My Biggest Complaint About HuniePop + A HuniePop Visual Novel?

(WARNING!!: Sex and the Spoilers. Okay, I won't be putting in any sexual images, but there might be a spoiler or two.)

Holy crap, I'm actually posting a non-list blog post for the first time in 6 months and 2 days? AND IT'S ABOUT AN ADULT GAME?! ....Well, I'm 18 now, so I'm allowed to talk about this....kind of.

So, let's talk about HuniePop.

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Just for the record, this is not a review of HuniePop; if it was, it would be on my review blog instead of my less-used one, a.k.a. this one. (My story blog is even less used, but I'm hoping to start using it more often to post some short stories that will hopefully later be compiled in a book.)

So, yeah.... HuniePop.

The famous game full of puzzles, dating, and sex.

Originally, due to the sexual nature of this game, I was completely and utterly uninterested in HuniePop; not even the fact that super-popular YouTubers like Markiplier and Jacksepticeye were playing it made me interested in finding out more. Everything changed when I was scrolling through the YouTube videos of Michaela Laws, who you may know as the woman who created Seduce Me, Valentine Panic, Maid with Perfection, and HunkiePop, the last of which being a series of videos showing the HuniePop girls as hot guys. (On that note, male Kyanna is really....whew. That's all I have to say.) It wasn't HunkiePop that got me into HuniePop, however; it was two videos that show highlights of a HuniePop stream that she apparently did once. I guess a woman playing HuniePop made me feel like it was okay to be curious about this game, because after that, I (secretly) spiraled myself into a HuniePop obsession that lasted several months.

Soon after watching Michaela's HuniePop videos over and over again, I watched quite a number of HuniePop Let's Plays. The following, to be exact.

Aphmau (I think her Let's Play may have been deleted, because I can't find it anymore.)
Dookieshed (partially)

Not only that, I managed to memorize the traits (as in Flirtation, Romance, Sexuality, and Talent) each girl liked and disliked and some of the other things about them! The only thing is that I never actually played the game for myself, as I had that policy to not play any 18+ games. However, with this game costing $2.49 on Steam due to the Steam Summer Sale, I may or may not sneakily make an exception.

Now, let's just get one thing clear; I did not become interested in HuniePop because of the sexual content. I became interested in it because of the puzzle element; I've never had much interest in puzzle games that are like Candy Crush Saga or Bejeweled, yet somehow, the puzzle elements in HuniePop are very intriguing to me. Admittedly, there would be some times when I was watching the aforementioned Let's Plays when I'd notice a move and become frustrated when the person playing the game wouldn't go with that move; I swear, if they would have just moved that very specific token over, their date with one of the girls would have gone better! I just want to be able to play the puzzle game for myself in order to analyze it and find the best moves to play to make my dates with the girls an even bigger success than they could be! Combine that mindset with the potential I see within all 12 girls' characters, and you get why HuniePop may just be the one adult game to completely win me over. Heck, I believe that the upcoming sequel could be pretty good, too! (If you're wondering about my opinion on HunieCam Studio, however....well, I'd rather not talk about it.)

There is just one complaint I have about HuniePop, however, and it's a pretty big complaint, too.

The player character.

Okay, let me go off-topic for a moment (although what I have to say is connected to this). My second least favorite anime character (behind Fujiwara from "Netsuzou Trap") is Makoto Itou from "School Days". In case you don't know, he's the anime's "protagonist" who goes around screwing seven girls because of his girlfriend not being comfortable with having sex with him at the point of their relationship that they were at; this guy had quite a craving for some action. The player character of HuniePop is as bad, if not worse, than him; he/she (depending on which gender you play as) goes around having sex with twelve girls and feels absolutely no remorse whatsoever! (I know Kyu and Jessie are cool with open relationships, but what about the other girls? Considering how discovering these actions led her to hating men and becoming even more of a hardcore drug addict, I can say for sure that Audrey isn't okay with it!) I just feel like the player character sees the girls as just games to be played and their panties as trophies to be won....and now that I just typed that out, I just realized that's pretty much the case and feeling even worse! I mean, effectively, isn't the player character....well....the player?

If I was talking about some other game with underdeveloped characters and seemingly-boring gameplay, I think I would be able to ignore this fact, but HuniePop is the exact opposite of that kind of game. Each and every one of the girls have personalities and traits that will make you care for or even relate to them, even the mega-b*tch that is Audrey. Some of them even have their own respective backstories, such as Kyanna raising her one-year-old son and Tiffany's strained relationship with her mother, Jessie. When I think back on the game and think about how little things like what I just mentioned were explored, it doesn't make me feel good. We're learning things about these girls like their weight and bust sizes and banging them all in the end, yet we never get to learn any more about who they are as people other than what's on the surface? Even if I wasn't a "no sex before marriage" kind of girl, I'd at least try to get to know every single detail that I can about the person I'm in a relationship before I have sex with them!

What's that? You're basically doing the same thing when playing regular visual novels? Well, as far as the visual novels I've played goes, every ending I've reached has the protagonist end up with only one love interest, with maybe one or two exceptions. I think of each route in a visual novel as an alternate universe where a different outcome becomes possible. I mean, think about it; if, in a bishoujo game, the protagonist ends up with one girl in one universe and a different girl in an alternate universe, it's technically not cheating, and each girl gets her own happy ending in a way! As far as I know, however, there are no alternate universes in HuniePop; the player character dates several different girls all at once in one universe, and if this was revealed to all of them, barely anyone would be happy!

Of course, maybe I'm just overreacting. Maybe the whole point of this aspect of the game is specifically to make the player feel guilty. Whatever the case may be, however, it's just one aspect of the game that won't stop bugging me. In all honesty, I want a version of HuniePop that's completely a visual novel with endings that have the protagonist end up with only one of the girls. Create alternate universes for everyone to get their happy endings! Get to know the girls even better than you already did! Have the protagonist not be a complete douche! Those are the things I hope out of a HuniePop visual novel. I don't care if this visual novel ends up being adults-only; I just feel like it's a good idea!

However, it's not as if I don't want the puzzle game that is the HuniePop we have now to not exist; on the contrary, I feel like this HuniePop and the HuniePop visual novel could both exist. As I mentioned earlier, the puzzle element of HuniePop is very intriguing to me, and I wouldn't want to deprive people of the chance to play it. In fact, in the event that I find a way to get away with buying the game for myself, I wouldn't want to deprive myself of it! So....yeah. That's all I have to say.

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