PopHorror Let's Get Scared
You made a game called Succubus…but it’s extremely censored? This is a game about a sex demon in Hell, riiiight? So why would you release a game like this, covered in censor blur? It’s distracting at first to see all the character designs blurred out, to the point the screen is mostly a reddish-pink blur. Yet the enemies with their very yonic, “Teeth” inspired heads are on full display. It shows a bizarre value system when boobs have to be blurred but hardcore violence and yonic designs are on full display.
What doesn’t help is the setup and writing of the game are a bit sleazy and juvenile from the word go. One of the first achievements is a pretty tasteless PMS joke.
Unfortunately, the game doesn’t even have modern graphics for the system it’s on. Instead, it looks more like mid PS3/X360 generation. Even the UI utilizes a pretty standardized font and contains frequent spelling errors.
Gameplay is one of the most frustrating parts of the game, inside and out. The game clearly wants to take inspiration from modern DOOM games, especially the action execution prompts. However, they fail to reach that level of exciting gameplay for several reasons. The controls are extremely clunky, needlessly enhancing the difficulty. Dark Souls this is not. Instead of the difficulty coming from a harsh, but balanced system, it comes from a poor control system, coupled with confusing UI and world design.
Also, unlike the two modern DOOM titles the game is clearly inspired by, the game is held back, rather than addicting because it doesn’t have an intriguing gameplay loop or soundscape. DOOM encourages the action by using it to regenerate health and uses the killer score of Mick Gordon. Instead, the audioscape here is sadly bare-bones.
Adding to the unpleasantness is an awkward attempt to mimic Uncharted and current EA titles’ “vertical exploration mechanics.” Every few areas, you have to climb along cliff faces, but unlike Uncharted there is no dynamic or interesting reason to be doing so in the console iteration. I presume the PC version has these for people that want to leer at their personal character, but this version is just more pixel blur.
One of the game’s climbing segments including onscreen HUD.
Now, while I can’t say I enjoyed this game, there is one area I’d like to compliment that you could tell the dev team put effort into. This would be the customization. From the design of your Succubus, to her lair, armor, and weapons, you can customize everything to your tastes. It is peculiarly thorough, including adjustable sliders for breast size, hip width, and body weight. Eat your heart out Cyberpunk 2077.
However, due to previously mentioned censorship and the designs of the majority of the armor, pretty much the only customizable parts not pixel blurred out are your Succubus’s face and her weapons. Trying to adjust either is time you won’t get back and doesn’t do much that one can visibly notice.
One notable feature is, each armor has specific power sets that differ from your base (nude, of course) model. Say you want to use the psychic minefield power instead of the default, you get to look like Leatherface sewed you a costume out of raw meat rather than skin. Even last-gen games gave you the option to “transform” costumes so you could keep your preferred aesthetic and the powers/stats.
Ultimately, the game wants to be sexploitation, but it seems the rating system for console games impeded its intended form, leading to a finished product that doesn’t really serve any consumer base. Your nerdy perverts aren’t going to want to play a game that censors the naughty bits, and your average horror gamers aren’t going to find it frightening. The action and challenges are, unfortunately, frustrating or tedious.
Succubus is available now in the PlayStation store for a suggested retail price of $24.99.
Disclosure: this review code was provided by the game’s development team, Madmind Studio. This has no influence on the final review or comments.
