What is Chulip, you ask? I didn’t know myself, until I was looking at release dates on GameFAQs. The title caught my eye, and then I read this review.
I rarely buy a game near its release date (Katamari Damacy being a notable exception), and almost never pre-order (Guilty Gear Isuka is the only game I’ve ever pre-ordered). You had better believe that I’m’a gonna pre-order this. Hell, I’ll probably take a day of leave to get it as soon as it hits the mall and have the rest of the day to play it.
Between this, Disgaea, Harvest Moon and Sky Gunner; Atlus and Natsume are quickly becoming my favorite game publishers.
Here’s an excerpt from the review:
And kissing is what this game is all about. Chulip takes the #2 position on the world’s most amusing button-mappings chart by assigning a lean-forward-and-pucker-up action to the triangle button (the #1 position going hands-down to another Love-de-Lic game, their Dreamcast title ‘‘L.O.L. Lack of Love,’’ where one button is permanently mapped to ‘‘urinate’’). For all intents and purposes, Chulip is a kissing RPG, and your main goal in it is to kiss as many people as you possibly can, disregarding age, gender, and even hygiene.
Sound a little strange? Well, it is. Chulip makes other ‘‘odd RPGs’’ like Earthbound and Okage: Shadow King, and even its own predecessor Moon, seem like your average run-of-the-mill damsel-rescuing epic. Perhaps the greatest aspect of Chulip is the mere fact that you honestly can never predict what will be waiting for you around the next corner. Every time you think you know what’s coming – every time you let your guard down for even a moment – you’ll find yourself impaled through the heart on the town physician’s giant needle, his maniacal laughter echoing in your ears as your consciousness fades away; or perhaps you’ll bear witness to a rabid umpire in S&M gear rise from the ground without warning and hang himself against the back wall, anxiously awaiting your kiss to set him free from his everlasting torment; or maybe you’ll get knocked backwards by a man who exists inside a telephone pole, with a penchant for soccer, as he runs off intending to commit suicide. Your actions could help uncover the mysteries of the universe, or they could ultimately lead to your own demise, chained to a cross in a lonely prison cell. As Weird Al Yankovic once said, ‘‘everything you know is wrong’’ – and in Chulip, it’s definitely best to forget all known laws of the universe, as none of them apply here, and many of them would do nothing more than lead you astray.
This game is going to make Katamari look normal.