Princess Maker 2

The Good
The premise alone is original: raising a daughter. The game analyses your every move which is quite rewarding; and the incredibly detailed game system allows you to map out your ideal daughter quite easily. The possibilities are huge and it's fun to see how one choice affects another. For example, having your daughter work at a sleazy bar ups her "sin" level; but if you combine it with a job at a church, you can nullify it. The graphics are charming and heartwarming in a typical Japanese fashion, and the small animations are good and quite funny sometimes. The sheer open-endedness of the game is great and the, count 'em...74 endings have got to rate among surely the biggest number in any game. Like someone said it's "replayable to the point of insanity". I personally found a lot of affinity with my daughter and I felt a bit sad when she had to leave home at the end, but -hey- I'm always like that. I also managed to pretty much create what I'd want my daughter to be like anyway. The endings are suprisingly thorough and it's amazing how your daughter's final stats make a difference to each ending. Which means that even after you've seen ALL SEVENTY FOUR you can still replay the game again and see something new.

The Bad
Princess Maker 2 does unfortunately get repetitive. I found this to be it's biggest problem. If you want your daughter to grow up to be an artist or whatever, it's quite easy to pile her into art school and get her a job at a hair salon, and she'll ace the competitions every time in less than 2 years. After that, there is no real need to keep her in the art school because it's costing you a bomb and she'll win the next competition by a mile anyway. So you're kinda stuck with what to do because if you try something else like fighting, it'll lower her artistic skill or push her in the direction of becoming a professional warrior. There could have been a few more random events I think. The schedules do seem to turn out pretty similar for every month too. You'll get your daughter into a routine habit and this may get boring if nothing happens very often either. It's also a pity your daughter doesn't say much as well, but then that may just be my inadequacies as a father.

The Bottom Line
Sweet, fun, light-hearted, and warm. Japan always seems to be able to produce games with so much more charisma than American ones. It's just a pity that not quite enough is happening most of the time; and after completing it, you won't feel the need to jump back in right from the start again. But how can you complain when this game has 74 endings? I mean...74?!...Wow