Michael Jackson – The Bad Experience

And by “Bad” I mean it sucks. I have no idea how they managed to mess up the winning formula of Michael Jackson music + Ouendan/EBA gameplay, but they did.

I’ve had Michael Jackson: The Experience since Christmas, but I’m such a Michael Jackson fan I decided to wait for a “special” day to start it. I settled on either his birthday or the anniversary of his death. So June 25th 2011 rolled around. I pulled out my DS. I put on a brand new screen protector and dug out a new stylus just for the occasion. I started to play.

1 hour later… M-maybe it gets better…y-yeah…

3 hours later … WHAT IS THIS FAGGOTRY?!

What could possibly have gone wrong? Plenty. At first my disappointment was so strong I wasn’t even going to write this review, but since I technically did “finish” this game, I suppose I can jot down a few points, to serve as a warning to future generations.

What didn’t suck

– Full original versions instead of covers.

– Music quality was great, even though crappy DS speakers.

– Images were bright and colorful.

What sucked, i.e. Everything else

– Only 12 songs on only 3 difficulties.  Also while I don’t mind that there’s no Thriller, it doesn’t make sense to have a dance game and not include one of the most iconic dance sequences in history in it.

– Full versions of every song, including intros and outros, made each stage drag on interminably. I’d have preferred the full versions to be unlockable and the playable ones to be shorter.

– Game consists of a hideous, expressionless MJ bobblehead executing some fairly well-done but highly cartoony dance moves. The only thing is, calling MJ’s dancing “fairly well-done” is like calling the Grand Canyon “fairly wide.” Ubisoft didn’t make even the weakest of efforts to capture the crispness and fluidity that was Michael at his best and the result is that The Experience feels more like a parody than a tribute.

– No in-game reason for playing except “It’s Michael Jackson music.” I like a story, even if it’s incredibly flimsy. As it is, the selling point is supposed to be tapping along to MJ’s music. But I’ve danced, sung, screamed, eaten and slept to MJ’s music for decades (I’m not saying how many!!). A game with nothing else to offer me but a few rhythmic taps to the same songs I’ve owned for ages is, to be blunt, an utter waste of money.

– The gameplay is no fun at all. It’s supposed to play like Ouendan/EBA, but it’s not anywhere near as exciting. The taps/beats don’t go with the music half the time. Sometimes they go with the backing vocals, or bass beat, or drum beat, or goodness knows what beat. There are breaks inserted at random places. There’s no reward for accurate taps, but the penalty for inaccuracy is steep and painful. At the same time Michael keeps dancing whether you make a mistake or not, so it’s like the player might as well not be there. Even on Hard your life barely goes down even when you make a mistake, etc etc etc. Yet another case of “taking the form and missing the essence.”

– The rewards are silly. Just drawn memorabilia like the camera from “Billie Jean” and the anti-gravity shoes from “Smooth Criminal.” It wouldn’t even have been so bad if each item came with some trivia and details that fans would enjoy reading, but no, it’s just “Take this average drawing of a white glove, and be grateful we gave you that much.”

And so on and so forth. I “finished” it in half a day, and the music is the only thing I enjoyed about the whole experience. I gave it to my younger cousin last week, and he seems to be enjoying himself, so maybe I’m just not the target demographic? Then who is the target demographic if not lifelong fans? Nah, I stand by my initial assessment: Michael Jackson The Experience is a half-assed effort to make money off MJ fans before the grief wore off. Real smooth, Ubisoft. I’ll remember this.

Ranshima Monogatari – Rare Land Story (1)

No sooner had I seen Princess Maker 4 off than I moved right onto its replacement, Ranshima Monogatari – Rare Land Story. And I had an even better time than I did with PM4.

First, about the title: all the official material has the title as “Lair Land”, but since most English sites call it “Rare Land,” I’ll go with that. The important thing is, Ranshima Monogatari is essentially the same game as Princess Maker 4, with far better graphics, more interesting characters and quite a few innovations. As a matter of fact, Ranshima Monogatari appears to be a PSP remake of a 2007 Chinese PC game that was heavily inspired by the Princess Maker series.

The story has you as a baron named Hiro who finds a mysterious girl lying on a slab during a war. This girl uses the power of the pendant around her neck to stop the war (I think? she put out a few fires at least), then loses consciousness. The local priest jumps to the conclusion that the girl, Chilia, was sent by the Goddess to test humanity and asks Hiro to teach her about life. The way she grows up will affect the fate of mankind, etc etc.

Or so they said, but after I mastered the town cleanup job, I wound up with an ending where she becomes a town custodian and ends up splattered in sewage. Unless this is a subtle metaphor for the state of the human mind, I have to conclude that the priest had just been sampling the sacramental wine a little too heavily.

I already went into detail about the mechanics of this sort of raising sim in the Princess Maker 4 post, so there’s no need to go over it again here. It lasts four years (instead of 8 in PM4) , the jobs and stats are largely similar, and when Chilia’s tiredness gets too high, you can take her on vacation or give her breaks so she can recuperate. You can also visit stores and other locations in town to buy things, meet and woo other characters and unlock special events and CGs.

The ending you get depends on your relationship to other characters, Chilia’s stats, events witnessed, etc. Unlike in PM4, the main character (Hiro) has multiple individual endings separate from Chilia’s that can be viewed once the right conditions are met. You can get a double ending where Hiro marries Somarina and Chilia marries Douma, for example.

There are plenty of other differences as well, both big and small. I’ll list the most notable ones:

1. You can change Chilia’s hairstyle in addition to her clothes. And buy/gather material and have the dressmaker custom-make items for you. Clothes and hair affect stats and also affect the support of Chilia’s “fanclub”, who will give her items and money if they like her. Chilia’s hair also grows from year to year, so if you give her short or medium haircuts they’ll start to look kinda funny after a while.

2. You can buy new decorations and furnishings for your room. Additionally, devoting a sum of money to upkeep every month will slowly make it bigger and fancier, allowing you to add posher decorations. However if Chilia’s tension (motivation) gets too low or she’s otherwise unhappy she will blithely trash the place until you make her better (where’s a “Spank” option when you need one?).

3. Commands are entered twice a month in 5 day blocks. This means you can do up to 6 different activities a month instead of 3.

4. The graphics are way better than in PM4. The character designs are cuter as well, and there’s a little more variety in the NPC designs. I thought the girls were especially good-looking, but the guys were decent as well. I wish I could’ve gotten to see Guana’s real face. I bet she’s hot.

5. Apart from raising Chilia, you’re also tasked with rebuilding various parts of the city. It’s entirely optional, but it nets you various rewards as you progress and makes things up to 50% cheaper in town. It may also be a requirement for the best ending.

6. There are a few more animations for work and for school. You get different ones depending on whether you do poorly, well, very well or marvelously well. They also evolve as you get better at jobs. For example when you’re a cleaner you start out as a lowly street-sweeper, then you graduate to picking up cans. Or when you’re rebuilding the city, you go from gathering lumber to sawing planks, to nailing them together to laying bricks. It’s a lot more interesting to look at than the same old animations in PM4.

7. Chilia can engage in “research” into the creation of new items, which you can use, sell for a profit, contribute to the town or just add to your collection. Doing this can earn you “research points”, which probably go towards a particular ending but otherwise have no real use.

8. No battling, not even at festivals. You can sort-of send Chilia adventuring, but it’s luck-based (I think?) whether she’ll find anything or not. The rewards are mainly money anyway.

9. You can set seasonal targets that you want to meet when raising Chilia’s stats. If you manage to meet the target, you’ll get all kinds of bonuses ranging from money to bonus points to MP.

10. Bonus points and bonus cards can be used post-game to unlock things like new outfits and new skills before starting a new game. For example I got a card that let me start the game with 2000 extra eve (their currency). Very helpful. It’s just unfortunate that even though you can earn bonus points throughout the game, you can only spend them after finishing.

11. Skills exists, sort of like in Tokimeki Memorial 4 but not as complicated. They’re “purchased” with MP and can be either temporary (e.g. lower tiredness for 60 days) or permanent. MP can be obtained as bonuses for doing well or by praying. There’s no actual magic training in this game as far as I can tell.

12. Hiro has a little more personality than characters in his position normally do. Just a little more, he doesn’t really talk much, but he does interact with people independently of Chilia and he does show up in CGs from time to time. The independent interaction can be confusing though, because some events take place with only Chilia present, only Hiro present or both present, but the game doesn’t tell you which.

13. Flaw: The little skits and town events run for a long time and have tons of dialogue. Some of the events are funny and interesting, but even those ones drag out a little too long. I don’t like it when my sims get too visual-novelly. A little less dialogue and a lot more gameplay would have made this game a real gem.

14. Massive flaw: you can’t quick-load. “Maddening” doesn’t begin to describe that feeling when you make a mistake entering commands or you want to change an answer, and then you have to turn the game off entirely and reload the whole thing before you can make changes.

15. Massive flaw: You can’t skip events or fast-forward conversations except by tapping the O button, which doesn’t go that much faster. Chilia’s commands also take forever to play out, even on the fast automatic setting. Points #13-15 together make it highly unlikely that most players will have the stomach for more than a few playthroughs of Ranshima Monogatari, despite its otherwise very high quality.

So while it’s clearly based on the Princess Maker mechanic, Ranshima Monogatari contains enough differences that it doesn’t feel like a blatant copy.

Initially I was only going to play it once, but after I got the rather disappointing town custodian ending, I’ve been wanting to at least get a marriage ending for either Hiro or Chilia. However I have abandoned that quest after discovering that I’d have to follow a guide very closely in order to discover all the events and give correct answers to questions before I can get even a common street rat to marry me.

So I’ve decided to try for an ending where I rebuild the town to its former glory, just to see what it gets me. I’ll go out regularly and try to chat up some guys and girls too, but I’m not expecting anything from that. More on that if/when it happens.

Princess Maker 4 Special Edition – Meh

I’m done with Tokimeki Memorial 4, but I haven’t had enough of stat-raising sims yet, so I dived straight into this one, Princess Maker 4 for the Nintendo DS.

At present, I’ve finished this five times with Endings No. 19, 22, 31, 33 and 35. That’s the Soldier, Magician, Marriage to a Minor Noble, Prime Minister and Ordinary Marriage endings, if I recall correctly. I may have the numbers mixed up a bit. This is my first time playing a Princess Maker game and I didn’t use a FAQ, so I haven’t done too badly for myself.

It’s not my first exposure to the Princess Maker series though. My first exposure came in the form of a Princess Maker 2 Let’s Play I read last year. It was and still is one of the funniest game-related things I have ever read in my life, and it made me really, really, really want to play the game. I tried to download the English PM2 and run it, but my computer wouldn’t play along, so it’s taken me this long for me to find a version and a format I can easily handle.

Unfortunately Princess Maker 4 is a real disappointment compared to PM2. It’s essentially a severely dumbed-down remake with all the humorous content, fighting and adventuring removed. A lot of the elements I saw in the PM2 walkthrough are present in this game, but the parts I really got excited about – the battles, the special events, fairies, mermaids, adventuring, etc, have been almost entirely eliminated. PM2 also had a dizzying array of stats to raise and classes to take, many of which have been combined or removed completely in Princess Maker 4.

It makes some of the festivals a little meaningless. For example I won the festival battle for two years, but that was the only use I ever got out of my battle stats and equipment. It’s an insult to any gamer, working to raise your stats like crazy then only getting to fight once a year. But this is a 100% raising sim, not a hybrid RPG, so once I readjusted my frame of mind, I was okay. Well, obviously not okay since I’m still complaining.

Anyway, let’s back up a bit: if anyone hasn’t played a Princess Maker game before, the story usually goes that you’re an ex-hero of some sort who somehow finds yourself raising a little girl. This time she’s the daughter of your ex-partner Isabel and you have to raise her from age 10 to 18. Depending on how you go about it, you can get all kinds of marriage and job-related endings, ranging from positive (Queen, Princess, etc) to meh (barmaid, freeter)  to not so positive (sleazy barmaid, etc).

So every month you select a number of activities for her to participate in and she carries them out. Classes raise some stats and lower others, but cost money. Jobs give you money and stats, but make her tired quickly. If she gets too tired she falls sick and misses a whole month of the game, so you need to balance her health, her stats and her finances in order to raise her effectively. Other activities you can take part in include going on vacation, sending her out into town to meet people and having her take part in festivals to earn some money. It sounds complicated at first, but it’s pretty simple once you get the hang of it.

I did a first full playthrough to get the hang of things, then a second playthrough where I made a few extra saves in year 6 and used them to get two more endings, then I started afresh and got two final endings before putting the game to rest. If I hadn’t seen what the Princess Maker series was capable of achieving with PM2 (a game that’s 18 years old now), I might even have been content with what I got.

Unfortunately my expectations had already been raised to high heaven. The game is fairly entertaining in the beginning because of all the new classes and jobs to do and people to meet, but within a year or two it falls into a stale, repetitive routine. Sure you get an occasional new job, meet an occasional new guy and take part in the occasional festival, but apart from that it’s the same old grind. Raise stat, lower stress, raise stat, lower stress. The endings are very abrupt as well. One second your daughter is all over you, the next moment she’s the Prime Minister, two frames later “The End”. W-wait, what, how, w-when? Huh? T-that’s it?

I mean yeah, it was clearly addictive enough for me to finish it five times, partial playthroughs or not, but I know for a fact that could have been waaaaay better. I even thought it might be the “Special Edition” that had dumbed things down for the DS so I checked out several FAQs about the PC original, but nope. Maybe Princess Maker 5 might hold out a little more hope for me. This time I’ll do some proper research before giving it a try.

Tokimeki Memorial 4 – Rizumi GET!

I’m happy I got her, but doing four routes in quick succession has robbed me of any and all desire to continue this game. It’s all over for me now, so this will be my final post about Tokimeki Memorial 4 for the foreseeable future. Rui and Tsugumi, I’m sorry. Maybe in a couple of months we can talk about doing this again.

Notable things about Rizumi’s route? Nothing remarkable. I got almost none of her CGs naturally, and couldn’t be bothered to FAQ it. Not that I don’t like her or anything, I’m just tired. The girl herself is okay. I love her fashion sense, and she’s really sweet even on dates that don’t go so well. I can live without the constant references to music, but that’s her “gimmick” so I get it.

Interestingly enough, her confession takes place in the music room and not under the legendary tree. Does this mean our relationship won’t last forever? The MC already sounds a little insecure about her popularity in his ending blurb, which doesn’t bode well for the future. Shame on you, MC, I don’t remember raising you that way!

Final notes about Tokimeki Memorial 4? Skills are a good addition, but I’d like them taken out next time. Once you know what you’re doing, they make things way too easy. I mean, not like the other games were hard either (except TM1, brr), but having 400-600 in every stat by the end of most routes has never happened to me before.

It’s good that the girls change up what they say and do frequently. There are far fewer line and event repeats in one playthrough, although you will naturally see several events over and over on repeat runs. The graphics are simple, but clean. The revolving wheel menu was cool at first, but I was craving a simple straightforward menu after a few days. Battling is fun. Your friends are cool, but I wish you could interact with them even more, ‘cos they were funny. Etc, etc.

Meh, I really don’t have anything left to say about this game. It wasn’t bad, but the girls were all alike: similar faces, similar personalities, similar routes. Some of them seemed a little different, but as soon as they started liking you a bit they became just like everyone else. The stuff I found most exciting on all routes was raising my stats, battling and learning new skills. And if that’s what I want, then any average RPG will do.

Still, I had fun. And it’s motivated me to give Tokimeki Memorial 3 another shot, after a sufficient cooling-off period. I’ll report on that if it ever happens.

“Finished” Shepherd’s Crossing

There’s no retirement in Shepherd’s Crossing, so I just gave up when I felt like it, on Day 5 of Acorn month, Year 10.

I would have quit much earlier, but just when I was about to say adieu, the random hunt that gives carrot seeds FINALLY popped up (the one against Waku Waku, if you were wondering), which gave my game a much-needed shot in the arm.

My game was crippled without dem carrots, because without carrots I couldn’t get angora rabbits, which meant I couldn’t get angora rabbit fur, which meant I couldn’t get spotbilled ducks, which meant I couldn’t get pumpkin seeds, which meant I couldn’t get any alpaca fur. And of course by the time I finally got alpaca fur in year 10, I didn’t need any of the trade-in items I’d gotten it for, so I decided it was time to call it a day. 10 years is a nice round number to stop at, anyway.

Final impressions? Haven’t changed much from my first ones. The inability to trade items for money really, really hurt the game, in my opinion. The only pluses that I can list are that hunting was fun till the end and that crops were easier to grow than in SC2. I successfully completed almost all the hunts without too much trouble, except for the final one with the three bears. My plan for that, which I never got around to implementing, was to defeat and collect at least one bear, and then have one of my dogs hide until the turn count was up. Ta-daa, instant success. I was also going to distract them so they couldn’t use Cow Kill, because that move has wrecked my entire party one too many times. But it’s okay. No matter what the reward is, I don’t need it now.

I say crop farming is easier simply because there are no diseases in this game and because adverse weather doesn’t affect crop growth. In Shepherd’s Crossing 2 even if you got every dog available to guard against marauding animals, you had no way of countering crop diseases and frost. You just couldn’t catch a break. Here you’ll be fine if only you have enough animals and enough fences. On the other hand, getting those seeds to plant in the first place can be hell, as my little carrot misadventure just proved.

It was addictive in its own way, of course. I had more “wtf, why does the clock suddenly say 5am” moments with it than I’ve had with any other game I’ve played so far this year. As an unexpected side effect, playing Shepherd’s Crossing made me want to play Tactical Guild again. They’re from the same company, and every time Success’s logo appeared with that little hum, I started hearing TG’s theme in my head. I looked around for the soundtrack, but I don’t think it exists. I’ll content myself with watching the mini-theater skits for now.

Speaking of Success and Shepherd’s Crossing, it doesn’t look like they have any plans to release another handheld version any time soon. They’ve made a version for mixi and Japanese cellphones. I made a mixi account many years ago, no idea if it’s still active. I don’t even remember the password. I’m a bit shepherded out right now, but I’ll look into it again in a couple of months when the craving strikes again.