2 reviews for TroubleDays

1. Rated 3 out of 5

   Verified Owner –

   This is a simple, one-heroine story, and for that reason I was on the fence about trying it out. While the succubus girlfriend has a lot of potential, it also has a lot of potential pitfalls, so doing it right is a challenge in itself. It wasn’t until after I tried NinNinDays, by the same developer, that I decided I might as well give this one a shot as well. From what I can tell, this is the fourth game created by a relatively new production company, Qureate. It’s their third hentai game, after Nekomiko and NinNinDays. It’s worth noting that all of three of these games feature the Emote system, with well animated characters. H-scenes are not animated, however, and few in number.

   For the sake of this review, I’ll be comparing this to both Nekomiko and NinNinDays. I won’t be comparing it to Qureate’s fifth game, KukkoroDays, as I’ve not tried it yet. As for the main character, Lovelia, I’ll be comparing her to what I consider to be a perfect succubus heroine… in this case, Riria from Ditzy Demons. Ditzy Demons definitely a five star game that I would recommend to anyone interested in the succubus girlfriend type, as well as several other amazing character types.

   Nekomiko had two heroines as opposed to the single heroine in this game, both of which were very cute, adorable catgirls. Their moe level was exceptional, though the story was somewhat short. Both characters were quite young and innocent, coming across as younger than Sumire from NinNinDays as well as Lovelia from this one. One good ending for each heroine, and one really good ending where you ended up with both, so a fairly decent first game all round, especially for their first game.

   NinNindays has one heroine, plenty of fanservice images of her, with some good humor going for it. There was one good ending that I would call the “normal” ending, and an absolutely amazing “ninja” ending that, by its very existence, caused my opinion of the game to sky rocket, due to how epic and awesome it was. This game also included a bit of a shout out to NinNinDays, and the fact that you get to see Lovelia wearing a Sumire cosplay was a major contributing factor as to why I got this one. I was hoping this game would have an ending as amazing as Sumire’s “ninja” ending. But did I get it?

   Unfortunately not. The two “good” endings to TroubleDays were a bit difficult to get, as it was hard to tell from the choices which led to the good endings and which led to the bad ones. As a result, I obtained the “succubus” ending to this one prior to managing the “human” ending. As for these two endings… the “human” ending is your typical happily ever after ending that you would expect from any decent dating sim, but the “succubus” ending was… well, bad. As in a Bad End type bad. It didn’t seem to me that the writers of the game were able to get over the “sex = bad” concept, or the “succubus = demon = evil” trope. And for a hentai game… that seems awkard to me. Plus, if I wanted a “human” end as my only good option… I’d be playing one of the many games that feature 100% human heroines, rather than one that specifically features a nonhuman.

   So, with the endings covered… what of Lovelia herself? For this comparison, I’ll compare her to Riria, who I consider to be the archetypal succubus girlfriend that all writers should aspire. Lovelia and Riria are both innocent, inexperienced succubus girls who fall in love and want to stay with their beloved rather than slutting around like the archetypal succubus. Lovelia is older than Riria, which I found odd… I mean, shouldn’t a succubus on her first assignment be on the young side? Yet she’s referenced as being close to the age of the protagonist, who is a college graduate. Personally, I would have preferred more of an age gap, like in Nekomiko, but if you like older girls, that’s fine too.

   Lovelia and Riria are both shy and get flustered by the idea of “ecchi stuff”, which leads to many humorous moments. Indeed, this game is not without its humor side, and is definitely the funniest of the Qureate games that I’ve tried. Is humor alone enough for a game to be considered amazing? Well, it definitely helps, but it’s not quite enough in my opinion. Still, Lovelia’s fantasies are quite amusing, so she has that going for her. If I were to rank their Moe level, Riria would be a ten while Lovelia would be around a seven. Clothing wise, I prefer Lovelia’s succubus outfit, along with the fact that she wears it most of the time while Riria only rarely wears hers. I’m not particularly fond of the fact that Riria’s wings and tail are only rarely visible. Lovelia’s wings and tail are always visible, so she’s got that going for her.

   But perhaps the biggest difference is the “switch” in both girls that switches them between innocent mode and horny mode. When Riria’s switch gets flicked she becomes a very horny, yet still very loving girlfriend, and it didn’t at all change her desire to live a healthy, loving relationship with the protagonist and to become his wife. When Lovelia’s switch gets flicked and she goes into succubus mode… well… she tends to lose control of herself, and bad things tend to happen to you, the protagonist (which is in line with succubus mythology, but doesn’t make for a good succubus girlfriend fantasy). While I prefer her succubus outfit over her yukata outfit… I definitely didn’t like the ending where she wore it.

   For the sake of my scoring of this game, I start with a base three stars due to the artwork and well-drawn images. I award an additional star for the humor, as it is absolutely hilarious at times. The human ending is somewhat unremarkable, and as I mentioned earlier, I’m not sure what the point to pulling this sort of deus ex machina in game specifically featuring a non-human heroine. The succubus ending is bad, so I took away one star, leaving me with the three stars I started with. It’s a decent game, though I recommend using a guide in order to obtain the “human” ending, and obtaining the “succubus” ending instead can leave a very bad taste in your mouth if you’re anything like me. Ultimately, I think their mistake was trying to tell a difficult story about Lovelia’s struggle to go against her demonic nature in order to experience a healthy, loving relationship… only to fall short as they ran out of room on their script and rushed to the endings.

   One thing that confused me was the fact that some of the images in H-scenes don’t reflect the text descriptions. An example of such is an obvious 69 sex position, yet the text only described a one way fellatio. Despite her panties being on at the beginning of the scene and vanishing by the end of the scene, there is no mention of them being removed or him doing anything to her. Perhaps the artist and the writers had a miscommunication of sorts for this scene? Anyway, Lovelia was wearing her succubus outfit for this scene, which means she was in “bad girl” mode according to the writers. The sort of succubus that loses control and goes sex crazy belongs in a different genre of hentai game, rather than this “true love” genre. You know the kind I’m talking about. And Lovelia knows as well… it’s from reading too much of this genre that she developed her delusions, after all.

   So, is this game worth the price? Well, it’s the same price as NinNinDays… as well as the same discounted price. If you’re a big fan of Qureate and the Emote system, it’s worth a try, but definitely use a guide so that you don’t get one of the bad endings that leave a bad taste in your mouth! If you’d prefer to try the best that Qureate has to offer, I’d recommend NinNinDays over this one. KukkoroDays might also be a better option, but I haven’t played it yet so I can’t say for sure. They also very recently released the R18 version of Fantasy Tavern Sextet, though I’m not sure how it compares to the all ages version released earlier this year. I’ve not given up hope for Qureate yet, as I feel like they still have a lot of potential… they just stubbed their toe a bit with this game!

2. Rated 3 out of 5

   Verified Owner –

   great art, but the story was just decent.