Good day my lovely deviants. Welcome to Joyful Stick, our adult game review series. Miss the last entry? You can read it here. Today, we’re going to talk about the value of mindless, fun fluff and why taking time off is important. Let’s begin.
Actually, Fuck Dark Souls
More specifically, the idea that everything has to be Dark Souls-style hard.
It’s not as omnipresent as it once was, but there seems to be a cultural stigma when it comes to gaming that if it doesn’t cause you psychological damage when you play it then you’re wasting your time. It was so pervasive that it led to Dark Souls style difficulty scaling to become a meme within itself, which only led to further entrenchment within gaming between the “Got Gud” and “Git Guds”.
This is a polite way of saying a bunch of nerds on the internet love to cause problems for everyone else and influence design with their dog-shit opinions, despite the fact one of the most popular games of the last twenty years is literally Candy Fucking Crush. You might have killed the Cleric Beast in one go, but your mom has toppled an empire from her armchair on that iPhone 2 she refuses to give up. Both of these are valid, both of these are equal, because gaming can and should be for everyone. Forever. Always.
Not everything has to be Dark Souls, nor should it be. In designing each game to try and topple From Software’s beautiful monster, we will invariably starve the community of players due to frustration, exhaustion and the pavlovian side effect of being conditioned to hate gaming if we’re not advancing. There’s immense value in the easy, the harmless, the lower barrier and fluffy that so many take for granted.
Which brings me to today’s offering-the absolutely delightful, puffy-wuffy and adorably written Lucy Got Problems by Flat Chest Dev.
Devils, Elves and Heroes
We start the game with our titular heroine Lucy, a ditzy but well meaning succubus, as she stands trial before her ruler and crush Tiamat. She’s trapped inside of a magic circle, and is giving a very forced message debriefing of her top-side venture into elven territory. Lucy, as it turns out, was tasked with capturing something called the Orb of Fate. The rest of the player’s time with the title is Lucy retelling what happened to her extremely sinister (yet oddly sexy) not-so-benevolent leader.
The game itself is fairly straightforward, and plays identically to any visual novel you have ever played. The title isn’t loaded with decision trees, and rarely do choices lead to a “bad” or negative turn in the narrative. It’s an extremely forgiving title-and was precisely what I needed when I purchased it. LGP isn’t hard, but it is very relaxing to play. And before anyone asks-yes, you can very comfortably play with just a mouse, you degenerate.
What LGP lacks in variety or innovation however it more than makes up for in colorful, happy and up-beat characters and narrative. Lucy herself had me laughing several times as she’s dropped into the Elven forest, scrambling as she comes to the realization it’s nothing like she was told. In short order the rest of the cast is quickly introduced, all of whom jiggle with every sway and move of their character art. I feel like the portraits here say a lot about design choices within the game-everything is soft and warm. It’s not that there isn’t conflict within the narrative, but rather that the story of LGP plays out like a shoujo manga. Er, albeit one for a older crowd.
Lucy stumbles her way into two elves, who are out training and Totally Not Out For A Secret Tryst In The Woods (™). She manages to knock one of them out and adopt their looks via her Super Secret Succubus Tech, which leads into a training montage with the other. Notably during this, Lucy catches on very quickly that there’s some one-sided pining going on. This extends to the rest of LGPs narrative-girls having crushes on other cute girls and often not knowing how exactly to go about revealing it or being afraid to. It’s adorkable, but never to the point of being forced or cringey.
LGP actually maintains that throughout your playthrough. Interactions regardless of whom they’re between feel quite natural, to the point you totally understand why one of them would stutter around the other. LGP is a yuri-centric title, without a single dick to be found (save for the literal dick-fish). Even with Flat Chest’s optional (and free) lewd patch, the sexuality and explorations therein is heavily focused on girls working up the nerve to kiss other girls. It’s refreshing from the “Massive fucking dick nearly splitting someone in two” that I typically review here.
Speaking of which, LGP openly and whole-heartedly embraces anime and hentai tropes without falter, and often for slapstick humor. There’s fish that look like dicks you catch naked. Lucy transforms into a high school outfit wearing Magickal Girl at one point with the power of love because-and I’m quoting- “those are the most powerful creatures in the universe”. LGP doesn’t beat you over the head with these jokes, which gives each a chance to make a sound landing. It handles humor much better than say, Leisure Suit Larry, which is about as funny as your step dad’s tinder profile.
Most of all-LGP is short. Perhaps too much for some, but I found my first playthrough to be the perfect length at 2 hours. The completion screen told me I had caught forty-one percent of what was in the title, so I figure multiple playthroughs and endings can be nabbed in roughly six to eight hours. All of which would be well, well worth it at the low price of eight american dollars.
Conclusion
Lucy Got Problems was precisely the way I wanted to spend my first day off in several months, and I regret absolutely nothing. I’m actually tempted to do another playthrough. After I completed the title, there was a hint at “another episode” coming. Rest assured, if one arrives I’ll be reviewing it here as well.
For eight bucks, I felt my money, time and laughs were well spent with this game. Flat Chest Dev now has my attention, and I’ll likely be reviewing more of their titles shortly.
-j