game and helped by how effectively wacky his portrayal as a mad scientist comes off. Almost all of the scenes where Kyousuke introduces and uses his inventions are hilarious, and many of the joke references and puns associated with the inventions are at least chuckle worthy.

                Our two main heroines, Fuuka and Matsuri also make for good parodies of tropes from that genre too. Fuuka is a play on the “accomplice” heroine of the genre, but that trope gets turned on its head by not only having Fuuka join Kyousuke over extreme gullibility, but also in the many leader-minion comedic scenes between her and Kyosuke in place of the generic master-sex slave interactions of the very genre it parodies.  Matsuri actually makes for the better of the two parodies as she’s a take on spending time the heroine that tries to go up against the rapist MC but always fails, and the trope is spoofed by making her a hot headed magical girl with a bit of an indifference to some of the finer points of heroism who frequently challenges Kyousuke and kind of wins at the end of each battle.

                Now while this game does as well with comedy as SDT, it doesn’t do as well when it comes to the handling of its minor characters. Part of the reason is because there isn’t much plot diversity compared to SDT (which isn’t  a problem by itself), and aside from Fuuka and Matsuri there really isn’t much of a sense of character exposition. Two of the sub heroines, Yuuki and Ururu are introduced and after their obligatory ero scene(s) that follow just completely disappear from the plot. You never see or hear about them again. This just comes off as weak writing even for a sex romp game and leaves you wondering what the point of the characters were aside from introducing some new inventions. Our remaining sub heroine Sakura fairs slightly better as she has a little more screen time which does help to make her character interesting and likable, enough that you wish she had her own ending. Alright, technically she does but all that happens in that ending is it hints about her possibly hooking up with Kyousuke, but we never see it.

                The final story related problem this game has is its weak harem ending. First off the name is pretty deceptive since the only heroines Kyousuke ends up with are Fuuka and Matsuri with the side heroines (of course) being nowhere to be seen. Still, that’s the least of this ending’s problems with its main one being its lack of substance compared to the other endings in the game. The harem ending is basically just a threesome ero scene and that’s it, and while the other endings also end on ero scenes at least those had enough writing around them to convey a better sense of closure.

                In the area of presentation this game does well with the character artwork being good and the design of some of the inventions are amusing. The voice acting is all around good with the voice actresses for Fuuka and Matsuri doing a good job at bringing the comical aspects of their characters to life. Also the music for the game has a couple of good tunes to it, particularly the menu theme with its upbeat sound to it and the music that plays when Kyousuke and Fuuka are meeting in the club room does a good job in conveying a feeling of the fun of light hearted mischief making. I’d say what the names of these two tunes were, but there’s nothing in the extras section that gathers or names the music.

                As for the ero scenes, they’re pretty good and most of them are pretty funny. I’ll even say they’re the funniest ero scenes I’ve seen from softhouse-seal so far.

 

In Conclusion:

                The Greatest Inventions of the Sexy Era is a good example of how softhouse-seal can release eroge that are short and cheap, but still enjoyable. While this is by no means a perfect game, it’s definitely a recommend for anyone who wants a decent sex romp type eroge that also has some good laughs to offer, at least enough to make up for the lackluster endings. I will say the jokes might be easier to get for those with some trope familiarity in regards to hentai, but that’s something you’ll have to see for yourself. Let’s hope this game does well enough that we get the sequel.

 

Final Score:  6/10 Above Average


Author Recommendation: For Fans Only!