AO Archives: Lustful Valley

Well, 2021 has come and gone and I wanted to do something different for 2022. With that in mind, I figured I'd review a different game and genre to kick off the new year but first, what is AO?

AO stands for Adults Only, it's an ESRB rating attached to games intended for audiences 18 and older - for reason which should be fairly obvious. Now, AO-rated games aren't something I play often but I figured I'd try something different for a change and since these games go on special pretty regularly it seemed like a good idea to add a couple of adult games to my Steam library.

One of the first AO-rated titles I played was Lustful Valley. Was it good? Was it bad? Was it somewhere in-between?

Well, let's find out.

The Story

You play as a young woman who comes to the city of Dailand in search of her missing sister. Upon arriving in Dailand, you're told that the regular state currency is worthless in town, having been replaced by the 'lustful dollar' - currency earned by doing sexual favors for certain NPCs.

That's the setup, you travel around a small town having sex to make money.

What's Good about Lustful Valley?

Okay, so first off; the premise isn't bad. The idea of searching for a missing loved one in some seedy part of the world doing things you normally wouldn't is the backbone of many thrillers.

Graphically, the world and character models, and animations look pretty good and the sound design is rather well done.

What's Bad about Lustful Valley?

As far as issues go, Lustful Valley has a fair few.

For starters, the game is very bare-bones; there's very little to do and interactions are limited to talking and having sex. The town is virtually empty, you interact with eight NPCs in total and of those, six involve a sexual encounter.

The controls are stiff and the camera is very difficult to work with; it tends to go off and do its own thing. Additionally, navigating the environment is complicated by the fact that the maps in the town and the one you pick up at the start of the game are practically useless.

Story-wise, the plot is basically non-existent beyond a basic idea with the actual story taking a backseat to the sex scenes. Speaking of which, the sexual content is as explicit as one would expect from an AO-rated title but it feels like it was tacked on at the last minute. This is compounded by the fact that there isn't really a whole lot of it in the game.

So, What's the Final Verdict?

I think the biggest issue that I have with the game is the amount of wasted potential. This game could've been something in the vein of Basic Instinct with the main character using her sex appeal to get money and information to help her find her sister.

Unfortunately, it's not and what we're left with is a game that kind of feels like a tech demo with a half-baked story that's really more of a framing device used to facilitate the occasional sexual encounter between the main character and a few other women in-game.

Is it good? No, not really, but it's also not a bad game - I'd say it's a badly executed game but that's about it. Now, I should point out that I had difficulty getting the Steam version to launch and had to play the old version of the game - which the game's devs kindly made available in the Steam forums for the game.

Would I recommend Lustful Valley? This is the proverbial million dollar question and the answer is; it depends. If you're curious and you're not really looking for anything serious then go for it. On the other hand, if you're looking for some serious, story-driven gameplay with adult themes and/or material then I'm not sure this is the game for you.

That concludes my review of Lustful Valley. I hope you guys enjoyed the review. Happy New Year, and I'll see you soon!