Original Release: Blue Mad Diode, 2015, PC
Help cutie angel girl fight through an underworld of horrors in a badass platformer that calls to mind some genre staples like Ghosts n’ Goblins (and is VERY VERY gory)
Depravia (PC, Blue Mad Diode, 2015)
Where to Buy: DLSite
Review by: Master-B
With a name like “Depravia” you’re warned of what you’re getting into … but after watching a little gameplay on YouTube and thinking it looked cool, I didn’t realize I was getting into “hardcore gore” depravity and not as much the sexytimes branch of it.
There is sex in the game, but it almost feels tangential and tacked-on just to get listed in the H-games market. Depravia is first and foremost the story of an angel girl, named Angelica, descending into Dante’s circles of hell to uh … I guess just kill off some rowdy monsters? She never seems to actually save anyone from their fates, but anyway it’s all about cutting your way through the legions of the damned without meeting a gruesome demise. The game has a utility-only translation from Japanese, meaning just the basic menus and commands are translated and none of the dialogue/story, so make up your own plot I guess.
It’s still a compelling game though, even if you can’t read Japanese and even if the gory Space Quest-ish deaths and the dismembered carcasses scattered about the landscape aren’t your thing. It kinda plays like the Ghosts and Goblins series, but less difficult, and with a touch of the NES Ninja Gaidens of all things … wall-jumping is an aspect of getting through the game, and it has some level gimmicks like shifting currents of wind and boss designs that may have been inspired by it.
So it’s definitely in Badass Platformer territory, and its a good one too. After a Rondo of Blood / Mega Man X-ish introductory level to set up the story, Angelica can work through the Seven Levels of Hell at her own pace. You collect “Souls” in each level that can be redeemed at a shop for upgrades to Angelica’s ability to hover with her wings, damage done by weapons, speed of weapon fire and so on. It definitely looks like Ghosts and Goblins with its armor system and sub-weapon types, but it’s easier than any of those games on the whole and also gentler in that even if you die or quit a level you keep the Souls you’ve picked up to that point.
Gameplay complaints are only minor. It was made with Clickteam Fusion (the epic sequel to the Klik n’ Play series), and while it looks very good and plays well on the whole it’s pretty much a 2 GB Flash game. So it’s resource-demanding despite its relative simplicity, and it has some occasional hinks when too many animated objects are on the screen. There are a couple level segments where animated background decorations apparently count as “objects,” and when a few enemies hit the screen Angelica may temporarily lose the ability to throw some or all of her weapons. Which is cheap, but also a rare occurrence.
As far as H content goes … it’s really not a very erotic game, unless you like jacking off to Splatterhouse. When Angelica loses all her armor, being grabbed by certain monsters will finish her off with a simple animated scene … but this seems to involve being devoured just as often as being sensually poked up by the monsters. Being hit in your nekkid state more often leads to some elaborate and gory death, of which there are absolute tons of varieties to make Space Quest look slothful. Funnily enough, you can turn off the majority of the gore with a menu setting but you can’t turn off the hardcore sex! I opted to turn it off just because I found the dismembered animu girls strung around everywhere like Christmas decorations to be a little much, but unfortunately this also seems to disable the death animations, which I actually wanted to keep on.
The game also isn’t tremendously longevous. It doesn’t really require grinding to upgrade yourself, and you may well be done with the seven levels in one day. You can go back through them to improve your ranking, which supposedly unlocks a hidden end boss if you get all “A” and “S” ranks, but I did that and nothing changed for me in the final level/ending so I dunno what else you have to do.
It’s a rare H game where the main selling point is actually the gameplay, though. It probably would have done better excising the H content and just focusing on horror and gore, for the enthusiasts of such things. The main character is also very cute, especially when she’s covering her booba while running around, her and some of the backgrounds have a very colorful and appealing design in contrast to the otherwise very dark tone. I dunno if I’ll play any more titles by this particular creator as he seemed to get more hardcore into the gore from this release on and that isn’t really my jam, but at 3-5 bucks on DLSite it’s not a bad pickup for an interesting dark platformer that’s fun to play.
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