I don’t want to spend too long mulling over its flaws, but Princess Maker 2 Regeneration is a good example of a remake handled poorly. I’m not commenting on the quality of the game itself, which is genuinely good and entertaining, and I’ll get to that as soon as I can, but I do need to discuss how, as a remake, it has been pretty poorly thought through in places.
First of all, there is essentially no tutorial, introduction, or guide to playing. You select “start game” and you’re immediately thrown into the deep end, to sink or swim (or, more accurately, have your “daughter” do so). This is very much at odds with what we expect from a modern game, and most developers that set out to properly modernise a retro classic realise that they do need to do something to make players expecting a new game comfortable with what they’re doing.
Secondly, the game features “redrawn graphics” that aim to make the game look like the original PC-98 release (as opposed to the 2004 re-release that forms the base of the rest of this game). That in itself is a noble idea, and PC-98 games are gorgeous in their own right. Unfortunately, the way this has been handled makes the art look like it exists in a strange in-between limbo where modern HD resolution and detail clash with the attempted retro aesthetic. It would have been better to go all the way and fully emulate the look of yesteryear. Make an actual PC-98 title if that was the intention. Like how Retro Mystery Club does the old point-and-click adventure game aesthetic justice and is the better for it.
Meanwhile, the developers of Princess Maker 2 Regeneration added voice work, and that’s great, but failed to create an easy-to-read and enjoyable interface, which is not, given how stat-and-spreadsheet-heavy the experience is. Finally, for those that care, there is also some “censorship” of the bits that would get the developers in trouble in our New Puritan World Order™. As much as the NPWO™ annoys me overall, I’m not overly bothered when individual game developers decide to avoid poking the beehive… but I also know it’s always a sticking point for some, and for them, it will be with this game too. Overall the point here is that Regeneration doesn’t really come across as a remake so much as a sideways re-release, perhaps done cynically just so there can be a “new” product on the various consoles and Steam store. That’s a pity because there is so much that you could potentially do with modern aesthetics and design principles and Princess Maker.
However, with all of that aside, this really is a great little game, albeit one where you do need to have some kind of tolerance for the thematic material to enjoy. For those who have never played a Princess Maker before, the concept’s simple: You adopt a girl that has for reasons descended from the heavens at age 10. Your job is to guide her teenage development through to age 18, at which point she’ll take on her life’s work and, possibly, a husband. The ending that she has is determined entirely on how you educate the girl and the work that she does.
Censored or not, thematically the material is not exactly innocent. I could point to the fact that you can send your daughter to work at cabarets at 16, “sleazy bars” at 15, and regular bars at 14 as proof of that. In fact, between the ages of 14 and 18, there is just one new job option made available to her (tutor) that doesn’t essentially involve her becoming part of the adult entertainment space. She can continue to do the jobs that unlocked earlier, of course, but yeah, if certain groups discovered how her career opportunities changed in the latter half of her teenage years then this game would be pilloried pretty quickly (don’t worry, folks, none of that audience read this here site, I saw to that years ago). What is perhaps weird, though, is that I personally found it much more offensive that you can also push your daughter into working hard labour on a farm at 10, working with axes as a lumberjack at 11, and hunting meat at 12.
Perhaps I’m more annoyed by the early years work because those adult jobs can be simply avoided by the time they’re available, unless you are aiming for specific endings where she specialises in those careers, early on you don’t really have any other option but to push the girl into child labour. Her work is your only source of income (aside from a once-per-year small stipend), and, early on as a 10-year-old girl, she has very few work options and is pretty inept at everything. The only way for her to get better and earning decent money is to spend a lot of time failing at those jobs and barely earning anything. And while she’s spending so long tripping over her toes while trying to take down a wild boar or breaking her back harvesting grain, you’re not going to have much money or time to send her off to classes to learn stuff.
It’s not just for thematic reasons that I wish I could just focus the girl on study in the early years. Those first few years – a full third of the game – were annoyingly repetitive beyond measure because the going is so slow and you’re not really able to do anything that you’d actually like to. Because you have no money because the girl keeps failing to make any. Once she starts to hit 13 and 14, her stats in at least a few areas have progressed far enough that you’ll be able to draw a decent income out of her labour and start getting her to spend some time in classes too. From there the game really does start to open up in terms of what you can do. You can focus on trying to win big at the Harvest Festival, which comes with a big cash prize, or you can send the girl out to explore the world, fight monsters, and become a RPG-like hero. Or you can try to ingratiate her with the local castle and royalty. It’s really up to you.
There are over 60 endings, and those range from your daughter becoming a warrior or mage, to social endings (basically marrying a millionaire/prince/farmer), becoming an expert at any of the jobs, becoming an artist of some form, or some kind of anti-social ending like “harlot,” bandit, crime boss or even the Princess of Darkness. The first time I played through my daughter became a professional dancer (go figure), and that was probably the truest reflection of me bringing the girl up according to my personal ideas of what would be good for her. However, it’s since been fun going through and systematically unlocking all the other endings by deliberately trying to manipulate the stats.
While I am now playing the min/max game for the most part, I do have to say that I think that some of the other endings, where you effectively have to treat your daughter poorly, will be difficult for me. Perhaps I’m too empathetic? Even though it’s a silly spreadsheet simulation game, it’s a little like the Football Manager series in that I find it very easy to get invested in the process and the results. I did, purely through poor play, manage to get one of those bad endings, and I did genuinely feel bad. It’s not like there’s much to connect you to her beyond a static picture that changes as she grows with each birthday. There are no lengthy visual novel interactions or charming little animations designed to make you care. It’s a purely mental connection that I felt to the several daughters I’ve raised in reviewing this game and yet, each and every time I’ve played, I’ve still fundamentally wanted to do a good job.
Any single run through of Princess Maker 2 Regeneration is just a few short hours, making it very moreish, especially given that the sheer number of endings it is clearly designed around replay value. You’ll probably want to use some kind of guide to get all those endings, as the game does nothing to indicate how any of them are unlocked… but then again, perhaps the spirit of experimentation is what you’ll love most about this. As a stat-based simulation sandbox, there’s a lot of joy in this trip through Princess Maker nostalgia. But given how difficult it was to effectively modernise this classic, perhaps it is time for a new title in the series. The last one was released back in 2007, and there’s a lot of creative opportunity that this series is now leaving on the table.
