Hello, and good day!
Today I decided to make a post about my favorite video game series, The Princess Maker Series. If I recall I did mention it in passing during my intro post, today however, I'll be talking more in detail about it.
1.) What the Heck is it?
That's a good question! In short, it's the OG of child rearing sims, think games like Volcano Princess, Machine Child, or even Long Live the Queen (though this one is a touch different in concept, but it's still the same type of game), heck even Evangelion, has a few different games like this. (You can even get the plugsuits in some versions of Princess Maker 5!) Now, for another matter of housekeeping, you might be asking yourself. "Well what's the basic loop like?" I'll be answer that in this section as well, starting at ten years old you begin raising a child up until they turn eighteen. During each turn you select a mix of lessons, and part-time work to raise stats, make money, work towards different endings, and more! Story beats are often told in visual novel-like formats as the turns progress, be it from everyday events, or even some unexpected things. Most commonly each turn is one month, which makes things feel snappy, quick, and let's you sink your teeth into as many endings as you want fairly quickly.
A first ran through for me often lasts a couple of hours. After that, once you have a general feel of things your followup runs will be much quicker. Some of the endings are terrible, some are bad, they range from terrible to....well great! As you might be able to imagine from the name however. At least in terms of the Princess Maker games, the best and often most targeted endings are well... the endings where your child becomes a princess. Often almost impossible to get on your first run through, even more so requiring near perfect runs, and stat raising. If you know what you're doing though? A few mistakes won't strip that ending from your hands, or detail a whole run-through. If it does though? Most tend to be fairly short.
2.) What I Love Most.
What I love most about this series is fairly simply. The absolutely breathtaking art by Takami Akai
Today I decided to make a post about my favorite video game series, The Princess Maker Series. If I recall I did mention it in passing during my intro post, today however, I'll be talking more in detail about it.
1.) What the Heck is it?
That's a good question! In short, it's the OG of child rearing sims, think games like Volcano Princess, Machine Child, or even Long Live the Queen (though this one is a touch different in concept, but it's still the same type of game), heck even Evangelion, has a few different games like this. (You can even get the plugsuits in some versions of Princess Maker 5!) Now, for another matter of housekeeping, you might be asking yourself. "Well what's the basic loop like?" I'll be answer that in this section as well, starting at ten years old you begin raising a child up until they turn eighteen. During each turn you select a mix of lessons, and part-time work to raise stats, make money, work towards different endings, and more! Story beats are often told in visual novel-like formats as the turns progress, be it from everyday events, or even some unexpected things. Most commonly each turn is one month, which makes things feel snappy, quick, and let's you sink your teeth into as many endings as you want fairly quickly.
A first ran through for me often lasts a couple of hours. After that, once you have a general feel of things your followup runs will be much quicker. Some of the endings are terrible, some are bad, they range from terrible to....well great! As you might be able to imagine from the name however. At least in terms of the Princess Maker games, the best and often most targeted endings are well... the endings where your child becomes a princess. Often almost impossible to get on your first run through, even more so requiring near perfect runs, and stat raising. If you know what you're doing though? A few mistakes won't strip that ending from your hands, or detail a whole run-through. If it does though? Most tend to be fairly short.
2.) What I Love Most.
What I love most about this series is fairly simply. The absolutely breathtaking art by Takami Akai
These are just a few examples taken from one of the artboooks, the games are filled near head-to-toe with artwork drawn by them. For each ending, and each vacation, you get a still that was drawn by hand. Even the characters seen in-game are drawn by Takami in his style. Heck, I even have a piece drawn by him as my desktop background. My point is, the art from the series is a big part of the enjoyment of it. Outside of the cozy relaxed nature of it.
3.) Princess Maker 5...the bad.
Sigh... Here we are, the bad, the ugly. Let me just rip off the bandaid, if you can avoid it, just...don't play the Steam version of PM5. It's playable, sure, I'll give it that. The company behind the official English translation in 2018 however... They botched it. They ruined it. From literal translation, from just...'what the heck did they do.' It has a few effects, from making what the actual stats you're raising effect, from just... so bad it's great batches of text. Seriously, if you can get it to stop crashing (Good luck with that, everyone finds a new issue with that old thing.) Get the Steam version, but play the old fan translation. However like I said, just a few months ago when I was trying to get it to run, I had a problem with a certain part that no one else ever had. So... if you choose to go that route, good luck. As sad as it is to actually say, I very much doubt it will ever get another translation. So this will likely remain the best choice.
3-5.) What makes it different?
So here we are, what makes PM5 different then all the other PM games? And even most of the other child rearing games? That is simple, it takes place in modern Japan, well at least modern by 2008 standards. There is no fantasy in the main setting of the game, no giant robots looming over. While you can go to a fantasy-esc world, that's basically just an RPG mini game, that's an option for a way to spend one of your days. The 'Adventure' mini game, a turn-based RPG required to get certain endings in the games, along with raising stats, and making money. However as far as I know, it's never required for the 'best' ending. The adventuring mini-game has existed in most PM games, except in those... you lived in that fantasy world. In PM5? You do not.
Your daughter will go through the different years of schooling, however this leads into a good platform for the other main difference between this, and most games like it. While most games like this go month-by-month, every turn being one single month. In PM5? Your turns are one week in length, you make your choices every Sunday about what you want to schedule that week, rather you want to let your daughter just rest at home for that Sunday. Or go on a small outing in the city, if you rest at home? It lowers stress a bit, if you choose to go out? You can get small stat raises, find events going on around town, encounter your daughters classmates, or other friends and get the chance to raise or hurt that relationship. The game features a lot of events that happen around town over the course of the eight in-game years. From Flea Markets, Wrestling Events, to even Beach Cleaning.
All in all? The game does a pretty good job at making the city feel alive, as your daughter grows older? So will her friends, and classmates. While in the titles that came before this one had these things to a certain amount. PM5 did knock things up a few notches, at least in those regards. However, in someways it was a duel-edged blade, before your turns making one month pass? It made things quick, and snappy, your turns only taking one week worth of time? Well to break it down, it takes four turns to equal one turn worth of time in the older titles. Depending on your tastes, you may or may not like it, I do like both speeds myself.
Overall though, PM5 tried to expand on the series by making the world feel more alive, offering more ways to raise your child with the education policy system. Which in short is a system of quite a few options that you can change monthly. It will affect your daughter's personality, how she reacts to other people, how much she weighs, and grows potentially to a degree, and even the raising of the independence stat. Which also raised itself as she grows older, in short, as that stat raised? She starts making her own choices to sum it up. However that's one of a few 'hidden' stats.
However, that's where I'll cut it off for now, to those whom read it? Thank you, and if I convinced you to give the series a shot? Hell yeah. Cheers.
Sigh... Here we are, the bad, the ugly. Let me just rip off the bandaid, if you can avoid it, just...don't play the Steam version of PM5. It's playable, sure, I'll give it that. The company behind the official English translation in 2018 however... They botched it. They ruined it. From literal translation, from just...'what the heck did they do.' It has a few effects, from making what the actual stats you're raising effect, from just... so bad it's great batches of text. Seriously, if you can get it to stop crashing (Good luck with that, everyone finds a new issue with that old thing.) Get the Steam version, but play the old fan translation. However like I said, just a few months ago when I was trying to get it to run, I had a problem with a certain part that no one else ever had. So... if you choose to go that route, good luck. As sad as it is to actually say, I very much doubt it will ever get another translation. So this will likely remain the best choice.
3-5.) What makes it different?
So here we are, what makes PM5 different then all the other PM games? And even most of the other child rearing games? That is simple, it takes place in modern Japan, well at least modern by 2008 standards. There is no fantasy in the main setting of the game, no giant robots looming over. While you can go to a fantasy-esc world, that's basically just an RPG mini game, that's an option for a way to spend one of your days. The 'Adventure' mini game, a turn-based RPG required to get certain endings in the games, along with raising stats, and making money. However as far as I know, it's never required for the 'best' ending. The adventuring mini-game has existed in most PM games, except in those... you lived in that fantasy world. In PM5? You do not.
Your daughter will go through the different years of schooling, however this leads into a good platform for the other main difference between this, and most games like it. While most games like this go month-by-month, every turn being one single month. In PM5? Your turns are one week in length, you make your choices every Sunday about what you want to schedule that week, rather you want to let your daughter just rest at home for that Sunday. Or go on a small outing in the city, if you rest at home? It lowers stress a bit, if you choose to go out? You can get small stat raises, find events going on around town, encounter your daughters classmates, or other friends and get the chance to raise or hurt that relationship. The game features a lot of events that happen around town over the course of the eight in-game years. From Flea Markets, Wrestling Events, to even Beach Cleaning.
All in all? The game does a pretty good job at making the city feel alive, as your daughter grows older? So will her friends, and classmates. While in the titles that came before this one had these things to a certain amount. PM5 did knock things up a few notches, at least in those regards. However, in someways it was a duel-edged blade, before your turns making one month pass? It made things quick, and snappy, your turns only taking one week worth of time? Well to break it down, it takes four turns to equal one turn worth of time in the older titles. Depending on your tastes, you may or may not like it, I do like both speeds myself.
Overall though, PM5 tried to expand on the series by making the world feel more alive, offering more ways to raise your child with the education policy system. Which in short is a system of quite a few options that you can change monthly. It will affect your daughter's personality, how she reacts to other people, how much she weighs, and grows potentially to a degree, and even the raising of the independence stat. Which also raised itself as she grows older, in short, as that stat raised? She starts making her own choices to sum it up. However that's one of a few 'hidden' stats.
However, that's where I'll cut it off for now, to those whom read it? Thank you, and if I convinced you to give the series a shot? Hell yeah. Cheers.
