Original Release: Illusion Soft, 2016, PC
Other Releases: 2018 (“Unlimited” English localization, PC)
Honey Select sought to be the ultimate “girl creator” game with an incredibly detailed model editing and animation interface
Honey Select Unlimited (PC, Illusion Soft, 2018)
Where to Buy: Fakku
Review by: Master-B
The only official English-language release of Honey Select comes from manga store and game translation outfit Fakku, and is only commercially available from them as a digital download. I haven’t tried the Japanese original but there doesn’t seem to be much difference, save that the mod community has not embraced this edition to as great a degree due to it coming out years later. That actually is kind of a big deal given the nature of the game and what it’s usually used for, but this version does pack some substantial advantages: you get this one in English without installing fan mods or downloading questionable versions from some pirate source, you don’t have to mess around with AppLocale to get it to run, and it’s uncensored right from the start without patching.
Honey Select is kinda like a custom CAW creator in wrestling games, except you’re gonna be “wrestling” with these characters in a more adult way. You can create girls (and the dudes who plow them) in amazing detail via a relatively manageable WYSIWYG editor, and even create new poses and positions for them via a limb/joint positioning system that automates movements from one spot to another (though that bit is much more complicated). You can also create new clothing and accessories that stand alone in a wardrobe that all the girls can share.
Of course, you’re also encouraged to share creations and download stuff other people have made. Honey Select uses Illusion’s slick “card” system which creates an image file of the girl you can share on the web, complete with a custom pose that displays in browsers, but when dropped into the right game folder the image also contains all the data needed to load the girl into your game (each usually 1 to 4 MB in size).
So the key to the game’s popularity is the incredible level of detail you can put into your custom created gals and their collection of sex positions. Some people simply use this system to make SFW TikTok-type dance videos. It’s also particularly keyed to VR, directly supporting Oculus headsets. What it isn’t renowned for is the gameplay, which kinda barely exists.
There is a game mode, but it’s like an incredibly basic and limited dating sim. You can check up to five of your girl roster into rooms in Habbo Hotel, and can go see them freely to do the sexo around various parts of the property. There is some rudimentary gameplay to this in that each girl can be assigned personality traits when created, and they have an ongoing mood influenced by what you do with them in your “sessions.” That can eventually be parlayed into two of them lezzing out, or wanting to double-team you, an aggressive girl rendered into “horny” status may also jump you upon entering the game and take control of the situation. There are also a bunch of new features and accessories you can unlock by hitting certain achievements in this mode. But the sex sessions quickly get very samey, especially if you don’t mod the game at all or download anything new.
There are also some inherent limitations to the sex scenes that I’m not sure can be fully addressed with modding. First of all, you don’t have direct control during the scenes, you just pick a position from a menu and control how fast or slow the animation loop goes with the mouse wheel. If you want something specific to happen that isn’t already on offer you’ll have to use the “Studio” mode to animate it yourself as one of these menu options, or find a suitable download someone else created.
Hitting each girl’s tempo sweet spot in each position causes her pleasure meter to rise automatically, and when it gets close to filling out the animation automatically switches to like a “frenzy mode” where the dude gets comically aggressive with her. This happens even with basic stuff like kissing, all the sudden it looks like he’s trying to suck her eyeballs out through her mouth. The “frenzy mode” is also accompanied by a lot of yelling, screeching and general loud rambling from the girl that gets to be a little much. Definitely not a game you’re playing on the sneak without good headphones. When you create or edit a girl you can choose from a variety of voice types, but they all fall into the general JAV “sugoi! keeemoochee!” vein and they all seem to have a problem with annoying yelling when they get close to climax. I think you can add custom voice sets somehow but this is not one of the game’s more straightforward processes, if you’re looking to make videos with this you may have to dub in your own audio created somewhere else during post-production.
The main focus of development was also on VR, and while it’s perfectly fine to use without it the camera is a bit more unruly. You have to drag it around on a fixed access point (I assume set when you create each sex loop), which might not get quite the angle you want or cause conflicts with a wall or something being in the path. I don’t have the equipment to test out VR but I assume it just puts you behind the eyes of the character and lets you look around the room freely.
Those nitpicks aside, Honey Select has a lot to offer … but it’s kinda purpose-specific. Like, if you buy this just for general entertainment you’ll probably run through its possibilities very quickly, especially if you want to just play the stock “off the shelf” version without getting into tracking down new downloads and mods. It’s better for those that have a specific creative purpose for it in mind, whether that’s creating your own custom stuff for personal use, or making videos or characters for use in your own games (not strictly legal but also apparently not much enforced if you’re not in Japan, and especially now that Illusion Soft has dissolved).
Links
New player’s guide to getting started
New characters at Illusion Game Cards
Roy12 Character Cards (mostly fighting game and RPG characters)
Reddit forum (has some character and mod sharing)
Joan6694’s Honey Select Plugins (mostly for adding features)
- Character cards go in the game directory > UserData > chara > male or female respectively. Note that with this version, if a character card in that folder is not designed for Unlimited and requires a mod to run that isn’t installed, the game will refuse to view ALL character cards in that directory until it is removed (or the appropriate mod installed)
Videos
Example of SFW animation possibilities