General Info:
Developer: [Circle Group] Torotoro Resistance
Language: English (Fan-Made)
Progress: Complete (Finalized)
Type: 2D Gameplay ## Adventure, RPG (Linear, Fixed) ## Romance, Happiness, Humour, Drama (Slight), Serious ## Fantasy & SF (Slight)
Engine: NScripter
Fetishes: Femdom, Vore (Oral & Unbirth & GTS (Giantess) & Absorption & Misc.), Vanilla (Very Slight) ## Male MC ## Human & Magical & Monster & Succubus & Demon & Angel & Artificial & Undead & Misc. Girls ## Kinky (Slight), Foreplay, Sex ## Multiple Partners, Pegging (Very slight) ## Lips & Pussy & Breasts & Ass & Monstrous & Artificial & Undead Fetish ## Corruption, Drain, Mind Control, Size Difference (Very Slight), Status Effects (Very Slight), Tentacles, Water Sports (Slight)
Links: DLsite
Finally here. A long time coming, honestly. On of the biggest Monster-Girl-themed, Reverse-Rape, adult games out there. A true classic by this point. A game I honestly enjoyed way back, fully completed, and then searched through the similar game categories (which slowly got me into more and more games...). I'll admit that I'll possibly be Subjective about this game Series (I did enjoy it a lot, after all). However, this is why I have this system put in place, to distinguish between Subjectivity and Objectivity, as much as possible.
Also, important to note, the games can be played together (for the Full Story experience), as they can essentially be Combined. Therefore, most that play this full series use only one ".exe" executable, making it feel like it's just a game. However, it is a game series, both released separately (you still need to purchase each of the 3 Parts separately), and in the sheer size of each Part (worthy of being considered individual parts, and the whole being a game series).
Review Contents (links to each part):
Review TL;DR:
All Scores:
================ Plot = 10
======== Story = 10
======== Characters = 10
================ Gameplay = 8.74
======== Mechanics = 9.5
======== Complexity = 7.5
======== Uniqueness = 10
======== Replayability = 8
================ Scenes = 8.5
======== Visual = 8
======== Audio = 9
======== Written = 9
======== Interactivity = 7.5
======== Replayability = 9
================ Development = ----
================ Obtaining = 8
======== Price = 7.5
======== Methods = 8.5
================ FINAL SCORE = 8.81
QuickView
This game series is a real big-shot among the Monster Girl games, one of the biggest in sheer size and content offered, and also being of quality, employing a plethora of Visual Artists for the CGs, having an incredible Soundtrack, and even making use of a bit of nice Voice Acting. A bit high in cost, but, much like with the great classics, it's good to know where many others took inspiration from, and pay respects to said Inspirations.
Full Review
Plot = 10
Story = 10
Luka, the Shota MC of this game, is aspiring to become an adventurer, and has trained for a while in his Village to finally become one. With a chance occasion, he gets to do some "hero"-ing by saving his home village by a sudden Slime girl appearance. However, this was also the day in which he was supposed to receive his once-in-a-lifetime baptism by the Goddess Ilias at the Church. Will he be able to get said baptism, to properly start his adventure? Why was he so weak against the first enemy, and barely managed to squeak out a win? And, most importantly, will he become the True Hero he so wishes to be? Ironically asking, as the game still proceeds to happen, with the same MC as the protagonist (no early switcheroo, as some other games *Coughs* Danganronpa V3 *Coughs* would)
I'll be honest, this Story is genuinely Huuuuuge! I can't humanly try to Recap it here (unless we're to really offset this Review and make it Story-heavy as hell). If you really wish to get even more of the Story (without following it yourself through the game, if you're the type to Skip straight to battles): first, what is wrong with you? The Story is like half this game series' charm! But, second, I suggest you read on the Wiki all the details you wish. I'll be only going through what amounts to a Sum-up^2, as brief as possible.
Starting from the veeeeery beginning.... In the beginning (Billions of years in the past), 2 beings were born, Ilias, the Goddess of Light, from the Light of the Universe, and Alice I, from the Darkness. After thousands of years, due to loneliness, Ilias created the Angels as poor copies of herself. Not satisfied, she found a world of primitive life and there, she shaped the world to end up creating the Humans. On the balance, Alice I created the Monsters. Due to the Monsters leaving parasitically off of humans, a thousand years into the past (so about thousands of years more from the point the 2 Goddesses found this World) the 2 Goddesses waged war upon one another and between their creations (the "Great Monster Wars"), that, because of Ilias being more willing to sacrifice the safety of the entire world in a bid to win the war, ended with Ilias' victory, by convincing Alice I and the progenitors of all the Monsters, the Six Ancestors, to seal themselves in order for Ilias to not destroy the Monsters. In the Seal, Alice I also included the stipulation that, if Ilias were to actually break her promise, the Seal would also come undone. Therefore, from then on, to work-around that limitation, Ilias would continue to inspire Heroes in quests to defeat the next Monster Lords in her stead. The world got to worship her as the true Goddess (except for the Monsters themselves, Hellogondo, their home continent, and Yamatai village), and Ilias also made 5 Commandments for humans to respect, those being related generally to revering her and her only as the true Goddess, and also to not have Intercourse with Monsters (possibly an early attempt to reduce the Parasitic effect of the monsters on the humans, at least the erotic side of things). The Heroes would also get Baptised on Ilias' birthday, to make their Semen taste "like Angel liver" (not a good taste, allegedly), as another deterent for previously-mentioned intercourse. Aside from this making Monsters also prone more to lethaly engaging the Heroes, as opposed to attempting more erotic, but survivable, tactics, I would also argue that the Monsters heavily reliant on Semen for their own survival would end up biting the bullet and taking the Semen, regardless of the taste. Also, since only the Heroes got said Baptism, this would inevitably make Monsters be more inclined to attack hapless civilians instead of the better-prepared Heroes. Really, Ilias' plans do have their biases.
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| Goddess Ilias, as seen by her zealots. |
It might not have been clear already, but Ilias is far from a good being, despite being the Goddess of Light. Indeed, this game might have been one of the first, or simply few, ones that dared ask the question "why would Divinity be implied as good?". Of course, Luka, being one of the people in that World, would start his quest also worshiping Ilias, even while his own beliefs, that of coexistence, being in implied conflict with Ilias' teachings. Luka's father, Marcellus, had been a Hero, whose party faced Alice XVth, and defeated and killed her in the past (as that Alice also wished for coexistence, but wrongly decided on sacrificing herself to achieve it). His father became extremist in Ilias' teachings as a result of his party being half-wiped by Alice XVIth, the daughter that retaliated upon seeing her mother being killed. Thus, Marcellus and Lazarus, the other surviving Party member (the total Party was of 4, and one of the killed one was also Marcellus' love interest at that point) founded an Terrorist group called Ilias Kreuz. Marcellus would end up falling back in love, at a later date, with Lucifina, Luka's mother, and would also end up slowly losing his hatred for monsters, turning into actually helping them instead. Later on, Lazarus would find out about this (him still being radicalized), and, in venting his frustration on Marcellus due to their disagreement, accidentaly ends up killing him. He then lied about it and blamed it on Monsters, further damaging Human-Monster relations.
Now back to Ilias, and the past. What other attrocities has she caused? First, she saved Alice VIII (also known as Black Alice) from her imminent death at the hands of Heinrich, a hero who would end up becoming legendarily known for hundres of years. She planned on using Alice VIII as a pawn in controlling the Darkness of the World indirectly. Her Scientist angel, Promestein (who she had previously imprisoned as she, in the past, provided the Fire to the humans, Ã la Prometeus), was then released, to work together with Black Alice in creating Chimeras, artificial Monsters (thus, Ilias also having Monster-like troops at her disposal). At some point, Heinrich also got to grow disillusioned with Ilias, and in fact went directly against her in the end, going on a killing spree on Angels in the process. He was defeated in the end, and was punished by Ilias by having his very Soul be sealed in the Sealed Sinner's Prison. Fast-forward 470 years (only 30 years from the Main Story). Remina, the only human city on Hellgondo, was the closest to achieving true coexistence. Ilias was against that, so she invaded the city with angels and chimeras, destroying it completely (the "Slaughter of Remina"), and leaving the incident to be blamed unjustly on the Monsters of the continent. Her actions accross the years have made some of her followers distance themselves from her, namely her 2 strongest, and first, angels, Lucifina and Micaela. Indeed, Luka's mother was an Angel, hidden in the human world, ending up dying still being hidden, while leaving Luka a ring as a memento to wear, which also doubled as a seal on Luka's potential angelic powers (of course, without him being aware of it).
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| Ilias, as seen by objective observers. |
The first thing Luka finds, after entering the forest after having defeated that first slime girl that appeared in the village, is a crash-landed Alice XVI. He simply sees her as an unconscious Monster girl, and decides to help her, without knowing she's the current Monster Lord. The reason Alice was knocked out and crash-landed in the forest it's because she decided to attempt an attack on Ilias as she got down from Heaven for the Baptism, managing to wound her before being easily dealt with. Because of this, Luka had no chance of receiving the Baptism, even if he were to get to the Church on time (however, he did not know this fact). The lack of the Goddess coming in that day made Luka dejected for a bit, but alas, after being followed back home by Alice and berated some more, he decides to continue his quest regardless of being unbaptised. Thus, his adventure, next to the supposed final boss, the Monster Lord (who will not help him in the fights, and simply spectate from the sidelines) begins!
Alice did not simply become the Monster Lord via succession. She also had to answer any Challengers to the throne, and in her case, she had a record amount of strong-enough Monsters to challenge her throne, a total of 4. To settle the matter, they had a Battle Royale, out of which Alice ended up the last one standing, and thus succeeded the Throne. The Challengers then aknowledged her strength and became the "4 Heavenly Knights" (not sure why "heavenly", could be something that makes more sense in Japanese), to keep serving her as well. At some point afterwards, Alice decided to travel the World, and during said travel, she decided to attack Ilias as she did, leading to the events of the Main Story. She also wishes for Coexistence, although she hides that behind an apparent stoic facade.
Long story short, for the next big chunk of the game, Luka travels the World, trying to get to Hellgondo, where the Monster Lord's castle resides, and then fight and defeat the Monster Lord. Alice provides him with the Angel Halo, a special sword that can seal monsters (by eating their magic instead of physically harming them), thus allowing Luka to properly fight the Monster Girls in his way without holding back. He also does realise early in the adventure Alice's real position, but regardless they continue their travels, as Luka grows stronger and more knowledgable of the world, gets trained by Alice to learn some new skills along the way, makes contracts with each of the 4 Elemental Spirits to gain their power, and also touch upon quite a few moral quandaries, generally revolving around his own current ideals. For example, to try to understand how Coexistence could be achieved, what stood in its way, how his faith in Ilias hindered him in that regards, how others would react to his efforts in creating Coexistence, from both sides, even what it means to be a True Hero.... Meanwhile, as Luka shaped his ideals some more, Alice's actual plan was to also help in creating said Coexistence, however taking a page from her mother's book and sacrificing herself in the "Final" battle with Luka, being a proper "Monster Lord" (to atone for what she did upon her mother's death). Luka gets stronger, ends up also defeating the Heavenly Knights one by one, to then have the Climatic fight with Alice and win against her too. However, this is where the story enters the next stage.
All along the journey, Ilias still appears in Luka's dreams, continuing to encourage Luka to continue his quest, even if he currently has friendly relations with monsters (as she choses to overlook those for now), or makes use of help from both Monsters and the Elemental Spirits (she views it from a strictly utilitarian point of view). However, upon defeating Alice, he now has the choice of landing the killing blow on her, as well. Luka refuses at that point, convincing Alice that this would not be the right way of doing things, and causing Ilias herself to come down to confront him on his decision, leading to him finally having a talk with Ilias addressing his true wish for coexistence. Of course, Ilias refuses the notion, and this forces Luka to finally rebel against her, to adhere to his true ideals of coexistence. Thus marks the point in which Ilias truly becomes the main Antagonist of the game, as she leaves the Castle, to have it be attacked by her troops instead, those being chimeras led by Promestein and specially-crafted chimeras,called "Next Dolls", which are geared specifically to deal with each Heavenly Knight. After having minor success against the angels (as the Angel Halo is also capable of Sealing the angels), Promestein's actual plan takes effect, this being both Sealing the Elemental Spirits that Luka had been borrowing power from, and also applying the Six Ancestor's Seal on Alice, heavily turning the tides against the good guys. Only with a timely arrival from Tamamo with a special Biological Weapon from before do they manage to fend off the enemies, which then retreat back to Remina (the area where Remina had been before). Regardless, Luka continues the pursuit, even weakened as he currently was (by the lack of the Elemental Spirits).
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| When your favorite unbaptised hero rebels, then dodges your Thunder of Judgement and dares give you lip. |
Afterwards, Ilias does mention that she would have reconsidered her whole plan if an unbaptised hero would have fullfilled his mission, but saying it after being rebelled against doesn't make for a convincing argument. Her current plan is to make use of her partners-in-crime, Promestein and Black Alice, to remake humanity, by making a new generation of humans and wiping the current world of the old humans. Now, how good is it, on the long-term, to work with such unlikely allies?....
I've already gotten into a lot of detail, so let's speedrun through the middle part. The whole world gets attacked by Ilias's troops, and so, Luka and Co. deal with these attacks accross the previously-visited locations. Among the places attacked, Luka's home village is also numbered, and destroyed as a result. Seeing the wreckage, and the leftover angels, Luka's Ring finally breaks because of his Rage, allowing his Angelic powers (that were alluded to along the journey) to show in full. Fortunately, most of the villagers were saved by Micaela by Teleporting them to Enrika village when the attack started, and thus reducing the casualties to a minimum. Now, both the Human kingdoms and the Monster rulers plan together on taking the fight back to the enemy, by first having the Heavenly Knights deal with the 4 towers that were Sealing the Elemental Spirits, and thus also make the Angelic Energy weaken, allowing for Angels to be hurt and Heaven to be entered through the Navel of the World. Luka goes at said location, to enter the freshly-revealed Heaven, with his Spirit powers also back. In heaven, after being joined by a now-unsealed Alice and dealing with Eden (an obsessively-loyal High-Angel), they face off against Promestein, who reveals that indeed, there was no honor among thieves. While she and Black Alice did work with Ilias, they were actually plotting betraying her, using the White Rabbit drug they developed in secret to have Black Alice defeat Ilias, after first using the Six Ancestor's Seal back on the Goddess to further weaken her, and then absorb her, becoming a being of both Dark and Holy Energy. Similarly, Promestein powers up with her own White Rabbit drug to defeat Luka, but eventually fails.
Luka and Alice then confront Black Alice, who has already absorbed Ilias and powered up. After a long-fought battle, through multiple, progressively more grotesque, forms, Black Alice gets defeated. Now, for another plot twist, Ilias comes out of the remains, as all of this was according to the plan. Yes, the classic 5-dimensional strategy of intentionately letting yourself be betrayed to end up using said betrayal to your advantage. Ilias had to go through this whole hassle to be capable of absorbing Dark energy (as otherwise, she would have not been able to do so; in that regards, it seems like Dark-aligned creatures are at a slight advantage). She also, much like Black Alice, aimed to become a being of both Dark and Holy energy, now truly omni-potent. Sadly, she still has to defeat the heroes to finish her plans. And, even sad-lier for her, this story ends with a happy ending. After another arduous, long, battle, through multiple new forms, Luka finishes her using an Finisher-type, long-charge-type attack, as his allies defend him one-by-one whilst charging the attack.
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| "Now this, this IS my FINAL FORM!" - some inSaiyan guy |
After this True Final Battle, Luka's body started breaking down due to the Angelic Energy not being easily contained by his human body. However, the now-fading, defeated, Ilias, finally has a change of heart and cures Luka of this problem, using the last of her powers, to finally do an action befitting of the Goddess she wished to have been. I'll be honest, with all the expected hatred we'd have for Ilias and her actions, she had been suffering from loneliness for more time than we can even imagine. As the characters end up remarking afterwards, transient beings (such as humans, and generally, biological beings with an implied expiration date to themselves) cannot really begin to understand the thoughts of a truly immortal being, and how something as normally minor as loneliness can affect them over the course of entire ages. I don't mean she should have not been defeated, only that we should understand how she came to make her decisions, that led to her demise.
From here, the story ends happily, with true Coexistence having been successfully achieved in this now-Godless world. Luka and Alice also remain together, at least for Luka's human lifetime.
No exagerations, this story is really well-done. The narration is done from the 1st Person, Luka's thoughts being both directly shown in this way, and also his perspective being shown as being the main one used in this Story (with few small segments of Third-person narration, when showing events happening far from the MC). The story is solid enough to immerse the player in it, even disregarding the Adult element of it. It is a long story, but almost, if not all, the elements employed by it have a proper purpose to serve, with plenty of plot-points being cleverly forshadowed, showing that the story was prepared extremely well in advance. The story also plays on some common tropes, turning them on their head, while still being a serious plot with its own unique take on said tropes, seamlessly linking them and making a coherent timeline of events. Not only that, but even plenty of deeper themes are being discussed, with different possible solutions being offered for them. Even considering this, the story is easy to get into, not being overly complex and easing the player into the more involving matters, such as the deeper themes employed smoothly in certain arcs of the story. I really believe one could easily write essays on this story, it can be broken down as nicely as a proper novel, or a movie.
It is not flawless, of course. I don't really believe any story would be really flawless for that matter, but plenty can reach reasonable levels of quality to be virtually indistinguishable from perfection for most people. I did give 10 for Story in the past though.... Ah well. Upon closer view of some plot aspects, some degrees of "convenience" can be observed. It is something that can be done within a soft magic system, when no hard boundaries are set beforehand to truly necessitate some forcing of the plot in the right direction. Still, for the adventure that this story is, it generally abides quite well by its own logic, without causing immersion-breaking moments of realisation of potential plot-holes.
I genuinely enjoyed the plot of this game. Really came in looking for Horny, and remained for the Story. Rare for the overly-used, crowded, Shonen fantasy adventure genre to reach such quality.
Characters = 10
While a lot of this has already been described in the Story section.... Some certain aspects we can also point out here. The characters (the ones relevant for the Plot; a lot of them, at that) employed in this story have multiple dimensions to them. They feel truly fleshed-out, and the ones involved directly in the main quest visibly evolve as the story progresses. Each one of them has its own intricacies and their own backstory, influencing who they currently are and how they behave in-story. Essays could also be written on their Characterization, as it's shown in the Plot of this game series.
Of course, this really applies the most to the characters more relevant for the main Plot. The Story itself introduces a huge number of characters, from all the Monster Girls and enemies faced, to the Supporting characters, even to almost non-noteworthy NPCs that get to have 1-2 important roles to fulfill regadless. You can even check some Lore on a lot of them (that have Combat Encounters, at least) from the Monsterpedia!
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| 10 (Almost) full pages to read through, admire their CGs, and replay their Encounters & Scenes.... |
Onto Spoiler territory, once again....
Starting with Luka, the iconical MC. Even as he starts as a typical optimistical, innocent, righteous type, he already has depth to his character in his backstory. He had to go through tough times, dealing with the past semi-xenophobia of the villagers to his relatively-newcomer family, dealing with his Father's death, then his Mother's succumbing to a passing illness, then grow alone and maintain an Inn to survive, all the while training to become an Adventurer on his own. All of this, holding the genuine belief for the Co-existence between Monsters and Humans, one of his Core traits that would even supersede his faith in the Goddess Ilias. He does, all the same, start his adventure unknowing of the world at large, and of many other circumstances within it, still being naive and easily tricked. Slowly, he evolves, slowly addressing each of the obstacles in his way, both the more physical ones, and the ones in the way of his own Ideals. Thus, not only does he improve as a hero, gaining more abilities and skills along the way, but he also improves mentally, seeing plenty of different perspectives, issues and solutions tied to the very concept of Co-existence, in the end maturing into a true hero, both in Body and Mind (as his Soul undoubtedly was of a Hero from the beginning).
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| Luka, along his journey. |
Alice (the 15th), the current Monster Lord, during the early journey, serves as the mentor-type to Luka, the one with knowledge of the world and of some of the cruelty that can be met. Even still, she wishes for the same ideals as Luka, however in her own way of making those happen. She still has more to learn, much like Luka, and therefore, during their quest, she also changes (albeit not as much as Luka himself), finding other ways to achieve her final goal other than self-sacrifice, and ending up fighting side-by-side with the Hero, against the common new enemy they will find in Ilias, the Tyranical Goddess.
As said previously, Ilias, being an immortal Goddess, is a wholy different being than the rest of the characters present in the story. The only one presently in the plot that could get close to her existence could be Tamamo, and even then, she is only one of the Six Ancestor Monsters. Thus, it's hard for anybody, including us the players, to fully comprehend how her minset could change along the years. She is clearly the True Antagonist of the story, and she had to be defeated for the proper "happy ending" to be achieved, but it can also be argued she really never had a choice in how she led her existence, in constant pursuit of companionship, and later, adoration and worship. Again, I'm not at the point of saying "Ilias did nothing wrong", but, really, her existence amounts to a prolonged, drawn-out, drama, as she was ultimately doomed to fall to her own schemes, being defeated by the very hero she first called out for help and progressively helped improve and grow. Whilst normally hating her for what she stands for, as we should generally with Antagonists of such level, I really love her character itself, and what's implied by her existence within the story. An (almost) unapologetic villain with actual plans, understandable reasons, and yet still with a fitting ending. Just perfect.
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| Love to Hate & Hate to Love |
For a few, very lucky, enemies, there is Voice acting, although clearly rare enough (among a proper sea of enemies) to make it an unique treat rather than a rule. A notable thing will be their "Hooora~"s. Really, this is this game's "Araaa~", and there is even a [Youtube Compilation] of all the "Hooooora~~"s of the game. Listen to it, preferably on Repeat, before sleep. Will certainly make for a high-quality sleep.
Gameplay = 8.74
Mechanics = 9.5
Simple to understand, as it is a almost-completely linear RPG. Apart from the usual VN controls used during the normal story segments (the basic Skip/Auto/Backlog/etc. functions of any decent VN; you should be used to those by this point), you also get very ocassional VN choices, most of them being "flavor" choices with not much gameplay consequences. Rarily, you might get the choice between having a certain Combat or not, or to either have an H-scenes (almost always leading to a Bad End) or not. You also get Map segments, in which you choose in which order to tackle the main locations of your quest in the area you currently are in. However, in this Map segments, you only get a small amount of actual choice to actually make overall, being able to skip some optional areas (this could lead to a lower "level" later on, although, given the scripted nature of the setup of most combat encounters, highly unlikely).
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| The World Map, with all 3 Continents and the main areas of the Sentora continent |
But let's get to the good stuff, the RPG! Your in-battle options are the general ones expectable from an RPG: the normal Attack, the Skills, and Guard, with some (relatively) unique additions, such as Struggle (selectable only during Holds), Wait (not doing any action, not even Guarding), Surrender and Request (a Surrender that lets you choose one of the Enemy attacks you've already Seen on the Meta Save to be used to defeat you). As for Stats, you have your HP, being the Left green bar at the bottom, with the Enemy's HP bar being right next to it, to the Right. As in most games, the person that hits 0 HP is defeated (unless an Event has to happen first, in specific battles). You also have SP, needed for most of the Skills you can use. SP is generated either by doing normal Attacks (making this option still relevant, even after learning Skills) or, later on, by summoning the Fire Spirit (Salamander). More on Spirits later. Most combats you start at max SP, much like with HP, although a few encounters, in which you get "surprised" will also start you on no initial SP. Orange SP circles count as one, and Blue, bigger, SP circles count as 5 (this is used later on, when your max SP increases to that degree). From this HUD, you can also see, to the very left of the Menus, when you summon Spirits, the specific icons for each, during their effect, while enemy's summoned spirits (later on) show up on the right side in much the same way. Finally, even your small portrait serves a purpose: to show when you're afflicted with certain debuffs, such as Aroused, Charmed, Seduced, Trance-d etc., and even when you're Bound (in a Hold). This also means that, aside from being Bound, no 2 debuffs can be active at the same time (although this fact is never relevant in the game).
The Skills menu is one that keeps on changing along the adventure, much like your max HP and SP values. You start the game with Edging, costing 0 SP and reducing your HP to only 1 (another Surrender-type skill). This skill is, much like the rest of the Surrender options from before, never useful in battles. You also soon learn Flail Wildly, costing 2 SP and dealing multiple, inaccurate and weak, hits to the enemy (this one is useful in some very specific event-driven Combats). You'll continue to learn more skills progressively, each with its own SP cost. First, the 4 main attack skills each come with different traits (and advantages), such as getting First Strike or only being usable in areas in which you have a vertical wall to climb onto (thus, in specific Combats that fit said description for their location). In this menu you'll also have Meditate, your Heal skill, costing 3 SP and healing half of your max HP. Later on, you'll also learn "upgrades" to your attack skills, those being automatically replaced with their better versions ("Flail wildly" itself is first replaced by a proper attack skill, before also getting an "upgrade"). The "upgraded" skills also have different SP costs (generally, bigger costs, to account for Luka having a bigger max SP later in the game). Close to the end, you get another skill, "Elemental Spica", which is an attack using all Elements, doing a lot of damage, but also costing a whole 9 SP (rarely needed, aside from a mandatory use in a special Combat). Finally, around the middle point into the story, you will also learn an unique skill on this Skill page, "Quadruple Giga", which is really only used during the very last fight of the entire game (in its usage, one needs to charge it 4 turns, a turn for each element to be applied to the attack, whilst not taking any damage or hits for any of those turns; not doable in really any of the other Combats, aside from the event-driven end of the Final Battle, or some few, funny, Imp-ish Situations). TL;DR: don't worry about it.
However, the Skills don't stop here. When you start being able to summon Elemental Spirits, one by one, you'll gain access to a 2nd Skill page where the Spirit Summon skills will be. Summon skills can have varying SP costs, much like the other Skills. There are 4 Elemental spirits, one for each of the 4 elements: Wind, Earth, Water and Fire (and you also initially gain them in this order). "Summoning" a spirit works like having a Buff of their Element, however, not simply changing the element of your attacks, but each having its own uses, characteristics and advantages. Being Buffs, they also each expire after a certain amount of turns, requiring re-summoning of them (and thus, paying the SP cost again). Early in the game, you are not able to have multiple Spirits summoned at the same time, but that limitation will dissapear later in the game. To have an idea of how unique the Spirit traits are: Wind increases the general evasion of Luka, helps dodging weak, multi-hit attacks, and is very effective against Plants. Earth increases the Defense, helps in tanking strong attacks, makes Struggling out of Holds much more effective, and is effective against Insects. Water, after an upgrade, becomes a separate "State", in which almost no enemy attack can hit you, but you also consume 1 SP per turn stayed in this state (while not having an initial SP cost) and don't generate SP via normal attacks. The Water "State" is ended either by running out of SP, or by using its associated attack skill ("Serene Demon Sword"). The first, and final upgraded form of Water, works like a separate Dodge-chance, more suited for Seduction-type attacks, Tentacle attacks and whatnot. Finally, Fire restores your entire SP on use (after paying the initial SP cost), however you cannot use Meditate during the Fire "buff". Much like the normal attack skills of the previous page, this Summon skills will also gain "upgraded" versions in time. Not only that, but each of the 4 Elemental Spirits have an associated Attack skill that, if executed with the proper Elemental "buff" active (after learning them during the story), deals increased damage. Keeping up with the trend of "Situational" Combat, Spirits won't always be available (depending on the story progression). At some point, some separate skills will be temporarily learned to hold the place of some of them. Again, best to go through the Story normally and deal with those moments as they come. Also, considering Luka's general Fighting style later in the game, he's best classified as a Spirit Summoner Spellsword (as he will heavily rely on his Spirit friends to aid him in battle).
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| All the in-combat Menus, as they show in the Combat with the Elder Succubus (~Mid-game) |
Now, as for the enemy attacks, they can simply normally attack you, inflict you with debuffs, put you into a Hold, even use their own Elemental Spirits (later in the game) or preparing a specially strong attack or changing into a special Stance, that would Counter your next attacks. As for the Holds, during them, most of your usual Skills are restricted, save for the normal Attack and the Struggle option. The Struggle option is what you'll use to get out of the Hold, needing to use it multiple times, depending on enemy's strength, and if you have the Earth Spirit (Gnome) summoned (some Holds being impossible to struggle out of without the Earth Spirit summoned). Attacking during holds is generally either ineffective, or much weaker, with only a few special Combats needing to Attack, instead of Struggle, out of a Hold. Enemies can also Drain your stats, the most common being the HP drain, but some also being able to Drain your SP, or, very rarely, even your Level (only resulting in reduced stats for the rest of that Fight).
With all of this informations being noted, this game truly is mainly linear and fixed in the Combat Situations, while also being very "Situational" in a lot of said Combats. You could see, in the picture provided above, your Options menu showing RPG info on Luka such as his stats and his Equipment. Those are mainly for Flavor, as they aren't manually changeable at all. Luka "levels up" during his Adventure at arbitrary moments, mostly having set stats for each Combat encounter. The Situational aspect comes in the various differences brought by each Fight. While there are plenty of them functioning more along the lines of a normal RPG battle (simply needing clever usage of the given Skills to beat the enemy), in a huge number of situations, the Battle will require specific Skill usages to adapt to the given enemy or enemy strategy. Due to this, almost all the given Skills get a moment to be used, including even the usually-neglected Guard (to protect against particularly-strong attacks, some of which being capable of one-shot-ing you otherwise), or using Attack during a Hold. Even provided with all the given information about each attack skill and Elemental Spirit features, there can still be unique Combats with different needs that you'll have to take into consideration. Some combats are Event-driven heavily, such as your first few battles in the game, in which you "barely" manage to beat your enemy due to unique (that is, event-offered) strategies (still requiring, at times, using certain Skills to either properly win the battle, or still be able to lose it). There are even some rare "Easy" fights, that, unless intentionately making the worst choices, you cannot normally lose.
Considering all of this, it is best to consider the game as a Faux Puzzle RPG, as there will be specific "correct" strategies in each Fight that you'll have to figure out to win. This goes doubly so in Hard mode, where more enemy attacks are possible (some of their attacks are not available during the Normal mode), and where you will need to both play each Fight as close to perfection, and also have a bit of luck on your side (or well-prepared Saves in advance of each Fight). Hell mode is really only accessible from the Monsterpedia entry of each enemy Fight, and is generally impossible without the proper RNG on your side. On the subject of Monsterpedia, to unlock the entry in it for each attack of each enemy, you'll have to experience it at least once (regardless of on which Save it happened), and you also cannot Request to be defeated by attacks you have not seen previously. Playing in Hard mode is recommended to see all the possible enemy attacks, without restrictions.
To account for how different each Encounter can be (and thus, most certainly cause you to lose plenty of times during your playthrough), the game also has an Evaluation mechanic. Through this mechanic, after proceeding with a loss after a battle, you're given the option to hear an evaluation, by Ilias, of your recent loss. This generally starts with arguably harsh remarks at your expense, for losing to the current enemy (considering that your losses generally bring H-scenes with them, those might be a great factor in Ilias' negative opinion on you during the evaluations), before she starts roughly describing the enemy and outlining possible strategies for you to use against them. Regardless of choosing to hear the Evaluation or not, you can then return to the previous Encounter, to retry it (so you're not forced to rely on Saves to avoid Bad Ends).
I did like the fact that, in this game, I really had to generally think about the features of each of the Skills at my disposal, and even look out for the enemy's attacks and actions to be able to properly defeat them. The game is impressive in the ability to have Battles with varying degrees of uniqueness and immersion to each. However, that is made possible by the game being extremely Linear, as noted previously, with the Battle initial situations (your stats, for example) being predetermined for each Combat. In a sense, this game does feel like the Visual Novel of RPGs, moreso than an RPG adapted into a VN engine. While this leads to interesting Puzzle RPG situation (thus, focusing on the Strategy part of an RPG, with only a bit of RNG involved), this also means wholly removing the Grind aspect of a normal RPG (as your stats, for each Combat, will generally be the same regardless, without the possibility of Over or Under leveling or Equipping). All considered, it is certainly an unique VN experience.
Complexity = 7.5
As stated previously, the complexity of this game is shown within figuring out the right strategy for each encounter, rather than the more-commonly employed Grind of most RPGs. Considering both that, and the presence of the Evaluations mechanic to get hints about the proper "solution" needed, it's not hard to figure out what to do in each battle. Even the battles involving unique situations are "solvable" much in the same way. Of course, to receive hints, you will need to lose at least once per each fight that you want the hints on. Still, the removal of many other RPG elements greatly simplified the "RPG ecuation" you would have considered in most cases. There is the option of changing the difficulty of the game between the standard 2 difficulties, "Normal" and "Hard", or the other 2 unique difficulties, "Hell" (from the Monsterpedia) if you feel particularly masochistic in that day, or "Ex" (which makes you one-hit kill everything). However, between the Normal and Hard difficulty, the Hard difficulty makes your strategies need to be tighter (without as much leeway for mistakes or variations), and, at times, relies on a bit of RNG too (or rather, is weak to particularly bad RNG). Not the best way to scale up difficulty, but decent enough.
 |
| A monster's (Scylla) Monsterpedia page, on the Recall Tab |
The game mechanics, all things considered, are not overly complex, either. While certain stats are still taken into calculation in the background (such as your Attack and Defense values), considering how limited their range of variation is, given the linearity of the game, there isn't that much needed to work "behind-the-scenes". The game still branched considerably from the VN norm, and quite appreciably in this, but overall, it's still much simpler than most actual RPGs in its complexity. For some, this might actually be a good thing, making the game more approach-able by a more casual audience. Others might regret the missing Grind of this game, and even consider just how better the game would have been, in a proper RPG form. Well, to the latter group, it's good to consider the fact that the sequel series, MGQP, still exists to fulfill said needs.
Uniqueness = 10
Depends on what category you wish to class this game as. For an RPG in a VN engine, while still a more unique subgenre, by this point, it's not the only one on this scene, although it was among the first really going in that direction, and also one of the better, more official, ones. However, considering it, much more fittingly, as an VN with RPG interactivity added to it, to better immerse the player in the experience, does set it apart even further. In this way, it really is one of a kind. Even if you wished to argue the usage of a VN engine, a thing many other games can also do.... in all honesty, just how many games really use the NScripter engine? Vague one, this. Hell, I thought, for a long time, the game was actually made in Renpy (as this is one of the most popular VN engines, and can look similar to how this game looks).
Replayability = 8
The mechanics are there for this. The Monsterpedia, where you unlock entries for each enemy battle as you progress through the game, can be used to both read more on the game's lore, see the CGs of the enemy, or, case in point, replay its Battle (on all its avaliable difficulties), and even its H-scenes. It is actually possible to see slight differences between the Stats that you had in a battle in the Story, and its Replay through the Monsterpedia, but the differences are very minimal. It's also good to be able to try other difficulties of each battle, and there are separate entries for each subsequent battle (or general encounter) with the same enemy. Some entries only include H-Scenes (if there was no battle upon encountering said enemy).
Further going on the comparisons of this game's Battles with puzzles, that also comes back as a downside here. After figuring out how a battle works, and how best to handle it, there isn't much more of a gameplay incentive to replay it, as you'll rarely find greatly-different strategies to also work on that same battle). Of course, you might still wish to lose to the enemy, or some specific attacks of theirs, but that's enjoying its H-Scene contents, not the gameplay itself.
Of course, it's good to also point out the Modding Scene of the game. This always helps. The game itself provides easy support for modding (such mods are called "Side-Stories"), and there are some big Overhaul mods there too (that replace game files, and generally add a lot more content). Sadly, currently, none of the bigger Mod projects are fully finished, although the one with the most potential to see a Finish line, "NG+ - by Ecstasy", is still getting active development. Also, there is even a Doom-style Standalone game! Why not try it out?
Scenes = 8.5
Visual = 8
The visuals are quite detailed in almost virtually all cases, having nice CGs for each enemy and relevant ally (of course, the irrelevant, generic NPCs get the Colored-Shadow treatment instead). The CGs also have some degree of variations to them (although not a huge amount in most cases). A lot of enemies have multiple separate CGs for each of their possible different H-Scenes, or even for some of their attacks at times. There isn't much in the terms of animations, however. Some of the CGs are extremely good, and shine among the others. There is actually a great degree of CG differences within the game, and for a good reason too....
The artists involved in this game.... So many. This is also valid for both this game series and the MGQP one. If you don't believe it, there is a [Wiki Page] where are the artists involved in both game series are listed. You can also clearly see it in the CGs, all the varying different styles employed. In truth, while I could point out some more central artists to the games, it's really not doable to find a "main" artist, wether you consider the amount of total CGs made by each (relatively an equal number), or how many Main Characters of the story each has made (also pretty equally distributed). The sheer variation, combined with the total amount of individual enemies, does make for a bigger spread in style, making it very likely you'll find plenty of CGs you'll like among them. And also plenty you won't, just as much. One of the memes, among the community, was one artist's (Delphinus) "interesting" artistical choices in his characters. For reference, he drew most of the Monsters in Plantsect Village, and a relevant number of Angels too. While his artstyle could make a lot of sense for plant and insect Monster Girls, as for the angels.... They really are up there with the biblically-accurate angels. No disrespect meant for the Artist, it's just a different style in the end. Still, I would also not fault you for needing a breather after seeing some of them within the game.
 |
| Virtue Revel. A fine example of why an excess of anything can be bad. Especially multiple excesses. |
To be fair to him, he clearly wanted to go for that angle for the Angels (the unconventional one). Also, there are quite a lot of uniquely-looking Monsters in both game series, many of which might actually entice and scare you in equal measures. They do make sense in the context of the story too, they aren't simply forced in. For sure, there is something for almost everybody, in terms of styles.
 |
| Lamiaroid. She is actually cute and hot, in her own way... ....Am I just weird? |
Audio = 9
Rare to have such an unique Section for a game. A component that can be easily forgotten, in Adult games, can be the Audio (Background Music) of them. Plenty of them simply use the Default Tracks avaliable in the engine of choice, or some royalty-free, no copyright, music found online. The more official games make their own Soundtracks, having the resources to employ artists for their making, and generally have passable-to-great quality. Even The Three Charms game series, that I've [Reviewed] before, had some really-fitting, Oriental-styled, Tracks to it, a fact that I also pointed out in said Review. However, this game now, this has a lot, and I mean, A LOT, of completely original tracks. And excellent ones too, able to properly channel the emotion of the story beat they play on. There are, first, the more Casual ones, that you'll hear in the beginning of the adventure. As you progress, the Music themes of even the normal Fights will change, multiple times, towards the end getting to some excellent, simply killer, tracks. Just browse your "bgm" folder in your game, and see for yourself. There are some straight bangers in there. The crew making the music for the game is insanely good. The Sound effects used in most attacks also are quite good, and make the stronger attacks really carry the weight that they should.
I'll admit, not absolutely everything in the audio department is perfect. Namely, the loss-scene BGM. It's only one, the same one accross both MGQ and MGQP, and it can get grating after a while. Not horribly so, just a tad annoying, especially given just how many different Loss Scenes actually are in the game.
Written = 9
Much like with the main Story, the H-Scenes are just as well-written. In fact, almost all of them are quite written, as in, they are considerably long (at least compared with some other Loss H-Scenes in other games). Still, they do present themselves quite detailed and pair well with the CGs. The downside would be that the CGs, not having a huge variety in each individual Scene, can make it feel a bit drawn-out (as you'll see mostly the same CGs during the H-Scene).
The H-Scenes, as said previously, are almost all Loss Scenes after combat. They can vary according to which attack Luka lost in the end, and are written in their ending as Bad Ends, showing the prolonged aftermath of Luka losing to each of those enemies. There are certain H-Scenes that are part of the Story progression (and not caused by losing). And, considering both the amount of individual H-Scenes and what themes each have, they are also pretty varied. Given that some of the monster girls are so much different than others, it only makes sense.
Interactibility = 7.5
A great degree, if not almost all, the enemy attacks are erotic attacks, and that, coupled with the Holds, make all Combat encounters be H-Scenes of their own. Those have the most amount of Interactibility (as expected of RPG-like combat mechanics). Aside from that, the VN Loss Scenes don't have much in terms of change or variation that can be caused by the player directly, aside from continuing with each Dialogue line or Skipping through them.
Replayability = 9
The same Monster Encyclopedia works here, as well. You can Replay the Combat encounter itself, if you wish to see the H-Scenes more organically in action, or the Loss Scenes more directly. You can also view the CGs of the enemy separate, if you want to marvel at a favorite girl of your choosing, or if you wish to write a certain Review of the game and want to find a proper pic of a certain girl, without digging much through the game files. And given just the sheer amount of Enemies and H-Scenes that come for each, you really have a lot of ground to cover each time. Being able to Mod the game also helps here.
Development = ----
We'll see more in this section for the MGQP series, don't worry!
Obtaining = 8
Price = 7.5
The prices are a bit high in general, although it can be argued for the sheer amount of content you get in each one. First 2 games cost 2750 JPY or $20.01, with the last game being just a bit more, at 2860 JPY or $20.82. Can be high, and you might still wish for a Sale or Offer to purchase the games.
Methods = 8.5
On DLSite, as per usual. However, sadly, there currently isn't any way of getting all 3 games at once in some sort of Bundle (to have the games already patched into one from the beginning).
FINAL SCORE = 8.81
Indeed, it's quality as a big classic in the Monster Girl genre cannot be denied. If it were to be also sold in a bundled form (like other Circle Groups have also offered as options, such as Kokage no Izumi for the Demon Angel Sakura series, or even Tokinokogiri), and maybe even throwing on a small price reduction for the whole pack, it would be an extremely good proposition. The prices are a bit big, but I would highly recommend getting to play through this series at some point, whether you decide to wait on a Sale or Offer, or simply buying it in this way, to Support the Circle Group (which still currently develops games and general works).
Fluff (Intermission)
Top 4 Best Girls
Well, I did say I liked Ilias as a character a lot in the Review, so of course.... She's not here. Really, can't say I was particularly enjoying here Scenes, at least more than some of the others....
As such, I top this with Alma Elma instead! An incredible Succubus, with some depth to her characters, and, well, a hot body and even hotter H-scenes and even Fights. Her actions (and poses) speak for themselves, really.
 |
| I mean, am I wrong now? |
Continuing on, I also like Succubus Witch a lot. Again, very spicy H-scenes, good personality, and also having some of my favorite fetishes, such as a lot of Drain (even level Drain), some GTS (and even Vore), and all in all proper material for "studying".
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| Not to mention some creative uses for her magic using some of her clothing.... |
On the third spot I put Vampire. Not all the vampires, mind you, although I do think Bloodsucking can be very sexy, but she is especially hot, at least in her CGs. The other Vampires are also pretty good (just not this good).
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| She's too hot for even her own dress. |
Aaaand, on the 4th spot.... All the Succubi, really. They are all very hot, with maybe 1-2 exceptions (who would, at worst, be only avarage, and that's still pretty good in this game). I am aware the first 2 spots were also Succubi, however they were a bit above the rest.
I was thinking about this for a bit. At first, I was thinking of making a Compilation of almost all the girls by Delphinus, but that would actually have been bullying. Instead, I'll just make a small Reel of a few girls that, by their looks, really got me even more into the more Action-part, or Gameplay-part, of the game and story. Also, there are quite a lot of reasons why I did not like these Girls, from a H-Scene perspective (I can like their personality all I want otherwise).
Favorite Stuff in the Game
Quadruple Giga the Imp (first encounter). Funniest shit I've seen.
Least Favorite Stuff in the Game
That it ends. (Whyyy?)
Saves
Pretty Simple to imagine what the Saves are for. It has a Full-Clear of the game, with the Monsterpedia fully unlocked. Simple to go from here.
Other's Files
Wiki
Link to Main Page: [Here]
Link to Mods ("Side-Stories") Page: [Another "Here"]
A huge Wiki (for a proportionally huge-in-content game series), that's the wiki for both series (both for this Original one and the Paradox one). A bit more relevant for the Paradox in terms of gameplay info (considering the Linearity of the Original series), but it is quite good even for this series for the Mods of the game. The game actually has a relatively-alright implementation of Mods (which are called Side-Stories), and the community has taken advantage of this. Such a popular series this was, that some fans went the extra mile and even attempted stand-alone games too.
The only bad side of this is that there currently might not be as much Mod activity as in the past. After all, the new Paradox series is still ongoing, and people's attention most likely are drawn more to that currently.
Translation (Others')
<<<<======== Edit:11/17/2023
RogueTranslation's Patch
Link to Blog post (no link works on his blog, get my Reupload): [Dead blog links][My Reupload]
I'll be honest, I did predict this would happen, from the moment I saw there being only last upload link being active for the Translation. Ever since then, I downloaded the patch and kept it, ready to Re-upload it. Like now... If Rouge ever comes back and wants to be the one to host the files, I'll give the honors to do so back to him, but in the meanwhile, in the name of preservation, I'll share them myself (and unpassworded, unlike the rest of my files, since it's a Reupload)
Edit:11/17/2023 ========>>>>
Translation made by Rogue over the course of about 3 years, as the Parts of the series came out. The current latest patch (that I linked to) is the Final Translation for the Complete series (when you have all the Parts put into one already), but there should still be some past posts for separate Patches for each Part (if you, in pure madness, decide to only have the Parts individually). Keep in mind to only Save, in-game, where Rogue marks in the game as "Save Location" (because of how the translation works with it's characters, those are the proper places to actually Save without issues; they are quite often generally, at each relevant moment at the very least).
Rogue has worked hard on this Translation, and has even worked on a few other games. Sadly, he did decide to leave the Internet for good, as "RogueTranslation" at the very least. Well, maybe not as sad, considering it was his own decision, and he did leave behind quite the work done. I'm also surprised that his Blog is still being kept up, but, predictably, some of the hosts for the files he used have started to go down (they tend to do that in prolonged absences). In the worst case scenario, in which the last Host for the Final Patch for this game also goes down, I'll most likely host it myself here (while still making it extremely visible and known that Rogue is the one that made the Translation Patch, and I'm but merely preserving it), for that reason I kept a backup of his Patch. To that end, let me know when SolidFiles also goes down, to provide a fresh link for it here.
Yes, this post took a while to happen, I know. Well, there were the Holidays too. But, I'm still working on this series! Stay tuned, the next one is really worth checking out for the Files (most worked-on Files I ever did; no, really)
Meta_Review,Meta_Files,
MetaFiles_Saves,
MetaOthers_Info,
Developer_CircleGroup,
Language_English,
Progress_Complete,
Series_Parts,Series_Series,
TypeGame_2DGameplay,
TypeGenre_Adventure,TypeGenre_RPG,
TypeMood_Romance,TypeMood_Happiness,TypeMood_Humour,TypeMood_Drama,TypeMood_Serious,
TypeSetting_Fantasy,TypeSetting_SF,
Engine_NScripter,
StyleCGs_2DCGs,
StyleView_2DView,StyleMiscView_Censored,StyleMiscView_XRay,
Voices_Sfx,Voices_SceneDialogue,
FetishMain_Femdom,FetishMain_Vore,FetishMain_Vanilla,
FetishVore_OV,FetishVore_UB,FetishVore_GTS,FetishVore_Absorption,FetishVore_MiscVore,
FetishMC_MaleMC,
FetishChars_HumanGirls,FetishChars_MagicalGirls,FetishChars_MonsterGirls,FetishChars_SuccubusGirls,FetishChars_DemonGirls,FetishChars_AngelGirls,FetishChars_ArtificialGirls,FetishChars_UndeadGirls,FetishChars_MiscGirls,
FetishSex_Kinky,FetishSex_Foreplay,FetishSex_Sex,
FetishSubSex_MultiplePartners,FetishSubSex_Pegging,
FetishFocus_Lips,FetishFocus_Pussy,FetishFocus_Breasts,FetishFocus_Ass,FetishFocus_Monstrous,FetishFocus_Artificial,FetishFocus_Undead,
FetishSub_Corruption,FetishSub_Drain,FetishSub_MindControl,FetishSub_SizeDifference,FetishSub_StatusEffects,FetishSub_Tentacles,FetishSub_WaterSports,
Links_DLsite,
================================================================
UniqueDeveloper_TorotoroResistance,
UniqueSeries_MonsterGirlQuest,
2 comments:
MGQ is one of the OGs of monster girl games, was a good amount of peoples first monster girl game and was even a catagory on twitch for a short period of time-(pre Amazon)
Really? Holly shit, I would've shat myself laughing to see a Streamer play a nice good run of MGQ on Twitch! Man, I really did miss some good moments....
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