They say curiosity killed the cat. When it came to Hentai vs Evil, I was the cat and killing was spending $8.00. I just had to know. It’s called Hentai vs Evil for cryin’ out loud! So many of these weirdly named games come across the Nintendo eShop and this one did me in. I had to buy it. I had to know. All it would cost me is $8.00. I’ve wasted my money on worse, right?

Well, yes. But….I really could have spent that $8.00 better…

Hentai vs Evil is a horde shooter consisting of three levels, three playable ladies, two game modes, and very little enemy variety. The game is pretty barebones and does little to entice players to play it other than the game title itself. It’s not graphically impressive in the least and my first assumption was that it was a port of a several-year-old low-budget mobile game. First impressions are incredibly important, and while it drew me in immediately with the name, nothing gave me faith in the execution.

Each level is essentially a large open arena. I was actually quite surprised with the size and how populated each level was with environmental pieces. Given how low-budget the game feels, I was expecting it to feel more sparse. However, while the assets used are quite repetitive, they are well situated throughout each level where it doesn’t feel thrown together haphazardly.

However, while the levels themselves are decently laid out, there are only three. One is a beach that has a pirate theme of sorts, and the only level I found to include skeletons to kill. And no, you can’t swim…as I found out as my character, despite her chest buoys, plummeted to the watery depths. Another location is a dark city with wrecked cars. Pretty standard. And lastly is a suburban neighborhood. There are a few buildings that allow you to enter them, and take advantage of the grim reaper being too big to fit through for an easy kill, but most are closed off. More levels would be better, but I’m mostly okay with the level design in and of itself.

Your sex avatar is dropped into the game world and must survive an onslaught of zombies, pig orcs, skeletons, and floating grim reapers. The two game modes do little to differentiate from one another in Hentai vs Evil, so it really boils down if you want an end goal or not.

The Survival mode tasks the player with staying alive while waves of enemies swarm you. It doesn’t really feel threatening the majority of the time with the biggest enemy being the close camera angle. If you aren’t paying attention to everything around you, you can easily get surrounded especially since the enemies spawn pretty freely around the level. It’s a pretty cut and dry survival mode. If the enemy variety or difficulty in taking them down would change, that could extend longevity. As it is though, it wears out its welcome fairly quickly.

Rescue mode has you killing a dozen grim reapers to save a caged girl. The cage itself is easy to spot thanks to a pink spotlight beaming into the sky to locate where it is. Sadly, the same can’t be said about the reapers themselves. There are more than 12 in a level (as they keep spawning), but there were points while playing where I ran around unable to find any. Having some way to locate them would probably be nice, but also make an already easy game easier. Once all 12 are killed, you must make your way to the cage where an anime girl awaits – which is also how you unlock your other two playable girls.

Now you might think, “Cool, these girls have abilities or something to make them stand out from one another, right?”. Nope, sure don’t. The only explanation I can muster is that they want to allow players multiple ladies to dress up so they can look at them in a row on the main screen. The color options between skin and hair for instance are plentiful, but the accessories and clothing options match so much of the rest of the game by having a limited selection.

But the game has the word hentai in it. Not to mislead the player, they do have an “uncensored” option that changes with a button press. This will have clothes be see-through or topless in general. My understanding is that this option is NOT available in the PlayStation version. However I played the Nintendo Switch version and confirm it is there.

The thing is though, if you want video game boobies, you can do much better than Hentai vs Evil. Maybe not on the Switch, I’m not sure about it there. But the nudity here is far from “tit”-illating. There’s no Dead or Alive levels of jug jiggling or HuniePop post-mod naughtiness. The boobs are just….there. I’m not completely against fan service of a sexual nature but done here, it’s so lifeless. Part of that is because of the game too. There’s no plot to get attached to the characters and they are essentially lifeless husks with rifles. Maybe that’s your thing. But you deserve better, and there’s plenty of sexy-time games for roughly the same price that can give you a better game experience.

Now I’ve gone this long without talking much about the gameplay. Honestly, it’s fine. Part of the problem is the Switch itself and I hate how certain games control on there, Hentai vs Evil included. Because of this, the aiming is more finicky than it needs to be though messing with the sensitivity could help, but slow the whole thing down. Many of the guns had a samey feel with the biggest difference being the grenade launcher. While the damage was great, the grenades were lobbed so slowly that using it was tedious. Add in the short distance to it, and it’s not an ideal weapon.

There are also a few pickups to make each mode more doable. Floating toolboxes can be shot down to change the ammo being used. Blue bullets lead to greatly increased damage one-shotting pretty much everything. Orange bullets cause normal damage but set the enemy on fire inflicting even more for a set period of time. These aren’t permanent boosts and will disappear in less than a minute, but they are so plentiful in the world that finding them is never difficult.

The last pickup is a health box. They are more cutesy companion cubes in design essentially. Much like the toolboxes, these can be found all around each map and are desperately needed as hits quickly wind down health.

The general feel of the game is all over the place. Movement feels bad in general with one of the worst animations for jumping I’ve ever seen. Reloading takes longer than you would hope though firing is actually not so bad. Seeing numbers fly off enemies is still satisfying as is actually hitting them with the vibration – though being able to switch this off would be nice too.

Lastly, there is a photo mode. It’s nowhere as robust as the ones you would find in the biggest gaming blockbusters, but it’s there. Like having multiple girls with nothing distinguishing them as unique from one another, I think the photo mode is a similar thing. The game isn’t a looker. So more than likely it’s in there just to check out every curve your lady has as she is either running for her life or gunning down some beast.

Suffice it to say, Hentai vs Evil isn’t a great game. The lack of…well…everything was sort of shocking though the levels themselves were better designed than expected. Having some sort of story, as paper-thin as it could be, would have done wonders for this game both as a way to explain why any of this is happening and make these women more than empty vessels for the player to control. Even if all you want are poorly rendered boobies, the game isn’t even worth checking out for that. You may be able to find a little enjoyment running around shooting the limited enemies, but odds are, it’ll just leave you with gaming blue balls.

Final Grade: