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 Well, in a surprise that came out of nowhere, Korean company CFK suddenly announced that it was going to release the Japanese game Princess Maker 2 (1993, MS-DOS, etc.) on Steam with Japanese, English, Korean, and Chinese versions. Interest was so great, they pushed the release date back from October 6th to September 28th, 2016. What's more, CFK has stated that they are highly interested in releasing multi-language versions of Princess Makers 1, 3, 4, and 5 on Steam as well! If that's enough for you to want to go and buy, here is the link: http://store.steampowered.com/app/523000/ The price is currently $19.99 USD, and is only available on Steam, for Windows. This is the same base game as the 1993 DOS version many of us played, but it is actually a port of a PS2 version, "Princess Maker 2 Refine" that was released on Playstation 2 in 2002. Princess Maker 2 Refine has updated graphics, updated music, and Japanese voicing for all characters. (I've gone back and forth on whether to make this thread or not, but since the game has been released and the company seems to be taking bug and translation fixes seriously, I decided to go ahead. This IS the home of the most (in?)famous Let's Play of Princess Maker 2, after all.) Ok, that's nice, but what exactly is this...Princess Maker? Princess Maker is a series of life simulation games where you play as a father who is raising a daughter from ages 10 - 18. The main series was was produced by the Japanese company Gainax (of Neon Genesis Evangelion fame) from 1991 - 2007. There are many in-game factors that determine who your daughter is and who she will become. Depending on how you raise her, she might become anything from the ruling queen of the realm to the part time babysitter barely making ends meet. The game gives you a large amount of freedom in how you raise your daughter, and there's a lot of fun in the darker options that are available. Want your little girl to bring in the cash by working in a Medieval Hooters? That's an option. Want to send her on an adventure in the deadly desert where she can get drunk with Satan? Totally a thing you can do. Princess Maker 2? Where is Princess Maker 1, then? There are actually 5 Princess Maker games! Princess Maker 2 had the misfortune of being mostly translated into English but never being released because the publisher went bankrupt. Most English fans of the Princess Maker series are familiar with it through a mostly-finished English beta that has been floating around on the web since the late 90's. Princess Maker 1 (1991), Princess Maker 3 (1997), Princess Maker 4 (2005), and Princess Maker 5 (2007) have never had official English translations attempted, though CFK has expressed interest in translating all of these. See the post below for a summary of each. So is this a port of the English DOS game or what? Well, not really. The semi-active company that was responsible for the beta translation, SoftEgg, isn't involved. The new publisher is the Korean company CFK, has opted to use their own in-house English translation of Princess Maker 2 Refine. It can be pretty Engrishy, but it's understandable, and they seem committed to fixing bugs and awkward phrasing. Is the creepy stuff still in there?  Yeah.  It's an early 90's PC game by Gainax, so it was definitely made with the idea of making part of the game fanservice to THAT type of anime fan. The creepier content ranges all over the place from funny, to weird, to eye-rolling, to absolute  It can't be avoided entirely, but 90% of the worst of it can be avoided if you don't take your daughter for a summer vacation, and you don't use the "Other Topics" conversation. It's...still not a game I would play with someone else in the room. Steam will do a refund if your play time is under 2 hours, so if you find it not to your taste, that's an option.I still recommend it despite that kind of content (and I HATE that kind of stuff. I've stopped playing and sold off games before because of it). Princess Maker 2 is a classic, and the core gameplay is very solid; the uncomfortable stuff is more like fanservice than a core part game. I DEFINITELY recommend Princess Maker 4 and Princess Maker 5 if they are ever released in English. Each game gets far less of Fanservicey as the series goes on. Ok, I guess I can avoid the worst stuff and tolerate some anime monster tits. What the difference between DOS Princess Maker 2 and this Windows version Princess Maker 2 Refine? The Refine game comes with a graphical and musical overhaul, as well as full voice acting. Otherwise it's the same game. This translation of the game is closer to the original Japanese, if that kind of thing matters to you. The translation varies in quality, though the company has vowed to look at suggestions to improve it. I'd say that it's playable; think late 90's/ PS1 era translations. Here's a comparison of the graphical differences. This is the original DOS version:  And here is the new PC Refine version:  Now, enjoy the thread, and let me know if you have any questions about the series! I've been a fan for about 18 years now, have played 2-5 extensively, and even own a Japanese box set of Princess Makers 1-5. Your funny daughter stories welcome!  General Princess Maker Links: Princess Maker Wiki - has information on all main series games (and spinoffs), as well as a lot of Strategies for Princess Maker 2. Steam Page to buy Princess Maker 2 Official Princess Maker 2 page for CFK, the translation company Facebook Page for Princess Maker 2 Refine. After Steam, it has the most up to date announcements. Goon related Princess Maker links: The (in?) Famous SA Let's Play: Let's Play Princess Maker 2! Turning a sweet baby girl into a monster. Project Princess - Goon made Princess Maker 2 clone in flash. I couldn't find the original thread in the archives, as it was made in 2008! The author is listed as HJECobra; no idea if they're a SA member anymore or still around. Play this if you'd like a demo of what kind of game Princess Maker 2 is.
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Oct 11, 2016 06:53
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This space reserved for summaries of Princess Makers 1-5. (and possibly information on the spinoffs). In the meantime, here are some summaries and impressions I wrote in the Steam thread: I liked Princess Maker 2 enough that over the years I got Japanese versions of 1, 3, 4, and 5 running on my PC, and even bought the Japanese Memorial Box with 1-5 on it. I even have an emulated virtual box version of Windows XP on my Windows 10 machine so I can play Princess Maker 5 with the 75% English patch that was released. Obviously, I think they were all pretty awesome as they were worth doing all that work for. For the best examples and information, read the different entries at the Princess Maker Wiki If you'd like my impressions: Each game is iterative of the last, as the series goes on, they each add on to the formula while creating a different world and daughter character scenario each time. Princess Maker 1: Simple, but charming. I played this on a half-working translated ROM of some Japanese-type PC I've never heard of, so I haven't spent as much time on this one. More of a proof of concept, or "go here to see where this all began" at this point. I hope to play it more if Princess Maker 1 Refine is released in English. Princess Maker 3: I played this one in pure Japanese with an English FAQ guide. The storyline is that in a Medieval era, a fairy wants to become a human princess, and is entrusted to you. The game is a pure raising sim with the RPG elements removed.  The improvements over Princess Maker 2 are: Better music, better graphics, more characters, events, and reactivity based on your daughter's stats and decisions. (For example, rivals can become your daughter's friends, and will comments to her based on what ending she gets.)Princess Maker 4: I played this one in Japanese with a program that extracted the text and then automatically translated it with a machine translation. It was understandable, but in an Engrishy kind of way. The text would say something like "The husband that there are setting the moneys for the month" and you would have to figure out that meant something like, "For this month's schedule, it will cost this much:". This is a simulation / Japanese visual novel hybrid (still with no RPG battle and exploration elements). The storyline is that in a Renaissance fantasy setting, the player's former adventuring partner gives him her daughter to raise for *~mysterious reasons*~. Improvements over Princess Maker 3 are: Better graphics, better music, even more events organized in a visual-novel like way with branching paths based on which characters your daughter raises relationships with while doing events. If I recall correctly, there are three main female friends and 3 main male friends. I'd say that gameplay wise, this one is the best conceived and executed of the 5. Princess Maker 5: I also played this one with a Japanese text extraction and translation tool. There is currently a partially finished English patch out, but I have not thoroughly tested it through a game. The storyline is that you are a hero from another world who is living in the modern world, and you have adopted a princess who is the only survivor of an assassination on her family. This one is a Raising sim / Visual novel with some RPG elements (manually controlling your daughter's movement is out, though RPG battles with stats and abilities based on her skills are back in). The art and graphics are as good as 4, and come down to a matter of personal preference. Improvements are along the lines of adding MORE of everything: you can play as a mother or father, there are many more character based events can occur for 8 female friends and 8 male friends, events in town tied to location and time of year (like a pumpkin pie being available in the cake shop in Halloween, or cherry blossom viewing available on the mountain in early April). This one is my favorite, but it kind of suffers from being almost too much. The games can get really long, at over 50 hours.
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Oct 11, 2016 06:54
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Oct 11, 2016 07:21
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What if I want to make a prince instead?
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Oct 11, 2016 07:48
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Internet Kraken posted:What if I want to make a prince instead?
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Oct 11, 2016 08:44
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Internet Kraken posted:What if I want to make a prince instead? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neon_Genesis_Evangelion:_Shinji_Ikari_Raising_Project :iamafag:
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Oct 11, 2016 09:45
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If this new team do an English version of 5 I will definitely play Single Mum Simulator 2007. Also: Catalina posted:I played this one in Japanese with a program that extracted the text and then automatically translated it with a machine translation. It was understandable, but in an Engrishy kind of way. The text would say something like "The husband that there are setting the moneys for the month" and you would have to figure out that meant something like, "For this month's schedule, it will cost this much:"
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Oct 11, 2016 09:56
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FractalSandwich posted:If this new team do an English version of 5 I will definitely play Single Mum Simulator 2007. You definitely should!  FractalSandwich posted:Also: Ha! I don't really know if it's exciting, but in 2004, it WAS possible to get Japanese games running on an English system, with a machine translation running on the side, but it required knowing how to do many different computer program related at once. I had the time, and I was determined (there weren't a lot of translated games with life sim elements at the time, either), so I read tutorials until I had figured out how to trick the game into thinking it was on a Japanese system, have a program extract the Japanese text from the game, and then have another program machine translate the text that was extracted and put it to notepad. Of course, most of the tutorials were by and for people who wanted to play hentai games on their English systems, so that led to some hilarious shenanigans like the time I downloaded a "really helpful dictionary list of common Japanese terms" that turned out to be nothing but sex terms, and translated many regular, innocent words in the game were translated to their slang means....for example, a side dish (with dinner) being translated into "masturbation fantasy". Running the program was like having Google Translate running for you. It might be understandable, like, "Parameters Raised - Physical Fitness and moral natured-name recognition, sensitivity" (meaning Parameters raised - Stamina, Morals, Fame, Sensitivity", or it could be completely illegible, like, "The stick Hui Hui to everyone when I was leaving I Q. bomb?". I could get most of the endings through regular play, and understand a lot of what was going on, but the story heavy "True" ending was definitely out. I could get a lot of endings though, including one where my daughter ended up as a life partner with a magician girl who liked Pumpkins and scary monsters, so all was good. I've heard people have made more streamlined programs for automatic Japanese-English translation now, but I wouldn't know, as I haven't had a need to use them since about 2008 or so.
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Oct 11, 2016 22:14
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Sounds like it would have been easier to just learn Japanese.  That's really interesting to me. Up until maybe 7 years ago, my interest in games was mainstream as gently caress, so I never had to deal with that kind of poo poo. Even now, if I can't just buy something, I won't even bother pirating it, so that level of effort is completely alien to me.
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Oct 12, 2016 04:34
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Oct 12, 2016 05:30
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I'm sad that we've now begun to allow the sale of games like this.
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Oct 12, 2016 07:07
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This game is more or less just a slightly more grindy/rpg'y Long Live the Queen, a game which always felt rather understandable in my opinion. Less politics in this, more turning a child into a perfect killing machine. Also I will admit this game can get a little porny if you let it, though I am of the opinion that the average player would avoid the creepy super porn dominatrix ending that sadly is an option.
TGG fucked around with this message at 07:35 on Oct 12, 2016 |
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Oct 12, 2016 07:33
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Lurdiak posted:I'm sad that we've now begun to allow the sale of games like this. 
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Oct 12, 2016 08:18
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FractalSandwich posted:Sounds like it would have been easier to just learn Japanese. Ha, that's probably true! Me, I've always been attracted to more niche and sim type games. Even as a youngun' with a Super Nintendo, I somehow managed to stumble my way into copies of Koei sim games like Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Aerobiz. Starting with Morrowind (2002) for the PC, I learned I really enjoy a lot of  around with computers, upgrading hardware, installing mods, searching for technical solutions and cheats...Nowadays, I'm a lot like you are;too lazy to pirate something, even if the price point is above what I can realistically afford. I haven't even installed any mods for my Skyrim or Fallout New Vegas games. Also, there are a lot more life sim games these days, so it's much easier to look through the English selection.
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Oct 12, 2016 08:38
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I'm not ashamed to admit that I loved Princess Maker 2 when I finally got it to work back in the day. I was surprised how sincerely invested you could be and how far I could Mulan the starbaby. The Butler is a cute little fuckboy too.
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Oct 12, 2016 22:38
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The Japanese "simulation" genre is something I wish existed more in the West. Closest thing we have is King of Dragon Pass which shares a lot of DNA as a comic book CYOA RPG.
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Oct 12, 2016 22:52
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I've never played Princess Maker 2, but the Let's Play for it back in the day was great.
Vakal fucked around with this message at 22:55 on Oct 12, 2016 |
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Oct 12, 2016 22:53
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I've almost lived long enough to experience patting my virtual daughter's head. hopefully you can pet cube's head, too. CFK needs to run the entire script of their PM2 steam release through a native english speaker. It's passable but very ESL. Also need to incorporate steam overlay because taking screenshots of the dumb poo poo your daughter does is fun and good and generates a lot of free publicity for your product. Sivek fucked around with this message at 01:59 on Oct 13, 2016 |
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Oct 13, 2016 01:54
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They actually did remove one of the most creepy parts of the game: The Undress, a ribbon collar. JUST a ribbon collar. It was only available in the debug mode of the DOS version, but would be the only part of the game that would get you carted off to jail if the wrong person saw it. The girl is also no longer a paper doll and instead they use illustrations to depict her (which also removes a nipple slip from a dress.) The remaining titties are on fairies, mermaids, and a few ending events(where your daughter is 18, gently caress you dad.) If you're bothered by that, rename part_kr.dat to part_us.dat in \steamapps\common\Princess Maker 2 Refine\pic. The Korean version adds bikini tops.
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Oct 13, 2016 02:21
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Dehry posted:They actually did remove one of the most creepy parts of the game: The Undress, a ribbon collar. JUST a ribbon collar. It was only available in the debug mode of the DOS version, but would be the only part of the game that would get you carted off to jail if the wrong person saw it. The girl is also no longer a paper doll and instead they use illustrations to depict her (which also removes a nipple slip from a dress.) The remaining titties are on fairies, mermaids, and a few ending events(where your daughter is 18, gently caress you dad.) Whoa, thanks for that! I'm starting a new game to test it, and will add it to the OP when I'm done. Where'd you get that information from? Sivek posted:I've almost lived long enough to experience patting my virtual daughter's head. Yeah, I saw that, and it's just so  I have no idea what's going on with this series lately; first there's a VR game in the works, and apparently the creator, Takami Akai, recently made a raising sim game about....a ramen spirit...who evolves based on... how you run your ramen restaurant. Also, I agree with the thing about the screenshots. It's sad all I have to go through to have a laugh with people about how the Nun knows how to cook a mean deviled crab. 
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Oct 15, 2016 03:49
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Catalina posted:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neon_Genesis_Evangelion:_Shinji_Ikari_Raising_Project :iamafag: What fun is raising a kid if they are doomed to be a failure from the start al-azad posted:The Japanese "simulation" genre is something I wish existed more in the West. Closest thing we have is King of Dragon Pass which shares a lot of DNA as a comic book CYOA RPG. Well there's The Sims. Shame about every new release cutting out old content so its only worth playing in 2+ years after expansions add it all back in.
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Oct 15, 2016 03:54
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al-azad posted:The Japanese "simulation" genre is something I wish existed more in the West. Closest thing we have is King of Dragon Pass which shares a lot of DNA as a comic book CYOA RPG.
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Oct 15, 2016 04:30
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Catalina posted:Whoa, thanks for that! I'm starting a new game to test it, and will add it to the OP when I'm done. Where'd you get that information from? I learned how to rip assets from some games and used a tool on the .dat files. The color came out wrong but comparing the dumped files I noticed extra Bikini tops. Im assuming the file names can be changed since they're pictures. The girl parts were a separate file and going through there showed the bottom half of her body with clothes on with variations on bust size and weight. In the DOS original they kinda faded in over her default body.
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Oct 15, 2016 04:55
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Dehry posted:I learned how to rip assets from some games and used a tool on the .dat files. The color came out wrong but comparing the dumped files I noticed extra Bikini tops. Im assuming the file names can be changed since they're pictures. Bah. I did some testing over the last 2 weeks with the part_kr.dat and part_us.dat files, and it seems like the only thing it changes is the opening and the interface for the Harvest Festival to Korean, but that's it. I tried achieving everything I could think of, but unfortunately that doesn't put the bikinis on in the creepy parts. Digging around through some older fansites, it seems that the original Korean version did have the bikini coverings, but maybe they're not in this version. (Ugh, I feel so dirty after achieving that "Rich Landowner's Mistress" ending. ) http://maxlisa.com/pm/pm2/ Anyway, the other thing I did over the last couple weeks is to get the last version (84% done) of the English fan patch for Princess Maker 5 up and running. I do hope that the other Princess Maker games get officially translated to English soon. 
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Oct 28, 2016 20:37
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Dang, the window title changes to reflect the game state? Old school.
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Oct 29, 2016 04:45
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