"Youyou Jinsei" - Turbografx-16/PC-Engine

Well, if there was ever a game for me to talk about that you're never going to play, this was it. A version of Milton Bradley's "LIFE" adapted for the PC-Engine, and for Japanese audiences. Wow.

So who developed this? Hudson Soft. And I don't know anything else about it. The Japanese Wikipedia doesn't even have a page for this game, and it doesn't even get mentioned in the game adaptations section of their page for the "LIFE" board game. So you know as much as I do, and that's all I really know to say about this before playing it.

Let's check it out, then:

Well, surely there will be victors and losers. But not me. I'm a winner.

----- Playthrough -----

The board-game, "LIFE," is essentially the average life broken down into a bunch of spaces on the board, terrible stupid accidents notwithstanding, for kids to play and think about whether they want to be a surgeon or work at McDonald's, as well as whether or not they should buy stocks. All important kindergarten age stuff that you should be worried about as young as possible.

Hudson's Youyou Jinsei seems to recreate the game fairly faithfully at least as far in as I can remember it, with some Japanese variations. At any rate, I set out by putting myself in a full match: me, and 4 COM players.

Once they were all automatically named, and I had named myself (the kana says "raifu," get it?) I chose this bewildered looking guy as my player character because his expression fits my general attitude towards life as a whole. Also his mullet spoke to me on some personal level. More on this later.

What the... f-heck is going on around here?

I knew unlike the first guy who went straight into business, that the professional life was for me, and so I went down that path. Soon, I had a part time job and about $50,000 of crushing debt. This game is so realistic.

While the other people were frivolously spending their first days as an adult dating and partying, I was working hard in the dirty ditches of LIFE, making money, putting my nose to the grindstone--

And then some helicopter flew in and gave one of the dirty salarymen $180,000 for a reason I couldn't read fast enough before it went off the screen.

It's because you look like the main character, isn't it!?

I persevered and kept my patience while other people had similar strokes of luck. I knew that if I waited it out, my day would come, and eventually it did-- I finally was able to become a doctor. My LIFE-long dream (for the past 5 minutes). Now I could rake in the cash and wipe the floor with all these other people. My life would be the best one.

Then I got married.

And there goes all my money.

I'd like to point out you're actually forced to land on this space, I guess for game balance. What if I didn't want to get married? Disgusting. What if I wanted to just be married to my job? What if I just want to be married to myself? Huh, Hudson? What if that's what I wanted? Disgusting.

I'll let you ride in my car, but don't talk to me.

So anyway, then we had three children. Someone else had six, so they scored the record in that department-- also when you get married or have kids everyone else has to pay for it, much like real life. I guess you're all friends so they're forced by social convention to come present a gift; so a good way to make some basic money is to just pop out as many children as possible and spin the roulette wheel to decide how much they have to give you.

Anyway, shortly thereafter, things started looking up. I won contests, found oil in my yard, lots of random good things-- I was winning LIFE, and everyone else was losing to me. Eat my dust, acquaintances. You're not nearly as satisfied as I am with MY life. At one point I landed on a space that let me steal $100,000, so instead of stealing it from the richest person, I stole it from the person who was already $40,000 in debt and still only worked part time.

It's not that bad, Tomoda! You have 3 kids to keep you company!

Soon, I was well on my way to the goal, with over $1,000,000 in hand. I gave up my job as a doctor to pursue life on stage as a singing idol. I was crushing life. And that's when I rolled past temptation.

If I bet all my money at this last casino before the goal, I could make $500,000. I thought carefully about my life, and about how close the next person was behind me (about $900k to my $1.1mil). I remembered how that one time Kaiji gave that speech about how when you're winning, you have to keep going, you can't just stop. He also had a mullet, and that's not just a coincidence.

So for a 1/10 chance, I went all in.

ゴゴゴゴゴゴゴゴゴゴ

And I immediately lost all my money and was forced to work in the mines to pay it back before I could leave.

KUYASHIIII~!

I spent the last days of my LIFE working in the mines while everybody else crossed the goal. I was kind of hoping that by luck, my evil and irresponsible actions would just sort of pay off, but ultimately I came out in last place, while the runner up managed to make another $700k in the meantime.

So remember: if you're going to rob someone, rob the rich, not the poor. Robbing the poor is bad karma.

----- Review -----

How long did I play?
30 minutes.

How much did I beat?
I came in last, but I played one full round.

Intuitive Design: 

How easy is it to intuitively understand the game?

Well, mostly the game tells you what you're doing at every step and just asks you yes/no questions, so assuming you can read Japanese, I think it's pretty intuitive.

Gameplay / Difficulty: 

How rewarding does playing the game feel?

It's 100% luck, spinners, and yes/no questions. There's no gameplay here and there's no sense of difficulty or reward, but I mean, it's a board game for children.

Depth: 

How deep/long is the game?

There's one board. I imagine you could play it a couple times if you want to see all the events.

Sound / Graphics: 

How's the sound? How are the graphics?

The graphics are actually pretty good for what it is. There are detailed little cutscenes for most events that are animated, the character portraits look pretty good, and it's all fine.

The music is good, in a running tradition of video board games having better music than they deserve. A little more catchy than some games I've played on the PC Engine recently, easily.

Personal Chord: 

Does the game have that undefinable "something" for me?

Not really. I've never liked this board game and I don't really want to play it in video-game format either, to be honest. The graphics are cute, though.

Should You Play: 

Is there a reason to even bother with this one?

If you want to play this board game and you want to play it in Japanese, yes. Otherwise, probably not.

-----