Moero Crystal H

Genre: First-Person Dungeon Crawler / Monster Collecting Turn-Based JRPG

Players: 1

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Review:

Moero Crystal H, released on Nintendo Switch in 2020 after its original PlayStation Vita release never made it out of Japan, is the third game in the Genkai Tokki Moero Chronicle series, and the sequel to Moero Chronicle Hyper. This is a First-Person Dungeon Crawler / Turn-Based JRPG title with a decidedly pervy tone. Players head out on a quest to recover the holy relic The Bra of Darkness, recruiting cute monster girls to assist you by defeating them in a battle that involves destroying their clothes and rubbing them in sensitive spots to turn them to your side.

Okay, so whenever I review a particularly pervy game, I feel a need to preface the review by saying that I have nothing in particular for or against videogames that aim to be semi-erotic in nature. Rather, I try to judge the game on its qualities as a videogame, and to some extent on whether the erotic content actually works for the game or just seems egregious. So the question here is, is this a good game, and is the sexy stuff done well?

In terms of presentation, I can say that this game uses some very nice hand-drawn anime-style art for its character portraits, and some pretty rudimentary 3D for its dungeons. The art for the girls is, as you might hope given the game’s focus, really well-designed and full of personality, and the game’s 80 or so various monster girls are not only rendered in a variety of poses for story sequences, but in multiple costumes as well. The animation here is pretty simple, apparently just warping and stretching the still image rather than doing anything interesting with it, but they do at least make sure that all the appropriate parts jiggle whenever one of the monster girls takes damage.

The music that accompanies the visuals, likewise, ranges from decent anime-esque stuff to forgettable fare and even some that are outright bad. On the bright side though, the Japanese-only voice acting here seems pretty good, and from what I can tell it looks like the game is fully-voiced.

This game’s story is terrible to the point of absurdity, and honestly I respect it more for its outlandishness. Do not go into this game expecting anything even remotely resembling common sense. The game starts with a story about holy relics called The Panties of Light and The Bra of Darkness upon which rest the fate of the world, then we meet oblivious country-dwelling teen Zenox who wanders into a holy temple to witness The Bra of Darkness being stolen by a black seal-shaped thing (with a somewhat phallic head) and literally stumbling into shrine guardian Luanna, an angel girl whose first introduction to Zenox is naturally him accidentally stumbling and grabbing her boob. Soon, Zenox and Luanna are off to retrieve the missing holy lingerie, along with would-be Panties of Light thief and series mascot Otton (a pink seal-shaped thing with a phallic head), who is apparently the only one pervy enough to be able to use the secret power of the panties to purify monster girls corrupted by the bra.

So… yeah, this game definitely knows the tone it wants to go for, with zero shame and a healthy dose of Japanese weirdness. Either you’re onboard by the time you start fighting enemies that include scantily-clad fairies coming out of a pod of peas, flying saucers with boobs for a top half, and goblins wearing boxer shots on their head with a huge lump where the groin is… or you’re not. For those wondering, aside from the bare nipple on the boob UFOs, this game seems to refrain from any actual nudity, but there is so little left to the imagination throughout that it’s safe to say that this is a game that you probably won’t want to be playing in front of other people.

Is it sexy? At times, sure… but it’s also bizarre in that way only the Japanese can do, and it never crosses the line into full-fledged pornography so those looking to enjoy the game in that way may be a tad disappointed.

Okay, so I’ve gone on long enough about the presentation, how is the actual gameplay? Well, here I was kinda’ surprised. Where the previous game had some good ideas that failed to form a cohesive whole… Moero Crystal H is quite possibly the best First-Person Dungeon Crawler JRPG I’ve played since the Etrian Odyssey series.

The gameplay here starts out pretty basic as far as First-Person Dungeon Crawlers go, and at least at first doesn’t seem too different from Chronicle. The dungeons are fairly basic and straightforward, as is the elemental system-influenced combat with a combo system in place that gives bonus damage for repeatedly exploiting enemies’ elemental weaknesses. And as in the prior game, the male lead’s role in combat isn’t to fight, but to act as a pervy cheerleader of sorts, building up energy and releasing it onto one of the fighting girls in your party to power up her attack (occasionally getting too worked up and needing a breather). This must be weighed against the need to use items or flee, as Zenox is the only one who can do those things.

Also like the prior game, when enemies encounter a monster girl enemy, they can engage in a boss battle of sorts where they can target each element of her clothing to destroy them, resulting in the game going to “scratch” mode, where players move a cursor on the screen or use the touchscreen and rub her picture to try to find her weak points. Doing so within a limited time results in the girl joining your party. As previously mentioned, there’s something like 80 of these girls to collect, and this works out to be a Monster Collecting game something like Pokemon in that regard, with players trying to pick the right combination of girls to form a perfect team. Players may opt to pair girls who can build on each others’ elemental attacks with supplemental bonuses, or may prefer to diversify to get a better chance of getting elemental combos, just for a few examples of different approaches to building a team.

Here’s where Moero Crystal starts to diverge from Moero Chronicle. Up to 10 girls not in your active party of 5 can be paired up with your active roster as support, offering stat bonuses or occasionally jumping in to randomly deliver a blow in combat. This change makes a huge difference in justifying the need to “collect” so many girls, and replaces the prior game’s less-successful “pet” system.

Improvements have also been made to the game’s job system. Each of the girls has four collectable outfits that are more than just new eye candy – each comes with its own job class attached that changes not only the girl’s appearance but her stats and learnable skills that can be transferred over to other classes. Again, making these skills learnable actually gives players a reason to keep changing classes rather than just settling on one they like best.

These sorts of improvements seem to run through much of the game. Players have a “dating sim”-style affinity system which can be used to unlock further stat bonuses, an equipment upgrade system allowing them to power up rather than dispose of old equipment. There’s even a Shmup minigame that can be used to unlock girl-specific dungeons that can be used to access hidden skills.

Against all odds, Moero Crystal H’s many disparate elements combine to form a surprisingly compelling Dungeon-Crawler JRPG, with the caveat that its shameless perviness makes this a game that some won’t want to touch, and even those who play it may not want to do so around others. Still, if you’re looking for a game like Etrian Odyssey on the Nintendo Switch and aren’t put off by the absurd sexy pandering or extreme Japanese bizarreness on display here, Moero Crystal H is absolutely worth a look.

tl;dr – Moero Crystal H is a game that combines an Etrian Odyssey-style Dungeon Crawler and a Pokemon-style Monster-collecting game with a huge amount of shameless perversion and a healthy helping of Japanese weirdness. The highly sexual tone of the game and its bizarre eccentricities may frighten away some players, but if you can bear with them, the gameplay here is surprisingly deep and multi-layered with numerous elements to dig into. If you can stomach the presentation, this is a game that’s a huge improvement over its predecessor, and absolutely worth playing.

Grade: B+

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