Monday, January 7, 2002

Graduation



Genre: Bishoujo Game
Platform: PC
1997 Mixx Entertainment.


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Michael Thomas' Description:
Intertwined with the review.


Game with a lot of replay value >>> by Michael Thomas
Ever wonder how difficult it is for a High School teacher to teach? Especially to a group of seniors, who are counting down the days to their graduation? Well, here's your chance.

Graduation is a bishoujo (cute girl) raising sim game by MIXX where you are a high-school teacher. As an aside, if this game were a movie, it would get a PG - 13 rating, so it's good for pretty much any audience. You are given a class of five girls in their senior year, and it's your goal to try to get all five to graduate high school, and accomplish their dreams.

Now, Graduation is not an easy game. It is very challenging. You have to balance such aspects as how you're going to teach, how to discipline rowdy students, seating arrangements, classes, after-school activities, and the like. Throw into the mix five very different girls, and you get a game with endless potential.

Graduation has a very detailed story. It is the 2nd in the Graduation series. Technically, the Graduation available in English is "Graduation 2: New Generation"; however, MIXX choose to just name it Graduation. As an aside, the anime OAVs Sailor Victory and Marriage are about the girls in the Graduation games. Anyway, the story is pretty detailed, and all five of the girls have well fleshed out characters that are up to you to find out about. On the downside, since this is the 2nd game in the series, it does assume that the player has played the first.

The instructions and gameplay aren't completely straight forward either. It took a bit of searching for me to find out how to set up classes, arrange seats, see how the girls were learning, check on the girl's personalities, and plan for future sessions. So there is a bit of a learning curve for the game, which might detract some players.

The graphics would have been good for the time they were released (mid-80s if memory serves), but they do look dated now. Still, crisp colors, good use of lines, and a variety of settings and costumes keeps the graphics fresh and enjoyable.

Enjoyable music with a good amount of variety, but the voice acting is very poor. It was dubbed into English during the very beginnings of the VA industry here, and it shows. Some of the characters are more tolerable than others, but they should have just gone with the Japanese seiyuu for it. Worse, the game, as extras, has all the comments you hear from your students in Japanese on the CD taunting you with the Japanese seiyuu. MIXX did a pretty good job with the translation, but a few cultural-context comments would have helped players understand some of the differences between Japanese elementary education, and American elementary education. Anyway, due to MIXX's choice of using American VA's, I gave Graduation a lower Voice Acting Score

Graduation has a ton of gameplay and replayability. Each of the girls has 3 or 4 endings, plus a bad ending, plus an ending where they confess their love to you. (Mind you this confession is just an "I Love You, lets get married", and not anything past a PG - 13 rating.) And, your ending teacher rating also affects the game ending. So, you can try to get the absolute best ending (where you are a perfect teacher, and all the girls get their best endings).

For extras, the CD is packed with sound files and gifs. However, the game itself has no memory room, so you have to use MS Photoshop or such if you want to capture shots of the game.

Overall, a very different type of game. If you want a game with a lot of replay, and a lot of challenge, visit TSRI, and pick this up. You won't be disappointed. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to email me.


PLAYER STATUS:
DIFFICULTY: Moderate
COMPLETION TIME: 15 hours
HIGHEST LEVEL ACHIEVED: N.A.
RATINGS: Gameplay 9; Battle 8; Story 7; Visuals 8; Characters 7; Sounds 10; Replay Value 9

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