A quick list of stuff you should know going into this one (especially the part that this is a sequel to a Huuma Mina: The Secret of Immortality game you probably haven’t played).
Who is Huuma Mina?
Huuma Mina, the main character of this here game, is an immortal ninja with self-healing abilities and developer Hajime’s first character. He made a game based around her in 2013 that never reached Steam but can be found elsewhere, like DLSite.
It was okay! Solid first attempt at a game with a basic five stage set-up, boss at the end of each, four of those bosses re-used as part of the cast here. Best part was that the final costume tied up your legs and gave you a Devil May Cry devil trigger explosion and near infinite downward air flurry kick that basically let you break the difficulty.
This game explains some of what happened in that game, which is good because the translation of that game made a lot of details unclear. The basics are that Huuma Mina is a ninja who is somehow immortal, and an evil scientist is using her as a test subject, which in turn gave her some serious memory loss. Another woman saves her and they join forces until Mina discovers this woman is a vampire and lied to her.
You also do not see the part where they work together because the vampire gets captured right away and kicks off the plot. By the end, Huuma Mina has the vampire girl, the evil scientist, a maid, a bunny girl, and a dominatrix all tied up on torture machines in her home and she just kind of lets them go between then and now so plot can happen. Except the vampire, who is also better explained here as a government agent and arguably a good guy, making Mina more morally ambiguous (and considering she has a BDSM dungeon in both games, that is fair).
Combat
Huuma Mina: The Secret of Immortalization is an action game played out on a series of maps that allow for various side quests. Thus, combat is important, and the game basically expands upon what you may have experienced in Cinderella Escape 2.
You have two attack buttons, a light and heavy, a dodge (that you can hold the button for to enter a dash to move through the maps faster), a block that comes out much faster than before, a jump and double jump, and the big innovation here, two special moves.
When looking at your weapon load out at your various hide outs, you can also spend money you earn in game to unlock more special moves. Blue ones don’t take any SP, while red ones do, have a cooldown, but can be used when you’re being combo’ed by an enemy, allowing you to break free as well as unleash a strong attack. SP is gained through damaging enemies.
It’s recommended you make a lot of use of your starting projectile move, as it goes through solid objects and walls, and has some fun combo play if you know what you’re doing. You can fight with swords, go with just kicks (ala like in Cinderella Escape 2), or bind your legs with electric cuffs. Swords are the strongest damage output and recommended for an initial run, the latter two are mainly for fun. That said, you do gain a special move set for any bound leg situations you find yourself in if you finish all the kitten rescue side quests, so keep that in mind – it’s important.
There’s also an armor system in place, where you and the enemy have red and green bars for health and armor respectfully. Armor absorbs health damage, but if armor is depleated, the character’s clothing explodes off and said character takes more damage and can be flinched with regular hits. If armor is on, attacks don’t make one flinch. The key innovation here compared to Cinderella Escape 2 is that the stun mechanic here is CENTRAL.
Huuma Mina’s faster block is necessary to guard a hit before an enemy attacks, as they don’t have long wind-ups. If you manage that (I recommend doing a rapid button tap for best results), the enemy is briefly stunned and you can do three times the normal damage to their armor. The entire combat system is based around this, outside the drone enemies and a special late-game enemy. Doing this with projectile attacks will not make a stun, though it does stun drones that hit you with lasers.
EDIT: I should mention the enemies can hit you *hard*. It’s why the red skill is so important, and why the block stun is central. You can get punished fast, so make use of your projectile skill as needed, dodge if you need room, and rapid tap to block to get a stun and punish the enemy instead. Also, use that lock-on, it will save your life.
Stats
Like the majority of Hajime’s games, you can level up by gathering experience, which happens here both by defeating enemies and completing quests. You have main story quests and side quests you can activate with a board in your hangout. Those side quests will be the source of the majority of your experience and your money.
Leveling up increases your various bars and stats, and all that stuff you can easily understand from just glimpsing at the very detailed stat menu. However, there is one additional thing to consider – bonus stats for your attack, break damage (allowing you to do more damage to armor), and your natural defense against damage. You get these points, up to 100, by buying clothing, which is where money comes in.
Earning & Spending Money
You can customize Mina with a ton of different hair styles and clothing options found in the costume dresser in your hideout. The more you unlock, the more bonus stats you get. Each cost 500 coins, which you earn from picking them up on the map or breaking objects. You can also spend coins to unlock your special moves, otherwise they’re entirely for costume unlocks.
However, the coins you pick up give little, silvers giving one coin and gold giving five. Most money you get will be from quests, but from two other major sources you’ll run across – ransoms and arena fights.
At certain points in the story, you will be asked to capture a given character, which is done by beating them and then holding a special button near them to perform a capture spell (the game includes a tutorial for this early on). You can also speed this up with Mina’s red skill for her swords, which traps characters without armor in a forest of chains. If they’re wiped out in those, it counts as a capture. You can knock enemies into bondage traps on the maps just to style on them, but this does not count as a capture as only certain characters can be captured.
Afterwards, they are sent to your dungeon, where you have a torture minigame that lets you get information from them, then you have the option to ransom them for a significant bit of coin, often several thousand. You have to release a series of characters in the main story, so there will be a stretch where you earn a lot of money in quick succession.
The arena is a bit different.
Slave Arena
Unlike most games, running out of health does not result in a game over, but instead Huuma Mina being sold to a slave fighting arena. Your only option is to agree to fight, which you do in tight bondage that restricts your legs, leaving you a light attack that shoots a weak projectile and a heavy dive. You can earn money in arena fights, your pay out increasing with wave wins, and it is a solid way to gain experience if you wanna grind a bit. Problem is that it’s quite difficult early on do to the limited moveset mixed with your low stats.
This changes if you complete the kitten finding missions, which nets you two special skills that are extremely OP and hilarious, making the slave arena trivial. Otherwise, it is here because this is a fetish game, if you have not figured it out yet.
Downside if you have to pay to leave, and at least fight once. The amount scales with what you have total, so you always lose a chunk. However, there is a hidden wall in the arena you can break to find a locked door you can open to escape through a vent. Amusingly, you will still be in bondage when you get back to your hideout (just change your equipment at your weapon selection to undo this). Thus, you can keep everything, BUT it costs ten keys.
Oh yeah, keys!
Shards
The torture minigame also has a few different devices you can make use of, but you have to unlock them via shards. They’re hidden on maps, and you get an indicator of how many shards are on a map when there. Some are just in the map itself to find off the beaten path, but a few are behind locked doors, like in the starting sewer.
You need keys to reach those few, which you can find by breaking objects, given out at random. They have no other purpose besides getting a free out of the slave arena, which takes ten keys as mentioned earlier.
And Other Tips and Info
OPTIMIZATION: Due to the assets Hajime used and the large maps, the game can run rough. It’s really bad in the city park map, and still somewhat in other large maps. This can cause input delays, which is a big problem with the much faster combat in this game than in Cinderella Escape 2. Remember you can change the graphics quality in the options menu, which you can even access during the cutscenes, rendered in-game.
BONDAGE TRAPS: A Hajime staple, and back with a vengeance after their few appearances in Cinderella Escape 2. If you touch these glowing spots on a map, you get stuck in a bondage trap you have to rapid tap to escape. HOWEVER, a new feature here is that most enemies can be trapped in these too, though they take less damage once trapped. If you beat them in those traps, they stay there. This is an amusing way to style on an enemy. Some bosses can also use moves that summon these traps, like in Cinderella Escape 2, but this is fairly rare.
PORTALS: You can look at the map selection from the pause menu, and you may notice a few odd spots with different icons. These are portals you can activate to warp between them, very useful for the big chunk of backtracking you will be doing. You have one in your starting hangout, do not forget to activate it!
That’s all. Have fun ❤
