Game

Idol Hakkenden, also translated as “Pop Star Debut”, is a Japanese only visual novel about a failgirl daughter of a millionaire who wants to be a pop idol. In order to inheret her family fortune over her actually successful sisters, she has to become a popular idol as soon as possible. To do this, she has to like… fulfill some prophecy given to her by a fortune teller where she has to find a posse of friends, travel the world, and stop a horrible evil (bad comedy)

Game

This game is obviously ridiculous. It is not serious in any way, but even beyond that, it’s absolutely buck fucking wild. I think the wildest part might be the time you have to talk a suicide bomber down from blowing up a concert full of people by singing a song to him?

Game

Yeah uh, this game has that!

Other than the wild premise and even wilder writing, this game is a pretty bog-standard 80s/early 90s Japanese visual novel. All games in this genre were like this back then. You had a couple of commands, usually look, talk, use, etc. You need to do all of the commands possible in every area, then move on. This is a BIT more involved than that? You have to like, solve puzzles and use tone indicators (aka, act dumb) to get what you want a lot of the time.

Game

Honestly this game is best played with a guide. But if you DO play it like that, it’s a two hour romp through some WILD bullshit that’s extremely entertaining. I was not expecting to enjoy this that much? I kinda famously hate idol culture, and this is literally about that, but its just so stupid that I can’t help but love it.