Rune's Pharmacy

Adult games and Japanese RPGs are a mixture more common than peanut butter and jelly. It’s hard to go five minutes without bumping into some sexually loaded content in a regular JRPG, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that games fully committed to their mature side are a thriving genre in their own right. One such game is Rune’s Pharmacy, which puts players in the small shoes of the eponymous Rune, a pharmacist who inherited the debts of her recently deceased parents.

JRPG & NSFW

Before you run off and download Rune’s Pharmacy, it’s good to know off the bat that this game includes a lot of adult content. While the core gameplay isn’t necessarily adult in nature, there are many opporunities for hentia scenes and other minor mature content. So it’s best to play this game by yourself (unless you’re into that thing, of course!)

Old School, Young Characters

From a visual and mechanical standpoint, Rune’s Pharmacy plays and feels exactly like a lot of classic JRPGs. Fans of the Pokemon series, as well as EarthBound will be familiar with this top down, sprite-based movement over a sprawling overworld. These sprites are decent in quality, but the backgrounds seem to have the most detailed and thought put into them. Animations are quite poor when it comes to travelling the overworld, as Rune walks as if she’s sliding across ice with butter on the soles of her feet.

The combat systems are equally dated. The combat is turn-based and players have a number of abilities and tactics to choose from in order to defeat their foes. The fights aren’t challenging by any means, and seem more like a way to pad out the game’s content between the adult material. Most of the game is spent gathering items, which is more often than not a dull grind that doesn’t offer anything interesting in terms of story.

Problematic Content

Speaking of adult content, this game has some… questionable content to say the least. The inclusion of loli characters will most certainly put many, many players off this game if the adult tone didn’t already. Combine this with Rune’s Pharmancy’s eagerness to sexualize its main character at practically every step, and players are left feeling more seedy than stimulated.

PROS:

• 39 base CGs scenes
• Throwback, classic JRPG style that will appeal to classic gamers
• Artwork is solid with great pixel art background assets

CONS:

• Dull gameplay that is stuck in the past
• Adult tone won’t appeal to everyone
• Includes problematic content that will make some players feel uncomfortable

If you are into lewd RPGs then I am sure that Rune's Pharmacy is one that is going to interest you. This is a Japanese game so playing it unless you can get some kind of translation patch, you may have a hard time getting through it. Still, as someone who loves lewd RPGs, I found myself pretty interested in this game and spent quite a bit of time with it.

My Parents Failed Me

The premise of the game is one that we have all seen before. The main character is a lovely young lady called Erunelle. She is pretty, rather naive, and also rather unfortunate in two major ways. First of all, her parents have died, but even worse than that is they were deeply in debt and now they are calling on Erunelle to pay it and while she is a “pharmacist” you know right from the start that she is going to be paying off this debt with her body before long.

I had a hard time following the story if I am being honest with you, but that is usually the case with a game that is very heavily translated. Still, the premise is decent enough for you to get a little invested.

This Game Puts The X In XXX Anime!

The presentation of Rune's Pharmacy is very well done. It was actually the trailer that really made me want to play this and that trailer I first saw only really showed the top down sprite-based aspect of the game. I love the sprite work here and while it does have that RPG Maker vibe to it, I love what they have done here with the visuals.

The game has some fantastic lewd scenes and as the game is Japanese, these do have the good blurred out if you know what I am saying. I am sure there is a way around this, but this is usually the case with lewd Japanese games. Still, the animation and the artwork here is truly amazing stuff. There is a great selection of hot characters and grotesque ones as well so I feel they capture most parts of the lewd game spectrum when it comes to the characters.

Go There, Do That, Fight That, and F That!

I got some very early Final Fantasy vibes from Rune's Pharmacy as I was playing it. You move around the map and talk to various characters and get jobs, tasks, and so on. You have a lot to do in the game and most of it is pretty standard RPG stuff. The fact that Erunelle is a cute character does make you want to help her out.

The battle system is very easy to get to grips with, you only have to worry about MP and HP as you fight and if you lose a fight, you get a pretty explicit hentai scene (all be it blurred) to show you what happens to her. It is not the deepest RPG, but I feel that helps you fumble your way through it if you do not understand Japanese.

Pros

• I liked Erunelle as a character
• The lewd CG stuff has a high level of polish
• The premise of the game is pretty interesting
• There is a lot of variety to the characters in the game
• The RPG mechanics are very easy to get the hang of

Cons

• The game is very basic
• Playing the game in English may be hard