Posts Tagged ‘アンジェリーク’

Otome Game History 101 – Angelique

Hmm, there doesn’t seem to be much news right now, in the dog days of summer – I don’t know if it’s hot where you are, but it is HOT and HUMID here. For my real job (yeah, strangely enough I don’t support myself on blog postings ) it’s quarter-end soon, and since I’m in finance that means crazy days and tense nights, but everywhere else seems to be in vacation mode, including otome games!

So unfortunately, I don’t know of any news about games, new seiyuu announcements, or even a port *sniff*. So I decided to take a look way way back, to the first otome game ever…Angelique.

Angelique was the foundation of the now extremely popular Neo Romance label from Koei that includes Harukanaru Toki no Naka de and Kiniro no Corda. The first game was simply called ‘Angelique’, and was released on September 23, 1994 for the Super Famicom (Super Nintendo for us English speakers). It was a mix of strategy, simulation, and romance – not unheard of in the Japanese market, but definitely revolutionary – just because it was targeted to GIRLS. Girls don’t play videogames! But apparently, if the product is right, they do.

The plot involved a young woman, Angelique Limoges, who is a nominee for the Queen (of the Cosmos). She is pitted against Rosaria, another beautiful, accomplished young woman, and has to beat her by successfully creating and nurturing her own continent.

Of course, what we’re so familiar with now but what was totally new back then was that as well as the regular game, there was a chance to romance the guys . Angelique, while raising her continent, had the chance to romance one of the guardians, the men who symbolized a natural element in the universe. They were: Light (Julius), Dark (Clavis), Wood(Marcel), Metal (Zephyr), Earth (Ruva), Water(Lumiere), Fire(Oscar), Wind(Randy), and Dreams (Olivier). However, back then there were no voices – this is back in the Dark Ages, remember

The first version with voices came the next year, on December 22, 1995, when NEC Electronics released Angelique Special for the PC-FX system (though it says PC, it was actually a console). A few months later, the game was re-released as ‘Angelique Voice Fantasy’ for both the Super Famicom and as ‘Special’ for the PC, both with voices added. In 1996, Angelique 2 Special for the PC-FX and eventually the Sega Saturn and Playstation was released. A new Queen was introduced here, Angelique Collete, in a very similar game.

Not too much new happened for the series for several years – there was a game called Angelique Duet released in 1998 for the Sega Saturn and Playstation, but it was mostly the same except that you could choose to be either Angelique or Rosario, and there were some friendship events.

In 2000 a completely new game, Angelique Trois (3) was released, for the Playstation 2. In it, Angelique Collete and all the Guardians (and teachers, um, pretty much everyone) were transported to a mysterious universe, Arcadia, to formulate. In addition to the guardians, the player could also have a romance with her teachers or a ‘mystery’ character (Arios), and there were different events depending on the season.

In 2002 Angelique was released for Gameboy Advance with the same content as the Super Famicom game, but with voices. In 2003, another new title was released, Angelique Etoile, where the player is a totally new character who has to start developing a new universe with the help of the guardians and 3 new characters. Then, in 2004, Angelique Duet was released for the Nintendo DS but had no voices (two steps forward, one step back!)

Along with the games, there were anime – the earliest one was Angelique ~Shiroi Tsubasa no Memoire~ from 2000. There was also a fairly successful manga that started in 1996, running in ‘Fantasy DX’ from Kadokawa for 10 volumes until 2003.

My own experience with Angelique started pretty late, when I bought the Angelique Trois. Not in 2000 when it was first released, no, I think I bought it at least 5 years later. It was totally different from what I expected – all I recognized was the whole harem of guys from seeing shitajiki and kinda reading the first two volmes of the manga, so the whole continent-building aspect was new to me. Now I think of it as a primitive SimCity love sim. It’s a lot of fun, even though there are SO MANY GUYS. In Trois alone you have the nine Guardians, 3 teachers, and 3 ‘helpers’. Then in Etoile, which I got later, you have all those plus three new Guardians. OVERLOAD. Hehe.

I think the creators agree with me, because after Etoile they created a completely new game where only the mythology was left. In Neo Angelique, the main character interacts with four main guys, with three or four others. The continent-building was also scrapped in favour of a sort of RPG-type gameplay.

Have you played Angelique? What are your impressions of it?

References:
Several images and info found at: http://www.famicom.biz/