the iDOLM@STER (Xbox360)
So, since I have no idea of what I should talk about, I might as well talk about this game.
Everybody has a game that they want to play, but know they will never have the possibility to play it. Everybody has a game that they would love to have, but would never pay for it even if they had money. Everybody has a game that they know a lot about it without playing it, but kinda fear to give it a try because they don’t want to be disappointed.
… Well I have a game like that, the iDOLM@STER.
Iz dat some kind of eroge !?
As I said in the introduction article, I visit lot of japanese blogs. One day, I started to see a peculiar youtube video spreading all over the blogs I was visiting.
here is the video : Sekuhara P
So basically, we have here what is apparantly a standard dating sim/eroge with some good 3D and motion capture. And then, there is this “Touch System”, which allows you to touch (you guessed it) the girl. If you know a little about japanese pc games, there is nothing to be surprised about, if you don’t I guess you just went OMGWTF or something like that.
As some few days passed, the number of articles about this video was growing bigger, and I finally ended up searching for some informations about this game by curiosity… for seeing that this game was actually THE big hit in Japan. Only one week after it was released (January ’07), the game was in the Top 10 of game sales charts for the month, first time ever for a Xbox360 game. Thanks to that, M$’s console got a sales boost they never saw before in Japan.
So, what is this game exactly ?
In fact, the iDOLM@STER, despites what some people may think while watching the video posted earlier, isn’t an eroge. This is a raising and management game, the kind of game that japanese people are crazy about (there are management games about everything in japan). And surprisingly enough, this is a game by Namco (now Namco-Bandai), famous for the Tekken, Soul Calibur, Ace Combat and more epic game series.
The game is pretty easy to summarize : you are a producer, and you have to chose a girl from 10 aspiring pop idols and make her the #1 idol in Japan. Like any other raising/management game, you have to train her (mostly to sing and dance properly), while keeping an eye on her fatigue and moral level. But the fun part, as you saw in the video, is that the game actually features a big “dating sim” part, full voiced and with animated 3D characters unlike most of the games of this kind. Having a good relationship with your idol helps her to make faster progress, and for that you will have to behave like she expects you to do during lot of various events (before and after concerts, photoshooting sessions, and free time), which include multiple-choices questions and the infamous “Touch System”.
π Touch
Really, no need to be a genius for guessing that if the game is so popular, it’s also thanks to that “Touch System”. Basically, if it wasn’t obvious enough, there are some moments in the game in which you have to touch the idol on a certain place. Like the multiple-choices questions, you have only a few seconds to make the good choice. Depending of the girl and the situation, touching at the same place will have different results that will make your harmony with your idol going better or worse.
Dunno if it was originally intended by Namco, but to put such a feature in the hands of japanese guys (or every guys, actually), there was no way it wouldn’t end up with something naughty. The apparantly high number of this kind of scenes and the unexpected reaction from some of the girls make definitely think that Namco wanted to create the first ever “all-public” eroge, though. Taking the “Sekuhara P” video for exemple, the girl asks you to play a sexual harasser because she wants to learn to defend herself. When the player is asked to touch the girl’s arms/elbows, the guy touched the breasts 2 times… which resulted with a “Good Communication” at the end, and the girl to ask for more.
Even so, I think the game is far from being a game targeted to perverts and lolicons. If you don’t take this thing seriously, it can be fun to tease the girls for the lulz and see their reactions. And well, talking about this single feature makes forget about the rest of the game : the management, some catchy songs, a bunch of interesting characters, cool 3D, awesome motion capture, and finally the Xbox Live which allows you to buy new items and stuffs. But I couldn’t talk of this game without mentioning what made it famous on japanese blogs and youtube.
I think it’s all I wanted to say about the game itself, it’s time for some pics and vids.
The Characters
Haruka Amami (16)
VA : Eriko Nakamura
Haruka is the typical dojikko heroine, a bright girl from the countryside who move to the capital for realizing her dream of becoming an idol. Her nice and simple personality might charm you eventually.
Yukiho Hagiwara (16)
VA : Yurika Ochiai
An overly shy girl who is scared of everything, but mostly of boys. Tends to cry a lot.
Ritsuko Akizuki (18)
VA : Naomi Wakabayashi
A bossy meganekko with old-person behavior. She believes more in theory than in her own capacities and appearance. Rather than being an idol, her dream is to become producer. Seems to be rather popular among the iM@S fans.
Chihaya Kisaragi (15)
VA : Asami Imai
A cool and mature girl who dedicates all her life to singing. The second best singer of the game in my opinion. She eventually became my favorite character… dunno, I think I have something for cool, refined and… breastless girls (since I’m a Akiha-sama and Hinagiku fan too >_> )
Video 1 – Video 2 – Video 3 (π Touch)
Azusa Miura (20)
VA : Chiaki Takahashi
The scatterbrained and kind onee-san type girl who always loses her way. The best singer of the game, she was my favorite at first.
Video 1 – Video 2 (π Touch) – Video 3 (π Touch)
Makoto Kikuchi (16)
VA : Hiromi Hirata
Everybody mistakes her as a tomboy because of her appearance, voice and love for sports, but she’s in fact a very romantic and sensitive girl who likes cute clothes and shoujo manga. She is called Makoto-kun by the other idols. Very popular among the iM@S fans, also thanks to her singing ability.
Video 1 – Video 2 – Video 3 (π Touch)
Yayoi Takatsuki (13)
VA : Mayako Nigo
A very cheerful and caring loli. She is born in a poor family in which she has to act as a mother for her 3 little brothers. She gets along well with Iori though being very different from each others. One of the most popular character of the game.
Video 1 – Video 2 – Video 3 (π Touch)
Iori Minase (14)
VA : Rie Kugimiya
Tsundere + loli + ojou-sama + large forehead + sabishigariya (she hates to be alone) + Rie Kugimiya, all the ingredients for being the most popular character of the game. She is also a stubborn girl who has chosen to be an idol mostly for going against her father and older brothers’ authority. She gets along well with Yayoi. Her seiyuu Rie Kugimiya is well-know for being also the voice of Nagi (Hayate no Gotoku), Shana (Shakugan no Shana), Louise (Zero no Tsukaima), Rizel (Rizelmine), and Alphonse Elric (Full Metal Alchemist).
Ami & Mami Futami (12)
VA : Asami Shimoda
A pair of identical bratty twins. Ami is actually the only one singing and dancing on stage, Mami’s existance is kept secret.
Miki Hoshii (14)
VA : Akiko Hasegawa
The one who started everything. Miki is a flashy, lazy and over-confident girl who think that she doesn’t need to work hard, and bets everything on her inner talent and her sexyness. She’s also the character who shows the more of interest toward the producer, with some risquée scenes that made her being called “14 years-old jail bait” by some people. Miki is obviously a parody of Maki Goto, a member from Morning Musume. When she started her career with the song “Love Machine”, Maki Goto was 14, had blonde long hair, and was somewhat hot. Miki is an exclusive Xbox360 character, she wasn’t in the original arcade version of the game.
Video 1 – Video 2 – Video 3 (Sekuhara P)
The Songs
I couldn’t finish without mentioning the songs, ’cause well… this is a musical game after all. There is a total of 16 songs in the game. As you might expect, the quality isn’t that awesome. Though, I made a quick selection of the songs I found decent, in my own preference order. Most of them are sung by Azusa.
9:02pm
Taiyou no Jealousy
Massugu
My Best Friend
Aoi Tori
The other songs, in no particular order :
Relations
Positive
Agent Yoru wo iku
Watashi wa Idol
Mahou wo kakete
the iDOLM@STER
Here we go
Omoide wo arigatou
My First Stage
Ohayou Asagohan
Go My Way
Conclusion
Well… honestly, I can barely call myself a iM@S fan. I know the characters and the songs, but like I said in the very beginning of this post, I actually don’t feel the “urge” to play it. Even if I never get the chance to give it a try, it would be ok. It’s just that, seeing articles and videos everydays on japanese blogs during these past 8 months, I eventually grew some sympathy for this bunch of characters, little by little. It’s like I knew them since even longer.
I dunno how to end that conclusion… I said everything I had in mind about this game. I would just say Don’t take Japan too seriously.
And upcoming articles will be shorter, hopefully.
:beer: