Dream Club Zero: Special Edipyon!

Dream Club Zero: Special Edipyon!, released on PS3, PSV and X360, is the second installment of the Japanese series of dating simulators with arcade and music elements. Japanese company D3 and Tamsoft studio are responsible for creating the title. Established in 1992, the developer has dozens of console productions, most of which have never been published in the West. The creators of Dream Club hoped that the game would attract the attention of fans of the music-management Idolmaster series, as well as classic romantic visual novels. Dream Club didn't achieve as high sales results as the competition, but it had at least a few sequels and spin-offs, which appeared on many hardware platforms. Dream Club Zero is the prequel to the first part of the series, which was originally released in 2009 on the Xbox 360. The production develops ideas from the original, introducing new heroines as well as mini-games. Special Edpiyon! version on PlayStation 3 includes DLCs and add-ons that appeared in the PS Vita and Xbox 360 editions.

Plot

The action of Dream Club Zero: Special Edipyon! takes place five months before the events presented in the first Dream Club. Players again play an anonymous Japanese single, which accidentally ends up in a club with hostesses. He quickly becomes their regular customer because he hopes to win the heart of one of the girls working there.

Mechanics

The game consists of several basic elements and arcade mini-games. The aim of the game is to get a happy ending and end up with one of the several hostesses. Each of the heroines has specific reasons for working in the bar, but most of them treat this activity as an extra job, so during the day, they deal with something completely different like being a model, teacher or a beginner actress. It is worth mentioning that in Dream Club Zero, three new characters have joined the cast from the first part of the game (in total there are 13 of them). In order to fall in love with girls, we must first get to know them better. We get to know the details of their lives in conversations. During them, however, they are not so eager to talk about their secrets. We can change it by buying them more drinks and snacks. Each of them influences the level of the heroine's intoxication in a different way, which affects their sincerity.

During the meeting, players can also watch a karaoke performance. Then, we participate in a mini-game, in which we have to press the appropriate buttons to the rhythm of music, thus accompanying your favorite hostess. Once our relationship has reached the appropriate level, we can invite them to a date in the city (the scenes have also been presented in a manner typical for visual novel games). Dream Club Zero has introduced new mini-games, increasing our chances with a girl. The system of costumes and hairstyles modification, the possibility of exchanging text messages with hostesses, as well as the way of conducting dialogues have been improved. Fun in the bar and drinks are not free of charge. Every day, we have to choose a specific part-time job that will pay the high bills. However, apart from the choice of activities in the menu, we don't have to do any other activities in this respect.

Technical aspects

The graphics design of Dream Club Zero: Special Edipyon! was presented in full 3D and has not changed significantly compared to the first installment of the series. Dream Club Zero uses cel-shading technology to give the heroines a typical look known from Japanese anime productions. The soundtrack consists of j-pop works composed for the title. Practically all dialogues have been voiced over by professional actors.

Last updated on 08 October 2014