Wife Quest (Switch) Review

Poor Fernando. He’s caught the eye of all the local monster girls in the kingdom. Alas for the monster girls, Fernando only has eyes for his wife, Mia. However, seeing as how Fernando seems to be the only male in the kingdom, these attention-starved monsters aren’t going to be denied their pound of flesh. Before you can say suffering succotash, Fernando has been kidnapped for a permanent round of pass-around. Poor, poor Fernando! Also, welcome to Wife Quest…

So what’s a beleaguered wife to do? Well, if you’re Mia, you’re going to grab the biggest sword you can find, hunt down each and every one of those monster girls, and violently punish them for laying their grubby hands on her husband. Hell hath no fury like a woman whose husband has been pleasure-napped!

So, if you haven’t figured it out already, Wife Quest is a “naughty” action platformer that has you chasing your kidnapped husband all over the kingdom. From lush forests to fiery volcanoes, you’re going to have to platform and fight your way to rescuing Fernando from his dastardly predicament of unwanted sexual attraction. You’ll tackle multiple busty boss fights only to find that, sorry Mia, your Fernando is in another castle.

Wife Quest‘s narrative is, of course, played for laughs. The story flow is incredibly simple. Mia hunts across a range of environments, engages in some verbal dirt throwing with each boss, discovers Fernando has been passed onto the next boss, and repeat. Sadly, that’s as in-depth (ahem) as the story gets, while the constant jibes about Mia’s looks or the monster girl’s nastiness wear thin very quickly.

It’s a good thing then that the developers have made up for this with some solid gameplay and attractive 2D visuals.

Initially, Mia can wield a sword with a basic slash attack and the ability to block. Blocking costs mana, which essentially acts here as her stamina bar so, if you take too many hits, you’ll be left wide open. The regular enemies scattered throughout each level – of which there’s a fair assortment – aren’t terribly difficult by themselves but are usually placed in more devious positions the further you get into each stage. Once you’ve knocked them out, you get the option to “punish” them. These are basically suggestive finishers that’ll have anyone wandering past your room wondering what late-night channel you’re watching – based on the noise alone. However, you’ll want to finish enemies off this way to unlock character animations in the gallery.

Bosses are multi-phase affairs as each one has multiple health bars to cut through. Do enough damage, and you’ll trigger the second phase and that usually involves the stage changing up as well. You’ll need quick reflexes, pattern recognition, and decent platforming skills to beat them. Once done, you get to “punish” them far more harshly and gain yourself a new ability. As an example, Mia rips the wings off the first boss and uses them to glide around subsequent levels. These abilities also require mana, which can be replenished through drops from enemies or chests found around each level.

Levels start off simply enough with the first couple of screens getting you used to the different gameplay elements before combining everything together in later screens. Enemy placement, traps and environmental hazards go a long way to making Wife Quest a far more difficult game than its premise and visuals would have you believe. And make no mistake, Wife Quest can get quite challenging. Not unbeatably so, but I did die quite a few times during my playthrough.

The levels also get larger the further you progress, with some obvious platforms that you can’t get to until you have a specific ability. It adds some replayability to the levels. The only oddity is that you can’t save while playing a level for the first time, and will have to start right from the beginning if you quit before completing it. However, once completed, there will be checkpoints you can use to jump to certain areas, including the boss arena if you feel like fighting them again.

Another reason to replay levels is that they’re littered with cash to collect, which is needed to buy upgrades for Mia at the shop run by Ymir – another girl all hot and bothered for Fernando. You can buy potions to replenish health and mana mid-level, attack boosts that increase your power and striking range, health upgrades, pictures of Ymir, and a makeover that increases your speed. I highly recommend scouring the levels for cash because these upgrades can really make all the difference in a boss fight.

Visually, Wife Quest sports some pretty 2D visuals with a bright colour palette that suits the game’s breezy narrative. The 2D backdrops are nicely detailed and there’s some great animation on display, particularly on Mia whose countenance changes on her sprite depending on her actions. The same applies to her character portrait which also changes her expression as you play. The monster girls are all of the bright, cheerful, and busty kind, with plenty of spritely jiggle physics on display. That said, outside of the character designs, suggestive finishers, and some harsh language, the game doesn’t get as naughty as one might expect it to.

Ultimately, Wife Quest really doesn’t reinvent the platforming wheel. If anything, if you’ve played a 2D action platformer in the last couple of years, much of what’s on display here will be familiar. The supposedly “naughty” nature of the game, which is what will most likely get your attention, is more repetitive than titillating. However, the challenging gameplay and overall light-hearted, breezy nature of the game still make it worth a look in what has become an overcrowded genre.

A review code for Wife Quest was provided to gameblur by the publisher.