RE: Hero Academia v2 - 0.3

The clicking. Always the clicking. My finger hovered over Momo’s blouse, the cursor a trembling little betrayer. The game looks like it was drawn in a notebook during a boring class, all flat colors and lines that don’t quite meet. And that’s exactly why it works. It feels like finding a dirty secret in someone’s locker, not a polished product. You’re some dead hero, time-warped back to U.A. High, and the plot is just a flimsy curtain between you and the next chance to “accidentally” bump into Toru while she’s, well, invisible and very, very tangible. Got stuck for ten minutes trying to trigger a scene with Midnight. Not because of a puzzle, but because the hitbox was the size of a pixel on her left glove. Fucking infuriating. But then the scene played out, her leaning over my desk, and the crudeness of the art made the power dynamic feel more raw. Less fantasy, more like a grimy daydream. The voyeur bits are the main course, obviously. Peeking through a gap in the wall at the girls’ changing room. The sound of a zipper is just a text line, but your brain fills in the rest. You’re not a hero. You’re a creep with time-travel powers, and the game never pretends otherwise. Masturbation scenes are oddly clinical. A loop of a hand moving. I wish they’d put the same weird energy into those as they did with the groping mechanics. Clicking on Jiro’s earphone jack until she shudders, that has a strange, specific charge to it. The whole thing runs on a point-and-click engine that feels held together with tape. It crashed once when I tried to talk to Mei. Just blinked out. Didn’t even care. Reloaded, went straight for Toga’s event. She smiled that knife-smile and I forgot what I was complaining about. The game doesn’t give a shit about your impending doom plot. It knows why you’re here, and so do you.

• toru hagakure
• groping
• my hero academia
• boku no hero
• himiko toga