Recent reviews by Mr.E

I personally embrace the cutesy "moe anime" aesthetic, but even if the visuals are a turn-off to some Rabi-Ribi is nonetheless a masterful game underneath. The "bullet hell" boss fights and dual protagonist setup with both a melee (Erina) and ranged (Ribbon) character is a unique take on the usual Metroidvania formula. The dynamic difficulty and careful level design give players a lot of freedom to explore the map as they please, rarely being funneled to specific areas and ensuring the player is never under- OR overprepared for fights. Controls are tight and precise; Erina is insanely mobile at full power and yet never feels neither clunky nor unwieldy to move around. An item finder function exists, so 100% item collection (though not easter eggs...) is feasible even if playing blind.

The only weak point is the story, which mostly exists to fuel the gameplay and character interactions, but that's rarely a strong point for games in this genre and the individual characters are still pretty cute. Take or leave the visuals based on personal preference, mind the game doesn't particularly sexualize its characters despite their pandering designs, but the music is more universally praised ranging from appropriately thematic area tunes, upbeat boss music to energize the player, and epic ballads to set the mood for the biggest showdowns.

Rabi-Ribi is perhaps the best example of a "tough but fair" game I've ever played. The lowest difficulty is pitifully easy for anybody with working eyeballs and motor skills. It's great to accomodate total gaming newbies, youngsters, and anyone who just wants to solely concern themselves with the exploration aspects of the game and/or follow the story. Successive deaths will offer you a buff to make things easier; the only penalty for doing so is a bruised ego. Consumables are encouraged. Buffs can be purchased from acquired helper characters in town. And it's all totally optional, the player has full control of how challenging (or not) their experience is.

On the flip side, the game can be UTTERLY BRUTAL if you desire and it does so while remainingly entirely in the realm of fairness (with one exception, the very intentionally cheap and entirely optional "special" endgame boss trio). Upping the difficulty doesn't crank damage up to insane levels but makes boss attack patterns faster and more complex, challenging players to tighten their execution while still allowing them to make mistakes.

Seriously, kudos to the design team. Bosses actually modify their attacks based on items collected to ensure that nothing is ever undodgable just because you don't have a specific item. The map has a heck of a lot of alternate paths and secret passages to give players the freedom to explore with a wide variety of item loadouts, including the possibility to complete the game with no items at all! If you're an achievement hunter, some of the DLC ones have alternate unlock conditions based on whether or not you have the DLC (I think just the Artbook cheevos though).

There's the usual boss rush fare, a "speedrun" mode that automatically skips all cutscenes for your pure gameplaying pleasure, and a CG gallery for cutscenes viewed. Sound test is fun to screw around in because you can crank the speed on the music way up or down. Controls are fully remappable and gamepad support is good. Personally I'm not a fan of the way the comic and leaderboard (and in-game cheevo display) are implemented with the Steam overlay, but it's cool that they're accessible from inside the game.

And over two years since release, the developer is still showing this game a lot of love too! (Perhaps it helps that they recently released on Playstation Network and are preparing for the Switch release.) Just in the past couple months (as of writing this) they've added local multiplayer co-op out of nowhere, as an "April Fools" gift gone serious, and an additional tougher difficulty beyond the two beta difficulties in the Artbook DLC that are already tougher than the highest release difficulty! They are their own game's biggest fan and it really shows with how much care and support they continue to show it well after release.

This game is worth more than its asking price and worth every gamer's time.

Recommended, but only for fans of the original Princess Evangile, despite attempts to cater to new players with the inclusion of PE's common route and extensive flashbacking. The Another Story (side girl) routes benefit from having a greater knowledge of the setting and overarching storyline, which you'll only have if you've read at least one full PE route because they're largely ignored in WH. The Epilogues obviously won't make any sense if you haven't read the respective girl's route in PE. Original PE character routes are not included. WH is a fandisc, a standalone expansion if you will, NOT an enhanced remake. Read the full product description.

I personally found the Another Story (side girl) routes to be relatively shallow with little slice-of-life padding to contextualize the relationships within the setting. Though they are ultimately still enjoyable "What If" scenarios if you're a PE fan itching for more content with the characters you've already grown to love, I felt like I was reading a disjointed series of individual events rather than a singular, cohesive work. I like PE's extensive padding, gives me time to truly understand the characters and thus get more invested in their relationship.

But you may entirely disagree. You might say, "I've already read PE, that's all the character development I need!" W Happiness is laser-focused on the romance and is FAR more fanservice-heavy, so if you don't mind the lacking SOL to frame the relationships within a greater context and just want some sweet cuddles, you'll adore WH. If you're only in it for the lewds with the adult patch... Hoo boy, 10/10. If you didn't like the heavy and contrived drama segments in PE's routes, the drama in WH is lighthearted at best. In a technical sense, WH improves on PE by moving the camera and sprites around much more, adding more music, and some other minor additions (sprite viewer, mouse gestures).

For better or worse, WH truly embraces what it means to be a fandisc and it's damn good at it.

My only real gripe is that the sale price is kinda high, considering it's roughly half the length of PE but at a similar price point (equal to PE-AA, but cheaper than PE-18+ while WH has a free adult patch). Side girls would've seriously benefitted from having 5-6 chapters... I won't say it isn't worth it, but it's not a slam dunk buy like PE is to its target audience. At any sort of a discount, I'd more strongly recommend it. Still only as an existing PE fan, not as a standalone product.

The adult patch is free anyway but if you must avoid sexual content and think not patching will keep you clean, it won't. W Happiness censors virtually nothing at all except the surgical extraction of the sex CGs. This is in contrast to PE, which sanitizes some of the more explicit dialogue and covers more skin in some non-explicit CGs. WH does not do that. There is very little, if any, dialogue edited and all the heavy foreplay is still proudly displayed.

I recommend picking up the 18+ version directly from MangaGamer, as I do feel the lewd content adds to the experience and there is (as of writing) no restoration patch. I'm not sure that's even doable, as the All-Ages version actually has a handful of its own unique CGs that aren't in the 18+ version! But if you're squeamish about sexual content, a minor, or really must save those precious few dollars, I fell in love with PE seeing the All-Ages version streamed and can attest that the AA version is plenty intact enough to remain a thoroughly enjoyable read.

What is censored specifically: There are minor dialogue edits here and there, mostly to sanitize direct references to genitalia (e.g. Masaya, the male protagonist, getting an erection). A few CGs are edited to cover up the girls a little more here and there (e.g. wearing undershirts instead of bras). Of course, the actual sex scenes are removed. The only major loss is, what I find to be the funniest skit in the game... what is best described as a dramatic reading of an erotic novel, which isn't even lewd so much as the kind of raunchy comedy you might find in an R-rated film.

Quite frankly, the "all ages" moniker is a misnomer as Princess Evangile AA is still way too mature for a younger audience. Some of the unique CGs are still quite lewd (e.g. showering with convenient steam placement), just less explicit than what they replace. Suggestive dialogue still exists in spades. PE also deals with some heavy themes, such as sexual assault and kidnapping. It's more suited for the 15+ crowd, even in its mildly censored form.

PE is a surprisingly compelling story for how cliche its basic premise is: guy gets to attend an all-girls school. But it takes itself very seriously and rather succeeds at selling the circumstances that lead to the situation happening. PE really lives and dies on its characters though, all of which I found more or less enjoyable. Each heroine has their unique charms and, of course, they're all drop dead gorgeous. Masaya himself is more than a boring blank slate designed solely for self-insertion and the antagonists are so, so hateable. The gang as a whole display incredible chemistry that really helps sell some of the common route's comedy skits.

There's much heavier drama deep into the character routes that usually leads to some stellar character development, and each route uncovers slightly different details of the PE world that makes all of them worth reading to get the full picture. Aside that, each romance develops very naturally and believable, ultimately culminating in true love conquering all and receiving some warm and fuzzy feelings to fill the gaping hole in my cold, black heart. :(

PE isn't perfect, your mileage may very quite heavily depending on how much you buy the various contrivances. I've a couple minor criticisms but overall it passes muster for me quite easily. If PE interests you in the first place though, the Demo will tell you more than any review whether or not it's worth dropping your cash on the full version.

But I do recommend the 18+ version if you're fine with sexual content. Romance is the biggest component of PE and, well, that is just a totally natural and beautiful thing people in love do. Especially the first time a couple takes that step is arguably the biggest milestone of most romantic relationships (its only competition being, perhaps, marriage). Watching it unfold as the characters themselves do makes the experience all the more fulfilling. Admittedly, some scenes are "just porn" but those truly are outnumbered by the ones that legitimately develop the characters.

Definitely true to its namesake, Moekuri is perhaps even more tactical than it is adorable. It's plenty adorable, there's just a hella large variety of characters and strategies to implement in battle. The protagonist has a choice of ten classes, from the typical Warrior-Ranger-Mage trio to all sorts of game mechanic specialists, everyone you meet in Story Mode can be unlocked some of whom have their own unique classes, and there's 150+ creatures to capture and summon as little combat soldiers.

Incidentally, the art is the only place where the game really falters: 90% of the characters are strictly cute, gods are badass, demons are appropriately provocative (or creepy), etc. Then I spy a little girl with a cameltoe and I wonder what they were thinking. Every battlefield is nothing more than the same large, tiled square, though at least you can often envision the picture they tried to paint with the terrain. (e.g. Castle hallway is all grey and impassable terrain creates a narrow passage. Sacred temple is an open map with a lot of Holy Ground terrain.) Combat animations are strictly functional.

Still, every character does have their own Pokédex-like entry with numerous unique voice lines, both full and chibi art, and a brief biography of sorts. Every creature entry includes their maximum stats and full list of skills and abilities. The music is consistently decent, never bad nor amazing.

Story Mode doesn't take more than a few hours but it's a cute, lighthearted story. The objective is occasionally more than "eliminate the opponent" and if you don't grind Free Battles between levels, it's occasionally challenging. The localization is fantastically whimsical. After your first trip through, you unlock an arcade-style mode, multiple challenger trials, and are given the criteria for unlocking the other Masters. Free Battles are an opportunity to capture creatures and earn in-game currency you can use to purchase ones you miss.

The massive variety of characters makes for an equally massive number of strategies possible, and the creators played with every possible lever to ensure the viability of as many as they could muster. Pretty much the only thing you can't do is bring multiple of the same creature to battle, so there's little point to capturing more than one creature per species since you can rearrange stats semi-freely (grind-gated) and change movesets at will. It's quite the hardcore strategist's dream.

But legit my biggest complaint: It's ridiculous that a game released in 2016 only runs at 800 x 600 resolution! Seriously. Like, seriously that is ridiculous and seriously that is the actual worst thing I can say about this game. Almost as ridiculous as this game only being $12 full price, because who knew a game with a self-describing title could go so far above and beyond to live up to its name?

Quaint little story of a mysterious man and his "adopted" little girl dragon baby. As a min-max RPG junkie I'm disappointed that combat is a formality, even without finding each episode's god-tier weaponry, but the game still held my interest with its witty writing, cute-macabre art, and downright adorable protagonist. It's an enjoyable waste of a few hours I wouldn't mind seeing fleshed out to a feature length.