Why do we play games? It's a question I often find myself asking after browsing through what seems like page upon page upon page of the same old recycled material that we've all essentially grown immune to over the years on not only F95 but virtually ever adult gaming website. In fact, it's almost necessary to sort through oceans of litter to find a single gem nowadays. And while there is plenty of fap-worthy material out there, I've found that there aren't many games that fill the first requirement of, well, why we play games in the first place -- to have fun. And so, let me just come out and set the stage for the rest of the review in saying that Hero's Harem Guild is fucking fun.
Of course, that's not to say it's perfect. Few things are in life. And while the game does have its issues, the high points of it vastly outshine them. The attentiveness of addressing and fixing these issues, based on just the last two updates alone, is good reason to believe that they will be worked out in time, though. For anyone curious, some of these issues include but are not limited to:
- A relatively grind-heavy money-making system that is necessary in order to progress to different parts of the game.
- A decent amount of mistakes in grammar due to it being written in a language that is not the developer's mother-tongue.
- Some minor clipping and graphical errors
- Stuttering and/or lag at various points in the game.
Like I mentioned before, however, there are so many great things about this game that it becomes easy to overlook those cons.
The first twenty or so minutes of Hero's Harem Guild perfectly set the stage for everything to come, a feat not particularly common in games of its projected size and scope. Shortly after being introduced to the protagonist and several supporting characters that we'll run into again later, we find ourselves undertaking a task common to all novice adventurers -- Capturing an overly elusive chicken and using it to barter for an object needed to complete a fetch quest.
And while this event may seem random or strange or whatever you want to call it, it's the perfect summation of what Hero's Harem Guild is meant to be -- a chaotic and frantic rollercoaster ride through all of the things that we love about old school RPGs.
From quest to quest, conversation to conversation, we're battered over the head with how immensely ridiculous everything in this world is meant to be. And while some people may cite that hyper exaggeration as a weak point, I want to reinforce the idea that it's anything but.
In order for the characters in HHG to function properly in their setting, the world needs to be hyper exaggerated. You need characters like Jimmy, a mysterious knight functioning as what I'd call the lead comic relief of the game..And characters like Evie, a twin-tailed mute girl with masochistic perversions who gets turned on by being hit in the head with a literal frying pan.
This is the type of shit that sets this game apart from others. The sheer absurdity of the sense of humor in Hero's Harem Guild is not only atypical when compared to others in the genre, but unique as a whole even when you stop confining it to that. It's one of the most ridiculous things I've ever read in the best way possible. And when you start factoring in how long it takes to properly develop relationships with the characters in this world, it becomes even more.
HHG is a game that evolves alongside the player. You're dropped into a world with barely any understanding of what's going on around you, and wind up needing to lean on others for assistance in terms of adapting. So not only is it fun, but it's...kind of realistic in the weirdest fucking way possible. It's actually sort of interesting how the only thing that isn't hyper-exaggerated in the game is the progression of relationships, which is actually rather slow in the grand scheme of things.
But, all things considered, what really matters here is how god damn fun everything is. Even the grind-heavy parts of the game where you find yourself sitting in front of a pond and waving your fist at the sky any time a Danee fish shows up take on a greater meaning when you realize where that grind will eventually get you. This game isn't meant to be a form of instant gratification, it's meant to be a world that players want to come back to and want to watch expand. And that's something I've seldom experienced when it comes to western VNs.
So yeah, you should play Hero's Harem Guild. Not because it's the most properly optimized or original game out there, but because it's fucking fun. And, to get back to my original question, that is why we play games.