Eroico is an adult-oriented Action Platformer in where we take on the role of a nameless young knight. There is no story whatsoever and don’t actually have an end goal to accomplish be it your typical save the world plot or defeating some evil. We are just tasked with making it through the game’s three levels, all filled to the brim with both traps and monster girls. Our nameless knight has a decent moveset to take on these threats such as blocking, plunging down with his sword, and a thrust dash that has greater range than your regular attack.
The monster girls take quite a few hits to go down, especially when playing on any difficulty above Easy. This makes it so that each enemy is a threat and you need to learn when to go on the defensive instead of just mashing the attack button. You can take a few hits yourself, though with health items being so sparse, it is best not to make needless mistakes. On Easy, there is a checkpoint after each screen, making death a minimal inconvenience as you respawn at the start of it with half of your health and mana. The mana meter serves to limit the number of ranged attacks you can use. In any case, it is quite a different story on Normal and above as checkpoints are very spread apart, making each death far more unforgiving.
Each of the three stages feature unique themes and all contain their own unique set of monsters to face. Managing to make it to the end of the level will see you face its boss, which will truly test your skills. It is really not an easy game at all. That makes this otherwise short title a much longer experience if you choose to play on anything besides easy. Scattered around the levels and typically hidden are fractions of a heart. Collecting four of these will increase your overall health which will certainly help you on your travels if you have a keen enough eye to spot the fragments in the first place. At times you may need to solve a minor puzzle and backtrack a bit to reach them as to spice things up.
By now, I’m betting some people are thinking to themselves “wait isn’t this a hentai game”, and indeed it is. It doesn’t play a large part in the title by any means and can even be turned off entirely. You see, whenever you get hit by an enemy there is a chance you will get stunned and in turned raped by the first monster girl to get her mitts on you. While finding yourself in this precarious situation, you will need to button mash to escape her grasp. Or not. You can also simply let it play out until your character “finishes” with no adverse effects. The animation will loop until you liberate yourself, so you do eventually need to button mash your way out of it. If an enemy lands a killing blow then you will unlock a CG of that enemy having their way with our surely devastated hero.
Each of the monster girls has their own unique animations, though I wouldn’t go out of my way to see them all during a playthrough, as you can see them later on via the extras menu regardless. The bosses are the only one that lack any rape animations during battle as they are focused solely on defeating you, but once you do lose, you will see their lewd side. Your main threat all throughout are these girls, other hazards like traps are infrequent and dangerous platforming sections are even rarer. They all possess their own unique ways to fight, making learning their quirks pretty vital to coming out the other side unharmed.
Eroico is a decently made action platformer in its own right that doesn’t solely rely on its hentai aspects. It features solid gameplay, good pixel art, and a soundtrack that is uninspired at first but grows to be quite catchy by the final stage. Best of all is that there is a demo available which is sadly an ever-increasing rarity these days. There is a lot to like about this title and while it may not set your world on fire with any innovative new features, it is still an enjoyable hour-long romp through a lewd monster girl filled world.
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