Name: Asgaldh - The Distortion Testament (82.96% in 71 votes)
Type: RPG
Platform: WINDOWS
Company: Zone
Release date: 1998
Reviewed by: Lamuness
Other than AliceSoft, it is pretty rare to see companies producing H-RPGs. But besides Alicesoft, there is also one company (at least) that mainly produces H-RPGs - Zone. Their products include Youju Ranbu 1 and 2, and their latest release, Asgaldh.
In Asgaldh, you play the role of Ashu, who is heading towards an island to perform a task for one of the villages there. On the way to that village, you see a monster attacking a girl. You kick some butt, and find out that this girl is the elder's daughter. When you meet the elder, you find out that your task is to destroy the monster's lair nearby, and the elder asks you to find fellow members (all girls) to assist you in your quest. However, as soon as you are ready to leave, the monsters invade the village and abduct the elder's daughter. So now you have to both destroy the monsters and save the elder's daugther, and later on you find out what the monsters are really up to and why they captured the elder's daughter.
Sadly, the plot is boring, and lacks originality. However, the graphics is extremely nice. The female characters are stunning beautiful and not to mention that Asgaldh follows the same battle engine from Youju Ranbu in that 99% of the enemies are females...and when you defeat them...you get the idea. With 7 fellow members to choose from (only max of 3 fellow members at a time), you can pick your favorite members for battle and if you feel bored, you can switch to other members if you like. Also, there are PLENTY of side-quests to do that has nothing to do with the main plot, but these side-quests make the game more playable and lasts longer. Many events very often are very humorous indeed, and many characters are taken from other famous characters as a joke (Eva's Rei as the enemy mummy, and also, believe it or not, KFC's Colonel Sanders as a cooking contest judge!)
Besides fighting battles, your members' impression towards Ashu is an important part of the game. This parameter not only affects the ending but also her fighting abilities during battle, as well as combo attacks. There are many ways to impress a girl, which includes giving her presents (rare treasures), talking to her while in a inn, and other methods too. As a girl's impression gets higher, more events will happen and eventually Ashu can use combos with that girl.
Now, the bad part. The game is HUNGRY for HD space - 190 megs!!! The enemy encounter rate is WAY TOO HIGH. You walk a few steps and you see an enemy. Also, there is no challenge in gameplay at all except at the beginning of the game perhaps. It is almost impossible to get defeated during a battle (the enemies are too weak). The sound effects kinda sucks as well, and the battle engine could have been a little bit better. The worst part is that although on the manual it says there is an OMAKE function, but on the readme.txt Zone says that the function is ripped!! god! And oh yeah, not to mention that it has many bugs and unless you don't have the update file, you cannot see a lot of events!
Nevertheless, Asgaldh is a pretty good H-RPG. The graphics succeed those in Youju Ranbu 1 and 2. There is a lot of stuff to do and lots of events for you to discover, which makes this game pretty enjoyable.
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