Succubus is a 2D Action game released on May 03, 2015. It starts with our nameless character being born into existence after a mysterious light hits a statue. And so we are let loose as a ridiculously curvy succubus with no further story to be found throughout this hour-long adventure. One of the first things you’ll notice is how nice the pixel art is. The second is the over-exaggerated animations that lend it a near-whimsical look. Simply standing still will see our character bop up and down, with certain parts of your body bouncing nonstop. Everything has a ton of life to it that can’t be captured in a single still image.
Beginning our journey, we will not have access to much in the way of abilities. We’ll have a simple projectile attack that drains your mana bar alongside a jump button. Learning how many shots you can cast and how fast your mana refills is a crucial feature to keep in mind. It has as much of a focus on platforming as it does on combat, perhaps even more so. This requires a surprising amount of competency to get through levels, though it is a forgiving game. There are no instant death traps or falls to be found here. If you accidentally miss a jump and fall into a bottomless pit, you’ll simply be put in the start of that area with a slight loss of health. No enemies will respawn, either. Succubus won’t go easy on you, but it wants you to succeed and be an H game that is fun.
Hentai plays an essential role in the gameplay. Being a succubus, we gain power and restore health from sexually draining our foes. If you’ve noticed that heart meter at the top left of the screen, it represents our ability to cast more powerful secondary magic attacks. You can have up to 99 hearts and basically spam even the most dangerous of foes with overwhelming firepower. The process to reaching that form is by defeating certain enemies with your basic attack. Some of them are not compatible and disappear, such as monsters made entirely of fire, but others will lie on the floor when wounded. It is then up to you whether you want to go over there and sexually dominate them. As you have sex, you’ll be invulnerable and unable to take damage from anything. I still wouldn’t recommend doing it under a swinging guillotine, however. As soon as he shoots his baby batter, you are vulnerable again.
It won’t be long before you gain the power of seduction magic. Casting it causes a flying heart to bolt out, and whatever it hits will become uncontrollably aroused. Walk up to the affected foe to be yourself sexually dominated. You’ll still receive all the same benefits, such as regaining some health and power. Whether you beat them into submission or seduce them is mostly pure preference of what sex animation you’re in the mood for. Like the rest of the game, every animation of the sexual variety is pretty great and is worth seeing at least once. Also worth noting is that you’ll need to witness them at least once before they are viewable in the Gallery Mode.
Interestingly, we don’t even have to engage in much of the H content. Some defeated enemies occasionally drop both heart and health potions. This is an arguably more balanced way of playing the game than draining every enemy and becoming a god of destruction. However, there is no way you’ll convince anyone that this isn’t an H game with our character constantly swaying her assets in the breeze. Another thing enemies drop are coins. I admittedly had no idea why on earth I was collecting them until checking the Gallery Mode. It turns out that you’ll unlock CGs after certain milestones of coins are collected. These count across levels and playthroughs. To get the last 500 milestone, it did take replaying a few levels after beating the campaign, so it has replay value from that. All of the CGs have an appealing semi-realistic aesthetic that reminds me of 1980s Fantasy box art. I really dig them.
When it comes to music, all of the tracks range from good to great. Some tracks are moody, others will pump you up with adrenaline, and a few are whimsical. Each is well placed to what is occurring on screen. There are three stages in total. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but they are massive and change the background visuals around the halfway point. They are broken up into sections such as 1-2, 1-3, and so on until reaching the second stage at 2-1. Every few areas will have a save point that will restore all your lost health. Dying will set you back to the same screen you met your end on. The save point’s primary purpose is for those who want to exit the game and not lose progress. Considering the short hour-long length and how engaging this title is, I imagine most people will get through it in one go.
Once you’re a good way into the campaign, you will gain the ability to double jump. It was unexpected to see a new feature so deep into the game, but they put it to good use to ramp things up as you fight your way up to the third and final boss. I would also like to take this opportunity to mention that there is full gamepad support. It is a fully-fledged title in every sense of the word, though it does have one flaw for as much as I’ve been gushing about it this entire review. There is no fullscreen option, and will appear as a small 640×480 window. Unless you want to stretch the window to hideous proportions, you will need a program like Lossless Scaling to force it into a simulated fullscreen mode. Aside from that, Succubus is an insanely well-made game despite being the first that developer Libra Heart created. If you are into the Action genre, this is highly recommended, and I’d encourage everybody to at least check out the demo.
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