As I just got this game in today (Monday, February 4, 2008), I figured I would play it for a bit and write down my first impressions. 

Suzumiya Haruhi no Tomadoi (The Wonderment of Haruhi Suzumiya )for the Playstation 2 is a combination of a visual novel and a game creation simulator. The plot of the game is as such:

Haruhi has found out about a game creation contest, called “Game Garden”, and decides that the SOS Brigade is going to participate and win. Your job, as Kyon, is to set the schedule for the next four weeks and create a game that Haruhi will accept.

But it’s not as simple as that. Nothing involving Haruhi Suzumiya ever is. The initial attempt at making a game ends up being a ‘prologue’, and after the four weeks end, you get shot back to the first day again, to try all over again.  Koizumi tells you on the second run of ‘Day One’ that the four weeks are likely to repeat themselves until the group is able to create a game that satisfies Haruhi. That said, there’s no knowing what will satisfy her until you make it. 

The back of the game’s package states that there are several potential games, ranging from Dragon Warrior/Quest-esque RPGs to girl-raising simulators (like Princess Maker) to a parody of the Super Robot Wars series. It also states that all of these games are playable, though not to what degree. (I’m guessing a few levels/dungeons/stages each) 

So far, I have seen the prologue, the opening animation (which is the same as the TV series), and one day of ‘game production’. I have learned, though the helpful, if a bit wordy, tutorials, that it will likely be necessary for me to go through the four week period a few times, in order to learn some of the tasks necessary to make a good game, like ‘finding story ideas’ or ‘creating the rough character designs’. 

All in all, this is looking like it will be a rare thing – an actually enjoyable anime-based game. The writing is good, and the game play is easy to learn, yet requires a good amount of planning and strategy. I’ll talk more about the game play in more detail next time. 

So, Haruhi fans (and those who are not), does a game like this interest you at all? What kind of Haruhi (or anime/manga) related games would you like to see? Do you even like anime-based games?

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 5th, 2008 at 4:35 pm and is filed under games, Richard Kim, anime. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. Both comments and pings are currently closed.