Idea no Hi is called a kusoge online. It’s not that surprising, really. The game came out in 1994, but the graphics are definitely pretty rough for the era. There’s muttering online that Shouei System (the publisher) or Office Koukan (the developer) had troubles during the development. The artist and main story writer was Koji Aihara who’s pretty well known for doing comedic comics that often have sort of an adult dark humor to them. Enemy designs often are comedic, and there are some pretty goofy elements in the game.

Demoku is an early villian in the game. Here, he's summoning a wiggling circle of hearts to confuse the party.
The main problem with Idea no Hi is that while the story is interesting the actual game mechanics are clunky. For example, each character has an “endurance” level. This number invisibly ticks down as you run. Unfortunately, your starting character is a scrawny little psychic. As soon as you get more people in the party, it’s almost impossible to lose health via running. Your starting character has no luck. The luck stat governs if status effects will hit. This means as long as you have only the hero and he doesn’t level up, he’ll be hit by any sort of status effects that are cast at him. About halfway through the game, there’s along fire and ice themed area. It culminates in needing inventory space for a full set of cold weather gear, since the center of the fire dungeon has an icey cave. As best I can tell, you could enter that cave without realizing that you needed the gear at the end of it. There’s also a maze, piloting an awful truck, that’s game over if you crash. You get a save right before doing it though.
The game has some unique elements. There’s several elemental stats that are tracked (see the top right corner of the equipment screen. Certain equipment sets give you perfect protection from heat, cold, electricity, and magnetism. There’s also a crossdressing stat tracking how much ‘girl’ or ‘boy’ clothing you’re wearing. It’s utterly irrelevent for most of the game if you’re showing your crossdressed sprite (the hero gets adorable pigtails) though there is a point where you need to sneak into a town. There’s also a flag for being a pervert and wearing underpants on your head. This’ll let you shop in a town of perverts for stat boosting items and it’ll get you a free shield if you run into a certain enemy.
The battle system has unique elements. You don’t equip items. Instead, you hold weapons in the inventory along with your healing items and ‘use’ them to attack. You can also use random objects to shield yourself, or attack with high heels. Most weapons are real world items, since you’re travelling through a post apocolyptic Earth. There’s a day night cycle, with towns changing at night and more difficult enemies come out at night. The hero also has a limit break like attack triggered after enough HP loss.
As for the plot, it’s good. Even if you don’t know the language, the broad sweeps of it is pretty obvious. Your hero is a pyrotechnic kid, escaping from a lab after they triggered his psychic powers when they killed his dog. Quickly, he picks up a new pet ( a drowsy hedgehog) and then finds an orphaned archer. Rinko wants to be strong and stays one of your best fighters in the game (fast, high luck, group attack abilities.) Soon, the hero’s tracing who got him in the lab, why he was there, and what’s going on. There’s a guy who’s girlfriend gets backstabbed by one of the villians. A super polite sumo wrestler who faces a terribly punny evil. A medium who helps save a captain from vengeful ghosts.
I suppose a good term for the game is quirky. Sometimes it’s quirky in a bad way as you struggle with awkward areas or plots. Sometimes the humor is juvenile at best. Still, when it works, the game is pretty amazing.
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I think this was one of the first games to use the party-switching mechanic like FF7s PHS (which obviously came later). The means by which you do it is a pager (pokeberu – pocketbell), which is amusing to me because I can remember when pagers were a big deal.
And oh man. The underpants on head thing. You can FARM bowls/shields from that little monk kid and sell them off to make a lot of cash. That was what I ended up doing at one point.
And it still makes me laugh that the Canadian member of the Shitennoh (four emperors – this concept shows up in a ton of anime and manga and games, possibly most well-known in Sailormoon XD) is a lumberjack. With goalie shinpads.
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Bwargh! That was what I meant, but I was not coherent. Like the ‘instant standing-where-you-are-on-the-map’ switchup.
I always wondered what your other party members were doing when they were chilling with the storage house guy. Playing blackjack maybe?
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I’m actually playing through this game right now, and I’m enjoying it so far. I’m at the point after the party escapes from the jail cell in Mexico, and I’m currently rescuing the daughter of the deposit store person to get the pager.
About that fire and ice dungeon, how easy is it to figure out the right clothing for that part, for a person who knows zero Japanese? Also when I was skimming the walkthrough I’m using I saw something about needing scuba gear/pressure resistant clothing near the end of the game, is that hard to find?
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Cool, I’ll keep that in mind, but I’m wondering if I should complete my file or not, or just wait for the copy I bought on ebay to arrive (only the cart though).
I didn’t get nearly as lucky as did with Maka Maka, where I got the cart, manual, and box (all in decent condition) for only $16. But apparently the game isn’t worth shit in Japan either, can’t imagine why…
But for all I know I could be away at college before it arrives so I guess I’ll just continue my current file.
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this is a jab at mother
music is good, hi masahiro kusunoki
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I think the only similarities I can see is the modern day setting, use of every day items, and the strange enemies (although Day of the Idea has MUCH stranger enemies). I love Earthbound, but seeing as it’s my favorite game of all time, it’s no surprise.
According to the Japanese wikipedia article for Day of the Idea, Tomohisa Mitsuyasu did the music. He also did Maka Maka’s soundtrack, which I also find to be a great soundtrack (It’s on Youtube for those who care).
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Might be in need of some help again. I’ve made it to Antarctica, and I’ve bought the fur clothing for Kamekichi, but nobody else, but he can still be frozen and takes damage from walking. I have everything replaced except for the gloves, are there fur gloves that I somehow missed? The C is partially filled in. Also should I bother getting the fur clothing for the rest of my party?
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Actually, never mind, I figured it out.
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I am not really a fan of Earthbound/Mother. I find this game to be a lot superior than that game, and Office Koukan, the developer to this game seemed to have learned from its huge mistake from the past when they developed this game for Shouei System. I particularly like the battle system in this game as well its music, also done by Mitsuyasu Tomohisa, and its menu/equipment system.
I like that in the equipment menu that there are indicators that determine the type of resistance that your character would have if a certain item is equipped, which are marked as H for Heat, C for Cold, E for Electricity, and M for Magnetism.
Like I said, I find this to be the best game of all time in my eyes, even though a lot of people think this game is a kusoge game.
I wonder if Hokuto no Ken 5 for the Super Famicom is also considered a kusoge because it is also developed by Office Koukan for Toei Animation…
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