Super Secret Sexy Spy
Review
Of the
three initial softhouse-seal titles to come out from Mangagamer, this is the
one I was the most optimistic about. Having watched my share of spoofs of the
spy genre from Get Smart to the Naked Gun series to Austin Powers, I was
looking forward to what jokes softhouse-seal had to tell to match the ero
content, so on its release date of April 23, 2013 I began my playthrough with
high hopes. I mean how on earth could anyone screw up spoofing the spy genre?
Years of spoof movies and shows can show it’s as easy to make fun of as…you
already know where this is going don’t you?
Pros: The Lestie/Maimi route is actually good, Nana’s VA
turns in a good performance, the artwork is good, a couple nice tunes on the
music end.
Cons: Largely fails at telling jokes let alone spoofing the
spy genre, for the most part the main character is unlikable, the Kusakabe
sisters’ routes.
WTF?!: You know what, just take a look at the basis for this
game in picture form…
Continuing
from that, you play as Iiyama Hunt, the top agent for said organization, and
their goal of bringing pleasure to all women is opposed by an organization
known as…you know what I’m going to need to show another picture…
Now I’m
sure after seeing what the premise for this game is, some of you might say in
response to my soon to come criticisms on this game’s failings that I should
have expected this. To that I say…you’re probably right, but in my defense both
of the previous releases from softhouse-seal have stupid premises but both were
able to use that well for comedic effect in their games (admittedly Sexy Demon
Transformation did it a lot better than Boob Wars) so why shouldn’t I expect
the same level of quality?
By and
large what makes SSSS fail is it’s just not good at telling jokes or spoofing
the spy genre. The majority of the jokes just aren’t funny, and most of them are
more focused on sex related jokes rather than ones parodying tropes from spy
movies or shows (and anyone who’s at least seen the James Bond movies knows
those jokes don’t have to be mutually exclusive). The humor isn’t helped any by
the fact that our “hero” Hunt is not a very likable character, not only having
all the characteristics that often make a perverted protagonist annoying but
also coming across as a complete ass in regards to his interaction with the
other characters. All these failings are
most apparent in the Kusakabe sisters’ routes, which are so terrible I have to
give it its own paragraph.
With
this route (I’m only going to refer to it as a single route since the plot
divergence is at the end anyway), everything that is wrong with this game is
brought to the max. There is only one joke that gets even close to being funny
wherein out hero defuses a dildo bomb, mainly because that’s the only spy genre
related joke in the entire route (and one or two throwaway line references
don’t count). The rest are simply unfunny regardless of whether they make sense
or not from some odd references to the Vietnam War (which I guess is because
that’s when the spy genre was in the height of its popularity) to an analogy of
a character and curry that I still can’t make any sense out of. Moving on to
our main character…while his behavior for most of the game is groan worthy with
his acting like a jerk because the writers thought it would be funny, it’s in
this route where he’s at his worst. It’s not just that he has no chemistry with
either heroine, it’s that he seems to have no positive regard for them at all.
The best example would be with how after he first meets one of said heroines,
Ruri, and finds out about a certain mental problem she has his only thought is “I
don’t have time to deal with this space case”. If that’s meant to be a joke it’s
not funny and to be honest kind of offensive, but it’s not like this is a one
off joke I can let slide since later on near the end of the route when said
affliction is brought to a head in a scene that’s trying to be dramatic (and
not doing very well at it) and Hunt is turned to in order to help do you want
to know what the response is from our “hero”? He not only refuses to help, but
also complains and tries to deflect the responsibility to someone else. The fact that the route still leads to a good
end for this guy that I’m supposed to appreciate and then ends on what’s
practically an “f--- you” to the player really had me steamed when the credits
rolled and I had to stop playing right there and I did not even want to touch
this game for weeks, I was that pissed.
When I
did finally muster up enough endurance to play this game again, I’ll admit I
played the Lestie/Maimi route first, but I’d like to talk about the Nana route first
to get it out of the way. I can say that both of these routes are thankfully not
as infuriatingly terrible as the Kusakabe sisters’ and they both actually
manage to tell jokes that are related to the spy genre. The thing with Nana’s
route though…even succeeding at that, her route isn’t very good. While part of
the problem is that the ending is pretty bland and there’s not much in the way
of chemistry between her and Hunt (which is still better than none unlike…that
other route), another problem I have with it is how mean spirited the humor
gets in regards to the enemy organization. I can understand why it’s there
since this game came out in 2010 in Japan and that was when the whole Rapelay controversy
was in full swing and we had a bunch of people claiming to represent feminist
groups (should note, actual feminists that I talked to pretty much said these
were just idiots who wanted to be on TV) raising a fuss over hentai in general
and were calling for the Japanese government to ban it entirely, or for the UN
to impose sanctions on Japan until it did so, or for fictional characters to be
given human rights, and other ridiculous
stuff. All in all it got blown out of proportion because some Japanese
politicians actually listened to that and while cooler (and smarter) heads
prevailed during that time this whole controversy was picked up by the denizens
of 4chan and 2chan and
I don’t think I need to explain what happened next. Basically the humor in
this route is obviously supposed to be directed at the bunch who raised the
fuss about Rapelay (which I’m not going to review since it’s a third rate
chikan eroge that I found boring), and whether or not the writers bought into
the “feminazi” stereotype the controversy sadly helped to reinforce, it
probably portrayed feminists (to them) as people who wanted to destroy their livelihood
and I doubt anyone would take kindly to that. …And I’ve been talking more about
an old controversy than the route in question…so yeah, Nana route: better than
the Kusakabe sister’s but still not very good, especially in the humor
department. Moving on…
Finally
we get to the Lestie/Maimi route, which I did not have very high hopes for
since I’d just completed the Kusakabe sisters’ route but much to my surprise
this route was actually good. While I admit the Maimi ending is kind of bland,
the overall route path works for a few reasons. First, it does a pretty good
parody of “the spy’s organization going too far and said spy goes renegade’
story trope complete with a pretty wacky chase scene, plus following into the
Lestie end we get a decent parody of the bizarre gadget trope of the genre too.
Second, following the former trope actually helps to make Hunt a likable
character for once considering in this case he’s actually doing something
genuinely good for another person (in this case Maimi) and we the players
actually get to sympathize with him a little. Third, we actually get some
decent character moments between not just Hunt and the heroines (finally some
chemistry, especially concerning Lestie), but with the friendship between Maimi
and Lestie that gives the story a little heart and even bits of character development
on Lestie’s end (though I do admit the route could have stood to have more of
that). So all in all I can say that at least with this route my money wasn’t
entirely wasted.
In the
area of presentation, this game does well enough. The artwork is good and there
are a couple of good tunes with its music, especially in its opening theme
which does a nice mimic of the James Bond music at times. The voice acting is
also good, and I should mention that whoever the voice actress is for Nana, she
does an especially good job pulling off the comedic scenes she’s in. There’s
just something in the way she pulls off the line that would make a normally
lame scene funny. Sadly even her talents can’t save this game.
As for
the ero scenes, they’re good as ero scenes go with good artwork and voice
acting. I think I’ve already said enough about the scenes in between most of
them.
In Conclusion:
Super
Secret Sexy Spy is a largely unfunny comedy that I would not recommend to
anyone. While there is one good route and the voice acting is good, it’s still
not enough to save it as we have two other routes that just plain suck. Buy
anything else in Mangagamer’s library, but not this, and if you want a good spy
genre parody watch any of the three things I mentioned up in the intro or
Linkara’s S.C.I. Spy reviews (click here
for the first one).
Final Score: 3/10 Terrible
Author Recommendation: Devil SPAWN!
