All Mode
Gather around, fellow virtual reality porn fanatics, as you surely do not want to miss this game.
If you’ve been around the adult gaming scene long enough, you’ve surely heard of Illusion – a Japanese studio that is known for releasing some of the lewdest games currently available – and their magnificently raunchy eroge Honey Select. Often lauded as the best adult VR game in the genre, dethroning Honey Select of this title has proved to be a rather lofty goal as we’ve yet to see a worthy competitor. It’s easy to see why too: The game offers a lot of content and tons of replayability!
The way the VR community feels about the game! Image credits: Illusion
With a massive modding community supporting it and the ability to share user creations, the game is considered to be nothing short of a magnum opus in adult gaming. On top of that, Illusion released the “Honey Select Party” and the “Studio Neo” expansions relatively recently. That means there is a wealth of fresh new content and tools worth discovering!
On top of that, Play Home, the spiritual successor to Honey Select, is coming soon. The demo just got released, and I think it’s safe to say that it’s structurally similar to Honey Select. All the characters you’ve created in Honey Select will work on there as well! Excited yet? Let’s dig in!
Writers Note: With a ton of content there is much more to account for in reviews. For that reason, I’ll have to publish two articles to cover this enormous undertaking. This one will include the base game, and the upcoming one will include the mods worth using in virtual reality. After all, Honey Select isn’t much without being heavily modded so I thought I should give each major mod the attention it deserves.
Customization Palette
Honey Select, like most Illusion games before it, has a very in-depth customization system. With the Party expansion adding further to an already wealth of options, the game does not disappoint.
The vast number of options Honey Select offers allows each player to create their own unique experience. Image credit: Illusion
Like most simulator-esque games in the market today, Honey Select has a massive amount of morphs for every body type. You can make characters of every gender, ethnicity, body type, and personality that your heart desires. And that’s just what the base game offers. On the mods side, there is an enormous amount of lewdness and niche content out there waiting to be explored. I’ll delve into that more in the mods article though.
Customization in this game is not limited to clothes and morphs only; you can create a character from the ground up in this game.
The ability to change everything from the girl’s voice to her personality, mentality and sexual preferences inevitably take this game’s customization feature to the next level. In a way, this feature is the backbone that has made this game resonate with so many people. With Honey Select: Anything you want, you can get!
Changing the personality of the character alters the way the action unfolds. Image credit: Illusion
Through your playthrough, you’re going to realize that customization in this game is way beyond anything already out there. At first, it might be a bit much actually. I mean, you can change the girl’s voice pitch from low to high; you can change her personality from “Cheerful” to “Withdrawn”; you can change her behavior from “Brave” to “Perverted”; you can make her breasts sensitive or prefer kissing and so much more. It’s a lot to take in. But after a while, you’ll grow to like, if not love, the number of possibilities here.
It’s amazingly simple for something so complex. Clearly, the developers invested a lot into making the customization system what it is today, and I deem it effort worth commending.
Sex N’ Events
The events system in Honey Select is super cool, and it’s heavily dependent on the sex system.
Some positions make some characters ecstatic with pleasure. Others? Not so much. Image credit: Illusion
Sex positions here are profoundly varied, and each girl has her preferences for how the action should unfold. Each position changes the girls’ traits in some way. For example, “Yellow” positions increase the girls “Love” stat; “Red” positions increase the girls “Horny” stat and so on.
You can choose to enforce your will or play to the girls’ preferences. All the actions you make during sex affect your relationship with the girl and beyond, and that’s where the events system comes in.
Depending on how you treat the girl in the sex scenes, events might spawn with the girl allowing for something a bit different. Events might happen randomly sometimes and based on your judgment, your relationship might change as well, and you might get additional “items.” These events all tweak the “Feelings System” – a pretty detailed point-based system – which gauges the girl’s position towards the player.
Treating the characters right makes them happier to be with you. Image credit: Illusion
It’s mind-boggling how much this system adds to the characters you make. Their behavior and expressions during sex make every character feel exceptionally realistic. You might feel downright guilty for doing something you shouldn’t, or if that’s your thing, you might enjoy it. Fetishes get their fair share of action on here, no doubt. Some events allow for especially niche sexual encounters depending on how you act in them, and that opens up the game that much more.
Image credit: Illusion
Okay. That’s a lot to take in. Oh, wait… I’ve yet to mention the sharing system and the incredible mod support Honey Select has? I’ve barely scratched the surface it seems. Onwards!
Sharing Features & Studio
Given the games’ super strong customization features, there is also a community sharing feature that allows players to share their creations.
Through these “cards” – select images that hold character and scene data – you can share your unique creations anywhere you’d like or install them. All you have to do is drag the “card” of the creation you want into the correct folder and viola, the character or scene appears in the game. Though, I should note that if you’re missing the mods that the “card” you chose uses, then that specific item will not be a part of the character or scene you’ll see in the game. I’ll go into this further in “part II” of this review. Speaking of characters and scenes …
Honey Studio allows you to creatively use the assets of the game in VR. Image credit: Illusion
There is also HoneyStudio, which allows you to conjure CGI scenes of your liking using the game’s assets. For this review, I played around using both Studio and Studio NEO, and I have to say that they’re underwhelming without mods. Simply put, if you want to animate your scenes, you’ll have to use the HSStudioAddon or HSStudioNEOAddon mod. I go over these mods further in the next article. If you don’t get those mods, then I am afraid Honey Studio capabilities would prove rather limiting. It’s a lot better with the NEO rendition, which allows some degree of custom animation; it’s just rather constrained.
I should note that HoneyStudioNEO does lack Eusth VR mod support. You’ll end up using the built-in VR support released with Honey Select Party which is fairly underwhelming. It’s missing proper motion controller support and has a somewhat clunky interface, but if you appreciate using mouse and keyboard with your VR porn game then it should be right up your alley! I personally do not recommend it as it does break the immersion factor quite a bit.
Part I Complete
Honey Select is hands down the best adult virtual reality game out right now. With Play Home releasing in November, that might change as it is rumored to have better native VR support than Honey Select and a lot of the same features. Alas, I can only speak for the present, and Honey Select blows every current title out of the water.
The customization features are phenomenal, truly a feat to behold; the depth of the sex/events system is engaging and allows your characters to develop naturally; the sharing features and HoneyStudio are surely enough to keep you revisiting this game for the foreseeable future. If that’s not sufficient, then the mods surely are.
It’s a shame, so many people don’t give Honey Select the chance it deserves due to the complexity of the installation process. If you’re still intimidated by the process and are looking for a more streamlined tutorial, then be sure to check out my guide. I wrote it in preparation for this article and the response to it has been extremely positive. If something goes wrong, feel free to ask me in the comments of the guide, and I’d be glad to help.
So much depth to this game
i love how your renderings are so smooth and those big tits looks better then the real ones
I know, right? The mods for this game makes it look genuinely beautiful.