RPGM - Completed - The Mercenary's Adventure [v3.004] [Takamakuran]

RPGMaker games on F95 tend to have a certain reputation. They're buggy, have horrible, elongated development times, milking Patreon, and are often too grindy. Thankfully this game isn't any of that. I read people having crashing issues, and that's deeply unfortunate because I had zero issues with this game.

It took me a while to realize why I love this game so much. Like many others have said its "just another RPGMaker game, bro." But some thing keeps me going. The H-scenes are amazing, no doubt about it, but it's more than that. This game reminds me of JRPGs of the heyday. the 90s/00s PSX/PS2 era. The story is rather simple and not all that special, but it's in the moment to moment gameplay that makes this game. Whether it's finding the many many missable secrets in the game, or just getting a new attack to see a little animation of it, or just going back to bang a girl you couldn't before, the journey really makes it here. The art style is also amazing, whether the drawn thing is supposed to be sexy, cool, or horrifying, it works perfectly.

This game is only decent for a quick fap, but is basically, in my opinion, the perfect indie/doujin H-RPG game. I have become a huge fan of this developer. Only true issue with this game is, like in many of the older JRPGs I spoke of before, the endgame is bloated.

Not often you see a porn game where lewd part is not the only good thing about it. Is it, perhaps, not quite a porn game, in such case? Probably.

This one, however, has quite interesting world building and characters even without taking into consideration diverse 18+ content with a lot of lasses (some of gals even possess several different events with them).
Everything is topped with a small pinch of grim dark (which is terrifying, as it is nailed correctly) and humor (which is hilarious, as it is timed perfectly).
Don't forget multiple endings, starting with: "So yeah, you fuck til the rest of your days, FIN" to .

All of it, if done correctly, makes a peculiar and already outstanding mix on its own, however, do remember: this is a mere 200mb game, which is exactly why it deserves 5 stars. The only possible drawback of the game are your party members: without a proper and constant management, they can easily die, whereas auto-combat is rarely useful. However, MC is One-Man-Army by himself, so...

TL;DR Delight of 200 mbs: Slightly Dark, Slightly Humorous, Very Deep and Very Horny. 9/10. Must have. Let's hope the creator provides us with more content of such high quality in the future...

Game crashed after 15 minutes of playing for no reason. The game doesn't do frequent enough backup saves so I got thrown back at least 5-7 minutes and the game only starts in window mode from now on. Alt + Enter doesn't work, nor do the F1-12 keys.

Save your time and don't play a game in this state.

This is more of a report on my experience with the game, cause I ended up deciding not to play it, due to the constant crashing, and not so much a review.

A few months ago I tried this game (pirate version) for a couple of hours, and I thought it was pretty interesting, and that the succubus was adorable, so I put it on the list and told myself I'd get around to it someday. Note that I had no crashes back then.

Fast forward to today when I was finally gonna play it , and it kept crashing every 15 minutes or so. I thought maybe there was a difference between the store bought and the pirate version, but the version on this site also crashes (it didn't before). I didn't change any hardware recently, so something changed sure, but I don't know what, and I can't figure it out if it's some incompatibility with a program. I even bothered to reinstall it with the same result.

Based on my experience I can't recommend it (and I'm not gonna play something in this state, there's other interesting stuff out there) but it's a shame, because I was looking forward to it.

If it doesn't crash for you, then this is likely a pretty good game and worth of your time, so it's probably a good idea to try it and see how it works before buying it.

One of the best RPGM h games I have every played. The story itself is already solid, but the art is 5/5. The art is like Black Souls, but more polished. There's a huge variety of girls and the craziest thing about the game, is that it's an actual game. It feels like an actual JRPG unlike a lot of other RPGM h games.

The Mercenary's Adventure is a fun game with charming art and quirky characters, however the overall experience is significantly hindered by the constant crashes. Without the crashes, I would easily rate this 4 or even 5 stars. However as it stands, it is hard to enjoy the journey due to the technical issues.

This game has really lovely artwork with a unique aesthetic. The story is a bit basic but the characters themselves are likeable and cute. Combat is a bit repetitive but the grind is not too bad. My only major complaint is that there is no option to change the text speed, and the default speed is quite slow.

The guy below me doesn't quite understand the appeal of this game, so I came here to even out the scales.

The Mercenary's Adventure is a game by a very hardworking and extremely talented gamedeveloper Takamakuran. His previous games, as well as this one, are known for quick, dynamic, mostly non-committed lewd action(which, once you get into the game's rhythm, will actually start to appeal to you, due to how eroticism is presented in this game) and engaging story that, at first, doesn't seem much. But then, once you start digging deeper, you start finding... some rather curious details. If I were to compare his games to mainstream media that is known to most of the folk in the West, it would be something akin to Undertale in how the story is usually layered and hidden underlying themes.

This game has all of that which I described, however this particular title is different from the previous ones in a sense that the story's direction took upon a more common jRPG trope of a hero who eventually starts fighting against the greater threat in the usual jRPG sense. While it might seem weaker than previous titles, this one still has a few twists and turns that you can expect from this developer, and they spice up the experience quite a bit.

The characters are all pretty charming, and even if some of them have little in terms of dialogue - their design compensates for that. Artwork style in Takamakuran games is something called "oekaki" or a "doodle", child drawing-like pictures, and while some might be turned off by that by looking at the previews, many might become entranced by it once they actually get into the game. Despite the rough linework and sketchy(no pun intended) look, the art presents pretty high anatomical accuracy, which is especially noticeable during lewd scenes. Not only that, but the scenes themselves are very dynamic due to high amount of layering stills with text SFX and masked lighting, which further adds to eroticism.

All the enemy sprites are also drawn by the developer, which shows how far he was willing to go to give the game its own unique look.

From my muddled memory, it's hard to say anything about the music, but I do remember not getting turned off by it, so it's at least average.

And there is battlefuck(cat fights), it's just very selective. Most of the fucking usually happens after the fight, if the enemy is fuckable. In fact, you can pretty much fuck every female character in the game, enemy or not. The amount of sex scenes is simply insane.

All in all, this game is a labor of love, and it shows. Make sure to support developer if you liked it, we definitely need more games like these.

Overall 3/5: Slightly above average RPGM game, but forgettable.
Enjoyment 2/5
Graphics 5/5
Gameplay: Standard RPGM, no battlefuck, linear and guided.
Writing: 1/5

I decided to try this game because the artstyle appealed to me, and had good ratings.
The artstyle is indeed appealing.
Unfortunately the sex scenes are very poorly written. You fuck the innkeeper on the first day within 5 minutes of gameplay, without any explanations given. There is no build-up.

My main advice is not to judge a book by its cover. I've stumbled upon this game several times, but I've always avoided it. The preview images didn't inspire much confidence in me to play this game. But when I had nothing to play, I decided to give this game a try, based on the rating. And I did not regret it.

I can say that despite the unusual style of drawing, the game has a very high detail of female characters and scenes in general. About 30% of the scenes even have some pretty good animation.

The game itself has some elements of dark fantasy, which I personally love. The plot is simple, but interesting to move through, and the characters are not revealed very much, but still leave a pleasant impression of themselves.

The game has a very large number of scenes and hidden content. Even after you finish the game, you can walk through the world and see what you might have missed.

About downsides. Perhaps I should just mention the old rpgmaker engine, which feels like it was deliberately chosen. As a result, many of the good features of the newer engine simply are not present here. Such as mouse control, for example. The second flaw is perhaps the art. Throughout the game we see that the author really knows how to draw, and he is quite talented at it, but there are moments in the game where you get the feeling that he was lazy in drawing some characters or scenes. Luckily, there aren't that many of them.

Overall, if I were to look at the game in isolation from all the other games in the genre, I'd give it a solid 4. But compared to the others, this game probably deserves a 5, which I'll give it here.

This is easily one of my top 3 games. It has an interesting story and great H scenes. The grinding wasn't a problem for me since i enjoy RPGM games and turn based combat but if you dont like grinding take a Full Save from the thread and start a new game plus. Trus me its worth it, and dont forget to have fun not only in the game but in the real world as well take care!

Despite the initial surprise of the drawing style that seemed to be made with MS Paint (and afterwards I got to like them a lot), this is a superb game.

The characters are funny, the sex scenes are plenty and you don't have to grind too much for them, and the pace is excelent (nor rushed nor dragged).

However maybe it is not the style of game for everyone.

For me it is a 5/5

This game is proof that you can make nice porn even in microsoft paint if you're a good enough artist.

The plot is generic enough for an eroge, but the characters are the ones that carry it. I found myself finishing it just to see how they end up . Also, this is the only time in a porn game for me when the comic relief (in this case the demon girl) was actually funny. Perks of having a good translation.

The amount of combat was too much for me so I had to cheat though. I guess you can tell there's going to be lots of fighting from the start since the first 2 quests need you to kill X amount of monsters like in a korean mmorpg.

Review for v3.004

Truly a hidden gem among all the RPGM games on this site. It's always a treat to go into something with no expectations and come out loving it.

I think more than anything this game just has a lot of character. There's a certain charm you get with the custom art not only for the sex scenes, but for stuff like attack animations and simply moving around in the world. I personally love the art style as well, a huge plus for sure. I find it hard to put into words, but the game has a rather simplified air about it while still being complex and deep enough to really hold my interest. I really enjoyed all the characters despite the fact that there really isn't a ton of dialogue present with most of them. The world feels sort of mysterious with the strange creatures you run into, and because of that, fun to explore. There's just an overall unique feel to the game that I really enjoyed.

The sex scenes are numerous and well distributed throughout the game. Huge bonus points for having scenes with actual monster girls. I think almost every female character you encounter? is sex-able at some point. Again I liked pretty much every scene.

I don't think the story is bad, and I ended up liking the ending I got (which I believe is the true ending according to guides). But it isn't the strongest part of the game by any means. Perhaps the one thing that suffers as a result of the sort of simple tone about the game. Combat by the same margin wasn't bad, but isn't something that stands out as really good imo. It was balanced and I didn't have to grind much, but I found some of the bosses at the end to be a bit of a slog as it was just about being able to tank/heal damage while whittling down big hp bars after applying like 10 different buffs. I definitely didn't have the most optimized builds to be fair though, and the custom art and animations for battles made it enjoyable regardless.

If I had to really critique anything, I would have liked to see more side quests/side content. The game does have a fair amount of secrets and optional things to do, but a large majority of the game is moving along a linear path with the story.

Still, it's a really fun RPG at the end of the day. Worth a play if you're a fan of them for sure!

This is the game that made me signup to dl-site and give it an obscene amount of money (my currency translates horribly to japanese yen). You can feel the artists love and effort for the art. The artstyle is definetely not for everyone, but I urge you to try until the first full scene with the inkeeper. The kind of sloppy drawing with the pseudo-animation somehow worked very well on me and I was in for the ride after that point. I used to avoid RPGM games like the plague, but this game broke my prejudice.
5/5 Played multiple times just to get that high again

For anyone who isn't sure about playing because of the art style: play up to the innkeeper scene, which is about 30 minutes into the game (after the red slime quest, get drunk and go straight back to the inn instead the outdoor scene). You can get it after the mountain quest if you miss it the first time. If you aren't sold on the art style by then, this probably isn't the game for you.

As you can tell from the score, though, this is one of my absolute favorites. The art style absolutely won me over, and it feels generous for a game that isn't 100% sex scenes.

The combat is really solid for a JRPG of this size. It feels precision-engineered to stay crunchy and challenging throughout, but doesn't have anything too flashy that might distract from the fact that it's ultimately an h-game.

The weakest part of the game for me was the overall plot, which is pretty standard JRPG stuff, but the beat-to-beat writing was good enough to get me attached to the main characters, especially your relationship to your demon companion.

The plot was very linear and the combat was very repetitive (spam smash, speed down, regenerate when low).

Game seems pretty overrated to me and I had a hard time finding any of the content appealing or fun after the first 10 mins. Looking at the reviews, I feel like you would not enjoy the game unless you already know this developer.

I fucking love this game and the developer, this is what I expected from other NPC fucking games. It has content, depth and replayability. Do you have a problem with the artstyle then fuck off, I rather deal with stick figures fucking meaning I get better story and content. Rather than AAA graphics with shitty everything else. Play it, Love it and want to go throw money at the developer to make them create more games quickly.

[Review of v3.004 on 5/29/2022]

Well, RPGM, we meet yet again.

I just can't seem to get away from you. Granted, it's mostly my own fault. I wouldn't review games that didn't somehow catch my interest, and somehow it always seems to be your little engine on my "to play" list. Maybe I secretly like playing your deeply-aged, turn-based combat and exploring your highly derivative, soulless, prefabricated worlds? I just can't afford to admit to that, though; my sexual fetishes and addiction to porn have me worried enough as it is.

Not that this is a bad offering. Far from it. The Mercenary's Adventure is actually a good game. The biggest issue plaguing your engine are the games designed as though they want to be made in another engine, or would rather exist as a CG set than a game, but Takamakuran knows how to make a good throwback to traditional, turn-based, SNES-era RPGs.

It's all about forcing the player to make strategic decisions. Do you go into that cave off the main quest path, knowing you only have 3 revival items left? How many times can you use your weapon's item skill charges and still make it out of the zombie horde? Is this dungeon where you should use those highly coveted Full Restores, or should you save them for the final boss? It's hard to balance these games such that the player feels themselves walking a tightrope, but Takamakuran knows how to do it.

To its credit, RPGM, you help make things rather laughably accessible, since you can save almost anywhere and just hit F12 for a reset when you need it, but that doesn't mean it's a breeze to actually get through the game. Honestly, this game will take you quite a few hours if you want to see all the content and reach a level where you can properly address the end boss, and there's plenty of hurdles (read:turn-based battles) that will waste your time if you don't figure out an optimal strategy for each of them. Yet, somehow, it never manages to feel terribly unfair -- the game is actually pretty well balanced and uses some tactful design choices to let the player know what they're in for. I actually had to look carefully at my options and try to intuit my combat results as being either sufficient or insufficient for further progress, which requires a degree of design nuance you just don't see in the typical RPGM game. These were hours playing a game well spent.

To that end, we should talk a bit about what players will be staring at for those many hours. Despite the previews, the artwork is actually better than average, with some sequences even slightly animated or with some subtle object tweening or motion to convey certain events more dynamically. The artwork is also distinct in its sketchy, haphazard fashion, and it starts to come across more as a stylistic choice than a sign of incompetence. Oh, and there's an absolute metric shit-ton of that artwork in this game. No, really, it's honestly rather impressive in comparison to your usual offerings, RPGM.

In addition to the absolute oodles of sexual content, there's also artwork for just about every living creature you fight or talk to (save some truly ignominious NPCs). Some of the monster designs are actually rather cool when they aren't downright terrifying body-horror... the Amalgamated Devil and the second Bandit Boss come to mind. Occasionally, there's even scenery or specific shot choices meant to convey moments that might not work with the typical top-down pixel art you usually provide us, and it works to convey the mood of the game's sequences well.

Naturally, all this artwork means that there's tons of sex scenes as well. The developer has a kink for scenes with girls getting fucked into a drooling mess by impossible men with no refractory period, and... well... that's pretty much it. Sure, there's different flavors of 'fucked-silly' in each scene, but there's really no significant variations outside of the woman's basic appearance, some speaking habits, and which page of the Kama Sutra her scene falls into. No problem for me, I'm actually here for it, but players shouldn't be surprised if they were looking for a more specific kink.

The story overall is a bit tired, not unlike you, RPGM, but it's characterization is at least entertaining. The writing/translation itself is actually okay, and I noticed very few spelling mistakes or egregious grammatical misadventures. The sex scenes are, admittedly, mostly filled with word soup, but at least you don't have to feel guilty putting the scenes on fast forward when you're just not quite into them. The best part of the writing is that it definitely services gameplay -- there's a couple encounters where your character is intentionally made to feel like a scrub, and the story itself acknowledges those moments in a good way.

That's all there is to it, really. This is a competently made RPG with an ahegao addiction. It's sad to see how rare a good RPG is when it comes from you, RPGM, but at least this game proves that it's possible, and that you can be used for something other than just an artwork showcase. Good work, Takamakuran.

One the few games here, which deserves it's "monster girl" tag, because let's be real - a pair of cat ears ain't it.

Unlike his previous works with weird gameplay and even weirder plot, this one has somewhat basic, but solid story and more or less traditional jrpg combat. So I'd say a good entry point for those who never played Takamakuran's games before.

The art looks rough from screenshots, but you'll quickly get used to it and, boy, there is a lot of it and every scene has it's charm. I still wish there was more build up for scenes than "I'm in your house, this is a porn game, we'll bang ok?", though the game compensates it by sheer variety of characters. My only gripe is author's adamant aversion to anything except vaginal sex.

Hopefully 200 sold copies for English version won't dissuade the author from translating next game.