You, a self-insert main character, have just completed the first semester of your senior year of high school. With borderline grades you make a daring wager; pass the semester and your father treats you to an all-expenses-paid vacation cruise with your best friend, fail and you'll be stuck working at the family restaurant for the whole summer. Lo and behold you're unable to achieve your dream of an unsupervised island cruise, and instead look forward to slaving away your precious summer vacation washing dishes and waiting tables. Could there possibly be a silver lining to all your misfortune?
Pia Carrot e Youkoso!!, a.k.a. Welcome to Pia Carrot!! is a romantic adventure game squarely in the "dating simulation" category. You play out a series of days spanning your summer vacation raising various parameters such as "style", "kindness", and "academics" all the while making sure your "energy" stat doesn't fall too low. After an introduction to the plot and characters, you're able to choose which tasks you'll perform at the restaurant on which days giving you a chance to raise your preferred stats while maximizing your chances of interacting with the girl of your choice.
And choose you must because decisions you make have a huge impact on how the game plays out. Each day you'll decide what to do during your free time, be it visit a location around town, or call someone on the phone. Events will take place on certain days, and various choice segments will give you an opportunity to make seemingly inconsequential decisions that will nonetheless alter your fate and that of your preferred love interest. Thanks to this, each play-through can be quite different, encountering new routes, and seeing events from other play-throughs in a different light.
Each girl is not simply a shallow trope onto whom you project your fantasies, but a character with her own feelings, motivations, and back story. While the game has an unrealistic quality to the way so many of its young ladies are available to potential romance, those expecting cheap wish fulfilment may be surprised by the trials you must face in order to get to know and love the many ladies of Pia Carrot.
A single play-through should only take about 2 hours, but without a guide you're almost guaranteed to wind up at the end of the summer alone, filled with regrets about what could have been. I recommend playing the game at least twice without relying on any kind of FAQ or guide. It's in its sense of discovery that I think Welcome to Pia Carrot!! shines brightest and is most able to spark your imagination, compassion, and will to get to the bottom of what makes its many characters tick.
I played this game when it originally came out around 1997-98. At the time my buddy and I were getting into this "anime" thing. He imported a PC-FX due to its anime-styled games, Welcome to Pia Carrot is one of them. After many unsuccessful attempts, I managed to stumble my way to one of the girl's endings and I was desperate to know more about the story and characters. Fast forward a number of years, and one unofficial English language translation patch later, and I've reached all of the game's endings.
I won't tell you which Pia Carrot character is my favourite, but suffice to say I dearly love the time I've spent with all of them. Not only is it a wonderful experience in its own right, but it's also introduced me to the romantic adventure game genre at large and I think it's an excellent introduction. While some games I've played since have a more novel-like quality and arguably more fleshed out characters the feeling of pursuing one avenue while closing off another leads to a profound sense of possibility in each short play-through of Welcome to Pia Carrot!!.
I made a list of my favourite games of all time, and Welcome to Pia Carrot achieved position two, beating out many classic game series and modern AAA gaming experiences. In fact, Welcome to Pia Carrot!! itself has spawned a long-running series of games spanning PC and consoles with a 20 Year Anniversary Pack released in 2017.
While I certainly wouldn't expect this game to have the same profound impact on you that it had on me I highly recommend this to anyone with an interest in story-based romantic adventure games. The game may drag a bit near the end, especially upon repeated playthroughs, but its sense of humour and feeling of discovery keep things novel even as you weather emotional ups and downs in a desperate effort to string together the correct choices and stats to reach your intended girl's ending. Welcome to Pia Carrot!! is easily one of my most cherished gaming experiences and one of my favourite games of all time.
Pia Carrot e Youkoso!!, a.k.a. Welcome to Pia Carrot!! is a romantic adventure game squarely in the "dating simulation" category. You play out a series of days spanning your summer vacation raising various parameters such as "style", "kindness", and "academics" all the while making sure your "energy" stat doesn't fall too low. After an introduction to the plot and characters, you're able to choose which tasks you'll perform at the restaurant on which days giving you a chance to raise your preferred stats while maximizing your chances of interacting with the girl of your choice.
And choose you must because decisions you make have a huge impact on how the game plays out. Each day you'll decide what to do during your free time, be it visit a location around town, or call someone on the phone. Events will take place on certain days, and various choice segments will give you an opportunity to make seemingly inconsequential decisions that will nonetheless alter your fate and that of your preferred love interest. Thanks to this, each play-through can be quite different, encountering new routes, and seeing events from other play-throughs in a different light.
Each girl is not simply a shallow trope onto whom you project your fantasies, but a character with her own feelings, motivations, and back story. While the game has an unrealistic quality to the way so many of its young ladies are available to potential romance, those expecting cheap wish fulfilment may be surprised by the trials you must face in order to get to know and love the many ladies of Pia Carrot.
A single play-through should only take about 2 hours, but without a guide you're almost guaranteed to wind up at the end of the summer alone, filled with regrets about what could have been. I recommend playing the game at least twice without relying on any kind of FAQ or guide. It's in its sense of discovery that I think Welcome to Pia Carrot!! shines brightest and is most able to spark your imagination, compassion, and will to get to the bottom of what makes its many characters tick.
I played this game when it originally came out around 1997-98. At the time my buddy and I were getting into this "anime" thing. He imported a PC-FX due to its anime-styled games, Welcome to Pia Carrot is one of them. After many unsuccessful attempts, I managed to stumble my way to one of the girl's endings and I was desperate to know more about the story and characters. Fast forward a number of years, and one unofficial English language translation patch later, and I've reached all of the game's endings.
I won't tell you which Pia Carrot character is my favourite, but suffice to say I dearly love the time I've spent with all of them. Not only is it a wonderful experience in its own right, but it's also introduced me to the romantic adventure game genre at large and I think it's an excellent introduction. While some games I've played since have a more novel-like quality and arguably more fleshed out characters the feeling of pursuing one avenue while closing off another leads to a profound sense of possibility in each short play-through of Welcome to Pia Carrot!!.
I made a list of my favourite games of all time, and Welcome to Pia Carrot achieved position two, beating out many classic game series and modern AAA gaming experiences. In fact, Welcome to Pia Carrot!! itself has spawned a long-running series of games spanning PC and consoles with a 20 Year Anniversary Pack released in 2017.
While I certainly wouldn't expect this game to have the same profound impact on you that it had on me I highly recommend this to anyone with an interest in story-based romantic adventure games. The game may drag a bit near the end, especially upon repeated playthroughs, but its sense of humour and feeling of discovery keep things novel even as you weather emotional ups and downs in a desperate effort to string together the correct choices and stats to reach your intended girl's ending. Welcome to Pia Carrot!! is easily one of my most cherished gaming experiences and one of my favourite games of all time.