Game Review: Hentai Girls Panic

By Al

Players: 1
Platforms: Nintendo Switch

Every time I see one of those games come up for potential review, I wonder if I want to subject myself to them yet again. They're not bad, but they often leave me questioning if my time with them was well-spent or not. No matter my reservations though, I keep coming back to them. Obviously the title and header image gave it away, but we're back here with yet another hentai-themed game! Coming from 17studio, whose games I've reviewed several times in the past, we have Hentai Girls Panic for the Nintendo Switch! Though their previous games have been extremely light on the gameplay side of things (Check out my review for Hentai Tales Vol. 2 for more on that!), Hentai Girls Panic looks like it's changing up the formula. How does it do that? Well, we'll get to that. Seeing as I have a surprising amount of things to say about the game, let's drop the intros and dive right in.

Our six heroines!

An example of the gameplay.

I always hoped that if I kept reviewing these kind of games that I'd eventually get to a good one, and I think my wish has finally been granted. I'll talk about the "hentai" part of the game later, but I really want to talk gameplay first. One of my biggest issues with the previous hentai-themed games that 17studio put out was that they pretty much all used a slide puzzle mechanic that seemed to get more and more dumbed down in each subsequent game. I'd find myself playing them for the lols, but literally getting 100% completion in under an hour. I kept trying them thinking that the next one had to be good, or at least I'd get a silly story to bring everything together. It was a little hit or miss in that department anyway, but the stories were usually ridiculous enough to justify the time spent with them. While I am pleased that 17studio finally proved me right, I unfortunately have to say that we apparently can't get both a silly story and good gameplay in a single title. Unless it's hidden behind that elusive 100% completion (I'll get to that later!) Hentai Girls Panic has nothing at all resembling a story. There are six girls that you can unlock pictures of, but the only real differences between them are their hair and eye color, and their haircuts. Though they clearly look different form each other, they could very well all be one girl with some amazing cosplay skills. That one big negative aside, I'm willing to forgive their lack of personality because I finally feel like I have an actual game to review! Don't get it twisted though, I don't want to make it sound like this is a must-have game for Nintendo's hybrid console, it's just that the bar has been set so low that it just took a decent amount of effort to come off looking leaps and bounds better than the games that came before.

While the other 17studio hentai games all used a slide puzzle mechanic, Hentai Girls Panic is a line-drawing puzzle game. You goal is to uncover as much of a picture as you can while avoiding obstacles that are trying to stop you from doing so. You play as a cute little alien in a spaceship who starts within a small rectangle in the center of the picture. You're only shown a silhouette of the girl within the picture, and even though you can uncover the background too, you're only required to reveal a set percenter of the silhouetted portion. If you've ever played the classic arcade game Qix, then you know what to expect here. You're safe as long as you're on the uncovered part of the picture, but you're going to have to venture out by drawing a series of lines that eventually reconnect back to the completed part. There are no rounding of edges here, so expect to see only squares and rectangles of various sizes and deformity. The percentage of picture you have to uncover is determined by the girl whose pictures you're currently revealing, and the currently selected difficulty. You also have a time limit that you have to complete the picture in, and it too varies by girl and difficulty setting. While you can eventually weave in and out of each girl's puzzles, and their respective difficulty levels, you actually have to play every girl's easy stages at least once before you're able to focus on a single one. On easy mode you're only given two puzzles to complete, and two pictures added to the gallery. Medium and hard add an extra puzzle/picture each, though you have to complete them all in order if you want to get everything. There are also enemies and other hazards that try to stop you from completing your drawn shapes, and getting hit by one while on away from the completed portion costs you one life. If you think that lives are also determined by difficulty, then congrats for paying attention, because they are. Now let's get into the more complicated stuff...

Her butt looks REALLY weird...

Don't know why I did so much of the background.

Enemies come in various types, but seem to mostly be things like spaceships and bugs. The real difference between these enemies, which are called "bosses" by the way, is how often they attack and how fast they move. Each boss will spawn minions that will bounce around the empty space of the puzzle, and will also fire projectiles that will go through everything in a straight line. Getting hit by any of these, including the boss themselves, costs you a life. While you have no means of directly attacking them in the proper sense, there are ways in-game that help you deal with all the hazards within a stage. Randomly spawning in at all times are a series of powerups that can speed up your spaceship, freeze all enemies and projectiles, give you a shield that blocks projectiles, or even grant you an extra life. You pick up these powerups by "capturing" them within your drawn shapes. These powerups tend to spawn far outside the silhouetted zone though, and this is why you'll often want to create bridges out into the middle of nowhere so you'll be able to pick them up before they disappear. This actually can make the game more difficult, since the boss and its minions will only ever move in the empty space that you reduce with each powerup you grab. It's a nice risk/reward mechanic that I certainly was not expecting to find in a game like this. Also scattered throughout each puzzle are letters that spell out the word "HENTAI". You'll want to pick them all up if you can as collecting them unlocks a special bonus picture for each difficulty level. Though I have yet to see that sports actual hardcore nudity, these bonus pictures are notably more risqué than the ones you get from simply completing the main puzzles. Thankfully the letters you collect are saved between each run, so you can keep trying at levels until you get them all.

That just about covers gameplay, let's talk a bit about the graphics. I actually decided to check out this game's credits to see if it featured an artist whose work is being used. I'm not sure if there were credits in the other games (I swear I looked but never found them.), but they're easily found in Hentai Girls Panic. I've always had a sinking suspicion that these games used AI art, but I've never been able to be totally sure. While I still can't confirm that here, I will note that there IS an artist credited for creating the art in game. I don't want to start a whole AI vs. Real Art thing here, but I felt it would be unfair if I didn't at least mention my suspicions. All that aside, I have to say that the art here seems to be of a slightly higher quality than was found in the other games in the series. Notably, the last two hentai games I've played from 17studio have been the Hentai Tales series that only featured a single girl named Hitomi. It was refreshing to see a far more diverse cast again, and I think this game also might have the most pictures within its gallery when compared to other games in the series. That said, you have to keep in mind that it's these pictures that are you sole reward for beating the game's puzzles. While I actually managed to get lost in the gameplay itself, part of me feels that I should say whether I think the art justifies the entire puzzle overlay that pretty much acts as a gatekeeper to the art. While I don't think it's worth playing solely for the pictures (Once again, I actually had fun with the game part of Hentai Girls Panic!), I wouldn't judge you one bit if that's why you're keeping at it. Though I still have to question all these hentai games using the word but not providing anything that quite lives up to it, I obviously understand why that is, and have to say that the art here is pretty good all things considered.

Odd paths for those powerups!

Is she pretending to be an alien here?

I'm going to come out and say it: I have a real love/hate relationship with the music in Hentai Girls Panic. Every song here sounds like it was pulled from an aspiring DJs mixtape. I don't know the genre terms, but every track sounds like it belongs in a rave, and some even have an odd nightcore tinge to them. Even though this type of music isn't really my cup of tea, I have to say that the music really got me going more than once, and I found myself doing crazier stuff in-game whenever the music started to get really intense. There isn't anything here I would ever add to my playlists, but I dug it for what it was while I was playing the game. Then there would be some songs that just... overdid it. There are several tracks that felt like they were created just laying tons of things on top of each other to the point where it just sounded like noise. I'm not the type of person to call music I don't like "noise", but that's honestly what it sounds like. To clarify, there were times when the music would ramp up to a point where it became a bass-y, muddy mess that sometimes featured drums or other instruments that would be completely off-beat. Thankfully these parts kind of came and went, but whenever they'd show up I'd suddenly realize that whatever positives I had about the rest of the soundtrack would start to fade from memory. I'm pretty sure that if I started writing this review immediately after hearing one of those songs that I'd give it the worst rating imaginable, but with time to calm down a bit, I have to admit that most of the music is pretty good. Not to keep comparting it their previous titles, but every other 17studio hentai game would feature a single music track that looped incessantly, so this is a very welcome change of pace.

At the time of this writing I've put in several hours of gameplay, and fully beat all the easy, normal, and some hard levels. I've even completed most of the "HENTAI" bonus pictures, but I'm still a bit off from 100% completion because the higher difficulties actually offer a decent challenge. I hate that I have to say this like it's something worth noting, but I'm just shocked that there's an actual game here. I had fun with it, it proved to be challenging in a few sections, and I've even developed strategies on how to best work with certain bosses. This is a full game that just happens to have some lewd anime girl art that's handed out to you as rewards. One of the saving graces with the other hentai games was always that they were extremely cheap, even though Hentai Girls Panic upped their "usual" price, this game is still a very reasonable $5.99. I'm of the mind that thanks to its low price, you can pick this one up for the lols alone. I actually feel a bit bad that I said that about the previous hentai games I've reviewed too, because this one is leaps and bounds better. Sure they were half the price, but they also offered only about 1/10th the content. If you hurry to the eShop, you can actually get the game for an even lower $4.19, as it's currently on a pre-order sale. There are definitely lots of reasons why you might not want to pick up this game, but I don't think price or content should be among them.

Always feels good to win!

I messed this one up!

I don't want to be dramatic, but I really got to give it up to 17studio for finally putting out a decent game. They could've easily put out Hentai Tales Vol. 3 and called it a day, but they decided to give us something with some actual substance instead. Hentai Girls Panic a great game, but it's a really good one that can be fun for fans of line drawing puzzles, lewd anime art, or even those simply picking it up for the novelty of having one of those games on the Nintendo Switch. I say get it for any of those reasons, or maybe even just to see if I'm crazy for giving this a decently open recommendation despite its premise. I know that I'm going to go for that 100% as soon as I'm done writing this, and I can't wait to see what 17studio puts out next!

Check Out Hentai Girls Panic on Nintendo Switch:
https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/hentai-girls-panic-switch/

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Story: N/A
Gameplay: B+
Graphics: B
Music/Sound: B+
Value: B+

Overall: B+

Pros:
+ A 17studio hentai-themed game that actually has decent gameplay!
+ There are six girls, each with several images of increasing lewdness to unlock.
+ Though it might not be the most fully-featured line drawing puzzle game, the gameplay loop is rather enjoyable.
+ Has a very lively, almost club-like, soundtrack that makes it stand out.
+ Its very affordable price make it an easy grab for those who just want it for the novelty.

Cons:
- The different in art styles between the line drawing game and the anime girl art can be quite jarring.
- Though good for the most part, there are some parts of the soundtrack that take the intensity a bit overboard.
- Even though it doesn't feature anything hardcore, it obviously will have a limited reach due to its subject matter.
- I still can't shake my suspicion that these games use AI art, which might put off some.

A copy of this game was provided to us free-of-charge by the publisher for the purpose of this review. This did not affect our review in any way.

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By the way, this is how "hentai" things get.

#Girls_Panic