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Post by Discoalucard on Aug 24, 2015 23:43:52 GMT -5
 www.hardcoregaming101.net/princessmaker/princessmaker2.htmGainax's famous daughter raising sim is fairly prolific in Japan, and the second one was almost released in English. This is the story of the unreleased IBM PC port. The Princess Maker series is fairly expansive - there are several ports of Princess Maker 2 alone - though this article specifically concentrates on the English DOS version. |
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Post by kal on Aug 25, 2015 0:00:51 GMT -5
To answer the articles question, I think Princess Maker would have actually gone down a treat. Considering it did quite well in terms of market exposure without ever actually being released and it was supposed to come out right around the time anime was going to explode in the US in terms of popularity. Also this was around the time when Petz/Creatures were a pretty big thing so even more raising games would have been appropriate.
As I talked about briefly on the GC9x thing relating to Wonder Project J, I have a soft spot for Princess Maker, it's a great little time management RPG-lite raising sim that aside from being really cryptic to get the better endings was really nicely put together.
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Post by Dee Liteyears on Aug 25, 2015 5:23:09 GMT -5
Nice read. I played the PC version a long time ago, 12 years or so I think. It's sad that the game got screwed over like this.
I have the first game on MSX (even translated) but I still need to get into it. The fuzzyness of the text on my TV and the constant disk changing also don't make easier to get it into it.
BTW In the quick info box, you wrote Gainex instead of Gainax
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Post by JDarkside on Aug 25, 2015 6:55:50 GMT -5
I need to get better about editing my own work.
BTW, I've gotten the artist ending and the fighting teacher ending twice. Wanna try getting one of the bad endings one of these days.
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Post by elektrolurch on Aug 25, 2015 7:09:02 GMT -5
I would love to hear about the other Ports and other games in the series, is someone able to write about it?...
I mean, I love PM2 somehow, for how weird it is from my point of view, and how unique, although it is very disturbing in some parts. Played a lot through it, got all kinds of endings,good, bad,sad..
As for the question, I think it would be even more obscure today if it were released in the west. I mean, the PC gaming scene at that time was not really "open minded",esp. not for weird japanese games. It was all about RTS, FPS and the like, and a few formulars dominated the market. The enthusiast circles we have now were not there back then, I guess.
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Post by TheChosen on Aug 25, 2015 7:24:49 GMT -5
Ah, this was one of those big specialties you could only find if you browsed abandonware.
Couple of neat things to note: with a specific button combinations you can access a cheat menu and a shop where you can buy special items, like some that are only acquired via events. One of those items is piece of clothing that strips your daughter naked. There's no other way to acquire this item, but damn. There's actually much more nudity in the original version, most of them involving your daughter in beach or nipples on some monsters.
I've never properly delved into the mechanics, in other words I haven't tested it properly, but I feel like poetry classes are bugged. It seems that especially early on if you sent your daughter to these classes she will become a poet or author or something like that, no matter what kind of education or work you've given her later on. Housework seem to have similar results, but instead of a poet she becomes a housewife.
The version floating around the internet is mostly finished, but there's couple of endings which are bugged. There's a patch available, but I'm not sure if it fixes any of these as the only results I remember seeing was removing some of the censorship.
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Post by Sac (a.k.a Icaras) on Aug 25, 2015 8:23:28 GMT -5
I recall playing this a fair bit years ago (Much as Chosen mentioned, due to abandonware sites), I don't think I ever had the patience to properly play all the way through the game, so I usually just ended up messing around with the cheat menu.
it was a bit surprising how there were options to make the daughter naked, even at her youngest ages, and there was even an ending where you could have her marry you, haha.
I don't imagine stuff like that would have attracted much attention back then, but these days....yeah, I don't think that would fly (not outside Japan anyway)
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Post by Brand on Aug 25, 2015 8:40:27 GMT -5
Man, I played this game so much. I still remember coming across for the first time. I was at a friend's and they were like hey lets play Princess Maker. God, this was so long ago it might have been high school for me (graduated in '99). We were up the whole night playing the game. It was good times. Eventually, I started using the cheat shop but mostly for money. Since it is much easier to achieve a lot of endings if you have the cash. You should talk about the " Petite Princess Yucie" anime which is the Princess Maker anime Gainax did loosely based on Princess Marker 2. It is surprisingly good. |
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Post by JDarkside on Aug 25, 2015 9:13:42 GMT -5
I couldn't at the time because I don't really have a way to watch it right now. Not even sure if it's in print anymore, if it even was for western regions.
As for why only one version was covered, the DOS version was the only localized version (as far as I can tell).
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Post by Neo Rasa on Aug 25, 2015 9:52:45 GMT -5
I was always surprised none of the DS releases were localized for the US but some of the clones and games clearly inspired by Princess Maker were.
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Post by kaoru on Aug 25, 2015 9:59:12 GMT -5
I remember reading about this one (and Knights of Xentar) in one of my first anime magazines. Back in the 90s when anime aesthetic in games was still an uncomon thing in the west, you know, before Gust and Idea Factory decided to release games on a bi-monthly basis and remake/port them every half a year  |
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Post by TheChosen on Aug 25, 2015 10:25:06 GMT -5
I don't imagine stuff like that would have attracted much attention back then, but these days....yeah, I don't think that would fly (not outside Japan anyway) I could imagine a official release happening today. Maybe they'd neuter it a bit (like removing the bust-increasing pills and cleaning up the cheating menus), but this version would probably be acceptable for something like Steam. Considering the Huniepop makers are pushing in a Cam-girl simulator there, I guess everything goes these days. However, I could also imagine the backlash from certain people because they've removed all the possibilities of seeing naked little girls. |
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Post by Scylla on Aug 25, 2015 12:17:07 GMT -5
Interesting article. I'd love to see it expanded to cover the entire series someday.
I don't see this game ever making huge waves in the West if it was released officially. Not back then, not today. Even with the increased popularity of anime and games with a strong anime aesthetic, most titles are still pretty niche and don't produce large sales. I'm also skeptical of just how much influence the leaked translation had. Don't get me wrong, Princess Maker was a hugely influential series in Japan, but there was plenty of time between the Japanese release of Princess Maker 2 (or 1 even) and the leak of the translation for other games of its ilk to come along and become influential in their own right. It's not like Princess Maker 2 has a corner on the market of raising sims, or even specifically raising a young girl to become a queen. I mean, the Angelique series has a similar sort of concept, likely taking some inspiration from Princess Maker, and it became immensely popular itself and extremely influential as the first otome game franchise. I don't know if the point I'm trying to make is coming across that well, but it's like, hmm, like saying that Shovel Knight is a direct result of Super Mario Bros., when it reality is far more inspired by Mega Man and DuckTales, even though those came into existence because of the groundwork Super Mario Bros. laid. Same sort of deal with Japanese RPGs and the original Dragon Quest. At this point, I think it's hard to say just where the inspiration for a Princess Maker-like game is coming from, but I think it's safe to say that not every game is looking all the way back to the forefathers of the genre nor is an obscure translation leak of an outdated game going to be that widely known and significant outside of hardcore gamers with a fondness for niche games.
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Post by kaoru on Aug 25, 2015 14:15:03 GMT -5
Let's also not forget that there never really was much of a market in anime looking games on the PC in the west until recently. Princess Maker 2, both in looks an concept, I just can't really fathom becoming a hit back in the day.
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Post by Discoalucard on Aug 25, 2015 15:00:24 GMT -5
There were a handful of Japanese imported PC games in the mid 90s, like Powerdolls, Knights of Xentar and that one fighting game whose name I can't currently remember and don't want to Google around for since I'm at work. Back then someone probably though there was some crossover between anime and computer geeks. Anime was generally marketed towards an older market (20s-ish and up) since it was only sold on VHS, which was also a similar audience for many PC gamers at the time. They took out lots of full page ads in PC Gamer magazine. Plus, simulation games were common on the PC, even if none of them simulated, uh, daughter raising.
It's definitely too weird to have been a major success comparable to Japan even under the best circumstances, but if it had been released (and released earlier than what was intended) it may have found itself a cult audience.
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