If you're like us, then you yell at your games all the time. "I made that jump!" "What utter crap!" "F@$% you, God!" All standard phrases born from the frustration of playing a game, a frustration that's impotent; the game doesn't care how you feel. However, we finally found a game in which crying and complaining affects the world around you: the upcoming DS RPG My World, My Way.
You play as an incredibly spoiled Princess, who meets the boy of her dreams - an adventurer - and chases after him to prove she can be just as adventurous as he is. She leaves the castle, hides her royalty, and goes to several towns to fix the inhabitants’ problems. What she doesn't know is her father, the king, sent someone ahead of her to place actors in all the towns to pretend to be villagers in need. With the addition of monsters on the field that she can handle, her “guardian angel” feels safe to watch her explore.
This is where the power of whining comes in. Though it plays like a normal RPG, your HP and MP are joined by PP, or Pout Points. Using these, the Princess can control the world unlike any adventurer before her, mostly because it's all staged and no one can resist her selfish demands. Of course, she goes on believing that the world outside the castle works as it does inside; if she cries enough, she gets what she wants.
Most of the effects play out on the battlefield, as a majority of the game is built around it. You cry to get more money and items from enemies. You complain to get to go first in battle. You can even whine to the heavens themselves and transform an area from a forest to a prairie. All are within your grasp, though Pout Points are a stat like any other and can run out, so use them wisely.
So far the game is pretty funny too, mostly as a parody of the whole role-playing genre. Some of the hilarious dialogue includes an ogre learning that he only exists for experience points (which leaves him in an existential dilemma), and the Princess receiving a shield in exchange for an item and then telling the person who gave it to her that it’s ugly. We look forward to having more time to explore this odd simulacrum of an RPG when it comes out in February.
Jan 16, 2009
