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1980s NES Game Idol Hakkenden Gets Fan Revival
posted on by Lynzee Loveridge
Someone went deep-diving into the NES cartridges and pulled out a long forgotten game, blew the dust off, and decided to give it a mini-renaissance. How else would we get an English fan-translation for the otherwise little known Idol Hakkenden?
Idol Hakkenden is a text-based adventure game released solely in Japan in 1989. Video game developer Natsume created the game for the Nintendo Entertainment System (Famicom) and game publisher Towa Chiki Corporation released it.
The premise is fairly simple. A business tycoon named Tomiko is about to pass on and promises to leave her wealth to one of three granddaughters. The inheritance will go to which granddaughter is the most well-known, thus spurring on a competition between the elder two who are both already successful in their own right. The youngest is Erika, who plans to make a name for herself as a super idol.
Players take control of Erika on her journey for fame by solving riddles and interacting with various characters to move the story forward. The game was never localized in English but a fan translation became available last month. The game offers a little insight into the idol antics of yesteryear, how much has changed, and how much things have stayed the same.
Source: Siliconera (Alistair Wong)
