Princess Maker: Children of Revelation

While I love PM series, sadly I won't be recommending this game. I found this game boring, it's very lacking in the element of surprise. There is very little to no risk in every actions. No equipments & dresses that require certain stats (except age), no requirement to meet and raise affections of any characters (except for 1), killing monsters doesn't make you less lawful, etc. I also find it harder to aim for several endings in 1 run. This is because while raising your stat is quite easy, lowering it is very hard. Unlike other PM games, most of stat increasing items are consumable; meaning you can't lower the stats just by selling the items (except for several event related items). Even worse, dresses also raise stats without needing to be worn, and they can't be sold. It is also funny that while some characters are related be it coworkers, acquittances etc, there are almost no direct interaction between them. And I don't think I've seen any interaction between romancable targets (or maybe I just haven't played enough). On the technical side, it's great that we can highlight the save files and even give them notes. However, I wish we have the ability to load / back to title wherever we are (including on expedition).

As a huge fan of Princess Maker 2 and the genre in and of itself, I have to say that I am incredibly disappointed in the state this game was released in. The issues concerning the early access players (myself include) aside, it is clear that quite a bit of the game has been rushed and very little has changed since early access despite expectations and promises. Specifically, I want to touch on the endings. There is no point in achieving them, as the drop off in effort and quality is apparent. For reference: Princess Maker 2, the game this one is heavily inspired by, had a variety of different endings. Some of them are very difficult to get, such as the Princess, Queen, Queen Consort, and Demon Queen endings. Others are needlessly simple and only require you to work a job a bunch of times to lock yourself in. Between these are "Reputation" endings and they scale with your daughter's reputation level and related stats in groups of 2-4 endings per reputation. None of these, aside from the Princess ending, require in-game events to achieve. Meanwhile, this game only has "Epic" endings that include Princess, King, Demon King, and one for maxxing out each reputation set (or a mix of two or three). Aside from that, there are the typical job endings and nothing in between. The unfortunate part is that all of the non-job related endings require in-game events that occur at specific and sometimes unhinted at locations. These mandatory events also have, sometimes hidden, quests in between to complete before returning to location X. Or perhaps going to location Y, instead. Or maybe you'll have to wait until the last month to figure out if you got the ending! Getting any ending aside from the ones you can get by spamming one class/job throughout your entire playthough will require you to open a guide. And I'm not hating on difficult or hidden endings! I love them and they're one of my favourite parts of the genre! My issue is that there's genuinely nothing in between a min-max ending and a braindead one and, if someone's new to the franchise and wants to go in blind, they'll get disappointed with what their effort and time rewards them with. Maybe I'm just salty. My last run finished with stats of: Max Fighter Rep. and all stats over 850 and all classes S-ranked Max Magic Rep. and all stats over 800 and all classes S-ranked 3/5 Social Rep and all stats over 500 and all classes A-ranked 2/5 Art Rep and all stats over 150 And I got the alchemy ending because, apparently, a knight must go to the yearly banquet to achieve the proper ending rather than joining the fighting tournament. My daughter murked God to become a glorified science teacher.

This game is adorable and its a lot of fun to explore the different paths you can raise her into. Skipping all the dialogue you've already seen can be a bit tiring each playthrough once you've played enough times, but the game more than makes up for it with tons of careers and love interests as well as outfits and events. It's just so much fun.