Review: Seven Pirates H isn’t as Enticing as Moero Crystal

We already know how the Genkai Tokki series goes. These are the Compile Heart fully fanservice games. Lewd jokes abound. There are rubbing and touching minigames. Some characters can look underage. However with Seven Pirates H, the latest adventure, it feels lacking compared to the other entries. There is the same level of fanservice people familiar with the series would expect. (I’d say in some ways, it feels pushes the envelope more than past games.) However, there doesn’t seem to be as much content and gameplay as other installments.

Parute is a pirate with a magic compass. It literally dropped out of the sky and landed on her head. After meeting with Otton, she learns that finding its missing pieces can guide her to a legendary treasure. With each new part she collects, she will be one step closer to becoming a legend. Along the way, monster girls like Waffle and Rindo will join her crew. However, other monster girls like Riviera, Mimii, Neko, Doroa, and Garnet keep attempting to get in their way. Her group needs to keep growing to prepare for their fight against the Monsupi Sea’s king and chance to get the greatest treasure of all.

A staple of the Genkai Tokki series involves recruiting monster girls. There’s a distinct lack of them in Seven Pirates H. In games like Monster Monpiece, Moero Chronicle, and Moero Crystal, there are a lot of characters you can meet! Their outfits are intricate! They have different sorts of builds! You can tell they are different ages! With Seven Pirates H, the number of potential party members is drastically reduced. It’s quite a shock to go from 80 different playable characters in Moero Crystal H to seven here. Especially since it feels like character design became less intricate with the leap to 3D. Not to mention that the heroines’ personalities don’t feel as well developed as some folks from Moero Chronicle and Crystal.

This sacrifice also means you might not be able to exactly identify what kind of “monster” each girl is at a glance. Jewel is very obviously a slime. Claret has a squid motif, to tie in with her kraken roots. Mimii’s very obviously a mimic. But I honestly couldn’t discern the backgrounds of some other characters without being told. Waffle is supposed to be a kobald, but her design doesn’t make that obvious. I thought Saqra was perhaps a succubus, but she’s a generic demon. (Also, going from Sakyura to Saqra is a weird decision.) The new direction also means everyone looks about the same age. Which, especially in the cases of Parute, Waffle, and Poron, seems rather young? Conversely, the 2D generic enemies making the jump to 3D look rather good. Their new character models capture the spirit of the original ones.

All of this would have been easier to deal with if Seven Pirates H possessed the sort of “class” system present in Moero Crystal. In that game, characters’ clothing determined the role they would fill in the party. They would alter their stats and movesets. So a character who might be a mage with spells that hit one enemy in her default outfit, could act as a healer if you put another set on her. While every characters’ bra helps determine one of her skills in Seven Pirates H and using training items from beating enemies helps increase stats and teach new skills, there isn’t the same nuance. Also, since there are only three types of pheromones, rather than the earth/fire/water/wind system present in past games, there’s less to think about when dealing with foes. Riviera is blue? Well, you better hope you have Parute or Poron in your four person party! Also, expect Riviera to deal more damage to Saqra and Rindo!

Characters aside, the change in direction from Moero Chronicle and Moero Crystal also affects Seven Pirates H’s gameplay. Part of this has to do with the areas. This is very much a fetch quest game. Quests will populate in the Booby Kin screen. These send people into fairly straightforward dungeons to collect items from gathering, enemies encounters, and boss fights to complete objectives. (Items from these encounters are also used to craft items and equipment in Booby Kin.) While the last two Genkai Tokki games localized are first-person dungeon crawlers that involve mapping elements, Seven Pirates H doesn’t. Areas aren’t too expansive or elaborate. There aren’t any off the beaten path routes to explore. Finding your way forward is, well, straightforward!

I also felt the difficulty dropped considerably compared to other entries in the series. There are monster girl fights in Moero Crystal H that are genuinely challenging. I’d need to make sure I had the right party and level-grind to defeat them. I never needed to do any level-grinding to survive Seven Pirates H’s turn-based battles. The first time I entered a new area, I’d face no serious opposition. Even the boss fights tended to be relatively simple. Riviera was one of the only ones to pose a real threat. The others were easy to eliminate by using skills and making sure I had Claret, Poron, and Saqra around. And since the MP you need to use skills accumulates as they attack and take damage, you don’t have to worry about having enough to use Skills or their Special attacks. There’s also a healthy well of MP to tap into. Boss fights always last long enough for at least two characters to hit the “Aroused” status so you can use their Special attacks.

Leveling isn’t much of a “thing” in Seven Pirates H either. After fights with foes, you’ll obtain Extracts to use in Breast Training. You can also get these from chests. (The main menu’s options also lets you turn on and immediately get some overpowered items to quickly max out fields.) You apply one, perform a few movements, and the character’s stats will go up and she might learn a skill. I would recommend taking a screenshot during the tutorial, to remind yourself which actions increase which stats, as there are a lot of inputs and each one can increase and decrease certain stats. But since the main quests are fetch quests, odds are you’ll do enough gathering to be at a level capable of tackling any challenge.

Seven Pirates H might just be the weakest of the localized Genkai Tokki titles. Part of this could be the transition from Compile Heart to Felistella. It also could be due to a shift from 2D to full 3D. The lower monster girl count, decreased difficulty, and general direction mean Seven Pirates H is a much shorter and simpler game than its predecessors. People who want it for the fanservice and envelope-pushing content will find exactly what they are looking for, but it is a stripped-down experience compared to past titles.

Seven Pirates H is available for the Nintendo Switch worldwide.