Name: Pro Student Good (70.00% in 1 votes)
Type: SIM
Platform: WINDOWS
Company: Alicesoft
Release date: 1999
Reviewed by: Lamuness
If you have played any old win31 based Hgames, I am sure most of you have come across AliceSoft's old AVG ProStudent G. ProStudent Good, although not the sequel to ProStudent G, shows a parallel field with the old game, but a new story, setting, characters and most importantly, different gameplay. Unlike ProStudent G which is just a standard AVG, Good is a robot strategy simulation game.
The time is 2005 in Japan. The world has received word that aliens shall invade Earth. Therefore, Japan set up a robot group called Yugoku to fend off the aliens when they come. However, eventually the aliens did not come, so Yugoku was all for nothing. Meanwhile, the Japanese government was totally corrupted, and Yugoku decided to use their robot army to overthrow the government.
Similar to ProStudent G, the player's role is Endou Gorou, a "bad" student spending his time in a student jail. This guy loves to eat bananas, and is the most devoted Mecha Anime Otaku in history. Just as Yugoku is starting their attacks, Endou's teacher (who is also a Mecha Anime Otaku) released Endou from jail. Because of Endou's deep knowledge and interest in mechas (robots), Endou was asked to join the Himeyagi Research Lab to help defeat Yugoku by piloting one of their Super Robots: Endon.
The robot battles are based on a orthorgonal grid turn-based strategy engine. Most of the battles take place in cities with robots knocking over skyscrapers which reminds me of the 70's mecha Anime or even Gozilla or hell, Power Rangers. During battles, dialogues play quite an important role in the game because ocassionally your victory condition will change depending on situation so you have to every now and then check your victory condition. 100 turns is the limit for each battle, so you need to act quickly. During battles, besides HP you have to watch out for the mecha's overheat gauge. For most attacks you can amplify your attacks up to 500% but at the expense of overheating your mecha. If your robot goes over 100% overheat, you cannot control the mecha anymore and just let it sit there and let enemies hit you (or until someone comes and cools your mecha down). If your mecha falls, it is not a big loss since the mecha will be transported to the base undergo repairs and it will be good as new at the expense of a few battle turns. What these mechas also have are deathblows, which can only be released if your courage gauge is full (it will increase if you charge up or get it by attacks).
A lot of elements are copied from the old ProStudent G, such as Endou being a jailbird, huge robots, the ridiculous Endou's sex change scenario, and most importantly, hilarious scenes and dialogues. Good is prolly the most humorous game I have played for a long time. Themes are humorous, patriotic and sacastic. My all-time favorite is the stage where Endou and the party travels to HongKong where Alicesoft plays a parody on HK's piracy issues by having the characters speaking in total chinese (total kanji but only 33% of the dialogues make sense) while buying illegal comics and computer software, and what's more hilarious is right after that you get to fight a bunch of illegal pirated Endon mecha duplications~! Although sacastic, I have to congradulate AliceSoft for its nice research on HK. Another hilarous situation is Endou praying to the Banana god to change himself into a girl so that he/she (?) can combine with other mechas to form a super mecha.
The graphics are very nicely done, although I prefer Pastel Chime's CG more. Mechas designs are alright, although the design is a bit too outdated for 2005 (mecha designs are more like 70's design) However, I have to say that the battle maps need some work...too blocky. In battle scenes, 3d-rendered battle action animations are used, and I think it is a really neat idea. The deathblows are drawn in manga style which I think is pretty cool. Sound effects are very nicely done with crashing and banging during battles, as well as those weird sounds during humourous and pathetic dialogues. However, the music can get very boring during battles coz they only have 2 music for battles throughout the whole game. Battle engine wise, it's alright, with the exception of low-AI, as well as not being to cancel your selected attack in case you mis-click on the wrong attack. You can press ESC but you waste a shot and you do 0 damage, which I think is not a good design. Also, an addition of load-game function would be nice because the only way to load a savefile during the game is to quit the game and restart it.
Other than some minor tidbits, Good is a very very hilarious, wacky and fun game. It could have been better if the battles were more challenging. But nevertheless, if you know some decent Japanese and can understand and take some sacasm and Japanese patriotism, and you love Japanese mecha-style battles, then you will love ProStudent Good.
|
|
[ Demo Music ]
N/A
[ Screen Shots ]
[ Voting ]
|
