(i put some hot tips on playing chulip at the end of this review and i beg you to look at them, if nothing else here, if you are planning to play this!!!!)
moon, chulip's predecessor that laid the foundation for its general gameplay and writing style, is a game about "love" in a broad sense. you must observe people, hear their thoughts on things/others, give items, and practice good timing and patience while each tick of the timer brings you closer to "death". you give "love" and in turn receive it as a kind of experience, which as it accumulates allows the player-character to persist in the world for lengthier periods of time. the idea behind this "levelling up" with love, to extend this life timer, is that love is what drives us to exist at the most fundamental level.
moon ties its passivity of the player into a critique on rpgs' getting experience through violence and its obfuscation of that violence, and forms much of its identity around this. despite some uneven execution, i do think its statement of intent that comes out of this critique, taken more broadly a thesis on what we take from games in general, makes moon an incredibly passionate game in own right. but its kind of passivity presents its own problems to me; you become an intangible ghost in moon's world, impervious to all its elements EXCEPT for time. it presents its own challenges for the player through with the concept of passing time, but because its only really the timer and being patient enough you'll have to worry about (and you practically forget about the timer once your love level is high enough), i do feel like there's some lack of complexity to moon's definition of "love" past this. this lack unfortunately lends itself to simplistic woobified arguments for moon that arent totally its fault, that its a cutesy escapist sim patterned after animal crossing, revolutionary just because its non-violent, smoothing out the complexities and contradictions that do exist within the game.
yoshiro kimura, one of moon's three main designers and the one responsible for the bulk of its script, would go on to found punchline and create its first game, chulip, after suffering a health crisis and travelling the world (not sure in which order, but i think both inform this game's figurative/literal troubles of the heart and its internationalism, respectively). chulip is one of three spiritual sequels to moon along with giftpia (by moon designer kenichi nishi's skip inc) and endonesia (by moon designer taro kudo's vanpool), all three of which lift moon's "love" gathering mechanic but ditch the rpg critique to utilize it for stories about growing up and adolescence...at least from what i can tell, because only chulip has an english translation. i believe giftpia is about considering what path one takes to realize they are an adult, and i believe endonesia frames adulthood as an understanding of one's own emotions and rejecting escapism, but i'd love to be able to understand their text fully someday and see for myself. the point is, all of them take moon's bedrock and mechanically and narratively add their own spin and layers of complexity beyond that original game's meta, genre-defying statement.
chulip frames adolescence as "learning how one can attain happiness"...which can be interchangibly interpreted as attaining love, since the game revolves around getting kisses and all, but happiness is the operative word that comes up time and time again. its a harsh world, one of artists unhappy that their dreaming days are long gone or contending with leaving them behind, working adults unhappily fighting over scraps of money no one can get, lovers unhappily separated by death that came too soon, workers unhappy to be stuck in dead end jobs in perpetuity, people with secret passions and vices unhappy that they cant be known, students of life so unhappy that they shut themselves off from the world, so on. the main goal is attaining a lasting happiness in winning over a girl you saw in your dreams, and to do that you need to strengthen, i.e. "level up", your heart by getting practice kisses from everyone else in the game.
to make the player understand the world as one that tests happiness, to take them out of complacency that stems from being nothing more than an observer, moon's timer is replaced with hp, heart points. same basic idea as health but damage is not just physical (though it often is), but emotional too: when you get yelled at, overhear a snicker at something you did wrong, pick up a gross RNG poopie out the trash, you take damage. a game over in chulip is not becoming starved of energy like in moon, but becoming heartbroken. chulip teaches that finding happiness is a difficult journey that requires a vulnerability to pain that moon largely shields you from. you must learn how to deal with being hurt, sometimes to the point of wanting to give up, much like its underground residents seem to have. but even they have moments where they want to come out and be happy. thus the game is not just about comfortably observing examples of love in the world, but exposing yourself to an often unkind world to find happiness, to both enjoy the smaller moments and to become closer to a revelation of oneself.
so the elephant in the room: chulip's reputation. that it wastes the players time constantly, that its puzzles are cryptic to the highest degree and its never clear what to do, and that its viciously eager to hurt the player in many different ways until they die and lose progress. even people who found something to love in moon--itself a time wasting, highly cryptic game--would say chulip has worse design. moon can be accepted for its supposed wholesomeness, but then chulip by comparison is downright abusive for daring to be a cute game about gaining love from others that then has you taking figurative and literal blows from them constantly, and discouraging exploration when the most harmless seeming, insignificant interaction might hide an unwelcome, barbed wire surprise. i have heard all this, considered it carefully, and decided i am far too in love with chulip's whole being to care or even think of most of it as actually bad. i cant think of this game as truly mean-spirited when it sincerely makes me laugh, humbles me, and has this aura that kept me from ever being mad at it for too long. its entire essence envelops me, making everything it throws at me feel utterly right with what it kind of experience it is.
im playing the trangressive design card here somewhat, one usually used for more self-serious, "cooler" experiences in which theres no real question about their intentionality--pathologic, nier/drakengard, certain kill the past games spring to mind. its wasting time is inherited from moon, both sharing an unconventional design element in having the player feel time go by passively, so that even boredom adds color to a world as it turns with or without you (though chulip having no timer makes waiting around by itself less of a problem, the one "non-stressful" edge over moon). i find its even more cryptic puzzles are actually more fitting than moon's, or any other adventure game i can think of, because its obtuseness is so over the top and specific to itself when taken altogether that it feels hilariously in tune with the strange and opaque nature of the characters and the world. same can be said for its threats to your health from every corner; im drawn into the world when it strikes back, not simply out of some dour sense of brutal reality, but because its jokes hit that much harder when you mechanically feel the punchline (heyyo). im not saying all of this is intentional, though i think more of it is than its been given credit--dont even get me started on the factory as a simulation of grueling tedious work--but it doesn't matter to me when so much of what might not be intended just works so magically for me. all of it adds up to become THE single best work of comedy ive ever found in games, slapstick with uncanny timing, bewildering beyond belief in its impish way.
not to mention that this is a love-de-lic like we are talking about; an airtight clockwork construction of character-based narrative design with an incredible level of detail to discover on your own, genuinely deserving of greater appreciation. will always love the planning out of what to do that happens in my head with every daily commute to different areas, working my way through the showa-era diorama of long life town with its lovely rustic atmosphere. its mundane ritualisticness got nailed into me as i played and became insanely endearing; getting up, passing michelle beside the empty lot dream girl is living in, going under the train tracks where that fortune teller is, walking by the fountain up the stairs to the station, buying a ticket from the two-faced man and then waiting for the train...soothes my autistic brain like nothing else. the goddamn SOUNDTRACK and SOUND DESIGN is taniguchi arguably at his very best, full of variations on that one theme of the entire world of the game thats seemingly composed to be perfect biding-your-time music. AND its a game so tantalizingly bursting with secrets that i have played it and replayed it often these past 5 years, and in all these years, i have only been able to go a few months at most before i find or hear about something i never found before. not kidding, i literally found something new the week before i wrote this. ok full on rambling at this point ill wrap up
im too stubborn to make concessions, or to fall back on ironic appreciation. i love chulip immeasurably, it epitomizes so many of the feelings within games that i want to explore most, as a singular and highly considered vision within the medium that ALSO reveals this medium's tendency towards fraught, confused architecture. an intricate piece of simply spoken poetry with a wonderful rhythm of life to it, yet brutally and hilariously esoteric as can be. looking back on an embarrassing temporary defeat and laughing, listen to the sounds of your hometown at night, speaking honestly and being true to yourself to others, all of these have happiness in them. the rules of love are the rules of the universe, the rules of the universe are the rules of long life town.
SOME TIPS:
- im not going to say you wont need a walkthrough and i dont blame people for using one BUT dont assume this game wont give any hints on how to do anything. i would say to try a walkthrough only when you feel like youve exhausted your options, especially if it isnt related to an underground resident or the "main quest". when you need a guide i recommend using the fandom wiki for help, as gamefaqs is ocassionally misleading.
- tying into the above, i cannot stress enough that the third rule of love suzuki mentions is extremely, EXTREMELY important. you follow that rule by showing items and name cards to people in long life town, you can buy blank business cards from the shop next to the train station. if you engaged with moon's name cards/item showing system, you probably understand, but id argue its even more crucial in this game. take in and learn as much as you can.
- the english localization makes the game playable but it is incomplete and downright bugged in places (i still love how its deadpan delivery makes everything feel extra bizarre, even if things were translated too bluntly). the worst offender is that it left out a major hint for a main quest, which ill tell you about here: you'll find a computer that displays a message onscreen, that message is "dempou soccer".
- save often. in new areas, prioritize kissing residents who clean toilets. this game can kill you easily especially early on, tread carefully until you have more hp and health items to recup from blows.
moon, chulip's predecessor that laid the foundation for its general gameplay and writing style, is a game about "love" in a broad sense. you must observe people, hear their thoughts on things/others, give items, and practice good timing and patience while each tick of the timer brings you closer to "death". you give "love" and in turn receive it as a kind of experience, which as it accumulates allows the player-character to persist in the world for lengthier periods of time. the idea behind this "levelling up" with love, to extend this life timer, is that love is what drives us to exist at the most fundamental level.
moon ties its passivity of the player into a critique on rpgs' getting experience through violence and its obfuscation of that violence, and forms much of its identity around this. despite some uneven execution, i do think its statement of intent that comes out of this critique, taken more broadly a thesis on what we take from games in general, makes moon an incredibly passionate game in own right. but its kind of passivity presents its own problems to me; you become an intangible ghost in moon's world, impervious to all its elements EXCEPT for time. it presents its own challenges for the player through with the concept of passing time, but because its only really the timer and being patient enough you'll have to worry about (and you practically forget about the timer once your love level is high enough), i do feel like there's some lack of complexity to moon's definition of "love" past this. this lack unfortunately lends itself to simplistic woobified arguments for moon that arent totally its fault, that its a cutesy escapist sim patterned after animal crossing, revolutionary just because its non-violent, smoothing out the complexities and contradictions that do exist within the game.
yoshiro kimura, one of moon's three main designers and the one responsible for the bulk of its script, would go on to found punchline and create its first game, chulip, after suffering a health crisis and travelling the world (not sure in which order, but i think both inform this game's figurative/literal troubles of the heart and its internationalism, respectively). chulip is one of three spiritual sequels to moon along with giftpia (by moon designer kenichi nishi's skip inc) and endonesia (by moon designer taro kudo's vanpool), all three of which lift moon's "love" gathering mechanic but ditch the rpg critique to utilize it for stories about growing up and adolescence...at least from what i can tell, because only chulip has an english translation. i believe giftpia is about considering what path one takes to realize they are an adult, and i believe endonesia frames adulthood as an understanding of one's own emotions and rejecting escapism, but i'd love to be able to understand their text fully someday and see for myself. the point is, all of them take moon's bedrock and mechanically and narratively add their own spin and layers of complexity beyond that original game's meta, genre-defying statement.
chulip frames adolescence as "learning how one can attain happiness"...which can be interchangibly interpreted as attaining love, since the game revolves around getting kisses and all, but happiness is the operative word that comes up time and time again. its a harsh world, one of artists unhappy that their dreaming days are long gone or contending with leaving them behind, working adults unhappily fighting over scraps of money no one can get, lovers unhappily separated by death that came too soon, workers unhappy to be stuck in dead end jobs in perpetuity, people with secret passions and vices unhappy that they cant be known, students of life so unhappy that they shut themselves off from the world, so on. the main goal is attaining a lasting happiness in winning over a girl you saw in your dreams, and to do that you need to strengthen, i.e. "level up", your heart by getting practice kisses from everyone else in the game.
to make the player understand the world as one that tests happiness, to take them out of complacency that stems from being nothing more than an observer, moon's timer is replaced with hp, heart points. same basic idea as health but damage is not just physical (though it often is), but emotional too: when you get yelled at, overhear a snicker at something you did wrong, pick up a gross RNG poopie out the trash, you take damage. a game over in chulip is not becoming starved of energy like in moon, but becoming heartbroken. chulip teaches that finding happiness is a difficult journey that requires a vulnerability to pain that moon largely shields you from. you must learn how to deal with being hurt, sometimes to the point of wanting to give up, much like its underground residents seem to have. but even they have moments where they want to come out and be happy. thus the game is not just about comfortably observing examples of love in the world, but exposing yourself to an often unkind world to find happiness, to both enjoy the smaller moments and to become closer to a revelation of oneself.
so the elephant in the room: chulip's reputation. that it wastes the players time constantly, that its puzzles are cryptic to the highest degree and its never clear what to do, and that its viciously eager to hurt the player in many different ways until they die and lose progress. even people who found something to love in moon--itself a time wasting, highly cryptic game--would say chulip has worse design. moon can be accepted for its supposed wholesomeness, but then chulip by comparison is downright abusive for daring to be a cute game about gaining love from others that then has you taking figurative and literal blows from them constantly, and discouraging exploration when the most harmless seeming, insignificant interaction might hide an unwelcome, barbed wire surprise. i have heard all this, considered it carefully, and decided i am far too in love with chulip's whole being to care or even think of most of it as actually bad. i cant think of this game as truly mean-spirited when it sincerely makes me laugh, humbles me, and has this aura that kept me from ever being mad at it for too long. its entire essence envelops me, making everything it throws at me feel utterly right with what it kind of experience it is.
im playing the trangressive design card here somewhat, one usually used for more self-serious, "cooler" experiences in which theres no real question about their intentionality--pathologic, nier/drakengard, certain kill the past games spring to mind. its wasting time is inherited from moon, both sharing an unconventional design element in having the player feel time go by passively, so that even boredom adds color to a world as it turns with or without you (though chulip having no timer makes waiting around by itself less of a problem, the one "non-stressful" edge over moon). i find its even more cryptic puzzles are actually more fitting than moon's, or any other adventure game i can think of, because its obtuseness is so over the top and specific to itself when taken altogether that it feels hilariously in tune with the strange and opaque nature of the characters and the world. same can be said for its threats to your health from every corner; im drawn into the world when it strikes back, not simply out of some dour sense of brutal reality, but because its jokes hit that much harder when you mechanically feel the punchline (heyyo). im not saying all of this is intentional, though i think more of it is than its been given credit--dont even get me started on the factory as a simulation of grueling tedious work--but it doesn't matter to me when so much of what might not be intended just works so magically for me. all of it adds up to become THE single best work of comedy ive ever found in games, slapstick with uncanny timing, bewildering beyond belief in its impish way.
not to mention that this is a love-de-lic like we are talking about; an airtight clockwork construction of character-based narrative design with an incredible level of detail to discover on your own, genuinely deserving of greater appreciation. will always love the planning out of what to do that happens in my head with every daily commute to different areas, working my way through the showa-era diorama of long life town with its lovely rustic atmosphere. its mundane ritualisticness got nailed into me as i played and became insanely endearing; getting up, passing michelle beside the empty lot dream girl is living in, going under the train tracks where that fortune teller is, walking by the fountain up the stairs to the station, buying a ticket from the two-faced man and then waiting for the train...soothes my autistic brain like nothing else. the goddamn SOUNDTRACK and SOUND DESIGN is taniguchi arguably at his very best, full of variations on that one theme of the entire world of the game thats seemingly composed to be perfect biding-your-time music. AND its a game so tantalizingly bursting with secrets that i have played it and replayed it often these past 5 years, and in all these years, i have only been able to go a few months at most before i find or hear about something i never found before. not kidding, i literally found something new the week before i wrote this. ok full on rambling at this point ill wrap up
im too stubborn to make concessions, or to fall back on ironic appreciation. i love chulip immeasurably, it epitomizes so many of the feelings within games that i want to explore most, as a singular and highly considered vision within the medium that ALSO reveals this medium's tendency towards fraught, confused architecture. an intricate piece of simply spoken poetry with a wonderful rhythm of life to it, yet brutally and hilariously esoteric as can be. looking back on an embarrassing temporary defeat and laughing, listen to the sounds of your hometown at night, speaking honestly and being true to yourself to others, all of these have happiness in them. the rules of love are the rules of the universe, the rules of the universe are the rules of long life town.
SOME TIPS:
- im not going to say you wont need a walkthrough and i dont blame people for using one BUT dont assume this game wont give any hints on how to do anything. i would say to try a walkthrough only when you feel like youve exhausted your options, especially if it isnt related to an underground resident or the "main quest". when you need a guide i recommend using the fandom wiki for help, as gamefaqs is ocassionally misleading.
- tying into the above, i cannot stress enough that the third rule of love suzuki mentions is extremely, EXTREMELY important. you follow that rule by showing items and name cards to people in long life town, you can buy blank business cards from the shop next to the train station. if you engaged with moon's name cards/item showing system, you probably understand, but id argue its even more crucial in this game. take in and learn as much as you can.
- the english localization makes the game playable but it is incomplete and downright bugged in places (i still love how its deadpan delivery makes everything feel extra bizarre, even if things were translated too bluntly). the worst offender is that it left out a major hint for a main quest, which ill tell you about here: you'll find a computer that displays a message onscreen, that message is "dempou soccer".
- save often. in new areas, prioritize kissing residents who clean toilets. this game can kill you easily especially early on, tread carefully until you have more hp and health items to recup from blows.
Q: why shouldn't you kiss anyone on january 1st?
A: because it's only the first date.
💋💋💋💋💋💋💋
A: because it's only the first date.
💋💋💋💋💋💋💋
in the words of pantera ... fucking hostile!!!! an antifun tour de force, disrespects every second of the player's time, mocks u, kills u out of nowhere repeatedly and without mercy... AND teaches you that Love is all that can lighten the misery of Work :-)
Os primeiros 30 minutos de Chulip são eventos pré-determinados pra te induzir a beijar. Chulip se esforça pra fazer a cabeça do jogador de que o mote do jogo é o beijo. Você é ensinado pelo seu professor (in game), e a primeira lição dele é botar em prática o "stealth" que você aprendeu quando resolveu um problema com o cachorro do vizinho, junto de "apertar triângulo" pra beijar.
Depois de jogar o jogo pela primeira vez eu disse pra mim mesmo "esse é o pior professor de todos os tempos, como ele quer me convencer de que o beijo é a coisa mais importante desse jogo se pra você beijar, é necessário dominar literalmente todas as outras mecânicas do jogo?". E é verdade.
Mas Chulip, como jogo, não é um professor comum, ele não mastiga e vomita informação em você, pra depois cobrar mini-testes. Jogar o jogo é o teste, e é um teste constante até o último minuto do gameplay. O método de ensino de Chulip com certeza não é ortodoxo. Ele te faz passar horas esperando e propositadamente te tira de possíveis momentos vitoriosos pra te ver afundando num limbo de frustração.
Ele não te ensina que pra conhecer mais pessoas você precisa aprender a andar de trem, ele não te ensina que é importante olhar os lixos da cidade (num nível de empacar o jogo se você não entender como funciona), ele não te ensina como manejar tempo, ciclo de dia e noite. Chulip não te ensina a jogar.
Porque "jogar" é conhecer, e você precisa conhecer sozinho. Conhecer os cidadãos e do que eles gostam, de quem eles não gostam, que horário eles vão dormir e que horário eles estão escovando os dentes. Chulip não te ensina como andar de trem, porque andar de trem é conhecer outra cidade, e conhecer outra cidade é conhecer mais pessoas. Como você quer se sentir recompensado por sair beijando um monte de pessoas, se você não as conhece. Pior, como você quer ser recompensado se você não conhece a si mesmo?
O beijo em Chulip é a materialização de entender 100% como funciona um indivíduo. Você não beija pra progredir no jogo -ao menos não deveria-, você beija porque ao tomar a decisão de mergulhar dentro dos sistemas do jogo, você trouxe junto a responsabilidade de conhecer quem move aquele mundo. Você literalmente não precisa apertar o triângulo (com exceção do último beijo do jogo) pra terminar Chulip.
Pode-se interpretar ser uma "falha de design" ou "preguiça", mas esse é um dos maiores trunfos desse jogo, ser despreocupado ao ponto de confiar no jogador que ele vai entender esse mundo, assim como os NPC's confiam em você pra te presentear com um beijo.
Você precisa viver Chulip. Entrar no mundo virtual ao ponto de sentir o cheiro das plantações, a brisa suave da cidade do interior. Só assim você aproveita a jornada, porque não é sobre beijar, é sobre criar laços com gente que você vai carregar pro resto da vida dentro do seu coração.
Depois de jogar o jogo pela primeira vez eu disse pra mim mesmo "esse é o pior professor de todos os tempos, como ele quer me convencer de que o beijo é a coisa mais importante desse jogo se pra você beijar, é necessário dominar literalmente todas as outras mecânicas do jogo?". E é verdade.
Mas Chulip, como jogo, não é um professor comum, ele não mastiga e vomita informação em você, pra depois cobrar mini-testes. Jogar o jogo é o teste, e é um teste constante até o último minuto do gameplay. O método de ensino de Chulip com certeza não é ortodoxo. Ele te faz passar horas esperando e propositadamente te tira de possíveis momentos vitoriosos pra te ver afundando num limbo de frustração.
Ele não te ensina que pra conhecer mais pessoas você precisa aprender a andar de trem, ele não te ensina que é importante olhar os lixos da cidade (num nível de empacar o jogo se você não entender como funciona), ele não te ensina como manejar tempo, ciclo de dia e noite. Chulip não te ensina a jogar.
Porque "jogar" é conhecer, e você precisa conhecer sozinho. Conhecer os cidadãos e do que eles gostam, de quem eles não gostam, que horário eles vão dormir e que horário eles estão escovando os dentes. Chulip não te ensina como andar de trem, porque andar de trem é conhecer outra cidade, e conhecer outra cidade é conhecer mais pessoas. Como você quer se sentir recompensado por sair beijando um monte de pessoas, se você não as conhece. Pior, como você quer ser recompensado se você não conhece a si mesmo?
O beijo em Chulip é a materialização de entender 100% como funciona um indivíduo. Você não beija pra progredir no jogo -ao menos não deveria-, você beija porque ao tomar a decisão de mergulhar dentro dos sistemas do jogo, você trouxe junto a responsabilidade de conhecer quem move aquele mundo. Você literalmente não precisa apertar o triângulo (com exceção do último beijo do jogo) pra terminar Chulip.
Pode-se interpretar ser uma "falha de design" ou "preguiça", mas esse é um dos maiores trunfos desse jogo, ser despreocupado ao ponto de confiar no jogador que ele vai entender esse mundo, assim como os NPC's confiam em você pra te presentear com um beijo.
Você precisa viver Chulip. Entrar no mundo virtual ao ponto de sentir o cheiro das plantações, a brisa suave da cidade do interior. Só assim você aproveita a jornada, porque não é sobre beijar, é sobre criar laços com gente que você vai carregar pro resto da vida dentro do seu coração.
Chulip is an extremely flawed game, but it's one that I really do love. It's infectiously charming, and at times the puzzle design can also be incredibly gratifying. I'm still making my way through much of Love-de-Lic ( and it's successors ) output, and this game is a really interesting and valuable bullet point between Moon and Chibi-Robo. I'm going to begin by largely singing it's praises, but as you can tell by the rating, there's a lot more to say beyond that.
To best this game is to love this world and it's characters -in fact- the game practically demands that you do. It's arguable that this game should be classified as a detective game, not an Adventure/RPG, and learning about the townsfolk is both the most important and rewarding goal. The majority of the problem solving and even the finale of the game tests you on that basis. How much are you paying attention? Are you rushing through life? -Or- are you stopping to smell the flowers, appreciating the little things, and digesting those small moments we don't tend to appreciate in our day to day lives. If you are- well, you may find you very infrequently got -stuck-, and better yet, you may breeze through much of the game. In some sense, the more you relax and enjoy yourself, the less friction you will encounter. It's a game that only gives back as much as you put in.
You'll likely hear a lot of people try to pin this game for having bad adventure-game "moon logic" puzzles, unfairly misattributing traits from Lucas-Arts games that aren't truly present here. As such, there is a common wisdom that this game should be played with a guide, present in most playthroughs, reviews, and let's plays. This is a crime, and for it you will be sent to the graveyard. I will counter these criticisms and say that the puzzles were quite grounded, there's nothing you can't solve with real world logic or some investigative information gathering. (with exception, I will address this later in this review) The real fault is that the card system isn't better tutorialized, and having played Moon before Chulip gave me a leg up, greasing the wheels of my success with it. If you play this, just make a mental note that the resident cards are important.
Making progress in this game is it's own reward, delivering scenes that never fail to be novel, surprising, and charming. But the thing that really sells this charm is that these events, as far as I see it, avoid the typical trapping of being random or relying on shock value. As crazy as things get, the actions and events of the characters always seem to be driven by or point to some greater truth. Whether they reveal deeper layers to a character's life and history, or some even deeper philosophical ideal that the writers are trying to communicate about life, people, and culture, almost nothing is a throw-away or a one-off. When new information is revealed, even when at it's most absurd, for those characters it is their truth, and there's something to be said for how earnestly those ideas are presented.
What is happiness? We want to know. And so do the people of Long Life Town. It's not particularly high-brow or complex, but that raw simplicity is what makes it so humble. Chulip never once presumes that it can answer this question, in fact the game rejects the idea that there is an answer. It's a moving target that's different for everyone. Being a kid stinks. Oh, and surprise, being an adult also stinks. Maybe being alive just stinks. Actually maybe being dead somehow stinks, too. But the game just keeps asking the question anyhow. Like we all do. Because asking is the only way to make things stink a little less.
I saw one review lambasting the premise for being out of touch, dated, or offensive. Not sure if they were being earnest, or just willfully ignorant, but I want to take a second to reject this. To say that it's a bad take that just intensely misunderstands Chulip's intent. Your goal is -yes- to get the girl, sure. And you -can indeed- try to force yourself on anyone in the game. But it seems a bit like missing the forest for the trees when you forget that -everyone- REJECTS you for this. It's a game that from a mechanical standpoint is telling you that connecting with others takes concerted effort, it's an exchange. An ignorant kid with a childhood crush testing the bounds of what it means to love, being rejected, and going through a journey through which he learns to actually understand the girl he's vying for, connect with her parents, and ultimately only earns a hesitant kiss through mutual respect.
Anyhow, this is where we turn a corner. Chulip is a game with a very poor consideration for quality of life. At times it feels quite pointed and intentional, a balancing mechanism keeping the later areas in the game hard to access and more treacherous for low-level players. In many cases, I actually like this. The game utilizes health and damage as a mechanical and thematical extension of the games themes and ideas. The designers are constantly telling jokes at your expense, and aren't afraid to inconvenience you to make the joke land. For me, it works. I got so many hearty laughs when the game screwed me over, and if you can have a carefree attitude about this and let it slide off your back, I think you'll find it as entertaining as I did.
The designers say: "Yeah, life sucks. Isn't that just how things go? Sometimes you just take 1 step forward and then 2 steps back." "Some days you just don't win." "Some days you commit a social faux pas, or fall off your bike." ( I actually did fall off my bike the week I was playing this ). "Tough luck, buddy." And they're right. Not only does it sell the protag's mundane struggle, but it kind of forces you to relax and take things in stride. It also makes all the small victories feel huge, and adds so much tension as you attempt to make headway in a world fraught with inconveniences, just like our own.
But where this falls apart is the artificial ways in which the game fails to make this an enjoyable exchange. Death has to matter to hold any weight, and I wouldn't want auto-saves or checkpoints to cheapen that. But you can't skip or fast-forward ANY text or cutscenes. Half of why dying stings so bad is how egregious and long it is to load your save. Both the game over screen and title crawl are both just, slow and un-skippable. I didn't even mind losing progress.
I didn't use save-states in this game. But I did use a toggle that uncapped the framerate on the emulator, and I would toggle it off whenever something new or interesting was going on. While it feels like a shame that I played most of this game running at 300% speed, it just made things far more enjoyable, and I'm convinced you should do the same if you play this. I was originally playing the game without any modifications, but to give you an idea, the moment that broke the camels back for me was when I found the in-game sprint mechanic... which only made your already slow character like 15% faster.
Another gripe includes the fact that you can't pause or quit in this game. Often it would be time-saving to just load your save, but you have to reset the console or die. There's just no other way.
Another is that the only mechanic that lets you set what time it is involves sleeping... but sleeping involves waiting through 2 lengthy sleeping and waking animations, as well as your dad's extensive monologue. An entire spiel that you will see upward of 100 times before this game is over. There's even a gag related to how slow the text scrolls. I wouldn't even WANT to change that moment. Yeah, leave that as un-skippable! But the rest of the game doesn't gain anything by omitting text-skipping.
Another thing is that the only fast forward mechanic can only be used at like 3 locations. From a mechanical standpoint I understand that if you could use them anywhere it would often interfere with character routines and cause problems, but I don't know... add more locations then? Put one in every area.
I also want to specifically call out my frustration with the Funny Cola company mission not letting you skip the incredibly tedious entry puzzle once you complete the area. I spiritually vibe with the idea that this part of the game is intended to feel tedious and soul-sucking, and I enjoyed doing it... ONCE. But logically your reward for beating it should make it irrelevant and let you circumvent the system. Why doesn't the scanner just accept you? It FEELS like it should. Why do the guards still care? It almost even seems like an oversight. If you know this game, you should get what I mean. But I'm trying to keep this review spoiler free. This is the only reason I didn't 100% Chulip. I was pretty close, too.
And now I can finally address the true elephant in the room, that Chulip is done a considerable disservice by it's translation. It's a lazy hack-job that was clearly never tested. Nobody played this after it was translated and checked their work. This game is littered with typos, but that's the least of it's problems. Some lines are clearly mistakenly marked up or translated, and simply don't show at all or show debug text or junk adjacent memory. To give you an idea of how bad it can be, portions of the credits simply don't show due to what I presume is some botched markup. There are a number of small side-quests and puzzles that are hindered by a few instances of un-translated text that is just, still in Japanese. As well as some jokes, puns, and wordplay that were poorly translated and make a few puzzles harder then they SHOULD BE, but, at least not impossible to solve.
In the worst case, there is an important line that is COMPLETELY missing in the English translation that tells you the solution to a relatively simple puzzle that was never even intended to be difficult. As it currently stands, there is nothing in the game that hints or communicates how to solve this. I tried as hard as I could to solve this game un-aided, and was very close to succeeding, but the translation job made that impossible. If you want a spoiler free heads up for some of the game's worst translation botches, here's two of them that broke me and I had to look up:
First off there is one case in which the translation reads "Relax, and...", which I just don't think communicates the intent. It should say something more akin to "Goof-Off", "Play Around", or "Have some fun".
The other more egregious example is the puzzle with an aforementioned MISSING line that was just not included in the translation. This takes place atop a radio tower, and is related to a computer. The missing critical line simply stating: "Dempou Soccer." So There you go, you'll know when you need it.
Everything else in the gave me no -significant- issue in solving. But everyone is different. Also forewarning that I used a notebook, this is sometimes a pen and paper game, but I only had a page or two of notes.
Also, a heads up that you need analogue stick input. Either a controller, or a mod key on your emulator.
Also also, a warning not to read this game's manual. It kind of just tells you tons of expository information you are supposed to learn through experience, and can spoil many puzzles. Up to you if you want to read it, I avoided it.
Anyhow to start wrapping things up, I'll say that having grown up with Chibi-Robo and recently having enjoyed Moon RPG, I was really happy to find that soul and spirit alive and well here in Chulip.
I think adventure games have gotten a bad rap, with people acting as if mixing adventure game-esque gameplay into other types of games is akin to oil and water. The same goes in reverse, with adventure games also afraid to embrace more robust movement mechanics or think outside of inventory driven gameplay. But what I've found within the Love-de-Lic RPG's is a different flavor of adventure game gameplay that considers more then just your inventory, deeply focusing on character writing and rich interactions, in a way that's really pushed further by games such as Chibi-Robo. It's hard to find this in the industry, at a stretch I can site Majora's Mask or the first Psychonauts, and I think it's a shame there isn't more games crossing the genre boundaries we've artificially raised. I think Psychonauts 2 is a canary in the coalmine that makes it clear to me that this arbitrary line is stronger now then ever. But that's a different story.
I love Chulip, and even if you first have to forgive it of it's flaws and meet the game on it's own terms to enjoy it, just like the people of Long Life Town, it has a lot of love to offer in return.
To best this game is to love this world and it's characters -in fact- the game practically demands that you do. It's arguable that this game should be classified as a detective game, not an Adventure/RPG, and learning about the townsfolk is both the most important and rewarding goal. The majority of the problem solving and even the finale of the game tests you on that basis. How much are you paying attention? Are you rushing through life? -Or- are you stopping to smell the flowers, appreciating the little things, and digesting those small moments we don't tend to appreciate in our day to day lives. If you are- well, you may find you very infrequently got -stuck-, and better yet, you may breeze through much of the game. In some sense, the more you relax and enjoy yourself, the less friction you will encounter. It's a game that only gives back as much as you put in.
You'll likely hear a lot of people try to pin this game for having bad adventure-game "moon logic" puzzles, unfairly misattributing traits from Lucas-Arts games that aren't truly present here. As such, there is a common wisdom that this game should be played with a guide, present in most playthroughs, reviews, and let's plays. This is a crime, and for it you will be sent to the graveyard. I will counter these criticisms and say that the puzzles were quite grounded, there's nothing you can't solve with real world logic or some investigative information gathering. (with exception, I will address this later in this review) The real fault is that the card system isn't better tutorialized, and having played Moon before Chulip gave me a leg up, greasing the wheels of my success with it. If you play this, just make a mental note that the resident cards are important.
Making progress in this game is it's own reward, delivering scenes that never fail to be novel, surprising, and charming. But the thing that really sells this charm is that these events, as far as I see it, avoid the typical trapping of being random or relying on shock value. As crazy as things get, the actions and events of the characters always seem to be driven by or point to some greater truth. Whether they reveal deeper layers to a character's life and history, or some even deeper philosophical ideal that the writers are trying to communicate about life, people, and culture, almost nothing is a throw-away or a one-off. When new information is revealed, even when at it's most absurd, for those characters it is their truth, and there's something to be said for how earnestly those ideas are presented.
What is happiness? We want to know. And so do the people of Long Life Town. It's not particularly high-brow or complex, but that raw simplicity is what makes it so humble. Chulip never once presumes that it can answer this question, in fact the game rejects the idea that there is an answer. It's a moving target that's different for everyone. Being a kid stinks. Oh, and surprise, being an adult also stinks. Maybe being alive just stinks. Actually maybe being dead somehow stinks, too. But the game just keeps asking the question anyhow. Like we all do. Because asking is the only way to make things stink a little less.
I saw one review lambasting the premise for being out of touch, dated, or offensive. Not sure if they were being earnest, or just willfully ignorant, but I want to take a second to reject this. To say that it's a bad take that just intensely misunderstands Chulip's intent. Your goal is -yes- to get the girl, sure. And you -can indeed- try to force yourself on anyone in the game. But it seems a bit like missing the forest for the trees when you forget that -everyone- REJECTS you for this. It's a game that from a mechanical standpoint is telling you that connecting with others takes concerted effort, it's an exchange. An ignorant kid with a childhood crush testing the bounds of what it means to love, being rejected, and going through a journey through which he learns to actually understand the girl he's vying for, connect with her parents, and ultimately only earns a hesitant kiss through mutual respect.
Anyhow, this is where we turn a corner. Chulip is a game with a very poor consideration for quality of life. At times it feels quite pointed and intentional, a balancing mechanism keeping the later areas in the game hard to access and more treacherous for low-level players. In many cases, I actually like this. The game utilizes health and damage as a mechanical and thematical extension of the games themes and ideas. The designers are constantly telling jokes at your expense, and aren't afraid to inconvenience you to make the joke land. For me, it works. I got so many hearty laughs when the game screwed me over, and if you can have a carefree attitude about this and let it slide off your back, I think you'll find it as entertaining as I did.
The designers say: "Yeah, life sucks. Isn't that just how things go? Sometimes you just take 1 step forward and then 2 steps back." "Some days you just don't win." "Some days you commit a social faux pas, or fall off your bike." ( I actually did fall off my bike the week I was playing this ). "Tough luck, buddy." And they're right. Not only does it sell the protag's mundane struggle, but it kind of forces you to relax and take things in stride. It also makes all the small victories feel huge, and adds so much tension as you attempt to make headway in a world fraught with inconveniences, just like our own.
But where this falls apart is the artificial ways in which the game fails to make this an enjoyable exchange. Death has to matter to hold any weight, and I wouldn't want auto-saves or checkpoints to cheapen that. But you can't skip or fast-forward ANY text or cutscenes. Half of why dying stings so bad is how egregious and long it is to load your save. Both the game over screen and title crawl are both just, slow and un-skippable. I didn't even mind losing progress.
I didn't use save-states in this game. But I did use a toggle that uncapped the framerate on the emulator, and I would toggle it off whenever something new or interesting was going on. While it feels like a shame that I played most of this game running at 300% speed, it just made things far more enjoyable, and I'm convinced you should do the same if you play this. I was originally playing the game without any modifications, but to give you an idea, the moment that broke the camels back for me was when I found the in-game sprint mechanic... which only made your already slow character like 15% faster.
Another gripe includes the fact that you can't pause or quit in this game. Often it would be time-saving to just load your save, but you have to reset the console or die. There's just no other way.
Another is that the only mechanic that lets you set what time it is involves sleeping... but sleeping involves waiting through 2 lengthy sleeping and waking animations, as well as your dad's extensive monologue. An entire spiel that you will see upward of 100 times before this game is over. There's even a gag related to how slow the text scrolls. I wouldn't even WANT to change that moment. Yeah, leave that as un-skippable! But the rest of the game doesn't gain anything by omitting text-skipping.
Another thing is that the only fast forward mechanic can only be used at like 3 locations. From a mechanical standpoint I understand that if you could use them anywhere it would often interfere with character routines and cause problems, but I don't know... add more locations then? Put one in every area.
I also want to specifically call out my frustration with the Funny Cola company mission not letting you skip the incredibly tedious entry puzzle once you complete the area. I spiritually vibe with the idea that this part of the game is intended to feel tedious and soul-sucking, and I enjoyed doing it... ONCE. But logically your reward for beating it should make it irrelevant and let you circumvent the system. Why doesn't the scanner just accept you? It FEELS like it should. Why do the guards still care? It almost even seems like an oversight. If you know this game, you should get what I mean. But I'm trying to keep this review spoiler free. This is the only reason I didn't 100% Chulip. I was pretty close, too.
And now I can finally address the true elephant in the room, that Chulip is done a considerable disservice by it's translation. It's a lazy hack-job that was clearly never tested. Nobody played this after it was translated and checked their work. This game is littered with typos, but that's the least of it's problems. Some lines are clearly mistakenly marked up or translated, and simply don't show at all or show debug text or junk adjacent memory. To give you an idea of how bad it can be, portions of the credits simply don't show due to what I presume is some botched markup. There are a number of small side-quests and puzzles that are hindered by a few instances of un-translated text that is just, still in Japanese. As well as some jokes, puns, and wordplay that were poorly translated and make a few puzzles harder then they SHOULD BE, but, at least not impossible to solve.
In the worst case, there is an important line that is COMPLETELY missing in the English translation that tells you the solution to a relatively simple puzzle that was never even intended to be difficult. As it currently stands, there is nothing in the game that hints or communicates how to solve this. I tried as hard as I could to solve this game un-aided, and was very close to succeeding, but the translation job made that impossible. If you want a spoiler free heads up for some of the game's worst translation botches, here's two of them that broke me and I had to look up:
First off there is one case in which the translation reads "Relax, and...", which I just don't think communicates the intent. It should say something more akin to "Goof-Off", "Play Around", or "Have some fun".
The other more egregious example is the puzzle with an aforementioned MISSING line that was just not included in the translation. This takes place atop a radio tower, and is related to a computer. The missing critical line simply stating: "Dempou Soccer." So There you go, you'll know when you need it.
Everything else in the gave me no -significant- issue in solving. But everyone is different. Also forewarning that I used a notebook, this is sometimes a pen and paper game, but I only had a page or two of notes.
Also, a heads up that you need analogue stick input. Either a controller, or a mod key on your emulator.
Also also, a warning not to read this game's manual. It kind of just tells you tons of expository information you are supposed to learn through experience, and can spoil many puzzles. Up to you if you want to read it, I avoided it.
Anyhow to start wrapping things up, I'll say that having grown up with Chibi-Robo and recently having enjoyed Moon RPG, I was really happy to find that soul and spirit alive and well here in Chulip.
I think adventure games have gotten a bad rap, with people acting as if mixing adventure game-esque gameplay into other types of games is akin to oil and water. The same goes in reverse, with adventure games also afraid to embrace more robust movement mechanics or think outside of inventory driven gameplay. But what I've found within the Love-de-Lic RPG's is a different flavor of adventure game gameplay that considers more then just your inventory, deeply focusing on character writing and rich interactions, in a way that's really pushed further by games such as Chibi-Robo. It's hard to find this in the industry, at a stretch I can site Majora's Mask or the first Psychonauts, and I think it's a shame there isn't more games crossing the genre boundaries we've artificially raised. I think Psychonauts 2 is a canary in the coalmine that makes it clear to me that this arbitrary line is stronger now then ever. But that's a different story.
I love Chulip, and even if you first have to forgive it of it's flaws and meet the game on it's own terms to enjoy it, just like the people of Long Life Town, it has a lot of love to offer in return.
The most beautiful case of Stockholm syndrome i've ever had with a video game.
hate that this game is impossible to get my hands on and expensive as hell because i never beat it and i’m mad as hell about it
This game has a very creative and unconventional approach to its world-building and it manages to create something oozing with identity. On top of this, the entire game acts as a very blatant sardonic property parallelling a wide variety of social and capitalistic issues we experience within society. It manages to present these ideas in its own charming way which gives a whole new layer of substance to the game itself. The game will beat you while you're down, pretty much everything in this game is extremely punishing and the allegoric properties display themselves pretty much as soon as you start the game. Expanding upon this, the game's brutality manages to create such a rich and uncanny atmosphere, things feel incredibly uneasy and unwelcoming until you progress further and begin to understand the world and how this society works. Through completing the various sidequests in the game, your heart grows stronger, allowing you to feel less vulnerable to the hardships of the world around you. Alongside this, everything runs through a day-by-day cycle, each individual lives the same daily routine until you interact with them, potentially sparking a change in how they go about things, or beginning a new side quest. Games built around this sort of system inherently grow stronger when it comes to their world as you end up learning and understanding so much of the setting and people who live there. Games like Majora's Mask or Outer Wilds for example have very detailed worlds that leave an impression due to how rich they are, and Chulip is no different. Another aspect of the game is the obtuse mystery-solving element. Through trading the various cards you get with all the people around you, you understand their relationships and begin to see how you can help this miserable world, and ultimately kiss them. That's one thing I should really emphasize too, this game's world truly is miserable. We see an abusive relationship within a broken household, individuals stripped of their passions due to society paying those focusing on productivity-based occupations far more than any artist, and the despair of living life after the loss of a loved one. It's a cruel journey and an excellent antiphrasis given the cartoony style with its art direction, musical direction, and dialogue, while also covering some extremely heavy subject matter. Some of what you have to do is a little out there for sure, in fact, due to the shortcomings of the English translation, it's quite literally impossible to figure out one of this game's puzzles without extensive trial and error or using a guide, however, they're not cryptic for the sake of being cryptic, it just forced you to really keep track of what's going on and note any of the connection you see in the world. The only other real issue with the game is the lack of depth put into the Underground Residents. They're individuals who are seen as outcasts of society as they fulfill the role of the artist. They alienate themselves from everyone as they simply can't fit in, yet we see that it's the underground residents the fuel so much of what makes society work despite their reputations. Once you help these people out (kiss them) they thank you and no longer exist within the underground, which is pretty obvious symbolism for them understanding their value and being able to move on and progress through life without being concerned about their role or lack of importance within society. This from a thematic standpoint is really deep and thought-provoking...however it's impeded heavily by the fact that the methods of helping out 85% of these guys are braindead easy, and are essentially stripped down to "be at the right place at the right time." That's it. And when so many individuals who, ironically are in the position that they're in due to their individuality and creative role as an artist with something worth presenting to the world, manage to lack an identity entirely because you go about kissing them in the same manner you do for almost every single one of these guys. It doesn't have to be incredibly intricate, just something simple to set these guys apart Jigsaw works really well for establishing them as unique...however this sadly isn't what's done and leaves the game really half-baked for a very vital aspect of the property as a whole. Overall though, Chulip is an unforgivingly unique adventure that anyone willing to try some more abstract games out should definitely give a go.
Oitsu! Smooch
Chulip quickly became one of my favourite games after I finished it. I live for these chill, small town Japan vibes. It’s a very slow, sometimes sadistic game that offers little guidance to the player. I can kinda see why it was so poorly received. But if you can get on its wavelength, you’re treated to one of the most relaxing and charming experiences you could have with a game. It features some surprisingly pointed social commentary too. It never gets too dark but it hits pretty hard as an adult.
I’m a big fan of the Japanese approach to open world design where the maps tend to be much smaller and far more dense than western open world games, and are focused on creating an experience that is closer to a simulation. Chulip achieves this perfectly and is its greatest strength. Its greatest weakness is that it does occasionally get a tad too obtuse, however, for the most part I don’t think it’s anywhere near as perplexing as people say it is. I 100%’d it and I’d say roughly 80% I did without a guide, maybe a little less. Anyway, game rules.
I’m a big fan of the Japanese approach to open world design where the maps tend to be much smaller and far more dense than western open world games, and are focused on creating an experience that is closer to a simulation. Chulip achieves this perfectly and is its greatest strength. Its greatest weakness is that it does occasionally get a tad too obtuse, however, for the most part I don’t think it’s anywhere near as perplexing as people say it is. I 100%’d it and I’d say roughly 80% I did without a guide, maybe a little less. Anyway, game rules.
he cogido mas trenes en este juego que en toda mi existencia
One of the worst best games I've ever played. This games world, characters, music are all incredible and so unique. Then the gameplay comes in and, while not terrible by itself, is ruined with its game design decisions such as waiting around for certain kisses to be available and repetitious backtracking. It's a very slow game all around. I don't even mind that a guide is basically required to play the game. But even with it, the game is still tedious. I reccomend trying it out if you really love it and sticking to a lets play to finish it. It really is such a great game besides all its huge flaws.
EDIT: I've recently watched this video about Chulip explaining how going into it with a more point and click detective mindset like say, Grim Fandango, provides a more enjoyable guideless experience overall. It'd better than expecting a random game about kissing like the game advertised. He goes more in-depth by explaining the card mechanic the game only briefly explains to you in an optional dialogue choice. These can show a lot of hints on what to do next and I think it's really surprising how the game doesn't emphasize this at all. I still don't think the pacing can be fixed with this and there might even be more backtracking trying to play the game this way. But I do think it might be interesting revisiting the game with this mindset. There are very heavy spoilers but I reccomend giving it a watch: https://youtu.be/Lrep_MVx9rk
EDIT: I've recently watched this video about Chulip explaining how going into it with a more point and click detective mindset like say, Grim Fandango, provides a more enjoyable guideless experience overall. It'd better than expecting a random game about kissing like the game advertised. He goes more in-depth by explaining the card mechanic the game only briefly explains to you in an optional dialogue choice. These can show a lot of hints on what to do next and I think it's really surprising how the game doesn't emphasize this at all. I still don't think the pacing can be fixed with this and there might even be more backtracking trying to play the game this way. But I do think it might be interesting revisiting the game with this mindset. There are very heavy spoilers but I reccomend giving it a watch: https://youtu.be/Lrep_MVx9rk
With games like the original Super Mario Bros. and Doom I’ve kept reviews short; you already know about them and should just play them already. For Chulip, I’m going to do it for the opposite reason. Chances are, you have no idea what this game is about. You probably don’t even know what system it’s for. And that’s why you should find a copy of it (it’s for the PS2, by the way) and play it. Go in completely blind and enjoy. I’ll add the parenthetical that figuring out how to beat the game is quite difficult, so it’s ok to quit the game once you get stuck and it’s not interesting anymore, but until that point I think you’ll have a pretty memorable experience.
Would be a perfect game if it weren't for Funny Bone City. Otherwise, game with literally unmatched charm and intrigue. Characters are interesting and almost instantly personable. I'd argue that some characters need more screen time, but perhaps the lack of too much content prevents it from getting stale
I had a fun time with this game. I really loved its super weird nature as well as the awesome schedule. The game still looks really interesting and I also really found the music cool too. It is one of the weirdest games I've played but I had a great time.
“In the process of becoming an adult, there comes a moment for each of us when we’re rejected by the ‘world.’ The person we were so in love with dumps us. The school we wanted to go to so badly doesn’t let us in. The career we were trying for doesn’t pan out. Everyone has a moment like that. And that’s okay. There’s no such thing as something which mustn’t be lost. Everyone has the freedom to love someone or something. We are free. We mustn’t forget that.” - Kunihiko Ikuhara
I really, really had to play this game as soon as I finished moon. I was enamored by the sincere love that the game espoused without ever becoming sappy, and that clearly carries over into Chulip’s kissing quest. Much has been written about Chulip as a story about the pains of emotional vulnerability that is necessary to learn to truly love someone, and I HIGHLY recommend ludzu’s review of the game for more detail on that. But besides love, I think another keyword shared between the two games is “perspective”: moon was about the perspective of a player who breathes life into stock RPG characters, while Chulip is about the oddities of adulthood from a child’s perspective.
I really dislike the “wow Japanese games sure are CRAZY!” Orientalist mindset but this game truly is offbeat. The childish innocence of the protagonist is frequently pitted against some surprisingly adult subjects such as ennui, alcoholism, and domestic violence among others, but the game never loses its sense of levity in the face of them. I can’t fault anybody for finding some scenes tactless, but I think it’s integral to the commitment to a child’s perspective being simplistic and lacking nuance. A phrase in the main story that really stuck out to me is “adults have problems too”, and a huge part of the game as a coming-of-age story is learning of these dark aspects of adult life.
Chulip tears down any pretense of logic in adult society. Why does the bathhouse owner find it so important to follow a seemingly arbitrary ritual to take a bath “the correct way”? Why does the wife yearn to be with her husband even after he hit her? These questions aren’t answered as they’re beyond the comprehension of a child, but the protagonist does know he wants to make everybody happy. It’s nostalgic of childhood in two contradictory ways: at once, it’s about growing from egocentric adolescence to a mature person who can make personal sacrifices for others’ gain, but it’s also about how much simpler it was to love someone as a child without the boundaries of logic, illustrated best by the sickeningly sweet crush the protagonist has on his love interest, the only other child with dialogue in the game.
I’ve become fascinated with Yoshiro Kimura as a “gaming auteur”, especially after learning he directed one of my childhood favorites Little King’s Story, itself a rather childlike understanding of what it is to be a ruler not unlike Chulip. The language of his games perfectly captures that magic feeling of childhood, makes adults contemplate what they may have lost when they grew up, but doesn’t patronize while maintaining such a sweet tone. Consider me entranced by his ability to tap into my inner child’s heart in such a mature and thoughtful way.
I really, really had to play this game as soon as I finished moon. I was enamored by the sincere love that the game espoused without ever becoming sappy, and that clearly carries over into Chulip’s kissing quest. Much has been written about Chulip as a story about the pains of emotional vulnerability that is necessary to learn to truly love someone, and I HIGHLY recommend ludzu’s review of the game for more detail on that. But besides love, I think another keyword shared between the two games is “perspective”: moon was about the perspective of a player who breathes life into stock RPG characters, while Chulip is about the oddities of adulthood from a child’s perspective.
I really dislike the “wow Japanese games sure are CRAZY!” Orientalist mindset but this game truly is offbeat. The childish innocence of the protagonist is frequently pitted against some surprisingly adult subjects such as ennui, alcoholism, and domestic violence among others, but the game never loses its sense of levity in the face of them. I can’t fault anybody for finding some scenes tactless, but I think it’s integral to the commitment to a child’s perspective being simplistic and lacking nuance. A phrase in the main story that really stuck out to me is “adults have problems too”, and a huge part of the game as a coming-of-age story is learning of these dark aspects of adult life.
Chulip tears down any pretense of logic in adult society. Why does the bathhouse owner find it so important to follow a seemingly arbitrary ritual to take a bath “the correct way”? Why does the wife yearn to be with her husband even after he hit her? These questions aren’t answered as they’re beyond the comprehension of a child, but the protagonist does know he wants to make everybody happy. It’s nostalgic of childhood in two contradictory ways: at once, it’s about growing from egocentric adolescence to a mature person who can make personal sacrifices for others’ gain, but it’s also about how much simpler it was to love someone as a child without the boundaries of logic, illustrated best by the sickeningly sweet crush the protagonist has on his love interest, the only other child with dialogue in the game.
I’ve become fascinated with Yoshiro Kimura as a “gaming auteur”, especially after learning he directed one of my childhood favorites Little King’s Story, itself a rather childlike understanding of what it is to be a ruler not unlike Chulip. The language of his games perfectly captures that magic feeling of childhood, makes adults contemplate what they may have lost when they grew up, but doesn’t patronize while maintaining such a sweet tone. Consider me entranced by his ability to tap into my inner child’s heart in such a mature and thoughtful way.
this game is the only time i have ever kissed another human being
"Yeah, I've been in love. Yeah, I've been in love... I've been in love, I mean.. that's what... yeah."
- The Hulk
This is one of these 10/10s where like, speaking as a game entirely, dunno if I'd give it a 10 but objectivity is for posers. I loved this shit for all its quirks and all, kind of like the rough headed dumbo boy at the core of this game. Game's got heart like our boy on his love quest as he grows into a young man from helping out the people in his town to prove he's a suitable boy for the girl of his dreams.
Real shit tho I would've gotten turbo filtered if I didn't fuckin use a guide so, shouts out GameFAQS.
Being young's about a lot of things y'know? Love being one of em, finding your happiness in the world and maturing into a headstrong individual in spite of all the unhappiness around you.
Also, lots and lots of hardships, especially when you're livin' in poverty like our lil guy up front. Shows up to town and just cause he's poor everyone thinks he's up to no good when he's just tryna make it. Accurate as fuck to the real world, but our main boy is idealistic in a frankly cynical world, going up and beyond to show his people that they deserve help, making bonds along the way with peeps of all walks of life.
The fact that all the Underground Residents are outsiders who are only allowed to be out at certain times despite keeping the entire infrastructure of the city going really hits home. Which is why doing the kisses is real sweet, like you’re indulging in someone else’s interest and showing them that it’s chill and people can actually like ‘em.
Game's got some heavy hittin' emotional beats too, I ended up kissing everyone (which was a cute lil way of showing the boy's solidarity with the people of his town) and for a lot of the important NPCs, their plots had lots of pretty resonant moments, shouts out to Leo and Zombie Mika especially. Bonding with the Girl's parents was cute too, also shouts out the Funny Bone City/Batayan's arc.
Other than that though, this game got vibes and chill moments for days, paying attention to everyone's schedules and catching them at different moments, bondin' over shit while you do their individual questlines. Discovering all the other weirdos living underground in squalor, reminded me of moments when I was younger having to figure out shit to do with my friends all while realizing we might've only had like 8 bucks between us, some real class solidarity goin on. Also a whole lotta real ass moments occurred like me setting my alarm an hour late and missing the bus multiple times which was a minor frustration but it totally made the goofy kid simulator even more realistic.
Totally cute talking with the Girl as the game went on, stargazing with her all while playing coy about how you gotta prove yourself to not be some dumb punk and actually a good guy, makes that ending sweet as fuck, pure lovey dovey cuteness. Would def make me cry on the right day.
Loved this lil game, all about having nothing in your life but the love in your heart as you keep goin' til you can finally find happiness.
- The Hulk
This is one of these 10/10s where like, speaking as a game entirely, dunno if I'd give it a 10 but objectivity is for posers. I loved this shit for all its quirks and all, kind of like the rough headed dumbo boy at the core of this game. Game's got heart like our boy on his love quest as he grows into a young man from helping out the people in his town to prove he's a suitable boy for the girl of his dreams.
Real shit tho I would've gotten turbo filtered if I didn't fuckin use a guide so, shouts out GameFAQS.
Being young's about a lot of things y'know? Love being one of em, finding your happiness in the world and maturing into a headstrong individual in spite of all the unhappiness around you.
Also, lots and lots of hardships, especially when you're livin' in poverty like our lil guy up front. Shows up to town and just cause he's poor everyone thinks he's up to no good when he's just tryna make it. Accurate as fuck to the real world, but our main boy is idealistic in a frankly cynical world, going up and beyond to show his people that they deserve help, making bonds along the way with peeps of all walks of life.
The fact that all the Underground Residents are outsiders who are only allowed to be out at certain times despite keeping the entire infrastructure of the city going really hits home. Which is why doing the kisses is real sweet, like you’re indulging in someone else’s interest and showing them that it’s chill and people can actually like ‘em.
Game's got some heavy hittin' emotional beats too, I ended up kissing everyone (which was a cute lil way of showing the boy's solidarity with the people of his town) and for a lot of the important NPCs, their plots had lots of pretty resonant moments, shouts out to Leo and Zombie Mika especially. Bonding with the Girl's parents was cute too, also shouts out the Funny Bone City/Batayan's arc.
Other than that though, this game got vibes and chill moments for days, paying attention to everyone's schedules and catching them at different moments, bondin' over shit while you do their individual questlines. Discovering all the other weirdos living underground in squalor, reminded me of moments when I was younger having to figure out shit to do with my friends all while realizing we might've only had like 8 bucks between us, some real class solidarity goin on. Also a whole lotta real ass moments occurred like me setting my alarm an hour late and missing the bus multiple times which was a minor frustration but it totally made the goofy kid simulator even more realistic.
Totally cute talking with the Girl as the game went on, stargazing with her all while playing coy about how you gotta prove yourself to not be some dumb punk and actually a good guy, makes that ending sweet as fuck, pure lovey dovey cuteness. Would def make me cry on the right day.
Loved this lil game, all about having nothing in your life but the love in your heart as you keep goin' til you can finally find happiness.
I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE
/me smooches u :3
/me smooches u :3
Chulip is a really interesting iyashikei, using the ideas of Moon but putting to "work" instead of just debating them (Moon is a amazing gane too but is more about making people see what makes games great in a meta way instead of showing in the pratice). The amazing hub world with the cool cast is used in a very smart way to show how capitalism kills the individual with the town having A LOT of depressive old dudes regretting the life choices and the workers losing all the meaning in ther lifes and to Chulip the way to try to resolve those things when you have the same level in action as a child, is just trying to give love for everyone. Being nice, discovering the world of people, helping others, you can't do much to the world alone but you can at least try to make those people around you happy and be happy yourself finding love or just reaching your personal objective. Is a cute message in a game really well made in everything. Is really funny, is smart, have an amazing soundtrack and the only thing I can complain about is the day/night cycle being to short even if helps sometimes in the game loop. But is just an amazing game all the way through
First and foremost:
If you want to play this game without any external help (like I did), you can totally do it. Don't let other people tell you this game is ridiculously obtuse, it's really not. However, the English translation omitted a single line that does make one part basically impossible without lots of random guessing. I promise it won't spoil the experience, but in case you don't want to see it, I advise you stop reading here.
The one thing the English translation omits that makes an unguided playthrough extremely annoying is "Dempou Soccer". That's it. More specifically, a computer should say "Dempou Soccer" on its screen. That's enough for you to complete the game now. Have fun.
By the way, if you play on emulator, I recommend allowing yourself to use savestates BUT ONLY after first experiencing the game for a few hours. Abusing them will diminish the experience, but some bits of this game are easy to fail and agonizingly slow to return to to try again.
I think the devs must have known how brutal each mis-step could be, and if one chose to avoid the consequences of a mis-step by save-scumming, how meticulously boring and tedious it would be to head to a save location, save, quit, and reload the game. On the GAME OVER screen, your twitching, heartbroken body routinely gets kicked by one of the teachers, followed by them walking away and leaving you there in the dust. It's a pretty accurate summary of how this game treats the player at times.
However, Chulip is a genuinely wonderful game. Like Backseat Gamer said in his analysis video of the game, Chulip is (probably accidentally) a great detective game. And unlike most of the most popular detective games, there is so much information to learn that won't help you progress, but will enrich your experience. The characters become more than NPCs, they become more like people, with their own lives and own problems and own passions. And you will want to understand them and you will want to help them and it's easier to forgive them for the way they act towards you at first.
One-year-later addendum:
Chulip embodies the Shabby Life. The rough life. Living with what money you got, if you got any. Getting by how you can. And looking at love as a way to escape it all. A fascinatingly unique game, that many imitators have attempted to emulate but haven't quite hit the mark yet (as far as I'm aware!).
If you want to play this game without any external help (like I did), you can totally do it. Don't let other people tell you this game is ridiculously obtuse, it's really not. However, the English translation omitted a single line that does make one part basically impossible without lots of random guessing. I promise it won't spoil the experience, but in case you don't want to see it, I advise you stop reading here.
The one thing the English translation omits that makes an unguided playthrough extremely annoying is "Dempou Soccer". That's it. More specifically, a computer should say "Dempou Soccer" on its screen. That's enough for you to complete the game now. Have fun.
By the way, if you play on emulator, I recommend allowing yourself to use savestates BUT ONLY after first experiencing the game for a few hours. Abusing them will diminish the experience, but some bits of this game are easy to fail and agonizingly slow to return to to try again.
I think the devs must have known how brutal each mis-step could be, and if one chose to avoid the consequences of a mis-step by save-scumming, how meticulously boring and tedious it would be to head to a save location, save, quit, and reload the game. On the GAME OVER screen, your twitching, heartbroken body routinely gets kicked by one of the teachers, followed by them walking away and leaving you there in the dust. It's a pretty accurate summary of how this game treats the player at times.
However, Chulip is a genuinely wonderful game. Like Backseat Gamer said in his analysis video of the game, Chulip is (probably accidentally) a great detective game. And unlike most of the most popular detective games, there is so much information to learn that won't help you progress, but will enrich your experience. The characters become more than NPCs, they become more like people, with their own lives and own problems and own passions. And you will want to understand them and you will want to help them and it's easier to forgive them for the way they act towards you at first.
One-year-later addendum:
Chulip embodies the Shabby Life. The rough life. Living with what money you got, if you got any. Getting by how you can. And looking at love as a way to escape it all. A fascinatingly unique game, that many imitators have attempted to emulate but haven't quite hit the mark yet (as far as I'm aware!).
this game is a five star game regardless because it fucking rocks and its earnest but harsh outlook on the mundane day-to-day of life is wonderful but honestly the funny bone factory puzzle alone is worth 5 stars. solving that thing is the best ive ever felt solving something in my life.
Chulip is one of those peculiar titles that make you wonder how did they ever see the light of day, and this sentence has many sentiments behind it. If I'm trying to pitch it to someone I say "It's a game about kissing and poverty" just to throw them off
First, time has not been kind to Chulip. PCSX2 is your best bet to try this, and its localization is very rough. There are mistranslations, missing lines, and mangled contexts. This ends up making you lean more on the game manual which is just a guide that spoils many puzzles that are inherently unfair because of the translation issues. I wish there was a proper fan translation or restoration project.
Talking about Chulip is exhausting becase finishing it was, the game starts with a set pace and a very strong introduction but the more you dig in the drier it gets. Characters and events follow schedules similar to Shenmue as an example, so time burning is something to expect, and you'll find it in spades. I almost spent the last two hours of play on double speed and it still felt laborious.
But yet I was prepared for something like this. If you're looking for a fun time this is not your cuppa, but if you're willing to try a unique game with good artistic direction then by all means go ahead.
First, time has not been kind to Chulip. PCSX2 is your best bet to try this, and its localization is very rough. There are mistranslations, missing lines, and mangled contexts. This ends up making you lean more on the game manual which is just a guide that spoils many puzzles that are inherently unfair because of the translation issues. I wish there was a proper fan translation or restoration project.
Talking about Chulip is exhausting becase finishing it was, the game starts with a set pace and a very strong introduction but the more you dig in the drier it gets. Characters and events follow schedules similar to Shenmue as an example, so time burning is something to expect, and you'll find it in spades. I almost spent the last two hours of play on double speed and it still felt laborious.
But yet I was prepared for something like this. If you're looking for a fun time this is not your cuppa, but if you're willing to try a unique game with good artistic direction then by all means go ahead.
redoing my review because I honestly do look back kind of fondly on the time I spent with chulip
the harsh reality of life is thrust upon this kid and they kind of just take everything in stride, admirable really
the harsh reality of life is thrust upon this kid and they kind of just take everything in stride, admirable really
such a lovely game. literally the kind of game i aspire to be able to create, i love ps2 games in general but the vibe of this game really is something that if it were replicated with newer graphics it would not be the same. it's almost dreamlike in the best way possible. all the characters and settings are so lovable and silly. highly highly recommend you watch wayneradiotv's playthrough of this game, very near and dear to me
unbelievable (inacreditável)
While absolutely flawed and full of weak spots, Chulip is a Charming and memorable experience I'd recommend for any obscure game enthusiast, even if only because of how cute and unique it is.
"You could say that we are good negative examples of life."
Best played on a clunky original PS2, with a used copy, someone else's scribbles decorating the manual.
Chulip has an irresistible lassitude. You move into a shabby town, dig through garbage cans, and wait for the train while the music goes doo-ba-bop.
Design-wise, it's the most opaque game I've ever played. Conceptually, it's fantastic. It addresses themes like poverty and resilience with whimsy, imagining a world where the next generation can be healed by a kiss.
Best played on a clunky original PS2, with a used copy, someone else's scribbles decorating the manual.
Chulip has an irresistible lassitude. You move into a shabby town, dig through garbage cans, and wait for the train while the music goes doo-ba-bop.
Design-wise, it's the most opaque game I've ever played. Conceptually, it's fantastic. It addresses themes like poverty and resilience with whimsy, imagining a world where the next generation can be healed by a kiss.
I can't, I'm not strong enough.
Possibly the most charming game ever. I love everything about the way characters look in this game. It's one of my favorite kinds of games that involve learning all about an eccentric cast of characters, their wants and needs, their daily routine, all to eventually find out how to kiss them. This is also one of those games where you can just feel it's love for the world and all the odd people in it. The dialogue in this game is genuinely very funny and well written, and the game manages to get in some commentary on becoming an adult, what it means to truly love someone, adult cynicism vs child optimism, and the different kinds of love that exist in the world.
Unfortunately, the biggest problem with this game is the fact that it is nearly impossible without a guide. In fact, the NA release of this game had a manual that also served as a strategy guide, which makes sense because so much of this game asks you to do things you wouldn't think to ever do on your own. I tried to do as much as possible on my own, which involved me keeping a page of notes, something I love in games, but it can't be avoided. Also, the part of this game that takes place in the Funny Bone Factory is incredibly unforgiving and involves rewatching several long cutscenes and doing the same thing again and again just to have another attempt at a kiss, and if you fail you have to do the whole thing again. These are also some of the hardest kisses in the game, and it's the kind of thing to make me stop playing, or at least stop trying to kiss every character.
Despite some pretty big flaws, I think everyone should at least see this game if they're not going to play it. It really is something special, I loved my time with it even when it made me want to pull my hair out.
Unfortunately, the biggest problem with this game is the fact that it is nearly impossible without a guide. In fact, the NA release of this game had a manual that also served as a strategy guide, which makes sense because so much of this game asks you to do things you wouldn't think to ever do on your own. I tried to do as much as possible on my own, which involved me keeping a page of notes, something I love in games, but it can't be avoided. Also, the part of this game that takes place in the Funny Bone Factory is incredibly unforgiving and involves rewatching several long cutscenes and doing the same thing again and again just to have another attempt at a kiss, and if you fail you have to do the whole thing again. These are also some of the hardest kisses in the game, and it's the kind of thing to make me stop playing, or at least stop trying to kiss every character.
Despite some pretty big flaws, I think everyone should at least see this game if they're not going to play it. It really is something special, I loved my time with it even when it made me want to pull my hair out.