Chapter One: Introduction
The Rescue of Mermaids is a lewd Bomberman/platformer game available on Steam. It took me about an hour to reach the end of the “demo”. I didn’t realize I purchased a demo.
I’m under the impression demos are usually free?
Chapter Two: Gameplay (3/5★)
Section One: Overview
Garry the octopus is trying to find “mermaid companions” on a new planet. Lost deep underground, he must collect a variety of gear to unlock new areas. However, the world is ridden with dangerous critters — it seems just about everything wants Garry dead.
Who the hell is planting sea minds in every cave and corridor?
Every few stages Garry’s journey becomes more action-oriented with Bomberman gameplay. He must tactfully drop “bombs” to clear obstacles and defeat enemies without blowing himself up.
Speaking from experience, it’s better be blown than blown up!
Section Two: Balance
As Garry defeats enemies, he collects “points” to invest into his “attributes”. Attributes boost his speed, attack and “luck” — I’m not sure what good “luck” is because there’s no tutorial.
Leveling up attributes is a slow grind. But by the second stage, most enemies are literally unkillable rendering most of them useless anyways (and “Bomberman” levels don’t even use attributes.)
Speaking of “bomberman levels”, I hated them.
Garry likes to get stuck on pretty much everything. Part of the problem is that he moves like an octopus on an oil slick — he “slides” a little too much whenever you let go of the “arrow” keys. I had to try to avoid placing bombs anywhere that would require an escape that was anything more than a single key stroke.
Sometimes, the camera won’t track Garry, resulting in him and his enemies moving off screen. When this happened, I had to shift Garry back and forth to reorient the camera (if he wasn’t already killed by something I couldn’t see).
Fortunately, if Garry dies you only have to restart the floor, not the entire level. Phew!
Chapter Three: Sexual Content (2/5★)
Section One: Content
There is one animation and three sex-scenes in the game. The animation is played after defeating the first boss, and sex-scenes include dialogue with three or more animations.
Unfortunately, there is no functioning gallery to review sexual content after it plays.
Section Two: Implementation
Sex content is shown when bosses are defeated or quests are completed.
Section Three: Interactivity
One sex-scene offers a choice between “ass” and “pussy”, but other than that sexual content doesn’t have any meaningful interactivity. A few scenes end with a slot wheel minigame to determine “pregnancy”, but I’m unsure what’s the result of impregnation.
I don’t like this game enough to play through it twice.
Section Four: Quality
The sex-scenes almost give off a “retro” vibe with how they were drawn. Take that as you will, but I found them to be a little uncanny. I wasn’t big on the coloring or character designs. Garry is the worst offender of them all — he’s so lame in his “human form”, seeing his “golden dick” made me want to quickly skip to the end of sex-scenes.
Chapter Four: Story (1/5★)
Section One: Plot
There is little story to take from the game. All that I could gather is that Garry is an oddity among sea creatures. Most creatures of the sea have learned to reproduce without men, making his “human form” highly desired among the humanoid denizens.
Erogille writes,
“In The Rescue of Mermaids, you play Garry, a rare human-looking creature who can become into octopus when aroused (eromorph). Garry has three mermaid companions accompanying him on his journey to find a new planet to call home, but when they finally find an ideal planet, the mermaids simply disappear into the shadows. Now he needs to figure out how to rescue them and ensure peace and security for his lineage.”
As a matter of fact, the store page is the only reason I know the player character’s name. Why isn’t any of this riveting lore present in the game?
Section One: Characters
Now that I think about it, Garry never says anything — he just shoots everything that moves and impregnates strange undersea women. Other than his ability to transform, there is nothing remotely interesting about his character.
The female cast exist only to taunt, fuck, or pass out quests to Garry, leaving little room for meaningful interactions.
Chapter Five: Sound (4/5★)
Section One: Soundtrack
The music is nicely made, but I was turned off by how little tracks there are. The entire game seems to be carried by just a few compositions, which get kind of old. I couldn’t care less whether I could hear the game or not an hour into my playthrough.
Section Two: Sound Effects
The sound effects are few but high quality. I like the sounds Garry makes when he shoots things.
Section Three: Voice Acting
There is no voice acting, surprisingly. I was expecting some moaning or heavy breathing.
Chapter Six: Visuals (5/5★)
Section One: User-interface
The user-interface is beautiful designed to match the overall aesthetic of the game.
Section Two: Graphics
The Rescue of Mermaids looks fantastic! The sprites show an aesthetically pleasing, alien world ruled by sea life. The story doesn’t really support the sci-fi aspects of the artwork, but I like to imagine they’re relics of a previous civilization. I enjoyed how the screen ripples to hammer home how the game takes place underwater.
Chapter Seven: Verdict (3/5★)
The game isn’t even finished! Released on Steam 2019, Erogille claimed the game would leave Early Access in “Approximately 8 months“. It’s been over two years since I purchased this game. This isn’t the first time I’ve been burned by Erogille‘s incompetence; the game broke the first time I played years ago. Unable to progress, I ended up burying the game in my Steam Library.
But for what The Rescue of Mermaids offer today, it’s an okay platformer with cool monster girls. Honestly, it’s too bad the game has been abandoned.
I recommend following in my — and Erogille‘s footsteps and bury this game.
