Gullible Quest Adventure Abel's Misery

I adore the mechanic of this game, really. The mood, the setting, and the story is par on point. I just don't like the tutorial that kinda unfocused, it a plus point on exploration matter but for a starter I guess it's better to have a clear and direct tutorial first so people can taste the game and familiarize themselve with the map.

So you need to figure out that you need to equip moves in the beginning with no prompting, or you lose immediately. You are not allowed to save during this portion, you can not fast forward dialog, and this alone makes it not worth it. Once you are out, there is not a lot of direction. If you have nostalgia for this game, great, otherwise stay away.

“Who put porn in my RPG?” Being serious… I have trouble rating this entry. I’ll just break it down and try to keep things digestible this time: Stats: Amount of time played at Review: 10+ hours (Not Full Cleared Yet - review subject to change) Version at Review: Final + Fix? ___ Summary This seems designed as a game first and an eroge second. It’s definitely an older title (Not that it instantly makes it bad), but I often found myself wishing things were able to be skipped over or at least rushed. This game doesn’t allow for any of that. Forcing you to slow down and read things For what it is, it’s actually surprisingly okay. It just has a tendency to keep many of its pillars too disconnected and has a tendency to forget what it actually is.. in favor of simplicity rather than fun. Usually a dead giveaway that the eroge elements were merely an afterthought. TLDR: It’s Average Category Rating Quick Take Gameplay 4/5 Messy but engaging RPG loops Story 3/5 Predictable curse adventure w/ 3 endings Scenes 2/5 Short, Static, Sparse Overall 3/5 Average - Strong foundation for Remake though Things you may care about: Amount of time to get to any explicitly and intrinsically lewd content: 2-4 hours (Might be shorter if you rushed unless you count opening scenes.. I do not) Amount of time to get into anything lewd with the MC: 4-6 hours (Good luck rushing this though) You will most likely have to focus and play the game to accomplish anything, as mobs can be a bit of a pain. If you’re just curious about the scenes, Rashefster in this thread page 3 has a GalleryMapdata mod that lets you see them all ___ Gameplay (4/5) The actual core of the game is an RPG, if I’m being real, it’s kind of a mess, but at the same time it’s a sort of “Good Mess.” The kind you can engage with and find yourself toying around with. There are items with randomized prefixes and such that drop from dungeon chests and 6 classes to pick from to play (Might be more hidden.. Idk). Each class has a roughly different feel, but for the most part, you’re going to find yourself picking Strong AoE’s, Strong TP-less attacks, strong single target attacks, or multi hit attacks. It isn’t a knock on the game itself, I’ve seen plenty of games like this, but it was kind of neat to be able to buy and use whatever spell you wanted, but it ultimately felt weird to be able to skip over Lvl 1/2 Spells and grab lvl 3 instantly, which I’m still being honest.. not even sure if it’s actually any stronger or not. xD As much as I may have rated the gameplay high, it’s by no means at all perfect.. I found myself wishing that the core gameplay loops integrated other portions of the game more thoroughly.. There’s starts of that process.. with the MC being displayed on screen and different levels of HP tearing their clothes up, but that’s as far as it goes to ever actually introducing sex to battle.. which is a big missed opportunity if you asked me. If you wanted to rate this a 3/5 I’d agree, I’m just a sucker for old school RPG stuff. ___ Story (3/5) Story is honestly quite predictable. Doesn’t really try and shake things up too much. You’re gifted an item in the beginning of the game that transforms you into a girl (as per the Overview of the game). The game then becomes about you trying to get rid of the curse and presents three different endings (That I’m aware of). Overall, I was hoping for there to be more elements of back and forth effects at play, but aside from the intro and beginning, you’re basically a girl, who only becomes more girly as you go. If you were hoping for any sort of Gender Bender play going on, unfortunately that’s a no.. And it doesn’t have scenes of you being a male doing things either. Overall, the actual story itself.. is followed pretty faithfully. There’s even a path that is kind of Meta, where you end up basically being like “Wait a minute. I was supposed to break this curse. Yet I’ve gotten comfortable living like this instead. I need to get back on track.” But for all of its paths and endings.. I wish it had one where you could have chose to stay a girl and not end up being coerced by someone else. Probably a minor gripe though. Story is fairly Average Overall. Just a typical tricked into wearing a cursed item bit with an adventure themed around breaking that curse. ___ Scenes (2/5) I’m usually not so harsh on scenes in games, but these older ones really only toss out breadcrumbs for the amount of work you put in.. and this one is especially a desert of content with barely a drop in between. There is no animation, there is no voice, there is only music, text, and an image. If that’s not enough for you, I regret to inform you that it doesn’t ever improve. The scenes are also fairly short, usually opting to be a handful of images at best. Feels like they were optimizing gameplay for a gameboy with how little was presented There are monster scenes and scenes involving monster girls. Most of which are mandatory and part of the games story to progress. There’s only a few scenes that are optional that you have potential to miss. There’s.. really nothing amazing to say about this scene wise.. It’s.. overall scene collection within an RPG. ___ Overall (3/5) I’m not gonna be too harsh. This was done by Gajumaru like 10+ years ago. This very well could have been groundbreaking for its time. But overall I see now that it could have benefited greatly from closer unison to other parts of the game and further explored story and mechanics. Imagine if there were parts in the story where you could reverse the curse. What if there were combat situations that can turn Raunchy? Battle Sex Scenes and stuff like that? If someone were to take and make a remake of this game I’d be down to see what someone could do. Would love to see more, better done scenes. Animations, voices, expanded combat elements, diversity in spell/attacks, more scenes, earlier scenes, deeper exploration of sub-plots and a lot of other things. TLDR: Strong Pros: Surprisingly Engaging RPG systems Multiple Classes with distinct feel Clear, Coherent Story Structure Game First, Eroge Second (Albeit in a good way) Strong Foundations are present Strong Cons: Scenes are spread sparsely, bit underwhelming Lewd content is barely integrated into gameplay No real exploration of its own theme: Gender Bender is barely a thing Outdated Pacing - No skip/Speed options Disconnected Pillars Unfortunately what we have is what we got for now. It’s pretty much just average.. with time, it has grown to feel a bit under average. It had some really great ideas and I liked how it treated advancement of classes and systems and I’m usually a fan of the whole transformed type of thing, but it never fully explores this and just doesn’t really advance too deeply into anything. Even with the mediocre score though. I had fun. If someone took this same idea and evolved it, it could be the foundation for a spectacular game. If that were the case… ___ Spoiler: Bonus - How I'd make this game 5/5 How to 5/5 this game? If one were to theoretically remake this game, this is essentially how I’d make the game the best I could see it being: Integrate Sex acts into the gameplay. Give it some voice some light animating or shifting of images during scenes would be ideal Have some interesting mechanics that expand as you go Explore more integrated routes Corruption would be fun to implement as a stat Bring out a full on Talent Tree system Enable Multiclassing Enable seduction techniques or implement dancer/seductress/dominatrix class later As it stands right now, the game is basically an RPG with a scene collector tacked on. Evolving this idea seems fairly straight forward however. Imagine if as you went, Edgar (or other NPC’s. The game has several different adventurers that are already interesting on the map, they just don't join you) could join your group. Enabling you to create interesting parties and such. Advance this further by enabling these team mates to also make moves on Abel and attempt to coerce or corrupt them. Imagine if it went like this instead: You start the game off, you go through the tutorial, you’re showed the basics of how to fight and do your class stuff. Then you’re hit with the curse. As you go, Edgar (starting team mate) begins to get handsy with you mid-fight at one point. He’s supposed to be a bored playboy type, it fits his character. This introduces you to the idea of more happening during fights than simply fighting. As you go, you’re introduced to a new party member, and that party member essentially shows that they’re different than Edgar. This enables you to build and play around with other characters in general and shows that team mates can have different goals and desires for your MC as well. Imagine one that stops others from groping. Or one that promotes everyone else to get in on it. Or one who's very possessive of Abel. Then you’re introduced to the idea of enemies being able to also get in on the fun. Enemies attack and strip your clothes as they deal damage. Revealing you and making you more susceptible to lewd attacks and stuff. Failing to take proper steps to stop them could result in being manipulated into imposing situations by the enemy, or even outright end combat in a sexual scenario. After you get the hang of this and meet and build a few more relationships, you’re then introduced to the idea of Abel using their feminine wiles as an asset. Enabling seduction based attacks and magics to help them get the upper hand in combat, to support allies, or to.. purposely play things a bit more lewd. You then are able to use this straight up on your allies to instead promote entering into relations mid-fight. Just when you think this is the height of things, Abel comes across a means to temporarily revert or reverse the curse. It’s only temporary, but it enables them to become a boy for a time (Or maybe a Futa). Thing is, the marks and feelings of them being a woman are still there. They still kind of ache and want in the same way. Abel even as a male was already, essentially a trap character. Very feminine. Going back to being a male now creates a conundrum. One Abel Struggles with. Going back to being a male enables them to have sex as a male, being able to get in with many of the previous party members and such as a male instead. They may even start to explore the idea of being taken advantage of as a Male instead. But essentially it can create new dynamics. Some party members could become dis-interested in them as a male, or solely prefer them as male. Could even include ways to coerce team mates into having a stronger preference for one of your forms over the other. (Challenge runs to get certain characters to like Abel in a form they initially hate would be funny) Of course, along with becoming male comes more sex based actions during combat and stuff as well, only from a male perspective. Perhaps even enabling you to partake in actions with some of the monster girls and stuff too. You could even just do a Futa thing instead if people don’t want to do a full on Femboy approach. By going this route and focusing on combat oriented sex and stuff, your scenes can essentially become highly varied. You won’t need that many actual scenes if combat is littered with all kinds of provocative stuff. It would be a large order, and it would be a big task going at things this way. But I think it would ultimately take a concept like this and make it into something amazing. I'm trying out a new style at reviewing things. Feel free to tell me if you like or dislike it.. Or if you think I should get a life!