Grrl Power!
Grrl Power!
Platform: PC
Publisher: Shadow2k
Category: RPG
Difficulty: 2
Nudity: 5
For aspiring game makers, the RPG Maker software series is a godsend. It has a huge following both stateside and in Japan, and with it you can put together anything from a fangame or remake to a completely original albeit retro-looking roleplaying game of your own making using the built-in graphics and battle system. Or, you can make a hentai game like Grrl Power!, with its own custom graphics, voices, environments, and battle system.
Yes, Grrl Power! is not Japanese (and thankfully, it has no relation to the Spice Girls). So why should Sutorippu! touch it, besides the fact that both this site and this game put an exclamation mark to use in their titles and make things grammatically awkward when talking about them? Well, because the game is not only relevant, it's a project currently under development by Shadow2k, which makes use of a customized system rather than the traditional RPG Maker interface to allow you to interact with the environment. This project, at the time this article was written, hasn't necessarily left the alpha stages, so there are a lot of bugs even with the amount of patches that the developer and certain contributors have made available to deal with as many of them as possible, but the game is still playable in its current form. So, we're going to take a look at it.
So, is Grrl Power! just an RPG about female characters' magical adventures in Ta-Taland? Is it about sexy vixens who travel through space in search of new worlds to explore and aliens by whom they can be taken advantage? Is it about exploring a large environment and trying not to get raped as muggers rip off your female avatar's clothes? Or is it just about the life of a normal girl with a few quirks who just wants to hang out and have fun? Well, yes and no. Grrl Power! is all these things and then some, in that you're given a choice as to how you want to build your character, and the world provides all the backdrops you need to put her talents to use and build her up with others. Shadow2k describes it as "a lot like a sandbox hentai game", meaning that the fun of the game isn't limited to fighting villains, travelling around a single world, or just grinding for cash. It's about doing what you want to do. Of course, to do that, one has to actually build their character, and Grrl Power! allows you to do that via its own character builder, which you see at the start of the game.
Wait, did I already lose? Oh. No, my girl is just naked because she's essentially just been born, and it's up to me to customize her now. The game gives you a lot to choose from, to include the standard RPG staples of skills such as magic, item crafting, weapon skills and extra stat points. But the selection doesn't end there. The game also uses two extra statistics that are important when dealing with other people. One of them is called "Humiliation", which is pretty self-explanatory. It's how embarrassed your girl is if her clothes are torn, which escalates the more naked she is in public unless you make her a nudist. The other is called "Respect", which is how people in your line of work and everyone else at large views you. Respect goes up as you perform certain tasks, and declines if you act outside social norms, such as walk around with torn clothes or get pregnant. And yes, you can get pregnant in this game, but we'll talk about that later. Now, while we at Sutorippu! are all for nudity, there is plenty of merit for clothes in this game, since being naked or otherwise exposed can leave you vulnerable to certain attacks by enemies. Again, something we'll talk about later.
Choices at character creation can also help you construct your character's background. For example, the teddy bear here represents your childhood, which is basically where you select where your background let you develop your talents and possibly augment the skills you want to develop, or perhaps give your character another hidden talent you might want to drop some points on later. If you want your character to be a curious Nancy Drew type, you could select the Super Sleuth background. Or, if you plan on making your character spurn clothes and walk around frequently naked, you could select the Nudist background. Since I'm here creating my character, I decided to make my girl a witch. For some reason I prefer playing the magic-user types in RPGs. So I've given her the Witch background, the Bookworm advantage, and the Apothecary and Tailor skills. Are we missing anything?
Oh. I'm still naked, and only a Nudist-background could leave and not feel embarrassed. Here's another custom addition that helps make Grrl Power! unique. Not only can you choose and buy custom outfits for yourself throughout the game, you can change your body at character creation. It's a random selection of traits, however, and since the girls' bodies are all rendered in a separate program (School Mate, in case anyone is wondering), you can't simply mix and match traits. The area in which you change your physical traits is also where you name your character, as well as give her a nickname if you desire. Also, you can alter her character voice, of which there are quite a few, and change what her "home" background looks like. Of course, the option to alter her breast and hip sizes is not present in the game, but there's a reason that your character will be a tad on the busty side that, again, we'll cover in a moment.
So when selecting an outfit, the game starts out with only so many articles of clothing to choose from, though you can choose to buy more once your character earns some money in her chosen profession. Of course, as part of the outfit, you can also choose to not have your girl wear underwear, which is up to you, but there are advantages to actually wearing it, so I went ahead and picked some for my girl. They didn't match, of course, and her expressionless eyes spoke volumes about her disapproval, but I told her to suck it up since they were free. My head still hurts from the virtual smack. I can tell we're already getting along just fine.
Anyway, enough about character creation, let's move onto the game itself. So, off the bat, one of the first characters you speak to will tell you about the basics of the game, how to fight, and how to deal with the stores. Of course, combat in this game is not a turn-based affair. Grrl Power!, instead, uses an attack- and defense-based action RPG style of combat as seen in games like The Legend of Zelda, the Mana series, and the like. One key attacks, and another defends. Sounds simple enough. I should stress here that you can play this game and not have to worry about combat at all depending on what kind of character you want to play, but since I picked a traditional RPG route, I might as well see how this game plays in that way.
Of course, by talking to someone else in the building, we learn the reason why boobs are not an option. This is because there is a market in the game for, and I'm not making this up, breast milk. That's right, according to this game's storyline, a Constitutional amendment was made that mandatorily gives every girl, regardless of her stage of pregnancy or the integrity of her virginity, the ability to produce milk via genetic engineering, since breast milk has been recognized as an official natural resource. ... Wow. Now, I'm not going to comment on the potential misogyny of forced lactation in this game, but I will say that I can see why this game was called Grrl Power!. Because tits are power made pillowy flesh!
Anyway, back to the game. You only start with so much money, so naturally you're motivated to go out and get more. By walking about and talking to people, I learned about a hidey-hole where rapists and muggers are keeping a hideout. So this is obviously one area where the game's combat system comes into play. It works a bit like a standard action RPG with an overhead view, with you dealing damage upon successful hits and taking damage when the enemies hit you, but as your body can take damage, so can your clothes. When your clothes are torn off, you slowly gain Humiliation. You are also exposed to occasional critical hits, and socially, walking about with torn clothes or being naked means some of the shops won't deal with you and people will sometimes berate you. Here, I need to address the flaws in the battle system that are an unfortunate result of modding and that hopefully can be ironed out in future releases since they're apparently known issues. To begin with, when you attack, you lunge forward, and are vulnerable for a second before you can attack again. This means you're more or less forced to choose places to fight where you won't get surrounded, since enemies can and will beat the shit out of you. Also, whether you or your opponent hit or miss, you can't move for a moment, which sometimes results in you being frozen until you either defeat them or get knocked out. The state of your clothes is also announced by a message box, which isn't really a bad thing except it seems like you can't hit anyone with your attacks until you clear the box away. Lastly, sometimes opponents can attack you through closed doors, or simply walk right through them. I tried to duplicate this problem with my character, but I ended up getting stuck in the door.
If you happen to be defeated by the rapists, you will collapse, and be taken hostage by them, which brings us to one of the real reasons why this game was made. Being defeated in battle by rapists or monsters means that you're raped, and the scenes that follow are much like the scenes in ADV games; descriptive text of sex acts followed by a few scenes of animation as you are humiliated and defiled. A series of response choices is given to you, where you can be defiant or enjoy being taken advantage of. You can also attempt a bit of revenge if given the opportunity, which, if you're successful, will soften the psychological and social blow you receive. Admittedly, according to Shadow2k, Grrl Power! is in fact a game that deals heavily with rape, but being defeated and raped doesn't result in Game Over. Instead, the game will give thee another chance, and let you regain consciousness elsewhere. From here you can try to escape your captors, or just let time pass. There are occasionally other people you can rescue, and doing so tends to earn you respect, karma, and experience, as well as give you the opportunity to make them nice and comfortable... how comfortable, however, is dependent on certain personal stats.
But let's talk about another thing that being raped, or instigating sex, leads to in this game. Pregnancy. Yes, there's a chance your character can get pregnant whenever you have sex or get raped, which means you can either choose to suffer through pregnancy and have the baby, or get an abortion at the clinic. Choosing to have the baby will allow you to either retire with your newborn child, which is the only way the game really ends, or put them up for adoption. There are other options open to you, however, such as purchasing contraceptives before you do anything with the risk and/or promise of smex, or buying a condom before you go out and decide to lend your body to some lucky guy. Of course, there seem to be certain options in the game that give you the opportunity to get a girlfriend as well, but in the time I spent playing the game for this review, I didn't find them. Sniff.
It seems that at this time there isn't much of a way to continue on the path of magic, or perhaps the abilities come at much later levels or aren't fully implemented yet. So I'd like to address a less harmful but just as ecchi joint found in the game that you can visit in the neighborhood: the LAN party. Frequented by boys dressed in costumes, it's this place that gives you the opportunity to prove yourself as a girl gamer by playing games against the all-male clientele (although there are plans to include other girls in the place on future releases). Here, you can team up and try to earn moderate amounts of experience by winning games, or challenge other players in single matches, where you can wager just to play for bragging rights, money, or (yes indeed!) clothes. Playing for clothes means, naturally, that you wager an article of clothing and either win clothes from your opponents, or lose what you wagered. Getting stripped naked and losing gives you the opportunity to go home with the victorious geek and potentially reward him with sex, but this feature isn't fully implemented yet. Hence, all it does is give you a bit of a slutty reputation.
So, at the end of the day, Grrl Power! is definitely something new from the RPG Maker games crowd, and definitely something much more enjoyable than another Dragonball Z game with Trunks fighting tree monsters or another side-story to the Super NES Final Fantasies. I know I didn't cover all the aspects of the game, but there are a few reasons; namely that since it's a work in progress, not all of the paths of adventure are really open yet, and even taking into account what's there would make this review far too long. So, I'd like to close by saying that in order to understand this game completely, you really just have to play it for a while and see what you can find to do.
And thanks to Shadow2k, we can offer you that opportunity! Download the game here!
See the Grrl Power! Project official thread at Hongfire.
