Wife Quest is an action-platformer about Mia’s mission to reclaim her beloved Fernando from the terrors (e.g. big breasts) of her competition!
Adult Content?
No.
Censorship?
Not applicable.
Playtime?
Three hours.
Patch Available?
Not applicable.
Foreword: published December 24th, 2021
[Censored Content]
Gameplay: published December 24th, 2021 (4/5★)
Wife Quest is a mix of forgiving hack and slash, platforming and difficult boss fights. When you’re defeated, you are respawned with full “hearts” and “mana”! Some players may be put off by the forgiving respawns, but they prevent unwanted backtracking. Backtracking is encouraged to to claim previously unreachable collectables and upgrades. If you’re a completionist, “Ymir’s Challenges” and one-hundred percent completion will not let you leave a stone unturned! Even if you’re not a completionist, it’s worth going back to collect power-ups. The big baddies of Wife Quest don’t mess around — you need mana to defend from attacks, and all of the hearts you can get as cushion for your mistakes.
If you run of mana, you might as well run out of hearts. Progression is halted until (A) you locate “mana crystals” or (B) you commit suicide (to respawn with mana). Nothing that is irrevocably essential for platforming should ever be limited. The only ability that justifies limited usage is the shield, as it not essential for navigation. The shield is helpful in combat, but the only time you truly need the shield is during boss battles; it’s the most effective way to contend with projectile attacks. It’s limited usage adds a layer of urgency to every fight that encourages evasive and aggressive playstyles.
The bosses are difficult for the wrong reason; they don’t telegraph their attacks. One moment they’re standing still, and then without warning they perform a random attack. Until you learn the exact timing and placement of each attack, you’re forced to rely on RNG or spam costly “potions” to restock hit-points. Without telegraphing attacks, boss fights feel unfair, seemingly determined by luck. Pippin Games needs to add visual cues to notify players how to react. Wife Quest doesn’t offer the caliber of gameplay that appeals to the audience that is willing overcome wholly unpredictable attacks.
It’s worth mentioning the “punishment” system, even though they have zero impact on gameplay whatsoever. Pippin Games put the time and effort into animating punishments for every enemy in the game, but they didn’t provide an incentive for players to view them more than once. Whenever an enemy is defeated, you may choose to “punish” them, playing a brief, skippable animation. If punishments offered a chance to extract items (such as hearts), they’d have a legitimate use — but I guess they are just for show.
Unfortunately there’s little support for mouse controls. Although the mouse may be used to navigate the user-interface, it cannot be registered to any actions. I had to externally remapping my mouse buttons to keys to make the controls feel more natural.
Sexual Content: published December 24th, 2021 (2/5★)
There are so many outward sex jokes in the game, I think it’s little silly there isn’t so much as nudity. The premise of the game is to save Mia’s husband from monster-girl rape. Without showing monster-girl rape, Wife Quest finds itself in an awkward position; it’s too lewd for a general audience, and it’s not lewd enough for anyone interested in sexual content. Wife Quest is only suitable for players that are okay with a sexually charged characters and “plot” but also disinterested in (or willing to forego) pornographic content.
Story: published December 24th, 2021 (3/5★)
Mia’s husband is contested property among the “monster girls” that visit (or more accurately, invade) her farm. Stolen by Morgana, “stinky witch” and passed along her lackeys, Mia must retrieve her beloved Fernando before they steal his heart!
Sound: published December 24th, 2021 (4/5★)
The soundtrack is full of fantastic, fantasy-themed orchestic pieces. If you’re accident prone (or still learning the attack-patterns of the bosses), you can expect to hear each track reset and loop an awful lot. I wish there was variety between deaths, especially for boss fights. There’s only one boss music in the game; considering the number of times you’ll (probably) die, the boss music can get a little stale.
There isn’t any voiced dialogue, but each character has a selection of voice clips that are used during dialogue or Mia’s “punishments”. The cries of Mia’s foes as she punishes them are too cute — despite her abuse, they sound more like kittens than women being broken! The voicing is a lot of fun, and the audio is high-quality. I wasn’t able to pick up any microphone feedback or background noise.
Visuals: published December 24th, 2021 (3/5★)
Overall, the art and animation of Wife Quest are cute and vibrant! Even though Mia isn’t as well endowed as literally everyone else, I can’t get over her adorable sprites! Her foes are super sexy, featuring big and jiggly racks to keep you distracted.
Pippin Games is guilty of inconsistent scaling, when pixels between sprites are not the same size. There are over-scaled statues in the final stage, and visual effects (such as light trails and snowflakes) are too high resolution. The animations are the worst offenders.
The artwork is obscenely over-scaled (causing them to appear “blurry” or “blocky” next to the comparably small sprites). The animations are broken into smaller chunks, which are individually stretched and tweened (not dissimilar to “Live2D” content). Unfortunately, this type of animation is not suitable for pixel-art.
It’s analogous to dividing a photo into tiles and “animating” them by shifting them in another direction; pixel-art is animated frame by frame, pixel by pixel. It shouldn’t be animated the same way as traditional, digital artwork (or vice versa). The overall visual consistency of Wife Quest would be improved if the artwork were removed.
For some reason, Pippin Games decided to use the last stage to shamelessly promote themselves. Throughout Morgana’s Castle are portraits of the developers and paintings that read “Pippin Games” (complete with their disgusting logo!) They ruin the atmosphere, singlehandedly ruining the climax. These textures are appropriate for an explorable “credits room” or an Easter egg, and nothing else.
Verdict: published December 24th, 2021 (3.5/5★)
Wife Quest is a solid action-platformer, but poorly balanced difficulty prevents this game from being an easy recommendation. If it wasn’t for the boss fights, Wife Quest would be a great starting point for newcomers to the genre! They represent an unreasonably big difficulty spike. They’re more suitable for veteran players that are prepared to memorize complex and punishing attack patterns. The first boss alone is discouragingly difficult battle that will prevent all but experienced or dedicated players from seeing the rest of the game. On the other hand, the remainder of gameplay is beginner friendly; platforming is straightforward, enemies are manageable and death is negligible. If you’re new to the genre and eager to overcome challenging bosses, Wife Quest is a great buy.
