Game Review: Hentai Tales Vol. 1

By Al

Players: 1
Platforms: Nintendo Switch

Today we're going to look at Hentai Tales Vol. 1: Hitomi and Strange Forest. It's another one of "those" games that you see all over the Switch eShop. We previously looked at Hentai Project not too long ago (You can find that review HERE.) and we were curious what this game had to offer since it implied a different gameplay style, and is apparently the first in a new series. We're going to see if this is a game you're going to want to pick up, or one you'll want to skip at all costs. Where do you think we're going to steer you? Read on to find out!

Mysterious doors are mysterious.

What in the hell is this?!?!

I'm not even sure where to begin with Hentai Tales. I'm going to get the big thing out the way first. I managed to 100% the game in maybe 20-30 minutes. Definitely well under an hour. This leads to problems with reviewing it since there really isn't a whole lot to say about it. Hell, no matter what I write here, it's going to take me far longer to review than it did to play it. Hentai Tales puts you in the shoes of Hitomi, a random anime girl that I swear I've seen in other "Hentai" games but with a different name. She wanders into a forest and basically goes on a series of magical, almost fairy tail-esque adventures. I can't tell you exactly what those adventures are though, because even the simple two-sentence versions will literally give away the game's entire plot. If you can even call the text between puzzles a "plot". Basically you're given twenty puzzles/chapters that are a sort of slide puzzle thing. You complete them and you move on. If you complete all the puzzles, the story ends. That's it. I actually was confused since you see all the puzzles on the screen when you first start, so I assumed that I had just cleared a surprisingly long first chapter. I was wrong... Anyhow, let's move on.

Come on!

Oh yeah, these are the puzzles.

I mentioned that the puzzles are a sort of slide puzzle, and that's because there isn't any sliding to do here. The puzzles work in a similar way to them though where a section of a picture is cut into square tiles that are shuffled into visual gibberish and need to be re-arranged. How are you going to re-arrange them if you can't slide them across you ask? Well, the way you do it is to pick any two tiles and switch them with each other, no matter where they are within the image itself. This makes the game far easier than Hentai Project as it could sometimes be tricky to slide a piece from one end of the puzzle to the other since you have to do it one move at a time. Here, the biggest challenge is figuring out which background tile goes where since anything that doesn't have a character on it can look a little same-y. I say "challenge", but I barely spent more than a minute on any one puzzle, and would probably have completed everything faster if I wasn't conscious of the fact that I would need screens for this review. Some puzzles are bigger or smaller than others, but there doesn't seem much rhyme or reason to this. There isn't really a progression of difficulty, and all puzzles kind of rank the same to me in terms of difficulty. I mean it's a bit hard to mess up such a simple gameplay mechanic, so I'm not sure what I was expecting.

Do you think this is an AI hand?

Those background pieces are hard to place.

The art and the music are the definition of mediocre. I can't say this with any level of certainty, but I have a strong suspicion that AI was used at some point in the creation of the game's visuals. They just have that look to them, especially in the characters that aren't Hitomi. That concern aside, everything looks... okay, it's just that there are so few pictures here that if you were just here for the hentai then you're going to be extremely disappointed. Also, there's something weird with the spacing in the text boxes. The lines of text aren't properly spaced out, and the fact that they didn't fix this is pretty shocking. I can't even tell you what the music was like since it was just there while I was playing, and I barely noticed it. I guess it wasn't annoying at the very least, though I'm pretty sure the soundtrack consisted of just a single looped piece of music. The one random sound that Hitomi made on the other hand was a bit more annoying, and she made a singular gasping noise just enough that I couldn't wait to speed past most scenes. Similar to the story, I can't really show you a lot of examples of the game's art as I feel that more than a small handful of screens will be giving away the entire game.

Yes, Hitomi finds this.

A message to those playing.

There isn't really anything else to say. Beyond that I am actually quite impressed with how little content that Hentai Tales Vol. 1 actually has. And that Hentai Project feels like a AAA release compared to this, with far more content. There were a few entertaining moments from the dialogue, the story turns, and the sheer ridiculous of Hitomi's poses, but I don't know if I can suggest this game just on lols alone. With that said, its normal MSRP is $3.99, and these titles frequently go on sale. If you really must add this title to your collection, you won't be out of a whole lot of money. That's about the only positive thing I can think to say about the game. If you're a "Hentai" series completionist, or just need every game like this the Switch has, then I guess get it. Everyone else is better off just googling the word "hentai" and going with whatever fate hands you.

Check Out Hentai Tales Vol. 1 on Nintendo Switch:
https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/hentai-tales-vol-1-switch/

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Story: D
Gameplay: D
Graphics: C
Music/Sound: C-
Value: C-

Overall: D

Pros:
+ For those who have trouble with slide puzzles, this game lets you just switch the tiles directly.
+ The story and art did have a few "WTF?!" moments that were somewhat entertaining.
+ Its low price eases the fact that it barely is a "game" a little bit.

Cons:
- The entire game can be completed in about 20-30 minutes, with no replayability to speak of.
- Even though you're about to simply move tiles from space to space, some tiles like background ones can be hard to place.
- There seems to be even less sound and music than in previous "Hentai" games.
- Barely even has anything resembling gameplay this time around.

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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That's it!

​#HentaiTales