Developer: eastasiasoft
Publisher: Idea Factory, Compile Heart
Platform: Switch
Tested on: Switch
Moero Crystal H – Review
Eastasiasoft takes lewd humor and first-person dungeon crawling to the next level in this fan service game Moero Crystal H. Free the monster girls from the darkness afflicting them and win their affection. Recruit these overly attractive monster girls into your party and help retrieve the Bra of Darkness together in this moe-filled dungeon RPG.
Story
The game isn’t exactly a continuation of Moero Chronicle even though this is the third game in the Moero installment. The main story is somewhat standalone and can be played without any of the other preceded games.
We play as Zenox, a young man who has traveled from the countryside to the big city in search of his father. In this city, a great temple is located and it is there that the goddess of the world has trusted to safe keep her sacred items, namely the Bra of Darkness and the Panties of Light. These artifacts keep the world of humans and monster girls balanced, but only as long as they are kept together.
By coincidence, Zenox finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time as he witnesses the Bra of Darkness getting stolen. This theft could cause the end of the world, thus starting a wild journey for Zenox and his party of monster girls to get the sacred undergarment back to where it belongs. Along the way, the player encounters many more monster girls who are corrupted by the Bra’s dark power. It is up to us to purify and cure these poor ladies and bring them back to the light. This can even result to invite them to join our party, if we wish to do so.
Graphics
The game is like any anime we know, presented in a bright 2D manner, colorful with great shading. It is close to most visual anime novels out there. Like most quality animes, the visuals are stunning and impressive. The characters themselves are quite static but subtle animations and movements are added here and there making the game dynamic in its overall performance.
The interface is very nostalgic for classic battle RPGs with its menus and stats. It’s a nice feeling to have, but the use of design and font is quite unforgivable after so many years of innovation. It looks outdated and cheap. These attractive monster girls deserve better than this!
Sound
It’s hard to judge how good or genuine the voice acting is, since it’s in Japanese. However, it’s safe to say that choosing to add a Japanese voiceover makes the game more lively and enjoyable since most of the gameplay is just reading through very long dialogues with repetitive lewd, very on-the-nose “jokes” and puns.
If that’s not dull enough, there’s barely a soundtrack. There are perhaps two entire songs available and it’s excruciating to hear, especially when you know the gameplay can run up to 30+ hours.
Gameplay
Moero Crystal H isn’t really that different from Moero Chronicle. When it comes to game progression, you go between your home base – that has various facilities like the shop, training, mock battles, etc. – and the game’s several dungeons. Whenever you are at the home base, you can heal, take part in any of the facility’s activities as well as go into the rooms of all the monster girls you’ve recruited, to spend time with them. You can even upgrade their living spaces, pair up monster girls as roommates, and do little mini-games such as shooting monster girls’ clothes off, with a ship of which the design is clearly meant to evoke comparisons to something else.
We begin the journey of Zenox and his party in toy-like dungeons that feature all the traps and challenges of a roguelike, albeit with a few more save points. As you venture through these dungeons you can use your monster girls’ allies to fight with their own elemental weaknesses and strengths. You can also power them up by using Zenox’s special power which are ‘desire’ points that he can store.
The dungeons follow a very standard dungeon RPG formula where you traverse grid-based dungeons. The battles are turn-based, each with different difficulties but grinding will be a big part of the game to successfully get to the next floor. Thankfully, the player can change the difficulty setting at any given moment. You play in the first-person mode and your task is to go around, map out each floor, and find ways to the next floor. With mapping out each floor, it means you actually map out your mini-map while you run around these grids. As you progress, the map will show you, little-by-little, the paths you have already visited. In the dungeons, you’ll also encounter a lot of different things from treasure chests and save points to random encounters with enemies and monster girl bosses who you can later recruit.
Like in Moero Chronicle, the monster girl battles are unique and extremely sexual. That’s the very reason why this game never got localized in its original release. The recruitment process involves you attacking, not the monster girl, but their clothes to weaken her. After that the clothing is destroyed, they are pretty much naked and red-faced and ready for you to go into the series’ renowned touch mini-game where you have to tap all over-sensitive spots of the girls’ bodies to be able to purify and cure them. Doing this on the touchscreen in handheld mode feels just as awkward and strange but it’s at least much easier to do than to play with the analog sticks if you would play with a docked Switch.
There are a total of over 80 monster girls to recruit and players of Moero Chronicle will definitely see a lot of familiar faces when progressing through the game.
Conclusion
If you’re okay with all the grinding and can handle the overwhelming amount of lewd humor and sexual content, then the game can be a fun little dungeon JRPG to trek through. It’s a hit or miss with this one, solely depending on the player. Moero Crytal H can be of really good value for someone who wants a lot of play-time and is into these kinds of games. The game also mostly fulfills its promise of fan service dungeon crawling. Too bad the game falls short on the soundtrack and controls in the mini-games.
Moero Crystal H – Review,
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