Haremon!!

 

So today’s review is a game that piqued my interest by the premise of an adult Pokémon game where you collect and battle monsters.  While the game did not live up to that expectation, it did still impress me with a more robust game than I had anticipated.  Keep in mind, however, this game is also still in Alpha (the version I played for this review is 0.20 which is currently the publicly available version).  I will be keeping an eye on this game personally, and if anything in the game changes my opinion in the future, I will return to add an addendum to the bottom.

 

Now, I welcome you to the world of Haremon!!

To begin, I want to talk about something that I believe is somewhat of a newbie trap that isn’t very well explained and that’s the Pleasure and Manipulation elements.  In battle, you have 3 attack types and 3 governing stats that contribute to it:  Rage is your damage dealing stat/moves, Focus is your support and healing stat/moves, but the biggest focus should be your Pleasure stat/moves.  To use attacks of a certain type, the triangle needs to be filled to a degree rather than an MP or PP. Maintaining a balance is crucial.

But that alone isn’t the trap, it's the Pleasure mechanics themselves.  While not directly able to deal damage, Pleasure has a myriad of uses that aren't immediately explained.  Every creature has what’s known as Kinks, and these are your passive abilities but they can only activate if your Pleasure reaches a certain point.  However, unlike Rage and Focus, Pleasure is a double edged sword as if you leave it too high, an enemy can push it past it’s limit and overwhelm your character.  Being overwhelmed leaves your character vulnerable and unable to act for a few turns, but also opens you up to Manipulations.

These range from having your girls strip down (reducing defenses) to giving away valuable money or items.  Though this sounds dangerous, you can return the favor, overwhelm the enemy, make them return items, give you their items, money, food, or even teach you their attacks or kinks.  This is why my first playthrough, I had it rough.  I went in guns blazing, figuring it to be typical RPG and aimed for winning and gaining experience, but this left my wallet in a poor state as I struggled my way through.  Although there was another element I wasn't paying attention to which led to great difficulty, and that was the QTE’s.

When you choose an attack, you’ll notice they sometimes have a series of letters after their name.  This is the buttons you'll push during the QTE that helps to deal more damage.  Enemy attacks also provide QTE’s that you can use to reduce the damage coming in.  If you've played the Mario and Luigi games, then you'll be familiar with how these work.  In my first playthrough, I was able to do 1-2 battles before wiping and starting over the next day due to my ignorance to the QTE’s.  With my second playthrough, however, I am building up my starter girl and wallet more effectively and have yet to wipe at all.  The difference knowing these tips definitely makes the game far less difficult in the beginning and I share them so you won’t start playing and quit out of frustration.

 

Now that my mini-tutorial is out of the way, onto the actual review.  For those expecting “Sexy Pokémon,” I will have to disappoint you.  Unlike Pokémon where you get a series of choices and a lot of freedom, here you “catch” your girls sequentially.  You start with your cat girl and build your harem through each story dungeon.

Each girl also has a set personality, so they aren’t a mindless creature you get to imagine your own stories with.  There aren’t any gyms or even other trainers.  But at least you aren’t trapped forever in the body of a 10 year old, so that’s a plus.  I do want to stress that I’m not saying the game is worse, but that it’s different.  Like comparing a plate of spaghetti to a plate of cookies.  Both are great, but Haremon does kind of lead you to believe it’s a Pokémon-esque game through it’s name and Pokémon nods while the gameplay is really not.  If you like RPG’s though, it’s a great RPG in it’s own right with a unique battle system, good music, good (and sometimes cliché) writing, and characters you want to tame and actually care to get to know.

 

So how about the sex scenes?  Well, some of the girls will give you a scene right away, including your starter.  But if you want more, you have to work for them by building up the relationships with the girls.  While not yet implemented, it seems the Haremon aren’t going to be the only girls you can build up with either, so that’s something to look forward to.  Once you unlock the scenes, they are often a few still images with text descriptions of the scenes themselves.  The artwork is fantastic and the stories written to go with them are very flavorful.  You can view the images in your phone or relive them at night before you go to sleep.

 

So, what about issues I have?  Well, aside from the earlier mentioned tutorial kind of just glossing over some of it’s key mechanics which really hurts in the early game, the other main issue is it’s inclusiveness.  The game has a male protagonist and only female Haremon and the story is written in such a way that this cannot be changed.  This means that the game only targets one demographic and really damages it's appeal to gays and females just wanting to be the lead character.  It’s still a great RPG, and certainly worth playing, but if you are in the market for an Incubus or a female protag, you won’t find it here.  The only other minor issue I can find with the game is that it offers controller support, but I could never get my PS4 controller to work with it.  It could just be a personal issue, or maybe it wasn’t tested with PS4 controllers specifically.  Either way, the controls on the keyboard aren't bad and you can customize them if you want to, so it's not such a critical issue.

 

If you want to play this game, you can find the version I played here: Haremon Itch.Io

And you can support the game here: Haremon Patreon