So, Memoirs Of a Battle Brothel. Via exclusive channels, I paid Tyranicon many shekels for the special version with excessively pendulous breastage and ultra-vascular dicks. What follows is essentially spoiler-free, it being the very beginning of the game.
Not opting to skip the intro cutscene, meaning about a picosecond into a new game, you face this screen:
Ok. Coming in hot. A couple of clicks later, you're all red and bothered in a full-on, multi-choices, detailed and graphic sex encounter of the turgescent kind. I won't go into the blow-by-blow, but I want to mention and insist upon one thing: it is
hard to write smut (no pejorative connotation) without the end result being painful to read. It doesn't even matter what exact tone you employ. You can write crudely and plainly, like Sade did with his 'Justine', or you can write with abundant humour and literary verve, like Apolinaire did with 'Les Onze Mille Verges' (The Eleven Thousand Dicks), or even write something in between, at once heartful and sinful, like in '
Dom B... Portier Des Chartreux'. Any way you choose to write people smacking parts, there is always the finest of lines, verily gossamer-thin, between what works and what makes the reader laugh uncomfortably for how bad and weird it is.
And honestly? So far, Tyranicon is not Guillaume Apollinaire (though evidently he doesn't aim for that), and my being a horny troglodyte might be a factor, but his stuff... yeah, I have to say it works. Moreover, I had a girlfriend who read rather smutty erotic books, and I'm dead certain she would enjoy what's in this game.
In that intro, there's one description—and only one!—I would qualify as bad. It's too 'medical', I want to say. Aside from that one there's another that is borderline funny and made me chuckle, yet simultaneously I can not say it's wrong about the sensation it's describing; and yes, apparently that's happening now: I'm on RPG Codex, talking about anal sex. That's fine. Expected place to do so. Perfectly understandable.
But moving on, since RPG doesn't stand for Recto-Penile Gook. Once the introduction is done with and the tone admirably set, you are treated to a little bit of lore, in company with some very nice artwork: here's a
techno-ronin; a
mysterious portal surrounded by multitudinous screens; a vague air of Tsutomu Nihei's
Blame!; some
magic; what in my eyes is a
truly gorgeous drawing; a
writhing of oily tentacles; and a cautionary tale against
jacking yourself without Windows Defender.
Then the game proffer you go about creating your character. My first name, you ask?
And my last name?
Correct and correct. But hold on...
Damn it. Genitalia should doubtelessly be the first thing queried. So I restart the game, make my character have a vagina, and move on to the background selection. I get to choose between Noble Scion, Former Courtesan, Grifter, Street Thug, Cultist, Corp Floater, Mercenary, or a Nobody. I'm not given much information on which to base my decision, but the choices seem fairly self-explanatory; I choose Courtesan, as I suspect it might make for interesting interactions throughout the game.
I'll mostly be kneading breasts, but it's nice to start with some dough. As well I get a bonus to charisma as I had expected, and some affinity with the halves of the Guild Of Courtesans. After this I get to choose for myself a past connection, with the Guild Progressives, or the Guild Traditionalists, the Iron Cartel, the Stormbreakers, the Three Moons, the Travelers' Mandate, the Old Watch, the Board, or no one at all. I choose no one, no bonus nor malus, as I like the idea of a character who does not get attached.
On to the class selection then, where I'm offered choice between Shaper, Soldier, Support, and Vigilante.
A charismatic, lonesome courtesan, who uses a fading source of magic and wherefore suffers a certain disrepute, and moreover loses a little bit of her very self every time she uses that magic (thus leading to her lonesomeness, as she progressively forgets those dear to her?) Yeah, that sounds really cool, so I went with Shaper. Then I choose my appearance, and an unrelated starting bonus to Perception as this time around I'd like to sooner spot those pesky Crawlers—wait, no, this isn't Underrail.
Now the introduction-with-my-own-character starts, and I meet Diana with whom I flirt a bit:
Unf. Unf, unf,
unf.
One of the clerks behind the counter is the guy from the intro, and I learn he's not supposed to be serviced by the courtesans. But he got the full check-up anyway, oil and all, and if I understand correctly that's a secret to which Diana's not privy (or maybe she is).
After which I take my first steps, and discover I can tilt the camera upwards!
And downwards!
And... more downwards?
And yet more downwards?
Maybe it'll come in handy at some later point in the game, to look under a skirt?
I check the menu, and see handy, summary explanations of character progression and stats; classes and sub-classes; combat basics (move, class feature, class skill, gear and items); flanking; battlefield terrain (full cover, partial cover, dead bodies and obstacles, lingering area effects); mods (think cybernetic augmentations); and trust.
This bit's meaningfullness I like:
In my book, mutualy exclusive story paths are always a good thing. Not for some replayability reason (to me, replayability is solely dependant on how much I like the game, rather than on variability of any kind), but because it serves well to reinforce the impression that the characters and the world they inhabit are more than lines of text and an assembly of pixels.
Also, the Shaper class and its sub-classes. The tutorial, evidently outdated, makes mention of two sub-classes, when in fact three exist.
The class itself, Shaper, allows me to create a shield around a character; to forcefully repell an enemy via some kinetic manifestation; to inflict fire, lightning, or cold damage and correspondingly burn, stun, or freeze; to set the ground a-blaze or a-buzz; to summon an Ice Fiend; to drain SP (mana) from enemies; or to give someone an extra turn.
The first sub-class Reality Warper is all about buffing myself, weakening enemies' resistances, and generally inflicting high damage.
The second sub-class Memory Weaver leans heavily towards incapacitation. Think blindness, fear, domination, slow and the likes, with the addition of two shadow summons.
The last sub-class, Wudajin Disciple—which my dumb mind insist on calling Mujahideen Disciple—is Magic Kung-fu. With skills called Dragon's Fury, Dragon's Retreat, and the very cool-sounding Thousand Steps, it's easy to envision the concept.
Moving on, herewith incumbent upon me are the responsibilities of Facilitator of a brothel, while Diana—who accompanies me awhile—will be the Dame of said brothel. Basically, we're co-managers. On the way to that brothel, situated in somewhat sordid parts, we promptly get ambushed by three thugs; thankfully I wrap my tongue around those guys and avoid a confrontation (no, I didn't blow some dirty, AIDS-oozing thugs! I simply charmed my way out of it).
But how about some deep insight, straight into dear Tyranicon's mind? Did you know that his favorite game of all time is The Witcher 1? It's true. Because in The Witcher 1, there was about fifteen NPC models in the whole game; and Tyranicon so adores that game he wanted to emulate some of its facets. In the following picture, I'm on the left, while on the right is Consuela, my twin sister and mexican maid:
I make my way to the club-cum-brothel, where a guy's been unceremoniously thrown out by Zafra for mishandling the girls.
I'm not into hentai. Never been. But... well... am I into hentai now?
Inside the club, I am given the proprietor's tour, see an augmented courtesan named Kore work the pole (as in
dancing, nothing else), then is dangled afore me the salivating prospect of some intimate time with Diana.
Upstairs, on our way to my and Diana's respective offices, we meet one of the girls who got into a sticky situation:
Anon follows a short conversation with Diana, during which she almost let slip her having previously been a cultist. She says something cryptic, and I get the option to reply in an equally cryptic manner, as if having myself belonged to this cult—but the option is actually greyed.
That, some people will like, others won't. Getting to see what options aren't available to you is often a point of contention amongst players. Personally, I don't mind one way or another; though having the option greyed out makes it obvious Diana was in a cult, while not displaying the option if unavailable could have created some potentially beneficial ambiguity. It's debatable.
Diana then firmly assures me that no scissoring will take place between us—damn those between-coworkers Guild rules!—despite her being such a busty and perky and firm flirty-flirt. Yet thoughtful she is: she’s made provisions for the later coming into my room of none other than Kore, the augmented courtesan I saw dancing on the ground floor of the brothel.
So for now I go to what is my very own room, wherein the tv is on and I opt to flick through the channels. Doing this, I learn the Stormbreakers love to advertise their brawnful security services; that police corruption seems an established notion; that genetically-modified pets like massive Corgis are a thing; that the Gushanese diaspora took place generations ago, and that Lost Gushan is, somehow, veiled behind something called the Four-Mile Barrier, and nobody knows what happened there exactly; that Shapers are most decidedly not trusted by society, and are—or at least are supposed to be—listed in a register kept by the Department Of Social Security, less they be fined or imprisoned; that there’s something wonderful called an Extreme Neoburrito XXL, and that it’s chock-full of protein and stuff good for my body; that the halves of the Courtesan Guild war with one another to deadly consequences; and a number of other flavorful bits.
Basically, what we have here is, I think, someone who took the time to write stuff a lot of players probably won’t ever bother to read; and someone who does that is, again I think, someone who cares a great deal about their project, which heightens my enjoyment of the game in addition to being an effort I sincerely appreciate.
Time for bed now, since tomorrow’s a big day at my new Facilitator job. Bra off, sheets up, lights out… but harken! who be that knocking on my door? Why, it’s Kore.
Now, manifestly I could go straight for the fleshy parts, but I want to talk to her a bit, hear what she has to say. And like the music at that precise moment, what she says about herself and the brothel is… singularly earnest and sweet, unexpectedly so. Thus for a heartbeat blood rushes back up to my heart, I falter, and wonder if I shouldn’t just be only amicable with the girl. Yet I’m a perv, a horny, dirty, ever-throbbing perv; so when she asks, I tell her there’s
something—wink wink, elbow nudge—she can do for me. But oh no! the game alerts me an air of what seems disappointment briefly drapes itself over her face as if a pall—an air promptly replaced by the practiced affect of a professional sex worker. No! What have I done? There’s innocence in her still, and now the moment is gone, ruined! I should have just proposed we sleep next to one another (and perhaps subtly brush the perfectness of her breasts while Somnus holds dominion over her).
And in the morning, I see Zafra under a different light:
And Sonic The Hedgehog's hot human cousin, who never entirely left her kogyaru phase:
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Ok but seriously now. I haven't fought anyone, I've barely played what is essentialy the intro, but I'm genuinely interested to play the rest.
— The music is quite good, it fits the game.
— The game which, in such short a time since the beginning, has already managed to acknowledge and make good use of my background, my class, my stats, and my past affiliations or rather lack thereof.
— The 'retro' environment is perfectly palatable, and what few artworks I've seen are well-drawn.
This one in particuliar is exquisite, I love it.
— The game runs well. No crash, no hangup, no crackling sound. Only a weird issue with text in the tutorial menu being displayed 'compressed' at times.
— I can use keyboard and mouse or a controller, and switch on the go without a problem.
— I've seen a few typos, but nothing major. 'Amateur' spelled 'amatuer'; 'necessary' spelled 'neccesary'; a missing letter or a misplaced comma; 'that' being used instead of 'who'; also a couple of conflicting conjugations within a sentence, but really nothing big, I'm a dick about that stuff. The only thing that really distracts me is the past tense used by the green-tinted narrator text to describe some action a character is undertaking right this moment, but even that's more of a pet peeve on my part, and most likely inconsequential.
(Tyranicon, I have no idea how that would work file-wise, but if you ever want help with proofreading I'm not too bad at it.)
oh, the curse of completionism...
