Princess Maker 5: Parenting for Otaku!
PRINCESS MAKER 5 (PC, Single player)
Before we begin:I've always liked the idea of a game that would follow a character from childhood through adulthood - sort of like The Sims, but with more indirect control over how one grows up - in The Sims, a lot of the gameplay directly revolves around shaping your Sims into the kind of people you want them to be - for example, an evil scientist or a flirtatious astronaut, not quite with as much power as God, but instead as some sort of omnipotent leader, guardian angel, architect, or demon, depending on how you play. While I'm a big fan of that series, I sort of wished to play a game where, while influencing how a humanoid character matures, you played the role of a guardian rather than some omnipotent, unseen puppetmaster.
However, up until about last year, I never knew such a game existed - but lo and behold, it did - or rather, they did. Introducing, the Princess Maker series, or the game I'll be reviewing today, along with the newest in the series - Princess Maker 5.
Above, the game in question, which was released in March of 2007 in Japan, and received an English translation in 2018
Actually, before I jump into reviewing, a disclaimer: This review focuses entirely on the English Fan Translation of Princess Maker 5, as quite frankly, the Official English translation is rather lacking in quality, and due to shoddy translations and bugs, can severely hamper your experience of the game. I'm not saying that it shouldn't ever be bought - that's the legal way to play the game, and you'll be able to earn achievements in it, however, I still recommend downloading the fan patch if you want to play a game with natural, grammatically correct English. (A guide on how to do that can be found here - if you find yourself struggling, read through the comment threads which elaborate further on some issues you may find while attempting to download the patch)
Story and Setting
If there's one thing I have come to expect from games, historical fantasy books, and actual history involving royalty, it's that tragedy or war seems to either be the start or the end of any good story involving princesses. In Princess Maker 5, the story begins with both the former and latter - a war between humans and demons (Which, if you're at all familiar with this series, won't surprise you), however, unlike most of the other games in the franchise, the humans are losing...badly. In fact, we open up to them attacking the castle wherein the ten-year-old to-be-princess of this medieval kingdom is sleeping soundly, unaware of her impending demise. Fortunately for her, she has a butler to protect her...which may sound less than ideal, but this butler is no ordinary footman waiting on hand and foot. It's actually Cube, who you may recognize from the previous games as the demon butler given as a compensation from the demons to the humans when they lost the war. You'd think he'd be vengeful, but instead, he faithfully watches over the girl he was entrusted to protect.
He's also capable of shapeshifting into a dog. Is...this a things demons supposedly do? Maybe I should be a little more careful around dogs.
He explains to us that due to the fact that remaining in that world would very quickly put his highnesses' life at stake, he had to flee from the kingdom. Luckily for him, and the little lady, there was a portal they could escape through...taking them from the medieval kingdom to modern day Japan. I know time-travel can be especially confusing, so I'm only going to assume the kingdom is in another dimension where technology has not advanced to the point of the modern world.
Apparently, now you (the player) have been entrusted with the task of raising the young princess from age 10 to adulthood (End of 12th grade/Eighteen years old), making sure she remains safe all while becoming more intelligent, kind, and capable of defending herself, so that one day she may return to the kingdom to take up her fated position of queen. But don't worry, we won't be doing this alone. After all...
And thus begins the adventure of Cube the butler and Emmanuel the hopeless father
However, there will be many challenges - for one, adapting from a medieval world to a modern world, especially at only ten years old, means the young lady is completely devoid of any sort of modern etiquette, relationships, knowledge, or skills. Furthermore, if she and Cube were able to flee into this world, no doubt the demons who were trying to kill her and her family will attempt to do the same as well...and some of them may even succeed. Hopefully, you'll at least have time to prepare before that happens.
One thing I rather did enjoy about this story, however, is the whole "set in modern-day Japan" setting. All the previous Princess Maker games were set in, well, eras in which you would actually find princesses as important public figures, i.e the medieval and early Victorian eras, and while fitting for a game about raising a Princess, these settings were beginning to get tedious. The modern setting of this game allows for a lot more creativity with the world, events, and characters, for example, the modern world has been affecting greatly by the feminist movements of the 19th and 20th century, and women (in first world countries) have many more opportunities than per say, the 15th century. Furthermore, the inclusion of things like video games, the internet, compulsory public education, and modern sports creates a universe much more realistic (and in some ways, likable) than any of the kingdoms featured in the previous games.
Himemiya (and offscreen, Hamasaki) aren't actually real Japanese cities/districts, but they're clearly based off a small Japanese suburb and a bustling Japanese city
So, while the set-up wasn't incredible, I found that the setting of the game almost completely made up for it. The story is certainly not this game's greatest strength, but...I think it was a good thing that they included it, anyway.
STORY - 6.5/10 (C+/GOOD)
Gameplay + Interface
Note: You can skip down to the section with the orange line if you'd like to skip my ramblings over the game's interface and just jump to the actual game.
As soon as the game's intro is over, you'll be inquired about a series of personal questions including your (you being the parent) gender, family + first names, blood type, horoscope, and the category of your current occupation. Obviously, the first and lattermost questions matter the most here, with the first having an impact on how you socialize with your daughter, and the last determining your family income.
Since the game takes place in a modern-day Japanese city, the choice of jobs better reflect real life occupations in contrast to Princess Maker 3's more medieval set of choices - you can be an academic professional, a manager, government worker, an office worker, or even stay self-employed. Each one will come with its own monthly salary, bonuses, and maximum debt [How much credit you have until you have a problem on your hands], as well as slightly affect your daughter's starting personality. For example, the child of doctor may be a little more conceited than most due to her family's social standing, while the child of an author has a more open mind to employment and the world as a whole.
Now, I'm sure you've already guessed that horoscope somehow also affects the starting personality of your daughter, but you may be confused as to why on earth you and your daughter's blood type is a question. This is actually because of Japanese culture - in Japan, nearly 1/3 of all men and 1/2 of all women believe that one's blood type has a noticeable effect on one's personality, though number seems to be decreasing as time goes on. It sounds crazy, but don't tell me you've never been inclined to read your daily horoscope or to humour your friend who's into tarot card readings - you might not believe them, but they're a staple part of our culture.
Anyway, after doing research on which blood type signifies in terms of personality (or in my case, arbitrarily choosing a birthdate for my daughter), you're taken to the "main screen" of the game, your daughter's room. This is where you'll make most decisions of which privileges, fashion choices, character values and extra classes you'll allow your daughter to have - if she'll listen, anyway.
As I previously explained, every class, club, or job your daughter performs will have an effect on her stats (as well as your household's funds), and the degree to which each skill is affected depends on her performance in said activities. There are three stamps which indicate your daughter's adeptness in an activity. The one you'll likely get most of the time is "Good Job" which has her stats increase/decrease at a normal rate, as well as her stress. If she does very well, she'll receive a "Very Good!" stamp and earn 2.0x the normal skills, while only gaining half the stress. This effect is inverted if she fails the activity and gets a "Keep Trying" stamp.
Now, all this is well and good - or at least it would be if her success rate had any consistency. Instead of her adeptness in a certain activity actually being affected by the skills she already has, her chance to succeed or fail in any given task seems to be completely random, which is not only a bizarre change from the last couple of games but also untrue to life. Sure, even professionals mess up at times - you hear stories about professional athletes not doing as well as they usually do, or an actor having to improvise when they forget their actual lines all the time, but they tend to make mistakes far less often than, per say, a ten-year-old hockey fan or a middle school drama student, who are far less well-versed in such skills. In previous PM games, the whole "getting better at _____ (I.e Tutoring) as ____ skill (I.e Intelligence) gets better" made perfect sense, and added a layer of strategy - is it worth spending money on a certain skill, if the payout won't be good? It would just be detrimental to train fitness if you were trying to work at a restaurant, for example. But in this game, this strategy is completely thrown out the window - in fact, each part-time job will pay the same wages, regardless of if your daughter actually succeeds in it or not. This wouldn't even make sense in real life - if you couldn't do your job properly, why would anyone keep you employed? Because of this, there are very few repercussions for Min-Maxing, and putting all your focus into a single skill without actually worrying about how that affects your daughter's work prospects.
However, this doesn't outright make the game simplistic to the point you can do whatever you want, whenever you want. Managing your daughter's stress, as well as your family's financial situation remain as important as ever. There's no end to the stress your daughter will accumulate from her various classes, part-time jobs and clubs, and stress piles up quickly. If your daughter isn't physically fit, her stress will tend to get the better of her and cause her to fall victim to her vices - including delinquency, defiance, and most prominently, laziness, often outright skipping club activities, jobs, or even exams. She'll even become sick, affecting her mood and willingness to eat. If worst comes to worst, she'll become bedridden, rendering her unable to attend school or even go outside until she recovers. Unlike previous games though, your daughter can't die of a disease - or if she can, the game makes it very hard to do so. You can still get a game over from crippling debt, but even this has been made manageable - to the point where I had to make a conscious effort to get a game over.
Stress tends to become less and less of a problem in late game (When your daughter moves up to middle and/or high school), as game mechanics like stress medicine and the insane amounts of money that can be earned by weekly adventures, can be easily abused to eliminate stress. Regardless, it offers a nice challenge for at least the beginning of the game, before adventuring is available.
In Princess Maker 5, the system is vastly fleshed out - since your daughter attends a public school and lives in a relatively close-knit town, it makes sense that she'd have more possibilities to make friends than the daughter of a noble during the medieval era, which was more or less the role of your daughter in the previous games. Much like the availability of jobs or classes, the friends your daughter will come into contact with naturally increases with age. At age 10, she'll only able to meet a select few, most of which are introduced from the get-go - your daughter's first day of fifth grade - including Emily Imagawa, Hiyoko Sakakibara, Hitoshi Kuroda, Kenichi Asakura and Michuru Kobayakawa.
If you've played the previous games in the Princess Maker series - specifically the first and second games - you may have noticed that I haven't yet touched on one of the most interesting aspects of the gameplay, the option to send your daughter off on adventures. The reason this feature is so interesting is that simulation games - specifically life simulators (or dating sims)- don't usually have a battle system, much less an entire adventuring system. However, fans who enjoyed the adventuring system of PM1 and/or PM2 might not be fully satisfied with the adaptions PM5 makes to the system. First and foremost, the explorative part of adventuring has been completely removed - instead of scouring a small environment for secrets and treasure, you'll simply travel in a linear direction until you reach an enemy, chest or boss. It's honestly quite disappointing, especially since less exploring means which events occur and which items you find relies nearly entirely on RNG [Random number generation]. Sometimes certain events or bosses - especially those crucial to the main plot of the game - are not triggered by RNG, but only if your statistics are in the correct range, and if it's the correct year in-game. This wouldn't be such a big problem if PM5 ever clarified which stats are required to trigger each event. Instead, there's just a lot of guesswork as to how to trigger these events - events, which may I remind you, are crucial to advancing the story.
However, while the explorative aspect of adventures has been significantly simplified, the battle system is back, and better than ever, might I add. While earlier Princess Maker games had you battling using traditional RPG tactics - that is, sword fighting and magic - Princess Maker 5 lets you use a much wider arsenal of skills in battle - musical ability, acting, analyzing a situation, or even eloquently talking (or negotiating) your way out of a dangerous situation are now available options - and, if properly honed, these skills, especially musical ability, can be even more useful than actual battle-related skills such as martial arts and swordsmanship. Some battles will even force you to use alternative methods to defeat your foes - such as ghosts unharmed by physical attacks - providing ample incentive to let your daughter become well-rounded in several skills.
I apologize for the length of this section of my review, but we're nearly there. However, before I continue on to grading the music of PM5 - I have to address a serious problem.
It's long. No, I'm not talking about this review, but rather, PM5. My initial playthrough of PM5 took more than 80 hours. The game does span over 350 game-weeks (Actually it spans around 416, but I didn't count summer vacations as those don't last for very long.) - following your daughter from 5th grade to graduation. Everything, as a result, increases or unlocks incredibly slowly. So much so that I oft believed that I must be doing something wrong when in-game friendships took literal real-life hours to even begin to develop, or when a new area to adventure didn't unlock after completing the last one. Even though you unlock more and more things to "do" [or rather, for your daughter to do], as the game progresses, most of the game revolves around the same general gameplay formulas, and after about 1/2 of the game, this began to get seriously grating. PM5 is not a game that I expect many casual players to finish. The worst part of this is that the Princess Maker series is generally made for multiple playthroughs - there are tons of endings (marriage, jobs, story-based endings) and a lot of the fun comes from trying to get the best ending you can!
This worked for earlier games where the maximum playtime for a full playthrough would be a couple hours, but when hours turn to days, it seriously reduces the replay value - who wants to sit through a 100-hour long game twice or more?! It's still good fun and introduces a lot of interesting new ideas to the series, but the length (not to mention some of the more bizarre changes to the gameplay formula) of the game will cause many fans and newcomers to put the game down far before the ending(s).
In conclusion, PM5, despite how much I personally enjoy it, is a very hard game for me to recommend to a casual simulation-enjoying audience - not simply because it's an anime game, but more so because you really have to be dedicated to finishing it once you start, and it's easy to drop it after a few hours in just because of how long it takes to finish. It's definitely a different game than Princess Maker fans are used to, and if you can't deal with the changes, you won't enjoy it. However, for those who can care to overlook the game's lengths and problems, it's definitely a great experience, that, due to the rarity of this particular genre, you might never be able to find elsewhere.
GAMEPLAY - 6.3/10 [C+/GOOD]
Since the game takes place in a modern-day Japanese city, the choice of jobs better reflect real life occupations in contrast to Princess Maker 3's more medieval set of choices - you can be an academic professional, a manager, government worker, an office worker, or even stay self-employed. Each one will come with its own monthly salary, bonuses, and maximum debt [How much credit you have until you have a problem on your hands], as well as slightly affect your daughter's starting personality. For example, the child of doctor may be a little more conceited than most due to her family's social standing, while the child of an author has a more open mind to employment and the world as a whole.
Now, I'm sure you've already guessed that horoscope somehow also affects the starting personality of your daughter, but you may be confused as to why on earth you and your daughter's blood type is a question. This is actually because of Japanese culture - in Japan, nearly 1/3 of all men and 1/2 of all women believe that one's blood type has a noticeable effect on one's personality, though number seems to be decreasing as time goes on. It sounds crazy, but don't tell me you've never been inclined to read your daily horoscope or to humour your friend who's into tarot card readings - you might not believe them, but they're a staple part of our culture.
Anyway, after doing research on which blood type signifies in terms of personality (or in my case, arbitrarily choosing a birthdate for my daughter), you're taken to the "main screen" of the game, your daughter's room. This is where you'll make most decisions of which privileges, fashion choices, character values and extra classes you'll allow your daughter to have - if she'll listen, anyway.
Labelled for your convenience.
Everything I labelled in the picture above has a unique usage, plus some things too small to label. Let's start off with the most basic things: the bulletin board above her pc, and scheduling books on the floor.
By accessing the bulletin board, we can view the "educational policies system" that you can set for your daughter to follow, affecting her character values and statistics each month - this concerns the way you treat your child regarding curfews, diet, and pocket money, as well as how you teach her to act within society - I really like this system as it has a sizable, yet not absolute influence on who she will or won't grow close to, how she will fare in school, and her general outlook on life and authority. These are things that in reality, children do need guidance on, and as such these educational policies are very much able to influence how she matures. My favourite part of this system, however, is that there are no "correct" values - if you want to raise a cultivated, spoiled, and studious child, then go ahead, but if you want to raise an independent, skeptic who would rather use intuition than instruction, all the more power to you. You can be a strict parent, a jellyfish parent, or enact values of your own, even if they're completely unconventional.
To give an example of what these parameters affect, setting her etiquette policy to "Always be courteous" will have her act more politely and grow to be more refined, but she'll become much more sensitive to reprimanding, break-ups or strained friendships, thus causing such events to stress her out more than they would if she was less polite and less emotionally sensitive.
Next, let's move on to the schedule books that lay on the floor. Clicking on said scheduling books will bring up the schedule for the upcoming week, which can be changed at any time during a Sunday (The only day your daughter is off since this game takes place in the early-mid 2000s, a time where more Japanese schools still had class on a Saturday)
 |
| The amount of activities you choose is mostly restricted by curfew. Having a later curfew will allow your daughter to attend more weekly activities, but the drawbacks of a later curfew include more stress and the potential for unsavoury, immoral nightly activities... |
After each day of school, (Monday-Saturday) you can choose to have your daughter participate in a variety of classes, clubs, or part-time jobs, though with a high enough independence stat she may pick (or at least suggest) some for herself. [Extra] classes focus mainly on increasing your daughter's knowledge and skills, but cost money, while part-time jobs will raise work-related skills such as "business" and "analysis" while gaining a little extra pocket money, and clubs are school-required activities which affect your daughter's grades and stats. There are a ton of jobs, classes and clubs that can either gradually unlock through later grades or by meeting statistical/friend requirements, but some of the requirements are pure guesswork, and there's no way to find out which ones you're missing until you actually unlock them. Though this is annoying, most of the jobs that don't just unlock with age aren't incredibly rewarding anyway or have serious drawbacks. Furthermore, any 2-hour slots in the schedule not filled with one activity or another will be labelled as "Free Time", and I'll just warn you now - never completely fill her schedule lest you wish to be a terrible, abusive parent. Doing so will completely overburden the young child, especially in elementary school, and cause a great deal more stress than is either healthy or recommended.
"Go out together" might be better translated as "visit the city" and "About friends" as "Snoop"
You can probably guess what most of these options mean so I won't go through them in too much detail. Chatting consists of talking to or disciplining your daughter. She'll talk about everything from her friends to her classes, and occasionally ask you questions, and answering with honesty is important for keeping up a good parent-daughter relationship.
(From asking about her relationships) Poor gal.
Going out together lets you and your daughter go out together into Himemiya/Hamasaki, either to visit shops, friends, miscellaneous buildings and areas, or events, which we will get into later. Free Time and resting both pretty much allow your daughter to relax for a day, though resting means she won't hang out with any friends. Speaking of friends, the 'about friends' tab will let you (with the aid of Cube, who keeps a pretty vigilant eye on your daughter) find out about her current relationships with other children she's met. It involves more than a bit of snooping though, and no guarantee your daughter won't find out about your curiousness.
This screen is just a bit complex: The size of each sparkle indicates intimacy, the colour of the orb (blue/pink) represents whether the relationship is romantic or amiable, while a cracked orb represents animosity. For example, the orb for Hosokawa Miho represents a budding friendship with your daughter. For context, this screenshot was taken when she was fourteen, and only displays about half the characters in the game.
Anyway, on to the remaining items in the [your daughter's] room - there's an item drawer where your daughter can keep any trinkets or food and weapons that she's found, bought, or received as a gift; an option menu - accessible rather appropriately by using your daughter's laptop; a huge clock in the upper-left displaying the current time, date, and time until your daughter's curfew; A wardrobe where she can store and change her clothes - which will be required sometimes, especially if you don't want your daughter to freeze to death, burn in the summer sun, or just suffer in the questionably fashionable default clothes, which I suppose represent just how unfamiliar she is with this world.
I mean, it's a nice brooch, but really? This child looks a bit alien.
There. That's better, isn't it?
Moving on to less prominent items in her room, there are her personal diary and a mirror with which you can check her statistics. Starting off with her diary, it's basically a run-down of her personality, hobbies, and physical stats. As you can see from the other tabs at the top of the diary, you can also look through her friend list/romances, and more importantly, the calendar, which displays upcoming events, birthdays, classes, part-time jobs, playdates, or exams, accordingly.
Before you ask why her last name is "Lizard", let me just ask, doesn't it sound more exciting than "Elizabeth"? Plus, both names can be shortened to Lizzie, which is cute and also reminds me of a certain someone
Finally, there remains the mirror. Here you can find a quick run-down of all your daughter's parameters, including but not limited to, her intelligence, charisma, athletic ability, and of course, her stress. It also lists her skills, a measure of her aptitude in a range of subjects, from her ability to analyze, cook, or sing. I like this - it's a lot less messy than the skill/statistic interface in PM2 and other early installments, and you can even drag what you deem the most important stats into a smaller box where they can be monitored without checking the mirror.
 |
| Statistics such as pride, openmindedness, and independence can't really be determined with numbers, and as such aren't displayed with the other stats. |
And that's about it for the game's interface. Now on to the real gameplay:
____________________________________________________________
Each week in PM5 consists of your daughter going through the daily motions of her schedule, going to school, and then following whatever other after-school activities you put on her schedule, with varying degrees of success.
As I previously explained, every class, club, or job your daughter performs will have an effect on her stats (as well as your household's funds), and the degree to which each skill is affected depends on her performance in said activities. There are three stamps which indicate your daughter's adeptness in an activity. The one you'll likely get most of the time is "Good Job" which has her stats increase/decrease at a normal rate, as well as her stress. If she does very well, she'll receive a "Very Good!" stamp and earn 2.0x the normal skills, while only gaining half the stress. This effect is inverted if she fails the activity and gets a "Keep Trying" stamp.
Now, all this is well and good - or at least it would be if her success rate had any consistency. Instead of her adeptness in a certain activity actually being affected by the skills she already has, her chance to succeed or fail in any given task seems to be completely random, which is not only a bizarre change from the last couple of games but also untrue to life. Sure, even professionals mess up at times - you hear stories about professional athletes not doing as well as they usually do, or an actor having to improvise when they forget their actual lines all the time, but they tend to make mistakes far less often than, per say, a ten-year-old hockey fan or a middle school drama student, who are far less well-versed in such skills. In previous PM games, the whole "getting better at _____ (I.e Tutoring) as ____ skill (I.e Intelligence) gets better" made perfect sense, and added a layer of strategy - is it worth spending money on a certain skill, if the payout won't be good? It would just be detrimental to train fitness if you were trying to work at a restaurant, for example. But in this game, this strategy is completely thrown out the window - in fact, each part-time job will pay the same wages, regardless of if your daughter actually succeeds in it or not. This wouldn't even make sense in real life - if you couldn't do your job properly, why would anyone keep you employed? Because of this, there are very few repercussions for Min-Maxing, and putting all your focus into a single skill without actually worrying about how that affects your daughter's work prospects.
However, this doesn't outright make the game simplistic to the point you can do whatever you want, whenever you want. Managing your daughter's stress, as well as your family's financial situation remain as important as ever. There's no end to the stress your daughter will accumulate from her various classes, part-time jobs and clubs, and stress piles up quickly. If your daughter isn't physically fit, her stress will tend to get the better of her and cause her to fall victim to her vices - including delinquency, defiance, and most prominently, laziness, often outright skipping club activities, jobs, or even exams. She'll even become sick, affecting her mood and willingness to eat. If worst comes to worst, she'll become bedridden, rendering her unable to attend school or even go outside until she recovers. Unlike previous games though, your daughter can't die of a disease - or if she can, the game makes it very hard to do so. You can still get a game over from crippling debt, but even this has been made manageable - to the point where I had to make a conscious effort to get a game over.
Stress tends to become less and less of a problem in late game (When your daughter moves up to middle and/or high school), as game mechanics like stress medicine and the insane amounts of money that can be earned by weekly adventures, can be easily abused to eliminate stress. Regardless, it offers a nice challenge for at least the beginning of the game, before adventuring is available.
However, aside from everything I've mentioned so far, Princess Maker 5 has one giant addition that, while not new to the series, is more refined than ever, and easily one of the best parts of the game - the relationship system. Every Princess Maker game prior to 5 has also had relationships - but the earlier games only had romantic relationships, and PM2 focused on PM2
In Princess Maker 5, the system is vastly fleshed out - since your daughter attends a public school and lives in a relatively close-knit town, it makes sense that she'd have more possibilities to make friends than the daughter of a noble during the medieval era, which was more or less the role of your daughter in the previous games. Much like the availability of jobs or classes, the friends your daughter will come into contact with naturally increases with age. At age 10, she'll only able to meet a select few, most of which are introduced from the get-go - your daughter's first day of fifth grade - including Emily Imagawa, Hiyoko Sakakibara, Hitoshi Kuroda, Kenichi Asakura and Michuru Kobayakawa.
PM5's dynamic friendship system, interestingly enough, teaches a few important lessons about friends: You will never be able to befriend everyone, some people are just toxic to hang around, and - most importantly - friends should always be measured in quality as opposed to quantity. After you've met most characters, you'll be able to visit them at their homes, or even run into them in town - everyone in the game has their own schedules and locales that they frequent. The issue with this is that, obviously, you don't have unlimited time. You have to spend a lot of free time visiting friends in order to simply maintain some relationships, thus the more relationships you pursue, the less time you'll have for...everything else (including actually developing deeper bonds with your acquaintances). Therefore, it's best to make sure you don't spread yourself too thin. Or you could ignore others entirely...
On the other side of the proverbial coin, isolating yourself isn't a great idea either - gameplay wise, you miss out on the things friends can teach your daughter, as well as the stress reductions and occasional gifts, and story-wise, you miss out on tons of events which really humanize each character, making them seem more realistic, not to mention letting them grow close to your daughter. The writing in PM5 is one of the better characteristics of the game.
However, while the explorative aspect of adventures has been significantly simplified, the battle system is back, and better than ever, might I add. While earlier Princess Maker games had you battling using traditional RPG tactics - that is, sword fighting and magic - Princess Maker 5 lets you use a much wider arsenal of skills in battle - musical ability, acting, analyzing a situation, or even eloquently talking (or negotiating) your way out of a dangerous situation are now available options - and, if properly honed, these skills, especially musical ability, can be even more useful than actual battle-related skills such as martial arts and swordsmanship. Some battles will even force you to use alternative methods to defeat your foes - such as ghosts unharmed by physical attacks - providing ample incentive to let your daughter become well-rounded in several skills.
I apologize for the length of this section of my review, but we're nearly there. However, before I continue on to grading the music of PM5 - I have to address a serious problem.
It's long. No, I'm not talking about this review, but rather, PM5. My initial playthrough of PM5 took more than 80 hours. The game does span over 350 game-weeks (Actually it spans around 416, but I didn't count summer vacations as those don't last for very long.) - following your daughter from 5th grade to graduation. Everything, as a result, increases or unlocks incredibly slowly. So much so that I oft believed that I must be doing something wrong when in-game friendships took literal real-life hours to even begin to develop, or when a new area to adventure didn't unlock after completing the last one. Even though you unlock more and more things to "do" [or rather, for your daughter to do], as the game progresses, most of the game revolves around the same general gameplay formulas, and after about 1/2 of the game, this began to get seriously grating. PM5 is not a game that I expect many casual players to finish. The worst part of this is that the Princess Maker series is generally made for multiple playthroughs - there are tons of endings (marriage, jobs, story-based endings) and a lot of the fun comes from trying to get the best ending you can!
I don't really want to spoil any of the endings, so here's a picture of Melody visiting New York.
In conclusion, PM5, despite how much I personally enjoy it, is a very hard game for me to recommend to a casual simulation-enjoying audience - not simply because it's an anime game, but more so because you really have to be dedicated to finishing it once you start, and it's easy to drop it after a few hours in just because of how long it takes to finish. It's definitely a different game than Princess Maker fans are used to, and if you can't deal with the changes, you won't enjoy it. However, for those who can care to overlook the game's lengths and problems, it's definitely a great experience, that, due to the rarity of this particular genre, you might never be able to find elsewhere.
GAMEPLAY - 6.3/10 [C+/GOOD]
Music and SFX
Full Soundtrack Here (Any further timestamps can be traced to a particular song in the OST)
If there's one reason I even play this series in the first place, it's the music featured in these games. Princess Maker 2, released in 1988, had exceptional music for the time (perhaps it wasn't as good as, per say, Dragon Quest 3, but the soundtrack was nothing to scoff at). I've also heard the soundtrack for PM3, and it's not bad, but I've never heard PM4's, as there was never an English release to my knowledge. Princess Maker 5 doesn't have the longest tracklist, at only 49 songs (Even that's being generous because a lot of the songs are variations of one another - 11, to be precise - and at least 2 of them are incredibly short tracks)
If there's one reason I even play this series in the first place, it's the music featured in these games. Princess Maker 2, released in 1988, had exceptional music for the time (perhaps it wasn't as good as, per say, Dragon Quest 3, but the soundtrack was nothing to scoff at). I've also heard the soundtrack for PM3, and it's not bad, but I've never heard PM4's, as there was never an English release to my knowledge. Princess Maker 5 doesn't have the longest tracklist, at only 49 songs (Even that's being generous because a lot of the songs are variations of one another - 11, to be precise - and at least 2 of them are incredibly short tracks)
The soundtrack in PM5 may be shorter than the previous games, but in the end, it's more important to judge quality rather than quantity. That being said, is Princess Maker 5's soundtrack substantial in either aspect? In my opinion, the answer to that question is "Yes...to an extent".
The game opens with a pretty... epic intro theme [0:00]. It almost reminds me of an opera, but then again, so does the actual intro sequence of the game, showcasing the heat of the war between humans and demons. The only problem I have with this piece of music is that right after it, we're taken to the menu screen, which has a distinctly more cute tone. It's jarring, to say the least, to be taken straight from a dramatic opera-type piece to a very cutesy, inviting menu theme.
As for the rest of the songs, PM5's soundtrack generally revolves around a cutesy and optimistic theme, with the exception of the adventuring themes, that I'll get to later. This is a welcome contrast to earlier games in the franchise, which emulated themes of high society. This makes sense, as in the earlier installments, you were raising a child with the intention of her becoming a member of high society, while PM5 is more focused on your modern-era child herself and a view of the world through her innocent eyes.
Most of the year, you'll be listening to the game's main theme. [9:11, 11:04, 13:58, 17:38] This comes in five variations - one for each season, along with a tune that plays during the evening (9PM) regardless of the time of year.
Each season feels truly unique, and each theme carries a distinct enough leitmotif that I could identify what season it was without actually at the scenery of the game.
The same principle applies more or less to the "school" theme, of which there are three - one for elementary school, a second for middle school, and a final version for high school. As your daughter grows older and more mature, so do the themes for her school. The first theme sounds incredibly innocent and childish composed with what sounds like flutes and a xylophone, along with plenty of staccato notes. The high school theme, to contrast, uses very few staccato notes and a wider variety of instruments, including strings, giving it a more grown-up feel. The middle school theme strikes a nice balance between the two.
The adventuring soundtracks are also great, with each one fitting the main theme of the world you're exploring [I.e 1:39:09 for the hellish world, 1:30:30 for the fairy world]. The battle soundtracks are intense [1:47:47, 1:49:48] as opposed to silly, giving off the very fitting feeling that each battle was a matter of life or death, not a friendly duel. These made boss battles all the more exciting. They're made even better by the fact that they sound nothing like the rest of the game. If I hadn't known better, I would've thought they were ripped from a final fantasy game or something of a similar nature.
I found this aspect of the OST refreshing as well because it really showed how unique a game Princess Maker 5 was. They could've just gone the whole game using the same regal, haughty tracks as any other game that includes royalty, but instead, the composers decided to make a varied bundle of soundtracks for each location or circumstance, that really gives Princess Maker 5 its own, unique feel. Long live the queen, this ain't [No offence to the composers of that game's OST, it's great, but the songs don't exactly cross any new frontiers].
In conclusion, Princess Maker's 5 soundtrack is memorable, pleasurable to listen to, and gives off the impression of being incredibly varied without actually having a large soundtrack, and is definitely one of the game's stronger points. Once again, I do wish there were more songs considering the length of the game - some of them become incredibly tiresome to listen to after eight in-game years - but in the end, just like the earlier installments of this franchise, GAINAX created a great soundtrack which vastly improves the overall quality of the game.
Now on to the SFX and voice acting.
The sound effects aren't nearly as remarkable as the OST, as far as I'm concerned. You'll overhear people talking and running in the halls during cutscenes at school, a variety of different noises when you attack enemies depending on the weapon you use, a brick falling on a piano(?) when your daughter really messes something up - the standard fare for an anime-themed game, really. At the very least, a lot of the game (at least, barring the adventures) sounds very realistic due to these sound effects, so that's a plus.
Voice acting in PM5 mostly only occurs during cutscenes, or when your daughter is talking to a friend over the phone. This voice acting entirely in Japanese, unfortunately for us native English speakers. As this is the case, I apologize in advance if I misjudge how good the voice acting is, since I don't know many native Japanese speakers. However, from what I gathered, the voice acting is definitely up to snuff. Each character has more or less the sort of voice I picture them having when I look at their character models. Furthermore, it's easy to discern how characters are feeling from the intonation and hesitation (or lack thereof) in their voice. I understand it can be hard to convey emotions regardless of the actual language used, so I commend the voice actors for doing this so well. Lastly, I noticed that your daughter's voice actually changes (albeit not by that much) as she ages, which is a detail that could have easily been omitted, so I also find it impressive that GAINAX didn't take the easy way out here. They definitely didn't skimp out on the voice acting...or so I think. Feel free to correct me.
OST score: 8/10 [B]
SFX + Voice Acting Score: 9.5/10 [A+]
Overall Sound Score: 8.75/10 [A / Exceptional]
The game opens with a pretty... epic intro theme [0:00]. It almost reminds me of an opera, but then again, so does the actual intro sequence of the game, showcasing the heat of the war between humans and demons. The only problem I have with this piece of music is that right after it, we're taken to the menu screen, which has a distinctly more cute tone. It's jarring, to say the least, to be taken straight from a dramatic opera-type piece to a very cutesy, inviting menu theme.As for the rest of the songs, PM5's soundtrack generally revolves around a cutesy and optimistic theme, with the exception of the adventuring themes, that I'll get to later. This is a welcome contrast to earlier games in the franchise, which emulated themes of high society. This makes sense, as in the earlier installments, you were raising a child with the intention of her becoming a member of high society, while PM5 is more focused on your modern-era child herself and a view of the world through her innocent eyes.
Most of the year, you'll be listening to the game's main theme. [9:11, 11:04, 13:58, 17:38] This comes in five variations - one for each season, along with a tune that plays during the evening (9PM) regardless of the time of year.
- The spring theme is lighthearted.
- The summer variation is more upbeat and energetic.
- The autumn is more elegantly composed and relaxed
- The winter theme seems lethargic and calm.
- Finally, the evening theme seems to give off the message "That's enough for today".
Each season feels truly unique, and each theme carries a distinct enough leitmotif that I could identify what season it was without actually at the scenery of the game.
The adventuring soundtracks are also great, with each one fitting the main theme of the world you're exploring [I.e 1:39:09 for the hellish world, 1:30:30 for the fairy world]. The battle soundtracks are intense [1:47:47, 1:49:48] as opposed to silly, giving off the very fitting feeling that each battle was a matter of life or death, not a friendly duel. These made boss battles all the more exciting. They're made even better by the fact that they sound nothing like the rest of the game. If I hadn't known better, I would've thought they were ripped from a final fantasy game or something of a similar nature.
I found this aspect of the OST refreshing as well because it really showed how unique a game Princess Maker 5 was. They could've just gone the whole game using the same regal, haughty tracks as any other game that includes royalty, but instead, the composers decided to make a varied bundle of soundtracks for each location or circumstance, that really gives Princess Maker 5 its own, unique feel. Long live the queen, this ain't [No offence to the composers of that game's OST, it's great, but the songs don't exactly cross any new frontiers].
In conclusion, Princess Maker's 5 soundtrack is memorable, pleasurable to listen to, and gives off the impression of being incredibly varied without actually having a large soundtrack, and is definitely one of the game's stronger points. Once again, I do wish there were more songs considering the length of the game - some of them become incredibly tiresome to listen to after eight in-game years - but in the end, just like the earlier installments of this franchise, GAINAX created a great soundtrack which vastly improves the overall quality of the game.
Now on to the SFX and voice acting.
The sound effects aren't nearly as remarkable as the OST, as far as I'm concerned. You'll overhear people talking and running in the halls during cutscenes at school, a variety of different noises when you attack enemies depending on the weapon you use, a brick falling on a piano(?) when your daughter really messes something up - the standard fare for an anime-themed game, really. At the very least, a lot of the game (at least, barring the adventures) sounds very realistic due to these sound effects, so that's a plus.
Voice acting in PM5 mostly only occurs during cutscenes, or when your daughter is talking to a friend over the phone. This voice acting entirely in Japanese, unfortunately for us native English speakers. As this is the case, I apologize in advance if I misjudge how good the voice acting is, since I don't know many native Japanese speakers. However, from what I gathered, the voice acting is definitely up to snuff. Each character has more or less the sort of voice I picture them having when I look at their character models. Furthermore, it's easy to discern how characters are feeling from the intonation and hesitation (or lack thereof) in their voice. I understand it can be hard to convey emotions regardless of the actual language used, so I commend the voice actors for doing this so well. Lastly, I noticed that your daughter's voice actually changes (albeit not by that much) as she ages, which is a detail that could have easily been omitted, so I also find it impressive that GAINAX didn't take the easy way out here. They definitely didn't skimp out on the voice acting...or so I think. Feel free to correct me.
OST score: 8/10 [B]
SFX + Voice Acting Score: 9.5/10 [A+]
Overall Sound Score: 8.75/10 [A / Exceptional]
ART and Animation
PM5 is a really beautiful game. I mean it. Earlier games in the franchise, especially PM4, relied heavily on having an anime aesthetic. While this didn't make the games look bad, they were all rather generic in art style, and as a result games like PM4 looked bland and was hard to differentiate from other anime-esque games of 2005. Princess Maker 5 continues the anime-esque tradition of the series, but it also vastly improves upon it. For one thing, everything is styled in such a way that it looks nearly hand-drawn - environments, characters, you name it. It fits the theme of the game incredibly well, and only adds charm to an already charming premise of a game. There are so many intricate details and such a harmonious blend of colours in the art style that it looks almost as if I'm reading out of a storybook.
The fact is, however, that PM5 was a game released originally in 2007. Needless to say, technology had advanced substantially since 1988, and so has animation. Yet PM5's animation style still harkens back to earlier installments.
This style, of course, keeps the animation simple and quick, which is good because the game is already long enough as it is. They also allow for some light comedic relief whenever your daughter does badly at something, which is as charming as it is hilarious.
On the other hand, however, some animations come off as a bit lazy due to the limited frames. Furthermore, the background is rarely incorporated into the animation itself, which results in animations where your daughter interacts with an object in the background without the background being changed accordingly - for example, the gym animation where your daughter runs on a treadmill without the belt of the treadmill actually moving, or the animation for music classes where you daughter attempts to play the piano, without the keys actually moving up or down.
In the end, the beauty of PM5's art style along with its simplistic animations manage to give the game a pleasing aesthetic, but throughout my entire playthrough, I couldn't help from wondering if the game would look better with more fleshed out, smoother animations.
Artstyle: 9/10 [A+]
Animation: 5/10 [C]
Overall Graphics score: 7/10 [B/Very Good]
The character designs are also delightful. The fact that each one changes as characters age give the game a bit of realism - the world changes around you as you grow older. That's just a fact of life.
The animation in Princess Maker 5 is also very reminiscent of previous installments in the series - which is both good and bad. Princess Maker is famous for its very simplistic animations to indicate what, and how well your daughter is doing.
Some examples of the animations in PM2
All of these animations only consist of a few frames, and yet they're able to convey the information they need to. This was really useful for games like PM2, as, to put it bluntly, detailed, smooth animations were between hard and literally impossible to make back then, due to the technology available.
The fact is, however, that PM5 was a game released originally in 2007. Needless to say, technology had advanced substantially since 1988, and so has animation. Yet PM5's animation style still harkens back to earlier installments.
The animations in PM5 have an adorable chibi style. They also seem to use a few more frames than the game's predecessors.
On the other hand, however, some animations come off as a bit lazy due to the limited frames. Furthermore, the background is rarely incorporated into the animation itself, which results in animations where your daughter interacts with an object in the background without the background being changed accordingly - for example, the gym animation where your daughter runs on a treadmill without the belt of the treadmill actually moving, or the animation for music classes where you daughter attempts to play the piano, without the keys actually moving up or down.
In the end, the beauty of PM5's art style along with its simplistic animations manage to give the game a pleasing aesthetic, but throughout my entire playthrough, I couldn't help from wondering if the game would look better with more fleshed out, smoother animations.
Artstyle: 9/10 [A+]
Animation: 5/10 [C]
Overall Graphics score: 7/10 [B/Very Good]
Appropriateness
When I originally began PM5, I was concerned that it would be, for lack of a better term, inappropriate. You see, the game was made by GAINAX, a studio popular for anime full of both action and fanservice.
When they first began to create video games, a lot of their products became well known for being...rather sensual, or even outright pornographic. This includes some of the early games in the Princess Maker franchise. If you were to play PM2 today, you may find yourself surprised that this was a game promoted as mainstream in Japan, despite its sexual content. Your daughter can wear skimpy dresses, perform illicit and disturbing activities, and even become a harlot if you raise her badly enough. There's even an infamous scene where your daughter is very nearly molested at a young age. The inclusion of such a scene made sense for a game taking place in the medieval era, but that fact made it no less disgusting. Since this was a game about raising a child, it felt very odd to have so many sexual undertones shoved in your face, and it honestly detracted from the overall quality of the game.
Because of all this, I was worried PM5 would be filled with fanservice and themes that made the game uncomfortable to play. I was pleasantly surprised to find, however, that GAINAX had taken heed of the controversial issues posed in the second installment of the series, and made PM5 a much tamer game in comparison. There are still some iffy areas - it's possible to buy inappropriate clothing for your daughter, but said clothing items are often expensive and not terribly practical. Your daughter is also a growing child, and will occasionally commentate on how her body has grown (I made that sound worse than it actually sounds in the game, but it's still an issue.), which is a bit freaky if you're playing a father rather than a mother.
Because of all this, I was worried PM5 would be filled with fanservice and themes that made the game uncomfortable to play. I was pleasantly surprised to find, however, that GAINAX had taken heed of the controversial issues posed in the second installment of the series, and made PM5 a much tamer game in comparison. There are still some iffy areas - it's possible to buy inappropriate clothing for your daughter, but said clothing items are often expensive and not terribly practical. Your daughter is also a growing child, and will occasionally commentate on how her body has grown (I made that sound worse than it actually sounds in the game, but it's still an issue.), which is a bit freaky if you're playing a father rather than a mother.
It's really nothing worse than you'd see in a PG or PG-13 anime. (This is one of the most risqué things in-game)
Aside from the occasional suggestive imagery and fanservice, the game is relatively innocuous. The language is mostly mild, and the only injuries we see are cartoonish. There are demons and even a suicidal ghost at one point in-game, but once again, these themes aren't taken very seriously, and probably won't be traumatizing anyone anytime soon.
Imagery and themes: -5%
Time to completion:
Main Story, better ending: 30-70 hours
Main Story, best ending (including reloading): 50-100 hours
My own playthrough: >100 hours (Mostly due to reloading)
Graphics Average = 7/10
The worst injuries you'll ever see in the game. Don't worry, she can walk it off.
The game actually does teach a few lessons about friendship, but nothing that will hit you particularly hard - they're just ordinary tales about ordinary friendships. The game also encourages you to raise your daughter in a loving and respectable manner, though it's by no means enforced. Overall, as long as you don't try to turn your daughter into a promiscuous person, there's really not many objectionable themes in the game.
Appropriateness Base Score: 50%
Promiscuity but no nudity: -10%
Cartoonish Violence: -5%
Minimal, mild language: +10%Imagery and themes: -5%
Friendship lessons + Positive messages: +10%
= 10% (Not suitable for ages 10 and under, recommendable to anyone 13 or above)Time to completion:
Speedrun: 10 hours
Main Story, simple ending: 20-50 hoursMain Story, better ending: 30-70 hours
Main Story, best ending (including reloading): 50-100 hours
My own playthrough: >100 hours (Mostly due to reloading)
100% Completion: 75-1000 hours (There's not much reason to get every ending, though)
Final Scoring:
Story = 6.5/10 (EDIT: + 0.5 points for dialogue) = 7
Gameplay = 6.3/10
Audio Average = 8.75/10Graphics Average = 7/10
Average Score ≈ 7.26
Overall Score: 7.5 [B/ Great]
Princess Maker 5 is a remarkably unique game. It's not often that you can find a game about raising a virtual child, but PM5 is just that and it pulls off what it tries to be quite well. The main issue that makes this game hard for me to recommend to casual gamers is the sheer length of the game and the design flaws that exist solely due to that. If you've never played, or aren't really a fan of simulation games, I couldn't really recommend PM5 to you - it's definitely not a game targeted towards a mainstream audience. However, if the premise does catch your interest, then I'd say it's definitely a game you should consider trying out. At the very least, it makes for a unique experience - at the most, an obscure gem that you won't be forgetting anytime soon.
Comments
Post a Comment