Cute Demon Crashers Review (free nukige[?])

 

This review was originally published on Fuwanovel Forums on March 9th 2018.

Wait… A nukige review? On this anti-porn blog? Well, I should probably start with saying a few things about my view on porn in VNs, to avoid potential misunderstanding – this will be a bit of an essay, so be sure you don’t mind a (small) wall of text not completely related to the game itself. My actual stance on pornography in games is very… Ambivalent. I deal with porn extensively in my university studies, wrote a whole thesis on fan-made erotica and I’m on principle anti-censorship. I’m also very disillusioned with porn and personally don’t really enjoy hentai animation – and while I try being open-minded, I have yet to encounter a piece of Japanese 18+ media that would seriously undermine this stance.

            What do I mean exactly by “disillusioned”? Porn, including that in the cartoon form, is oriented purely towards the sexual pleasure of viewer – the uncomfortable, voyeuristic sexual positions, extreme close-ups, unrealistic variety and length of the scenes have little to do both with how actual people have sex and with any kind of meaningful storytelling. The theme of sex and even explicit sex scenes, when used well, can add to realism and depth of a story, but porn as a formula is essentially hollow, apart from its purely “pragmatic” functions. Expecting it to be anything more, in my opinion, is delusional, both because it goes against its most basic principles and because people that actually want more from it are in minority and porn creators most often don’t see them as a viable target group. Hentai adds to this already problematic mixture a significant amount of cultural and genre tropes I personally can’t stand – including fetishizing virginity, the abundance of loli characters etc.

            Why do I even bother approaching a porn VN then? Well, Cute Demon Crashers, a free game created for the 2015 NaNoRen0 contest, is not a typical eroge – more than that, it’s more or less an anti-nukige, promising a focus on consent and intimacy that’s lacking in many Japanese erotic games (and, obviously, many Western ones as well). It also reverses the typical setup, with a female protagonist and predominantly male romance options. But, does it really succeed in delivering something significantly different?

The gentle, respectful attitudes of the characters and the focus on consent should be refreshing for anyone tired of typical porn tropes

 

Calling Cute Demon Crashers a nukige is obviously a bit provocative, as the game is essentially a polar opposite of typical Japanese pornography and seems oriented exactly towards countering many tropes and techniques of showing sex that are typical for hentai. Story-wise though, it’s pretty much as basic as any porn game out there – the protagonist, a female college student and a virgin, is spending the spring break alone at her house. While she's thinking about her lack of romantic life and her friends being busy with their relationships, four demons – three incubi and a succubus – suddenly appear before her. After a short freak-out, she talks to them and they give her a proposition – before they have to go back to their dimension, in two days, she gets to know them better and if she wants, experience her first time with one of them.

            From the first interactions, the game stresses heavily the ideas of consent and mutual comfort – the sex scenes themselves are also very flexible, not only through the impressive number of options in them but also through the ability to stop them at any stage, what all your potential partners accept with understanding and care. The difference from typical erotic VNs feels pretty much astonishing and while the authors definitely wanted to appeal to women above all else, I think the way Cute Demon Crashers captures the intimacy and trust between the characters should be attractive to all kinds of readers.

Game’s cuteness goes far beyond the title – most interactions with the incubi/succubi are adorable and enhanced by well-made chibi CGs

 

The games art does much to support this aura of intimacy and subtle eroticism. While the sex scenes are somewhat explicit, they feel natural in their flow and are gorgeously illustrated – paradoxically, one of my favourite elements were the simpler drawings, without full colouring, which gave extremely cute and lovely vibe to moments like the cuddling present at the end of every erotic segment. The character designs themselves and sprites during the story bits, along with backgrounds and chibi-CGs also look very detailed and pretty, not really leaving much to complain about, not only by EVN standards.

            On top of all that, the sex scenes themselves are quite unique and significantly different from each other, depending on the character you chose and are consistently well-written. For the pretty obvious reason, Mirari’s yuri scene was my favourite and is probably the most enjoyable love scene I’ve ever seen in VNs – all of them though have interesting gimmicks and capitalize very well on the limited character development from the slice-of-life interactions between the protagonist and the demons. Obviously, even with the most daring choices, the eroticism is tame, staying faithful to the notion of the main character having little romantic experience and being insecure about sex. I can even imagine it being too timid for some, especially if you’re looking for straight-up fapping material.

The CG art in love scenes is nothing short of gorgeous, switching between highly-detailed, coloured drawings and simpler, but still very pleasant-looking lineart

 

Now, do I see any faults in this game? To be honest, it’s pretty hard for me to find any. It is a very short erotic VN and it's hard to judge it on anything else then what it tried to achieve – and I absolutely adored what it had to offer, even though purely erotic titles are something that I rarely approach and that I'm even more rarely satisfied with. This game managed to capture my heart not simply as a turn-on (although I think it can work in such way if you can do with more subtle stimuli), but as a lovely, well-crafted VN experience. As a free game, it’s something of a hidden gem and in my opinion deserves much more appreciation than it received so far – if you haven’t already, I strongly recommend you to try it out.

            And as the last side-note, there seems to be a BL sequel to Cute Demon Crashers in the works. If it keeps similar quality, it should be something fans of that particular niche should be really looking forward to.

 
Final score: 4/5
 
Pros:
+ Subtle, lovely approach to sexual themes
+ Great art assets
+ Adorable, varied cast of characters
 
Cons:
- Super-short
- Not much in there story-wise


VNDB page
Download Cute Demon Crashers for free on Itch.io