is a Japan-exclusive

adventure game An adventure game is a video game genre in which the player assumes the role of a protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and/or Puzzle video game, puzzle-solving. The Video game genres, genre's focus on story allows it to draw ...

developed by Natsume and published by

Towa Chiki is a Japanese toy company responsible for many Famicom games in the late 1980s and 1990s. They were responsible for the critical and commercial bomb '' A Week of Garfield''. Products * TC-280 Transceiver (2,800 yen) * TC-330 Transceiver * ...

in 1989 for the

Family Computer The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit Third generation of video game consoles, third-generation home video game console produced by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan in 1983 as the commonly known as the The NES, a redes ...

.''Idol Hakkenden''
at

MobyGames MobyGames is a commercial website that catalogs information on video games and the people and companies behind them via crowdsourcing. This includes nearly 300,000 games for hundreds of platforms. The site is supported by banner ads and a small ...

Plot

Sick and bedridden, the

zaibatsu is a Japanese language, Japanese term referring to industrial and financial vertical integration, vertically integrated business conglomerate (company), conglomerates in the Empire of Japan, whose influence and size allowed control over signi ...

tycoon Tomiko senses that her death is near and must nominate an heir among her three granddaughters. To decide who will receive her whole fortune, she launches a challenge: whoever will give her best in the next three months will be the winner. Shizuka, the oldest granddaughter and owner of several business companies, and Reika, the second oldest and a genius scientist, are sure that it's going to be a battle between the two of them. However, Erika, the youngest, has a plan of her own: using her only talent, singing, she aims to break through as a super

idol Idol or Idols may refer to: Religion and philosophy * Cult image, a neutral term for a man-made object that is worshipped or venerated for the deity, spirit or demon that it embodies or represents * Murti, a point of focus for devotion or medit ...

and to do so, she must first seek the help of seven other companions. Meanwhile, a mysterious man called Dark Lord Iromono is on Erika's track, plotting to have her join his army and become an ''iromono'' talent instead.

Gameplay

Erika, an aspiring musician and pop idol, must foil a plot that could ruin her music career. As a Japanese adventure game, players must select through menus of dialogue in order to determine her future. Friends (and sometimes rivals) of Erika give her advice on what to do next. The game's storytelling is remarkable for its hectic and humorous content, which often reflects on the nature of the in-game puzzles. There are six songs in the game; all of them belonging to the

J-pop J-pop ( ja, ジェイポップ, ''jeipoppu''; often stylized as J-POP; an abbreviated form of "Japanese popular music"), natively also known simply as , is the name for a form of popular music that entered the musical mainstream of Japan in the 1 ...

genre. Erika must master them all in order to become the greatest idol in all of Japan. Lyrics are not sung by a

voice actor Voice acting is the art of performing voice-overs to present a character or provide information to an audience. Performers are called voice actors/actresses, voice artists, dubbing artists, voice talent, voice-over artists, or voice-over talent ...

; they are shown on the bottom of the screen instead.

References

{{reflist 1989 video games Adventure games 1980s interactive fiction Japan-exclusive video games Natsume Atari games Nintendo Entertainment System games Nintendo Entertainment System-only games Towa Chiki games Video games developed in Japan Video games featuring female protagonists Video games scored by Kiyohiro Sada