DepraviA is an adult-oriented 2D Action Platformer that takes place in a world already completely ravaged by the forces of hell. We play as an angel named Angelica who is tasked not with saving this already dead planet, but to save the souls of all humans that are being feasted on by the demons of hell. It is not a lighthearted journey that you will be taking as is all too evident by now. The amount of threats to you through each of these eight stages are vast and the price of failure is extreme. If you fail you can expect your limbs to be torn, you’ll be violently penetrated, and all other forms of exceedingly cruel torment will be inflicted. This has the Ryona tag, but nah, it goes much further and enters the Guro fetish.
With a name like DepraviA, this is far from surprising and offers a lot for those into Guro. On the other hand, you can turn off all the gore and the stage hazard animations to be left with genuinely one of the best hentai games I’ve played in quite some time. This is what can best be described as a mix of Castlevania and Ghost N Goblins. You’ll start off in the last human village as it is in the process of being destroyed and must fight your way to the end of it. Corpses are hung from the street, what few survivors are seen are in the process of being violated, and there are fires as far as the eye can see. Everything is much too far gone for salvation. Your task is simple, fight your way past this chaos and enter the portal into hell as to save what souls you can.
Even with the gore turned off, this remains a very grim title. It is not something I’d recommend for those that can’t stand extreme violence and cruelty. With that being said, our character is far from helpless against the horde of evil. She can wield one of many weapons that may randomly appear throughout a level. These range from swords for melee, throwing knives for more of a ranged approach, and holy water whose downward arc makes them very useful in certain situations. There are several more to choose from and all are handy in their own way. Some are more situational than others, yet can be devastating against the forces of hell in the right hands.
Most new weapons are found via breaking chests. Annoyingly enough, the weapon icon doesn’t disappear. This can make jumping over a weapon you don’t want nerve-wracking as you can only hold a single weapon and the one you were carrying before immediately disappears. You can also find souls and even armor pieces in chests, making the allure to open them irresistible even if you have your favorite weapon already. Our character can take up to three hits. The first will see her armor fall off Ghost n Goblins style, the second will see her undergarments ripped off, and lastly is death. Whatever enemy or hazard landed the killing blow will play out its unique animation, be it falling on a spike or an enemy attack ripping you in half. Some animations feature vaginal penetration, but the majority will be leaned more towards violence or the Vore fetish.
Scattered around the levels are checkpoints and you always start off with five lives. Surprisingly enough, this game isn’t as difficult as you would assume from its punishment theme. It can be challenging no doubt, yet this is a journey most will be able to comfortably get through. That is unless you are not used to playing action platformers solely via the keyboard, in which case maybe consider using a Keymapper for your controller as this doesn’t natively support them. In any case, losing all five lives will treat you to a CG before kicking you back to the hub world. This is where Depravia gets really extreme. As an example, ever wanted to see someone get hung, whipped, get an eye punctured, then have a log jammed into their vagina. Well, uhm, despite what you answered just now, here you go.
Getting back to that hub world subject, you are let loose to choose from a variety of levels after you complete the opening stage. If you find one too difficult, you can always retreat and attempt to tackle another. All of them represent different Sins and feature many things such as new enemies, environments, and gimmicks to make them feel unique. Every step is a frighting ordeal as you never quite know what to expect and what horrors you’ll succumb to if you lower your guard.
Most of the challenge will come from the combat. It is rare that this title asks you to perform difficult platforming sections and even when it does, Angelica can temporarily float in the air thanks to her wings. This perfectly leads us into souls and their ability to upgrade our stats. Any souls you collect while making your way across a level is permanently yours and they respawn upon entering a stage. They are generously placed around and do wonders to giving you some sense of progression even if you fail horribly. Their usefulness is immense, allowing you to boost your attack strength, throw more weapons at any one time, and allow you to fly longer. You can beat the game without bothering with most of those if you so choose, though you will need to upgrade your Flying stat to at least 3 in order to enter the second overworld.
Nearly every stage has a boss awaiting you in the end. These hulking, incredibly intimidating demons will get your blood pumping and adrenaline through the roof. What felt like a generous health-bar that allowed you three hits will feel like nothing now as they lay down the pressure and you try to adapt to whatever they throw at you. By the second hit, as you find yourself completely worn out, and on the verge of facing an extremely vicious death is where you will be tempted into using your trump card. That being a relic known as a Chaos Orb, an item fueled by demonic energy. Activating it will temporarily turn you into a fallen angel, granting you great speed, invulnerability, and enough power to effortlessly devastate anything that crosses your path. You start with and can use it up to five times in a level, as well as collect more charges on your way through.
Using the power of the very beings you are fighting against comes with a cost, however. It will greatly lower your score at the end of a stage, which will rank you from a low D to a flawless S. That sounds completely harmless, but here’s the thing. The ending you receive is directly proportionate to your overall grade. You’ll need at least a C to enter the last stage. As tempting as wielding that power and steamrolling everything is, accepting possible failure and even death will get you a much higher score than using it even once. Still, as bad as it sounds, it remains a viable option for those seeking an easier time. You can continue playing the game after you receive an ending and replay stages to try for a better score or to grind for souls to become more powerful. Each of the five endings are pretty interesting too, so if you want to see them all without multiple playthroughs, getting a low score first is a good method.
To further help struggling players, getting an ending, and loading up your save again will unlock a new weapon. It is called the Saint Cannon and is hands down the best weapon in the game. You’ll find it randomly in chests and will be able to carry it through to different stages. I’ll call it kind of overkill, in fact, for one strangely disappointing reason. Bosses do not respawn. Defeat them once and you’ll find that they are gone forever. It makes getting a higher score the second time going through a level unsatisfyingly easy and negates the whole Chaos Orb mechanic. One may as well steamroll past the entire level as a fallen angel and replay again to easily get an S ranking, as the main temptation to using its power is now gone.
Something I’ve failed to mention as of yet is that every weapon has a secondary function. These are very powerful and its effects greatly differ from weapon to weapon. You’ll need to find the Holy Bikini armor first, however, and in order to activate them will need to hold the Attack button to charge it. Charging it in the midst of a battle can be quite risky as that time you spend doing so is time spent not attacking. These functions can range from defensive to offensive. The knife for example will temporarily spawn an ally that attacks when you do, effectively doubling your firepower. Your end-game Saint Cannon will cast a force field, protecting you from any projectiles approaching from the front. And the Holy Water has a screen-clearing attack, to name just a few.
Having holy bikini armor not only gives you the option to use an alt-attack, but it also alters the behavior of normal attacks. Holy Water will have an area of effect, throwable swords can pass through any objects, etc. You may think you fully understood the weapons until then, but you’d do well to give everything a shot once more to see their full potential and understand them before you find yourself in battle. All it takes is one hit to destroy the holy bikini armor. You really do not want to risk charging up an attack for something that may or may not help you at that moment if you can. This game has depth. Even better is that the controls are tight and fluid, which allows you to fight to your fullest potential and not worrying about jank costing you a victory.
As previously stated, you’ll need an overall rank of at least C to enter the final level. This is where Depravia stops messing around. The platforming will be more difficult than anything you have faced, the enemies more fiendish, and the level significantly longer than usual. More importantly is that you can not replay this level as you normally would any other. Whatever ending you may get, loading up a save will show it as ‘not clear’ again and you will not retain any souls gathered from playing it. This means that the final boss will not simply disappear like the others. Getting an S rank will be a test of everything you’ve learned. The B and A endings are satisfying enough, yet if you want to reach the true final boss and get some insight into the setup for the sequel, you’ll have to do it all in one go. The tiny bit of extra content isn’t worth it, in my opinion, yet getting an S score is one heck of a gratifying victory nonetheless.
Whatever end you receive will unlock both the Anime and CG modes in the main menu. The CG will let you view any artwork you’ve unlocked, whether it was from a death or ending scene. You can also relive any ending you’ve already seen. Anime, on the flip side, is dedicated to viewing all of the sprite death animations, be it from a stage hazard or an enemy killing blow. It also has concept art to view and a Boss Rush mode. The latter is quite interesting in that you have to face every boss one after another while having the weakest stats and will add even more replay value. There is simply a ton of content on offer here. It would have been nice if getting an S rank ending unlocked all of the CGs though. Going back to purposely lose all your lives on every stage to get them all is a pain. It features a save file with all of it unlocked, yet that is more for people that just want to view the H content or to have an easier time with the game. You’ll have everything unlocked, but with no level progress and with 9999 souls at the ready. Neat addition, but not an ideal solution for those that have played through it already.
Sadly, this game has not been translated into English. It is solely in Japanese. Navigating some menus and missing important hints will seriously hinder you if you can’t read Japanese. I’d highly suggest you take the time to download a free program called The Textractor to automatically translate it. Sure machine translations are far from a perfect solution, but it makes it more than understandable enough. If you’re willing to do that and are not bothered by the ultra-violent theme, DepraviA is certainly a standout title, and not just as a hentai game. With its dark content, I can’t just go recommending it to everyone I know, as tempting as that is, yet if you’ve been interested enough to have read this far, I’d urge you to take the plunge and add it to your library. With only 531 copies sold according to Dlsite, DepraviA is the definition of a hidden gem and a hell of a fun time.
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