Wife Quest [Xbox]
Developed by Pippin Games and EastAsiaSoft, Wife Quest sees you play as Mia, whose husband has been kidnapped by some devious monster girls. Each day as Fernando is out tilling the fields, these monster girls show up to tempt Fernando, and Mia is not pleased about it. These busty beasts say that Fernando mustn’t be happy with a ‘flat-chested shorty’ like her, so they steal him away whilst Mia sleeps, hoping she won’t notice - but she inadvertently gets woken up when the kidnapper stubs her toe on the way out!
Mia must track down her hubby, and find where these girls have taken him, so she can rescue him and beat those bitches up! There’s a lot of adult humour and profanity, so whilst this may look like quite an innocent, cutesy title at first, it’s not. There’s a huge amount of innuendo, and the game has a very tongue-in-cheek approach to things, with a massive focus on the monster girls’ tig ol’ bitties, which might be off-putting to some people, but hey - what’s wrong with a lil’ jiggle?
The art style is really well done, with detailed environments and a wide variety of enemy designs and while they are all variants of ‘monster girl’, they have different attack styles and weaponry depending on their type. Character animation is great, with Mia’s hair bobbing about as she moves, and her eyes going white, comic-style, when she’s angry, which adds personality. As you defeat each enemy type, including bosses, you can ‘punish’ them further, unlocking new animations where Mia will do this in various risqué ways, such as choking them out, bouncing on them or pulling their wings. These animations are quite fun at first, but they do quickly get repetitive, especially as they take a little bit of time to fully complete (albeit they pause the timer in doing so) and don’t actually need to be done, you can just run away after you’ve knocked them out. Thankfully once you have done the first of any particular type, you can then skip it by holding the A button for any future enemies of that same type that you defeat. The soundtrack is fantastic, and really enjoyable to listen to whether in levels themselves or within the ‘Radio’ in the menu, with tracks being able to be unlocked for this by finding musical notes hidden throughout the levels.
There’s a great variety of upgrades available for Mia that can be purchased from Ymir’s store, and these will offer improvements such as faster attacks and wider range. Defeating bosses will earn you additional abilities, with these - and the upgrades - having an impact on her appearance, such as different coloured swords and outfit alterations. The first boss you meet has a forced defeat, which then will introduce you to a shield that will come in handy - and this ends up being a literal life-saver at times, doing a decent amount of damage to enemies if you bump into them as well as deflecting projectiles. It’s actually a little bit overpowered, as it negates almost all damage you encounter, whether from normal enemies or bosses, but it drains your mana in doing so, so you’ll need to use it wisely. You may need to do a little bit of grinding to be able to buy all of the backpack expansions, in order to carry any potions you buy from Ymir with you on your travels - especially as these will prove to be super useful against bosses, as they were surprisingly challenging - but luckily working your way through any level will net you a decent amount of coins, particularly if you track down the various treasure chests dotted around the levels. As well as offering a range of things at her store, Ymir will task you with various challenges on each level, such as finding all treasure chests, defeating all of the monster girls, and completing the level in under a set time, with these unlocking additional content for your gallery.
Once you complete an area, you will be shown a checklist of all tasks/collectibles from that area, so you can see if there’s anything you missed. We love when games have these kinds of features, as it saves a lot of the hassle of unnecessary backtracking through parts trying to figure out what you’ve missed. There are secret walls throughout levels, so it’s good to keep an eye out for any suspiciously blank areas, so that you can have a look - although this does come with its risks from time to time. Once you’ve gained the ability to glide and/or boost, this is the perfect time to go back and check for things you might have missed, as well as to try and complete Ymir’s tasks of beating levels in under a certain time, as these abilities make things a lot easier to shave off those precious seconds.
Priced at £6.69 on the Xbox Store, although reduced to £5.35 for a limited time, Wife Quest is a fun platformer with a wide range of abilities and upgrades to keep things interesting. It’s described as being a platformer as well as metroidvania, which is a little misleading due to the linear structure of levels - however with some collectibles and areas being unable to be reached until certain abilities have been unlocked (such as gliding and wall smashing), requiring you to replay levels later on, we can see where that line has gotten somewhat blurred. Once you’ve completed the story once, you’ll unlock Magic Mode - which removes the need for Mana, and contains new skins - as well as a mini-game, giving you even more reason to continue playing. Overall we had a great time with Wife Quest, and would recommend it to those looking for a fun, yet challenging time.
In the end, we decided to give Wife Quest the Collecting Asylum rating of 8/10.
Are you interested in Wife Quest? What do you think of it?
Let us know in the comments below!
- V x
Thank you to EastAsiaSoft for the Wife Quest Xbox review code!
