Live A Battle is a 1v1 3D Fighter in where grapples and holds are the primary focus. It is currently in Early Access and features a selection of six characters in its roster. Minus one baby-faced individual, all of them play exactly the same, so feel free to pick the one that appeals visually to you most. There is currently no story or even a tutorial. Instead, we are thrown right into the action to learn by first-hand experience. You’ll find that all the menus and most of the text are in English. Minus the move-set PNG file in the root folder not being translated, all other essential aspects are ready for Westerners to jump right in and easily navigate through.
There are currently no AI difficulty options. In its current state, I doubt anyone will have much trouble wiping the floor with the AI even if they haven’t translated the move-set as of yet. Luckily, once you defeat your foe, you have the option to go to the next fight or continue attacking your now defenseless enemy. Doing the latter is a convenient way of learning how to grapple and pull off moves without the threat of a counterattack. Whether your enemy is flat on her back or on her stomach will open up different actions to perform. An example being that if you grab her from the side while on her stomach, you can transition into a leg lock. Meanwhile, grabbing her from her side as she’s on her back does absolutely nothing. There is no move attributed to that position yet, so knowing what you can and can’t do is vital while in an actual fight.
This is not a Fighter with complex inputs. Most moves can easily be pulled off by simply pressing an attack button and a direction. Your primary focus will be on getting into the proper position and then learning what holds transition into what. When both characters are on their feet is where the game really shows its incomplete and experimental nature, as of now. You have a small three-hit combo when you punch and a kick that doesn’t flow into anything. Both are really sluggish, but trying to grab your foe while on foot takes the cake. Trying to grapple while both fighters are standing is incredibly unresponsive and takes ages to complete if it even decides to read your input. It is the only thing that feels dreadful to employ.
Managing to pull off a standing grapple can let you perform a rear choke-hold, back-breaker, or judo throw to take the brawl to the ground. It is pretty well featured already. They just need to increase the range and speed of the opening grab to make reaching that point reliable. With the fists and kicking elements being so basic, I do find it surprising that both have an attack to knock your foe down. Going backward and pressing either attack button results in a power-attack that always knocks them down. It feels plain odd being able to immediately and assuredly be able to drop someone so easily. In my opinion, their first order of business should be inserting a proper stamina system. It’ll make being able to drop someone while they are winded much more satisfying than being able to do so at any time.
When you are on your feet and your opponent is downed, you can kick them. It is quite tricky to do and looks unnatural, making me question if we were even meant to be able to do that. In their current form, it feels like there are two separate combat systems that do not flow together in the slightest. I do not intend all of this as criticism. This is not a review. I’m just trying to offer some feedback and let my readers know the current state of this product. Given that it has only been out three months as of this writing and that the dev has only worked on 2D titles before, I’m actually highly impressed with what’s been achieved already. The quality of the animations and collisions are nothing short of professional standards. Minus a few costumes, there is little in the way of clipping, which goes a long way in keeping one immersed.
Visually, it looks decent, though I’d recommend reducing the strength of the specular lighting to lessen that doll-like look of the character models. Another issue is that all of the characters currently have the same costume. We gain money from fights to unlock more, but we cannot expand what our opponents wear. Each match we win nets us 500 points to spend in the in-game shop. You can find new costumes, color swaps for said clothing, and other more significant game mechanics in it. Chief among these is the H-battle pass, which unlocks breast groping and other sexual acts to perform. There are also separate dildo and strap-on purchases to allow women to do what the male characters can.
That H-battle pass greatly expands your current move-set when grappling. It opens up a whole new world to you, and the fact that it costs 5000 points means you’ll likely be well acquainted with how the game plays by that point. Spanking, breast gropes, and other similar attacks will fill up the heart meter instead of damaging their health directly. The fuller that meter, the more likely you will be able to achieve a full-on penetration either through a dildo/strap-on or your male’s genitalia. If you haven’t weakened her up enough sexually, she is more than likely to simply bronco kick you right off when you try to mount her. This is another area of the game that has me confused. Using a dildo on her will rapidly damage her health while your penis doesn’t. Due to that, I’m unsure if the tricky task of getting her softened up enough for sex will lead to the benefit of high damage or just the act itself in the future.
Once you buy the dildo or strap-on, they will be randomly placed on a stage. Going over there and getting it is worth your time. Not only does the dildo do more damage than a regular hold and opens up more options, but it also entertains the audience. The fuller your opponent’s heart gets, the more excited the crowd will be as well. Getting it entirely filled will net you another 500 points on top of the five hundred you get for simply winning. Another modifier that grants more points after the match is called Technique. From what I can gather, it pays out more from varying up your moveset and not staying in one grapple hold too long. Honestly, the H-battle pass should be the first thing you buy as it opens up a ton more potential profit.
If you are wondering, no, you can’t penetrate a male with a sex toy or genitalia. All of the sex is purely directed to females, for better or worse. I don’t know if the devs plan on adding it in the future or not. Also worth noting is that some of the animations are broken when used on males. Mainly it’s the breast grope move that has you feeling up nothing but thin air if used on a man, and the suplex hold that has his erection clipping through the floor if you’ve destroyed his clothes. This brings me to the clothes destruction. The more damage someone takes equates to more clothing being torn off. A particularly nice touch is that the female idle animation changes to her shyly trying to hide her privates while nude. Meanwhile, males look plain goofy thanks to always sporting a full erection.
Alongside the health meter in green and clothes durability being blue, we have the yellow stamina meter underneath them. The lower it is makes escaping any grapples or holds more difficult. Yet, it is solely damage-based. You can spam attacks all day, but only receiving damage lowers it. In its current state, it is just a placeholder with no real use, thanks to the health meter fulfilling the same purpose. A stamina system holds a ton of potential and is plainly needed if they don’t want combat devolving into spamming power-attacks to immediately get an opponent stunned on the floor. I’m just retreading old ground there, so instead, I’ll just mention how good the sweating system is. As the fight progresses, characters will start showing signs of fatigue with increasing amounts of sweat, and it looks great.
I didn’t have a single crash throughout my entire time playing and have had only one notable glitch. It involves using a D-Input controller. Live A Battle just isn’t having it and will freak out if you connect a gamepad that uses it. You will need an Xbox controller or an X-Input compatible one to play this with a gamepad. Like most everything in this article, that is subject to change, yet it is the current state of things. Early Access is always a risk, and this is a somewhat pricey gamble. It currently costs 2420 Yen ($21 US Dollars) and will slowly be raised to a total of 4000 Yen overtime. I think the content and fun to be had are worth the current price, but who knows what the future will hold.
Live A Battle is one of the most interesting hentai games I have seen and played in a long time. While it is in Early Access, it has started off on a very good note and has me excited for its future. This could easily become a must-play title with some more polish. They are close to achieving that but not quite there yet. I will not tell you whether you should purchase this or not, as nothing in the future is certain. What I can say is that given what I’ve experienced in this game already, I’m currently glad I took a chance on it. It already has hours of content via the unlockables and an English translation that is pretty much complete. If nothing else, I’d strongly urge you to check out its demo and give it a chance to prove itself.
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