Leveling Down: The Story of Hentai RPGs
Chapter 1. No Pictures. FAQ Off! Questioning Begins.
Before I begin, let me warn you that there will be no screenshots pasted into this article for obvious reasons. Wouldn't want everyone to get distracted, now would we? There will be, however, links to the games' Rap Sheets, from which you'll be able to comfortably access the screenshot section.
About myself: My name is Oleg, citizen of State of Israel. I'm in my mid-thirties now, male, heterosexual, divorced, have a child, live with my girlfriend. Profession: pianist, focus on performing jazz and teaching. Does being interested in hentai RPGs make me a pervert? You know, I've stopped caring about such things. Pervert, not a pervert - what does it matter if I'm already interested?! Like my girlfriend says: “Better look at those computer naked girls than cheat on me with a real one”, and I think that is a healthy attitude. But for the record, at least half of my interest to hentai RPGs is derived from my interest in computer RPGs in general, and Japanese ones in particular, hentai or not.
It's anything but easy to write about such a controversial and decidedly non-mainstream topic, so instead of a calm, scientific preface I decided to start right away with a FAQ that will hopefully satisfy the reader's initial curiosity. Here we go.
Q: Why did you write “hentai”? Why not “adult” or “mature”? What is “hentai” anyway?
For two reasons. First, because this article is specifically about Japanese RPGs with explicit sexual content. Any game with manga/anime aesthetics and sexual content is called a “hentai game”. “Hentai” （変体）is a Japanese word (derived from the Chinese “biantai”) which means “perverse”. There is a more politically correct name for those games, “bishoujo”, （美少女）, which means “pretty girl”. I don't include Western RPGs with explicit sexual content. I'm not even sure there is such a thing. Some consider The Witcher such a game, but there is nothing explicit there beside some tasteful, artistic pictures of naked girls. Otherwise Rubens is an adult painter, too.
The second reason is my dislike to the words “adult” and “mature” when applied to video games. Because they are always applied in a wrong way. You can cut off people's hands with a chainsaw? Mature game! You can see a squid raping a cute teenager? Adult game! This leads to a frightening conclusion that adult and mature people do nothing but cut off each other's limbs and summon squids to violate each other's daughters. Yes, yes, I know it just means “this game is not for people under 18”, but I still don't like the sound of it. You know what I mean?
Q: How explicit should the sexual content be in order to qualify as hentai?
Nudity in context of sexual situations do the trick. Innuendoes and skimpy clothes and an occasional naked breast (like in Cosmic Fantasy) don't qualify. Even though the line is sometimes a damn fine one. There are non-hentai versions of hentai RPGs (like Dragon Master Silk for Saturn) which complicates things. Now it's easy to spot a hentai RPG when you see one (usually because it has crappy graphics and lame gameplay), but that hasn't always been the case.
Q: Why only RPGs? Why not just hentai games?
There are too many hentai games. 99% of them are pure crap in every possible way. 99.9% have no gameplay whatsoever. Them being called “games” is just an excuse for guys who like staring at hand-drawn sex pictures to delude themselves into thinking they are also playing a game. Well, they are not.
Except when they are playing a hentai RPG. Because a RPG is a game, nolens volens. Good or bad - it has to have a gameplay system, and a pretty complex one, more complex than for example in an adventure.
Q: So you are saying you are writing this article because you like RPGs? Isn't that an even more pitiful excuse for you to stare at naked anime girls?
Yes to the first question, no to the second. I like RPGs. If I just wanted to stare at naked girls, I wouldn't choose an RPG for that. Because there is not a single hentai RPG that lets you see so many sex pictures and access them so easily compared to a usual “digital novel” type of a hentai game. In most of them you play for hours before you get to see one such picture.
Q: Are you saying you don't care about the sex pictures? That you just play hentai RPGs for the gameplay?
Nope, I didn't say that. Thing is, I don't really play any Japanese RPGs for the gameplay. Sure, I love Japanese RPGs. But they all follow the same “endure - get a reward” mechanics. When I play a good Western RPG, I enjoy the actual process. I don't expect any rewards, the gameplay itself is the reward. When I play a Japanese RPG, I'm willing to endure simplistic and linear gameplay in order to watch a beautiful cut-scene and be touched in that melodramatic, soap opera way. I want to spend time with lovable characters and experience their happiness and sorrow, again the same way people identify themselves with soap opera heroes and cry when a character dies or gets divorced for the 17th time.
So hentai RPGs are damn honest about this “suffer-reward” mechanics. Crawl through a dungeon, beat hundreds of random enemies, fight a difficult boss... see a beautiful naked girl! Not really worse than “see the characters engage in badly written emotional dialogue”, isn't it? Some hentai RPGs even have random enemies who are pretty girls. Beat an enemy, see the girl undress. Suffering - reward, get it? I always thought the most genius ideas were the simplest ones.
Besides, some of those hentai RPGs actually also have the melodramatic mumbo-jumbo of their mainstream brethren. So you get both the tearjerker and the... okay, okay, no bad puns.
| Table of Contents: Leveling Down: The Story of Hentai RPGs |
