The Menagerie

The Menagerie

In the desert city of Alabast, there exists a massive structure referred to as ‘The Sail’, which separates the nobles from the lowly commoners. In this ivory tower however, there are secrets the nobles keep even from each other. Deep below The Sail, there exists a collection of sorts called ‘The Menagerie’. Obsessed by novelty, the elves of Alabast even go as far as to collect exotic artifacts, creatures and even other peoples from across the world. Here there is nothing and no one on display without a price.

The Menagerie is a new visual novel from Lupiesoft and features multiple character routes, adult content, monster girls and more!

42 comments on “The Menagerie

    1. Get a program like winrar or 7zip on your computer, select both of the files in your file browser, right click, and select whatever extract option is present for you. That should extract both archives into a single, playable game.

    1. O-oh my god. Is…is that seriously what they did for the voices in this game? I mean, I knew this game was being lazy as hell, but even lazy people avoid acknowledging that this method exists.

  1. Okay, what the hell is wrong with this game. I’m not complaining about the fetishes being too intense or weird or anything like that, I mean the actual game. Its coding and its writing. Scenes will just randomly jump from one to another with no continuity. Sure the main character has some sort of insomnia, but that doesn’t explain most of these random jumps. For example, in one scene we get something like this:
    person: \Come with me right now, don’t bother getting dressed. There’s someone I want you to meet right away\
    jump cut to protag getting breakfast after a nap
    jump cut to both protag and the person from before, both fully clothed. \Okay, this is the person I wanted you to meet.\

    Scenes jump not only from one to another without any sense of flow, but there are gaping plot holes that jump straight the fuck out of nowhere. Characters being introduced to people they had been good friends with for ages, characters talking about a distant past with each other when we witnessed their meeting in the game (which doesn’t seem to span more than a few weeks at most), the fact that the game can’t decide if a scene is common to all routes or specific to one and ends up being dropped and forgotten in half the routes despite the involved parties being pretty excited about it.

    I want to like this game, but the developers seem to have released a game that was in a state even worse than a pre-alpha. It’s like the writers wrote a quarter of the game, the developers rearranged them to make it easier to test something, and then the writers wrote another quarter of the game based on the new order, leaving one half of the game a tangled mess and the other half completely nonexistant.

  2. The story’s not even consistent between routes about some things. There’s a museum that has a… thing, I guess, that one route says is a painting by the dark elf, and another route says it’s an ancient stone mural that was found in separate pieces.

    Also, a number of choices just lead to paths that just dump you back to the main menu with no warning. At first I though I’d gotten some really weird bug or something, but nope, buying some sleep medicine to help get rid of weird dreams (that are basically never mentioned again in the other paths) is apparently a non-standard game over.

    Not to mention, that basically the main plot hook where you’re supposed to train the new person just mysteriously vanishes for no reason.

    And, of course, all the text boxes that had text spilling out of them for no reason.
    That would be a pretty minor issue in a fan-translated patch of something where they can’t just add more boxes, but this was written in English by native English speakers, and they could easily have fixed it.

    It’s quite a shame, really. I had been really looking forward to this, and there were moments where the strangeness of the writing style made the setting that much more intriguing and interesting.
    As is, however, it’s a gigantic mess. A mess with potential, but still a mess.

    1. Also, as a quick question, does anyone have the purchased version and can confirm that this stuff happens in it too? It almost feels like one of those leaked betas that gives an incorrect picture of the finished product or something.

      I mean, I trust the admin to know what’s being uploaded, but I also trusted the stuff on MangaGamer to be, you know, at least vaguely competently put together, even if I didn’t personally like them.

  3. I didn’t plan on commenting but I saw the captcha was ‘mouth watering’ and… well, just wanted to share it, I suppose.

    PS. MINOR SPOILER ALERT! MINOR SPOILER ALERT! Being a lolicon as I am, not having a “full” sex scene with either Pru nor Key irritates me. ¬¬

  4. And lets not forget the fact that some story paths outright contradict one another.

    Mild spoilers: In one ending the Menagerie is shutdown when it goes bankrupt, whereas in another ending the Menagerie is basically destroyed when the country (apparently) undergoes a revolution.

    Usually crap like this is reserved for BIG visual novels with massive scripts where its impossible to keep every story path tied together (ie. X, Y and Z characters appearing in the intro but never again once you go down G character’s path). But with smaller games? Its a piss-poor sign of how poorly managed the writer(s?) were since no one said \OK, this is a rough timeline of the ‘world’ and at the end; THIS event happens so make the character stories fit.\

    That said, its obviously a low budget title (seriously, they should have commissioned more art). Just pirate it, beat it in a hour or two, (buy it if you think it was worth it), and then move on.

  5. Pretty good VN. Short but straight forward. Don’t expect much other than some short, almost-sweet stories.

    The writing is really wonky though. A lot of the dialogue is flat-out worthless fluff (the first sex scene with an anonymous person in the intro doesn’t even get a CG) and the player choices practically taunt you to not save beforehand.

    -Help someone escape?
    -Tell them to stay?
    -Squeal on them?

      1. I have tried, it apprears they two empty cg spots are just to fill the space. There appears to be no more content. I have picked every choice, leading to every possible ending.
        If I have missed something I don’t know.
        I couldnt find the cgs for the game anywhere on the internet so I don’t know.

        1. There was apparently a bug in the game, the last two CG were supposed to unlock after going through all the routes.

          Source: http://www.ulmf.org/bbs/showthread.php?t=27427&page=4

          But hot damn the writing of this game is shite, it fails in all categories, prose, consistency, plot, structure everything is sub par by a fairly large margin, events do not flow naturally and at times the scenes jump weeks ahead without any kind of notification (leaving you to constantly wonder if you’re still in the same day you were in last sentence) most of the dialogue is completely pointless, and events do not lead to a logical conclusion, just whatever the writer felt like could happen next.

          And there’s only cg for less than half the scenes and most “sex” is fade to black instead of an actual scene, combined with the shit writing this is one of the worst nukige (which is quite a feat considering the genre) on the site.

        2. They aren’t actually in the game at the moment but if you go to their website or look the game up on MangaGamer you can watch the promotional video which has one of them in it (a scene with Key the white girl in the picture).

  6. Did they have someone different write the second part without reading the first part? Just getting into the Monkey route and she is suddenly meeting Asuma for the first time despite their friendship being a fairly important part of the first part. That’s pretty sloppy.

    1. First impression: pretty good for a small game. Stylish, nice theme song. Distant, mysterious, with a distinctive eastern (arabian) touch. Futanarish, but so far not gay.

      All in all good, will play it further.

      1. Futanari-“ish”? Don’t you think this is downplaying it JUST A BIT? The main character IS a futanari.

        1. Damn shame too. As if the game wasn’t weird enough with all the monster girls in it. Futanari always gotta be in anything hentai. God forbid there ever be a 100% lesbian yuri.

          1. you see that tag… “yuri”? see how it has that line under it? click that tag. a page will pop up. with…all things yuri. I’m pretty sure you’ll find your 100% yuri game.

          2. What the hell are you talking about? There are waaaaay more “Pure Yuri” eroge than futa. The SonoHana series alone has more installments than either of the Futa tags have entries. Let the futa fans have SOMETHING.

        2. Not downplaying at all. ALL chars futanari, “plot” heavily munching over the dick girls idea – now that is a futanari overkill.

          In this game though – just futanarISH. So far I’ve only seen 2 futanari there – main character and 1 more girl. WHich is not that much at all, in my opinion.

          P.S. The game is pretty awesome. For a small game.

    2. There are two futanari characters in the game the main protagonist (the lizard in the picture) and an elf so but it’s done in a way that it’s like playing a normal hetro game so if futa isn’t your genre you’re not bombarded with penis. Still you choose the route (such as it is) so you can avoid most of the other futa scenes by staying away from Aishi (<-the elf).

      1. Yeah, I agree. I’ve had quite a comfortable feeling from the sexy scenes in the game – and I’m hetero myself and not a big fan of futas.

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