Pantsu Hunter – Back to the 90s Review (English Original Visual Novel)

Indie games have for many years now capitalized on players' nostalgia and included various throwbacks to the early eras of gaming, both aesthetically and gameplay-wise. However, while you can’t take a look at Steam without finding a dozen high-quality, retro platformers with pixelart graphics and "metroidvania" design elements, this trend have very rarely found a meaningful application in the world of VNs. While there are heavily-stylized titles such as the Otusun Club’s The Bell Chimes for Gold series, mimicking the aesthetic of the early Japanese eroge, these are pretty much rare exceptions, especially when it goes to games available in the West. This, however, doesn’t necessarily mean there’s no room for nostalgic throwbacks in the Western VN community. Many of the older dating sims and VNs, like To Heart 2 or Season of Sakura are actually available in English (both thanks to early localization companies such as JAST USA and, more importantly, fan translators) and highly appreciated by the players. And we're not even mentioning the general sentiment for older Japanese media among the more experiences Western otakus.

            Thankfully (?), this potential wasn’t completely overlooked by EVN developers – in the case we're talking about today, it led the tiny team under the name of Ascension Dream to coming up with Pantsu Hunter – Back to the 90s, a semi-humoristic romance VN/adventure game with beautifully-stylized, retro visuals and a period-appropriate storyline. Drawing a decent amount of attention and going through a successful Kickstarter campaign (me being one of its backers), the game finally arrived on Steam in January 2019, receiving a heavily mixed reception. So, what went wrong with a project this straightforward-looking and how it managed to disappoint despite its impressive artwork?

Pantsu Hunter’s simplistic UI and lack of proper options menu are a nuisance, but they’re definitely not the game’s biggest problem

 

Pantsu Hunter is a Unity VN, which is something that immediately makes me expect the worst when it goes to quality-of-life features and replayability. The first impression is pretty poor in this regard, with both the launcher menu and the in-game options being grotesquely limited, with things as basic as proper volume sliders completely missing. There’s also, predictably, no auto-play, no backlog and only a very simple skip function (although the fact it’s at least there was a blessing, as tedious clicking through already-read text after every restart is something I especially abhor). It’s also not necessarily a game you want to play on a large PC screen with fullscreen mode on, as the low level of detail makes the art lose a bit of its charm in that kind of closeup. From a technical standpoint, Pantsu Hunter is slightly better than some particularly lazy PC ports of mobile games, but only barely.

            The main content of the game, divided into 4 chapters, is a mix between a VN and a point & click adventure game. In the first three chapters the protagonist, a handyman doing odd jobs around his community, visits three young woman to fix various problems around their houses (like repairing a busted VHS player or remove viruses from an infected computer), while also fulfilling his fetish for stealing panties – every pair of underwear is hidden either behind an environmental puzzle, or appropriate dialogue options, often including some really obscure logic or complex chains of interactions. Every scenario also has a huge number of comedic “bad endings” and one “true end”, which is achieved more or less separately from the process of obtaining panties, requiring its own, unique set of actions and pushing the minimalistic story forward. After gathering enough panties and going through all the good endings in the first three, puzzle-oriented episodes, you unlock the Hot Spring chapter, much more story-focused and allowing you to pursue a romance with one of the girls (or all of them at once).

            The gameplay in the initial chapters is definitely a mixed bag, but I actually don’t find it unenjoyable. The scenarios themselves are pretty short, so replaying them over and over again to test out new combinations and explore the lovely-drawn environments is not a bad experience, especially if you’re willing to use a guide whenever you get truly struck. By testing things out, you’ll eventually unlock both most of the endings and the extra story scenes (available from a separate menu and which offer you some backstory for the girls), most likely before the whole procedure gets really old – and past the third episode, you don’t have to worry about gameplay mechanics at all, having the ability to simply enjoy the VN-style interactions with the heroines.

The girls’ visual designs and personalities seem decently thought-out, but can’t truly help the poorly-executed story

 

Where the game truly fails, in my opinion, is the story content, which is probably one of the most awkwardly-written things I’ve read in a while. Instead of having fun with its ridiculous concept, the game starts with a heavy introduction, telling us about the protagonist’s life and his self-admitted status as a pervert who casually hunts for woman's panties, but is really just looking for love. The same extends to the in-game events, because while the bad endings are mostly joke-like and there are some recurring gags in them, the actual dialogues and stories of the heroines are devoid of genuine wit and humour. The disconnect between the silly premise and dead-serious drama are constantly visible and whenever the game really tries to be funny (I guess that’s what the scene of one of the girls puking in the car on the way to the onsen was there for), it simply falls flat on its face. The awkward phrasing and confusing flow of some of the dialogue are paradoxically not made any better by the decent-quality voice acting – it just feels even more eerie to hear those weird sentences being spoken by actual people. All of this also hardly builds towards any serious romance, because even the onsen episode is highly inconclusive and the so-called “epilogue” consists of one cheesy scene, filled completely with the protagonist’s inner monologue.

            The art definitely makes even this part of the experience slightly better, as it’s not only genuinely gorgeous but also stays true to the setting, with things like clothes and household appliances genuinely reminiscent of both 90s anime, and real-life fashion and technology of that time. Often, however, it simply feels wasted, because while the game had a lot of good concepts in its framework, the execution is consistently disappointing. Same goes for the music, which is both relaxing and fits the retro theme properly, but can only elevate the whole experience that much.

            In the end, Pantsu Hunter is a bit of a tough sell – a game with some admirable qualities and ideas, but deeply underwhelming when it goes to actual gameplay and storytelling. I can mostly recommend it to those willing to give it a try for the art alone – it’s really a joy to look at, and the developers are still working on implementing some additional eye-candy, mostly in the form of the “ero gallery”, a stretch goal in the Kickstarter campaign (not something one could easily look past, considering the artist’s genuine talent). Also, it might not be worth the full asking price of $10, but on sale is still a reasonably good value offer – if you’re not looking for a deep story, that is.

Final rating: 2,5/5

Pros:
+ Great visual design
+ Climatic music
+ Decent voice acting
 
Cons:
- Non-existent options menu and lackluster UI
- Mostly poor writing
- Inconsistent tone


VNDB Page
Buy Pantsu Hunter – Back to the 90s on Steam