It seems I really haven’t been posting ehehe. I don’t feel like studying for my upcoming -Chinese- exam tomorrow (I mean, it is Chinese we’re talking about here orz) so um here I am rambling about the PSP game I was distracted with like the whole of yesterday. orz. Even if there was NDP on TV. Double orz.
It’s called Lair Land Story/ Rare Land Story (Ranshima Monogatari). Frankly I prefer the latter but it’s the former on the official Cantonese website. The price of the music CD was in NT though, so maybe it was a Taiwanese site? Ah heck, well it was originally made by a Cantonese company and illustrated by a Cantonese guy, at the very least, then translated into Japanese. I was quite surprised when I saw the credits for the first time, those were definitely not Japanese names |D The game only just came out in Japan on the 23rd of July and I had not heard of it at all before it was being released, nor have I been hearing much about it after its release, so I wouldn’t really imagine that there would be an international release. And no one bothered to translate any of the PM series after PM2 D: Well in a sense this is kind of an international release for the original Cantonese/Chinese PC game already, I guess. And what’s more, it was published by EA, apparently, or at least the PC version.
It’s almost impossible to play the game without comparing it even a little to any of the Princess Maker series. Granted, they’re awfully similar, but in this case, you so happen to take the role of the young hero (aptly named Hiro and obviously male– a female as the epic hero? No way! |D) of the era who defeated some epicly evil villainy (monsters) and saved the world around two months ago, thereby earning yourself the title of baron. In other words, you’re nobility! -clapclapclap- Oh and to top it off you’re apparently really popular with girls because you’re really cool and stuff. But I don’t see the harem of girls falling head over heels so I guess the poor guy’s not quite so popular.
But the catch here is that you found a young girl (with default pink hair, no less) after you defeated the big boss, two months ago. She incidentally woke up from her sleep when you stepped into the room (thank goodness, no Sleeping Beauty rubbish) and looked out into the distance, then somehow she did something that vanquished the evil in the world. (Or the town. Whatever.) Then she fainted and you decided to carry her home and take care of her and protect her by taking her into your home, because she’s pretty. Then you discover that she just so happens to have no recollection whatsoever of her past, except her name – Chiria/ Chilia. (Dang this r/l thing gets even more horrid with foreignish Cantonese/Chinese to Japanese names.)
And so starts your 4-year long life of the caretaker/protector/father-figure/friend/lover(…You sick b/tard.) of pretty little Chiria, with the main aim being to find out more about her past and raise her well, I guess… Okay that’s not quite right, she’s around your age. No lolis to hit on here. (PM4 pisses me off) So the main difference with the PM series is that you don’t raise a daughter, you don’t talk to gods and you don’t go on actual battle-adventure journeys (sadly). But on the bright side (??) you have a main harem of girls for you, Hiro, to hit on, and a main harem of guys (not bad in terms of looks either thanks to the great illustrations |D) to try and hook Chiria up with. 4 of each, actually, if you include Hiro in the harem of guys. Um so yes, you can choose to focus on your own romance in addition to Chiria’s. Yes. So it’s kind of a mix between a proper dating sim and PM.
The game system’s quite easy to understand, especially if you’ve played any of the PM series before. You plan the schedule for Chiria for each fortnight of her life, in other words 15 days at a time. You have 3 slots to work with for each schedule, so each slot takes up 5 days. Be it Studies, Work, CIP or Others (*incl. Rest, Adventure, Travel and Prayer), it’s entirely up to you to decide what you want to let her do for that fortnight. You observe her daily progress with the help of cute chibi scenes and a list of related parameters for each activity, and after every fortnight, you get to go out to town and visit various places to talk to people etc. Oh right, there is also the concept of seasons, there are 6 fortnights for every season (obviously) and the background changes quite visibly when the season changes. At festivals, one per season at the town square, you have the option of participating in competitions. But apart from that seasons also mark the time limit for goals you will want to reach in order to gain bonuses in various forms, be it MP, Eve (the name of the currency used) or Bonus Points (more later). Attaining these goals are especially important since uh you’re almost always short on money if you don’t manage it wisely T_T Note that you are the one who chooses from a list of goals somehow generated by the game system, so you can only blame yourself if you don’t fulfill them. Time management, eh?
You might have noticed, but I did mention the Adventure option for her schedule. It should be noted that it’s not like in PM where you go on RPG-like adventures; rather, it’s more like passive adventuring, or like how events pass when you observe her daily progress. That said, it makes you feel like you’re always in town even if you adventure a lot. Of course, based on your Luck parameter, you may or may not get some money and/or items from adventuring.
Well you have much fewer slots in her schedule to work with as compared to Princess Maker 5, and while I wouldn’t say that the adventuring system in PM5 was awfully interesting what with no map and her just walking and walking and walking…, I remember how the adventuring in PM2 was rather fun and RPG-ish. In this sense Ranshima may seem like a cop-out or something, but I assure you that the art is very pretty (both characters and backgrounds) and more importantly, the game makes up for it in other ways such as the lab system and the overall characterisation. The voicing is also not bad for most of them, it even features Ishida Akira. (Here I was thinking a low-profile game like this wouldn’t have any familiar voices at all…) Moreover, the replayability is there because the bonus point system just makes you want to unlock every damn thing in that list, even if you don’t care too much about unlocking the 20 or so endings and uh however many CGs. And note that bonus points can only be used after you play through the game once, and you can’t cheat by replaying endings from save points. It… just doesn’t work that way. You need to work for it.
Whoops, it’s over 1000 words now |D I should really get to studying, actually. There’s really a bit more about the game system that I could talk about like the environment system and how a lot of things affect your stat parameters, and I haven’t gotten to introducing characters properly apart from the main 2 yet, but I should stop here especially since I don’t have any original pictures atm and I can’t be bothered to google. Go forth and train your googlefu, all ye interested parties! I guarantee +30 Interest parameter points.
…It seems the Gintama RPG theme is getting to me. I can’t help it, all the DQ parodies are really entertaining. Go, Leukocyte King!
P.S. Official Site (Traditional Chinese) here and Official Site (Japanese) here.
P.P.S. If you happen to be interested in playing the game and have a cracked PSP, the game is also of course available via DDL/torrenting online. Train your googlefu.
