Gakkou wo Tsukurou!! Advance review

Gakkou wo Tsukurou AdvanceGakkou wo Tsukurou!! is a 5-game life sim series published by Victor Interactive Software, now part of Marvelous AQL Interactive or whatever it is they call themselves now. The first three games are on the Playstation, the fourth one is on the GBA and the last one came out on the PS2 in 2005.

I played a game about school-building called Dekitate High School a few months ago. It was terrible. But the school-building idea itself was very interesting, so when I heard about the Gakkou wo Tsukurou series I couldn’t wait to try it. While Gakkou wo Tsukurou!! Advance (Gakkou from now on) appears to a pared-down version of the console games, it was still enough to provide a taster of things to come. It dragged on a bit near the end of the game but it was still fun enough that I’d like to play the rest quite soon.

Story: Your grandpa owned a school but he died before he could fulfill his dream of making it the No.1 school in Japan. He leaves the school to you in his will along with a bit of money and not much else. Fortunately the formidable headteacher has been taking care of things, so while all the teachers have left and some of the students have turned delinquent, not everything has gone completely to pot. It’s up to you now to turn things around and set things right while fending off the attempts of a rival school to take over your affairs. Do please go on, this is most interesting →

Real Rode Portable – Somari GET!

real rode portable somari happy endJust typing up loose ends in Real Rode Portable. Somari is a character who wasn’t in the original ‘game’ Nina played. He shows up out of nowhere with no memory of his past. What dark, dire secret could he possibly be hiding? I was a little curious so I went ahead and did his route.

Somari’s secret? You can find out for yourself if you play the game. It was really quite unexpected in a way that makes you go “Aargh, why didn’t I see that coming?!” I got the happy ending, which left a ton of questions unanswered, but I could tell Somari’s alternate ending was going to be really horrible, so I had no choice but to avoid it this time. This is another end where Nina gets to go back to her original end, so all’s well that ends well. Do please go on, this is most interesting →

Real Rode Portable – Alvand and Naoya GET! (spoilers)

real rode portable coverReal Rode Portable is an RPG/otome game about an RPG/otome game fan named Nina who gets sucked into her favorite game “Rode”. In that fantasy world she gets to meet and squee over all her favorite bishies while helping them take down the evil demon king threatening the land.

The first playthrough takes about 20 hours, which is far too long for a bland fantasy game like this, but the second run was much shorter because of the game format that let me skip roughly 90% of map battles. Nina and the other characters also carry their stats and levels over, which makes things much faster. However because of the way the “Training” system works, Nina rapidly gets much stronger than her companions, making them little more than dead weight by the middle of the second playthrough. I would have dumped them altogether, but they make good meatshields and they do get some useful hits in sometimes.

Now, where to start writing about Real Rode. I suppose an explanation of the system is in order. No, wait, first the love interests. For the purposes of this post, Alvand is the blond guy on the cover and Naoya is Nina’s boyfriend from real life who somehow got sucked into the game as well. Do please go on, this is most interesting →

Finished Real Rode Portable but…

I’ve been meaning to write about Real Rode Portable for the past couple of days, but then I kept feeling like I was near the end. “Since I’m almost done I’ll just finish up and write a review” I kept thinking, and the days just flew by. Well now I have finished the game and I still don’t feel like writing anything about it. Hmm, what excuse shall I use now?

…I’m too lazy to think of one so I’ll just tell the truth: I finished the game and I’m too lazy to write about it now but I will probably write something about it some day. It wasn’t exactly bad but eh. See, it’s not that otome RPGs can’t be good, it’s just that all the companies that try to make one just half-ass them and thus just put the nails in the coffin of an already stillborn genre. But that’s a matter for another day. Now for another evening of wallowing in sloth. Hasta luego!

Castlevania Aria of Sorrow + Real Rode Portable

Actually I have all but ditched Aria of Sorrow entirely to focus on Real Rode Portable. I started Castlevania, ran around a bit, killed the first boss, but then I felt like I was missing something. The game lacked a certain feminine touch. The last three or four games I’ve played have all featured female protagonists, but none of them were the least bit ‘girly’. I wanted that ‘girly’ factor for a change, which is why I had to put Aria of Sorrow away for a bit. I’ll be back later.

That said, Real Rode Portable isn’t that girly either. It’s an otome game all right, with more bishies than I can shake a stick at, but it’s also a full-fledged RPG. Enemies, dungeons, equipment, levels, the works. As with other otome RPGs (Arabians Lost, Harukanaru series, Neo Angelique) the enemies are complete pushovers and the game is super newbie-friendly (except equipment costs a head and a torso). I took some screenshots meaning to explain the system today, but now I’m feeling too lazy to do so… not tomorrow. Maybe the day after.

It’s just occurred to me that I keep saying I’ll play game X and then I end up playing game Y instead. Here’s the latest-latest schedule of affairs. Real Rode –> Castlevania –> Princess Maker 3 –> very likely Summon Night 4 because I haven’t played an SRPG in a while, unless I can get my PS2 to work again, in which case I’ll play Dragon Shadow Spell. After that we’ll see.