Lady Sword

"At least it's not a mahjong game..."

Most people out there, whether they want to admit it or not, are curious about hentai games. Hentai I've been told means ''pervert'' or something like that, and hentai games all have some sort of nudity or sexual stuff in them. Too bad 90% of the hentai games out there are mahjong, so they are absolutely no fun to play (unless you enjoy mahjong of course). Most of the rest are dating games or other extremely Japanese language intensive sim type games. That doesn't leave too many choices for someone who doesn't speak Japanese, but wants to get a hentai game he can actually play.

First thing that you'll notice about Lady Sword is that the graphics are actually pretty good for the PC Engine. The dungeons move nicely, not anywhere near as good as in Phantasy Star, but as good as say Order of the Griffon, and after about 20 minutes or so you get an automap feature that helps out a TON. The enemies are all big, and even though they don't animate, there are a ton of different types, some of them are HUGE and take up the whole screen. My main problem with the graphics is that EVERY level of the dungeon looks exactly the same! I'm not asking for new dungeon graphics or anything, but at least change the freakin color of the walls so I know I'm making progress!

There isn't a whole lot of character devolopment, unfortunately. You basically level up, and that's about it. You can't equip anything (the game will automatically equip certain items when you find them), you can't cast offensive magic, you can't even name your character. About the only thing you have in your arsenal is a healing spell and a special attack that, if it works, will hit an enemy up to 4 times in one turn (great for bosses, usually takes them out in one turn).

Gameplay consists of you wandering through the maze until you meat a mid boss, after which you get a full screen pic of a woman still clothed. Then, if you manage to beat the main boss of that level of the dungeon, you get the same pic only minus the clothes. Be prepared for TONS of random encounters though, you literally get attacked every 2 steps sometimes. The battles go by extremely fast, thankfully, most of the time one hit will kill the enemy once you're at a respectable level. In the later levels you'll be making MUCH use of the save anywhere feature, because some monsters can seriously kill you in one blow. It's frustrating to have to keep saving, loading, saving, loading, but believe me it better than having to backtrack. Once you get your guy leveled up enough most monsters won't be that much of a problem, but it takes alot of time to get to that point.

The pics of the girls are actually pretty impressive. Some are full screen, but most take up more than one screen so you have to scroll to see all of them. Once you've viewed them, they are stored in your inventory so you can look at them anytime you want. It's bizarre though, their bodies look digitized from real women, but their faces are a mix of anime and reality, it's strange but it works fine. Also, if the pictures aren't enough for you, many of the enemies in the game are women who just happen to not be wearing shirts, or beasts like harpies that obviously don't wear shirts in the first place.

If you are like me, and speak absolutely no Japanese beyond ''arigato'' or ''doujinshi'', this game will present NO problem to you. I figured everything out in about 5 minutes, it's that simple. There are no puzzle involving items so you don't have to figure anything out, all the puzzles are in finding your way through the maze (which gets extremely hard later in the game, believe me). The only thing that annoyed me was that there are these people who pop up all over the dungeons and say something to you. One is a warrior, one's an old man, one's a woman, and there are a few more. I'd love to know exactly what they're telling you, probably calling me a loser for playing a soft porn video game.

Lady Sword is a noble attempt to make a good game around a reason to show naked chicks. I give props to the developers for actually putting some effort into it, hell it beats the crap out of Double Dungeons even without the naked women. It's worth the money if you can find it, since it's such a great piece to add to your collection. Just don't get caught playing it with your pants down!

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 12/11/01, Updated 02/09/03