Thank you NCM Company for sending us the review code.

Thanks to the digital age early titles in the PC world are slowly coming to audiences that may not have had the chance to play them before. Princess Maker 2, a visual novel like princess management game is one such cult classic. Originally released in 1993, CFK Company has decided to release an official English version with updated visuals and improvements. Let's see how a PC classic holds up to today's standards with Princess Maker 2 Refine.

Princess Maker 2 is a game that's part visual novel and part stat management. You are an unnamed king who is given a child from the gods after defeating the vile demons that threatened your kingdom. It is up to you to raise this girl from the age of 10 to the age of 18. Once she hits 18 the game will end and give you whatever ending you have earned. Your daughter can become anything from a bar wench or harlot to a queen or a general of the military. The endings are mostly focused on stats. You increase everything from strength and magical abilities to your grace, poise and morality. Hidden stats might include relationships with certain NPCs or maternal instincts. The endings you go for will have multiple variations depending on if you get married, your stats and the career your daughter chooses. In one ending she became a popular clown due to high performance skills, yet in another version of the same ending she also got married to my butler because of a high relationship stat with him.

To make time progress you have to plan your daughter's schedule with different activities. You get three blocks of time every month to do whatever you feel is best for her. You can have your daughter take classes to raise the various stats in the game from art classes to fencing or kung fu. You can ask her to get different jobs to earn money to spend on items and classes. Job options open up as she gets older and she can earn money working on a farm to becoming a cabaret dancer after a few years. Some jobs can lower stats so be aware it can lock you out of endings to focus on one job for too long or too little. You can also give your daughter free time to reduce stress or take her on vacation. Gold is the main resource to do a lot in this game. You will have to equip your daughter with weapons and armor for combat events. Particular items can raise stats and you have to have enough gold to get full benefits for a week of classes. Aside from your daughter's labors, you get a bonus of 500 gold every year to spend on her. During harvest festival events she can compete in artistic, cooking and combat competitions to earn cash for herself. One of the last activities you can fill her schedule with is errantry. You send her to one of four different places to complete different tasks, find treasures and fight against monsters that may even drop gold. Errantry makes the game like an old JRPG with a map to travel and explore. You return home automatically once the allocated block of time is up or if you get defeated in battle. Please note that battling does not give you stat increases or level ups of any kind. Your combat skill depends solely on the stats you train within the city.

The game has a decent soundtrack that is reminiscent of anime instrumental track's that played to various emotions. Most of the game's graphics are still shot images with animation only when she's walking around the different errand maps or when she's doing jobs and classes to show her progress. There is no worry about control issues as mostly everything is done with the mouse. When you are on the errand maps you can move around with WASD. In this remake you can also expect voice acting segments for your princess and Cube, the butler, in Japanese.

Notable cons will depend on how well you feel classic games have aged. You have no direct control in your child's classes or jobs and only watch the animations as she learns or works. There are no other errand maps to explore aside from the four you get and events on those maps are not repeatable. Once you solve the events on each map, that is all you're going to get. The story and dialogue can be fun the first time, but as you chase different endings you might find yourself speeding up the game simply to get to the point. Some may also find it strange that your kingdom's finances depend on your daughters work or victory in competitions. The bonus you get at the end of the fiscal year is always 500 gold which quickly becomes a paltry sum as your daughter gets older.

This game can present several moral issues for a lot of players. You can make your child into an immoral sinner. This can lead to several evil endings including being a demon queen, a high class prostitute, or a crime lord. Why you would want that for your child is beyond me. You do dress your daughter in outfits. Some choices in clothing you can give her are revealing. She can also be seen with nothing on and expose her breasts and rear end.  The lack of direct support you can give to your child may also be heart wrenching for some people. You are sitting on your throne while your daughter lives out life on her own. The Princess Maker series is a series that is on its 5th game so maybe parental roles improve, but you can feel the series in its infancy with this remake. Violence in combat sections is strictly old school JRPG. You wont see any gore or blood in the battles you'll face. This game should probably stay out of the hands of anyone under the age of 16.

If you want to prove you can raise a princess in a anime kingdom then Princess Maker 2 Refine will give you a classic experience to prove you can mold a protagonist.