Game Review: I*CHU: Chibi Edition

By Rae

Players: 1
Platforms: Nintendo Switch

Hello hello hello, it’s Rae with a game that ISN’T an otome game! ...Or at least, it isn’t in the English version. Today we have an idol raising rhythm game! As an old arcade rhythm gamer, I have a long and loving history with rhythm games. DDR was just the start of the obsession to hit those perfect notes to the beat of the music. As an otome game player, I also love a good idol boy raising game. Emphasis on good. IDOLM@STER: Side M? UtaPri? Enstar maybe? Nope!

Let me introduce I-Chu! I-Chu is a dating sim idol raising rhythm game originally released in 2015 as a mobile game in Japan. It was so well-known that it even spread to small fanbases in the West. The mobile servers were shut down in 2019 to lead into their new version of the game, Étoile Stage. In an unfortunate twist, Étoile Stage itself shut down after its one year anniversary in 2021. I’m unsure of the reasons, but I can only assume that it didn’t sell as well as other joseimuke games, which are games generally directed at women. Even more interesting and mysterious, the developer Liber Entertainment/Opera House released a Nintendo Switch version in 2022. Now an English version of the same game is available in the form of I-Chu: Chibi Edition. This is what we are reviewing today! I learned of I-Chu back in 2019 from a friend I met through Tsukiuta and UtaPri. At that point, I just listened to the music and left my interest there. My knowledge of the series was only of the songs, and a few visuals. I was excited to learn that we were finally getting an official English release so I could finally meet the boys of I-Chu!

Story

I-Chu Chibi allows you to guide a whooping 32 wannabe idol boys towards their goal of becoming real debuted idols. In this game, the player is an adult woman who is a teacher/producer to these boys. You are unable to choose your gender, but you are able to name yourself and turn the producer picture on or off. The story mode follows the boys through their journey and shows the highs and lows of pre-debut idols. Each boy gets a chance to show the player their personality, allowing the player to easily pick out their favorites.

I have... a lot of thoughts on the story. To start with, the translation for the tutorial is BAD. The spacing and punctuation was everywhere and phrases were often mistranslated. While it did get dramatically better in the actual story mode, there were instances of tiny text and inconsistently translated names. I wouldn’t say it was enough to make me completely uninterested, but it really pulls you out of the game when you have to sit for a moment to interpret what they meant. After getting over the seemingly machine translated text, I was assaulted by pixels when one of the boys would “get closer” to the screen. I’m unsure if this was an issue because they ported it straight from the mobile version, but when the portraits are larger, the 240p resolution slaps you in the face. Unfortunately the issues don’t stop there. Around Season 1 part 20, the sprites go absolutely crazy. They’ll overlap with each other, or leave trails as they move, creating some straight up horror movie visuals as the boys happily smile. I ended up stopping there due to reading more than 3 parts where the sprites just didn’t show up. No visuals, just text. Past all that, the story itself ranges from boring to uninspired, then randomly interesting for a blip or two. Choices you make in the story do not matter at all, so it feels a bit meaningless to provide options.

This one might just be opinion, but Ms.Producer-chan? She was rarely even needed in the story. Most of the time, the boys would wrap up their issues without her. She wasn’t the focus of the story in the slightest, leaving an awkward feeling of engagement for me. I couldn’t tell when I was supposed to feel like an observer versus when I was supposed to be self inserting into this girl. She could have easily been taken out and nothing would change. Why was she there then? For romance! Only not in this specific English version of the game! For whatever reason, the otome game/affection stories were TAKEN OUT of the game. Mind you, the Japanese I-Chu Chibi HAS the affection stories. The lack of romance/affection with the boys alienates the producer character even further. I was confused with this weird gap until I looked up the older games and found the missing puzzle piece. Honestly, a hard hit.

The Boys

The stars of the show! With 32 boys, there is a boy for almost every taste or trope. You have some classics: Overactive face character with Orange Cat Energy, twins in a duo connected at the waist, Stoic older man who acts gentlemanly when he isn’t, a chuunibyou group, etc. etc. I could go on and on. There are a few boys that really stood out to me: Raku Wakaoji, Eva Armstrong, and everyone in POP’N STAR. Raku is relatable, I also dream of sleeping. Eva is honestly such an interesting character and I would LOVE more characters like him. You normally get one or ten characters with the orphan backstory in idol games, but the way his backstory is told and reflects how he is as a person currently is different from what I normally see. And the POP’N STAR boys? Absolutely in love with, they are all so cute and I loooove the dynamics between the three. As someone who isn’t in the fandom, I’m not really sure who the fan favorites are. Though they are mostly shallow characters as opposed to other games, it’s nice to learn about each of the boys during the stories. I never found myself thinking “I don’t want to learn about this one, I’ll just skip.”

Each group seems to have been drawn by a different artist, which creates some interesting visuals during story mode. With sprites that look completely different from each other, it’s easier to differentiate which group they are a part of, while also making it a liiiiittle visually disconnected. I feel it could be done a bit better, but it wasn’t the worst possible thing to try out.

The voice cast! I would say this is the strongest aspect of the game. The cast is varied and interesting with an amazing array of well-known voice actors. The music is important to this type of game, and they delivered. I enjoyed hearing the songs I already knew, while also picking up new songs I hadn’t heard before. Their silly sounds during the story were amusing, if not a little weird. As the story is unvoiced, it’s hard to pick up on what they are meant to sound like with the strange “AAAAACK”s and “OOOASHNJKASHKA”s they make. Some voices that really stood out to me were:

Principal Kuma - Akio Otsuka (Batou - Ghost in the Shell, All For One - MHA, Wamuu - Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure) 
Tatsumi Madarao - Saito Soma (Gentaro Yumeno - HypMic, Tsurumaru Kuninaga - Katsugeki Touken Ranbu, Tenn - Idolish7, 2wink - Enstars)
Akira Mitsurugi - Toshiyuki Toyonaga (Yuri Katsuki - Yuri on Ice, Takeru Totsuka - Kamigami no Asobi, Goshi Kaneshiro - B-Pro)
Kokoro Hanabusa - Ayumu Murase (Yeon Hajun - Paradox Live, Tori Himemiya - Enstars, Ryo Asuka - Devilman Crybaby)

Gameplay

A basic mobile rhythm game. There aren’t many note variations (solo, double tap, holds, and flicks) so anyone can play easy and enjoy it. The levels range from Easy to Nightmare and Maniac, so if you are into maps that are so full you can’t see, they have a little of that. I did struggle with playing a bit at first, despite having a background in rhythm games. The notes come down in a curved motion and the notes aren’t consistent to the button they relate to. Any button can be a picture of one of the idols. Unfortunately, there is no option to change the note skin, nor can you change the configuration to buttons that work best for you. I did turn off almost all of the unnecessary visuals, which dramatically changed my accuracy. 

There is a gacha system that is paid for with in-game currency. No microtransactions, yay! As you progress in the story, there are times where you won’t be able to progress without playing an easy level song or two. To get better scores, you need better cards, so you need to play the gacha part to obtain/upgrade cards. Simple stuff. If you’ve played a mobile idol game before, this follows all the same beats. 

Events and specialty gacha banners are locked until you progress, making it a bit of a hassle to play each event song about 15 times to unlock something. The points don’t matter for any competitive score, only for unlocking items and banners. And the banners that only pull with the Crowns? Absolutely broken. You obtain Crowns as a currency after “graduating” (or giving up/deleting) a card. The issue I have is the amount of Crowns you receive is MUCH lower than what the game claims it will give you. I’m unsure if this is a bug or if they lowered it since there isn’t money involved, but why be stingy over something so trivial? Overall, I would say this is the worst aspect of the gameplay. 

Final Thoughts

As the game is currently, I can’t recommend I-Chu: Chibi Edition as a full value purchase. Despite being half the price of most games on the market, it’s still too much for this seemingly direct port with no touch ups or fixes. For $30 USD, I can’t accept a translation this rough. I won’t say to avoid the game, in fact, I would recommend it to a niche community. The game is fun to an extent and if you enjoy Idol boy games like UtaPri, A3!, or Enstars, give this game a chance when it goes on sale. The music and characters are definitely worth learning about if that is your cup of tea. 

Check Out I*CHU: Chibi Edition on Nintendo Switch:
https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/i-chu-chibi-edition-switch/

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Story: D
Gameplay: C
Graphics: B+
Music/Sound: B
Value: C

Overall: C

Pros:
+ Besides the initial pay, there are NO microtransactions. All the pulls are collected from playing rather than paying, which feels so much better than whaling on that one banner until your wallet is empty.
+ Some song maps are REALLY fun to play in the harder difficulties. The notes match the songs really well and they are set up in a way that is fun to remember and play again. 
+ There are 3 seasons worth of story and events to play. Lots of story and good music, it fills in a nice “I’m bored” mood. 
+ It has a physical release! I love physical games, so this is a huge positive for me.

Cons:
- Translation is horrid. Honestly the worst I’ve seen recently. I don’t know if this was an issue with the English phone version too, but wow. Some parts aren’t even translated into English, the Japanese text appears instead. There were times when a character was introduced with one name, and would be inconsistently named throughout the story. Lucas, Rucca, Luka, etc. As a new player, I struggled a bit trying to figure out who they would be talking about.  
- Since you pay for the game upfront, I think all the events, songs, and banners/event pulls should be fully unlocked the moment you buy it. I hated having to play through three events just to unlock a section of banners. There isn’t online play so who cares if someone who just joined got a crazy rare or OP card. Make it make sense.
- Can someone please explain what iKids are like seriously. They come in the main story without introduction and are given to you as cards to upgrade and not use. I had to do outside research just to understand who they are and even then, it’s not explained the best. From what I picked up: They are in three tiers- Elementary, Middle, and High School, each with 10 kiddos and a unit(?) name. Are they also in this academy thing? Are they kids that are trying to become I-Chu? No idea. 
- Bugs and issues are common. My game actually crashed once and I had to restart my progress. Thankfully, I was only 15 minutes in. It hasn't crashed since then, but there are still annoying bugs, like being unable to change the months for Birthday Scouts, that have been addressed by other fans with no response from the company. I hope they listen to the feedback and throw out some patches, because at the moment the game is rough and hard to recommend. 
- No harem end?? I mean, they took out the romance completely, but no harem end is always heretical and deserves mention. 

A copy of this game was provided to us free-of-charge by the publisher for the purpose of this review. This did not affect our review in any way.

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A Bear Principal seems normal enough...

#IChuChibiEdition