Now, you might be asking yourself, "Why would a self-respecting (ehhh...) videogamesman like Mento LP what appears to be a dating sim written and voiced entirely in Japanese starring what is clearly an underage Japanese idol?" And that would be a good question. A very good question. As it happens, Alfa System's No.Ri.Ko has a rather special historical distinction.
When the PC Engine CD-ROM² debuted in Japan in late 1988, two games were produced as launch titles for the peripheral. The first was Fighting Street; what is actually a port of the first Street Fighter, the mediocre fighting game from Capcom which would become vastly overshadowed by its far superior sequel, and the second was No.Ri.Ko. No.Ri.Ko is therefore the first video game made specifically for the CD-ROM format. Like, ever. The first PC CD-ROM games wouldn't appear until the following year, and other CD-ROM consoles would follow a few years after that. Given the proliferation of CD games in the fourth and fifth generation of consoles, it's quite a feat. And NEC pulled this off two months after the Japanese release of the Sega Mega Drive, and two years before the Super Famicom (SNES).
As for the game itself, it's largely an experimental "see what works with this new format" collection of mini-games and redbook audio sound clips (including three whole single tracks) linked together by a story. That story is that the player is a teenage fan of the titular celebrity heroine Noriko Ogawa and they find her train pass lying on the ground while on the way to a concert she's hosting. In gratitude, her manager sets up a date between the two of you. You spend the day walking around Tokyo doing date stuff. I think. I got the gist, but obviously I had to piece together most of what was going on by the screenshots, as my fluency in Japanese lies somewhere between non-existent and "'arigatou' either means 'thank you' or 'where are the bathrooms?'". If you've seen the type of early CD-ROM games covered by Giant Bomb on their CD-i or 3DO streams, you know they tend to be big on multimedia and small on anything approaching actual interactivity.
For Some Fun Added Context, Noriko was Fifteen in 1988. I Am Now a Criminal, and Will Be Going to Jail Presently
Welcome to No.Ri.Ko! I already feel super weird about this!Aww, the name input screen has little hearts. I have no idea what I'm typing in. I'm hoping I stumble on 'Charlie Tunoku'.'Dear Diary: What the hell am I doing playing this?'So we're here outside of the concert hall where Noriko's about to put on a show. People are queuing up around the block and they... all appear to be teenage and adult men. Huh.This is Noriko. We're introduced to her through a -- though I hesitate to call it as much -- music video for one of her singles.Said music video consists of the same five or six photo stills over and over again, with the occasional Photoshop filter. A gentle reminder that no-one had any idea what the heck they were doing with the CD-ROM format yet.After the show, we meet this trustworthy individual who introduces himself as Noriko's manager (I definitely heard 'manager' in English).Noriko seems pretty psyched that we're going on a date, and not at all like she was coerced into doing so for a publicity thing.So here we are in Tokyo (circa 1929, by the look of things) and I'm given the same options I get with almost every in-game decision: 'Do a thing' or 'Don't do a thing, and then be asked again if I want to do a thing'.Noriko's either pointing something out to me or giving me the thumbs up. I have no clue what's going on, so I'll just roll with it.Man, suddenly my MS Paint portfolio doesn't look so bad.Dammit Noriko, I'm not buying you pants. You're a millionaire for Criminy's sake. Or at least your handlers are.Noriko tires of clothes shopping and decides we need to get something to eat. We take a spin on the Wheel of Foodtune. Here's hoping I get 'Soup and Cigarette'! No whammies!Instead, we stop on these dumpling things. Takoyaki would be my guess. I get most of my Japanese food cuisine knowledge from the Yakuza games, so all I know about Takoyaki is that it has octopus in it and that you can push the sticks into the eyes of gang members. I suspect I won't be doing much of the latter today.Do we really need to see Noriko eat? I kind of assumed they were props anyway.Noriko can never be satiated, so now we spin again. It's udon time! It's weird, but I swear that I've seen Hulk Hogan doing this exact same pose.Next stop is a nexus to the metaphysical plane of whimsy. When travelling to the planes, the D&D Player's Handbook suggests a party of level 12 or above, but Noriko says she's got this.Noriko's single from earlier starts playing, and you can make her dance with the arrows and face buttons. (The dancing is what repels the Slaads and Balors that have made this dimension their home.)'Time's up, weirdo. I'm no longer contractually obligated to find you charming and fun. Buzz off.'And so, as the sun sets on a day spent with a capricious and deranged pop star, I start to reflect on-Oh wait, you're staying over because of the rain? Well, that's kind of weird.But wait, it's suddenly quiz time. Is this a test on Megan's Law?I don't know any of these answers. I don't even know the questions. I think it's that dating sim scenario where you have to know everything about a girl, including her allergies and phobias, before she'll like you. So many wrong messages.I know what this looks like, but she's just singing into her hand like it's a microphone. It's another music break, for Noriko's second single featured on this CD-ROM.'This is starting to get a little too weird for me, Noriko. Like, I was hoping for just an autograph or something. I'm going to call my Mom to pick me up.'Bye Noriko!
I don't know what else to tell you. I mean, this is essentially a proof-of-concept "Interactivity Center" more than anything else, giving players (and other developers) a sense of what's possible with the CD medium with all its high quality sound clips and digitized photos. We've seen (and will see) many better examples of early CD-ROM gaming, but it's worth taking a look back at what those first few awkward steps with the format were like. It's telling that the CD-ROM consoles that would hit the States in the following years were producing very similar experiments (even with the same crappy 80s clip-art!), such as those Make My Video games and whatever the hell Plumbers Don't Wear Ties was about.
But man, I gotta wonder how many people were buying a ¥60,000 peripheral at launch to go on a virtual date with a teenage pop star (or play a so-so Arcade fighter game port). A distressingly large amount, probably.
Couldn't find the music, but here's a NicoNico LP of No.Ri.Ko. With Japanese subtitles, for those of you unable to understand the Japanese audio.
