Tuesday 21 October 2008

Chulip - PS2


After I rediscovered Chibi-Robo a few months ago, I decided to do a bit of digging about and find out more about Skip Ltd, the team that created this classic Gamecube title. I already knew about their involvement in Gamecube title Giftpia, but my knowledge after that was limited.

As far as I can tell, Skip are a spin-off of Japanese developer Lovedelic, who created three games during there brief existence - Moon (PS1), UFO: A Day in the Life (PS1) and L.O.L.: Lack of Love (Dreamcast). So far, I've had no joy in tracking any of these titles down, but I'm hopeful that Moon and UFO will eventually appear on the Japanese PSN store at some point in the future.

Another spin off from Lovedelic was Punchline. They created Chulip on PS2 and, although I couldn't track down an American copy (it was never released in the UK) I managed to locate a Japanese copy and I've been playing through it over the last few nights.


The aim of the game is to kiss the girl of your dreams. However, she isn't going to let that happen until you raise your reputation about town. How are you going to achieve this? By kissing all of the town's residents, of course!

Now, you can't just wander up to a random stranger and plant a smacker on their lips...well, you can, but you'll get a slap for your trouble. To get people to pucker up you have to fulfil certain requirements. This means helping people and running errands etc.

In a strange way it reminds me of classic ZX Spectrum titles Pyjamarama and Everyone's a Wally, as you have to have certain objects and items in your inventory for events to unfold.


Obviously the language barrier is throwing a few problems my way, but I'm loathe to use a walkthrough as I don't want to spoil the overall experience. So if anyone knows where I can get a US copy, please let me know.

Although Chulip was never going to win any awards for is looks, I personally think they're great. The isometric viewpoint and the art design are perfectly suited to the quirky gameplay. The town's residents are full of character and they have the same garbled voice style that was used in Chibi-Robo. You'll also come across some very strange creations, too - your first kiss is from an onion!


The mood of the game is set by the game's brilliant musical score. Chibi-Robo, Giftpia and Chulip all have wonderful music, so I can't wait to hear more from the Lovedelic camp.

While there's no chance of Chulip appearing over here on PS2, I would love to see Nintendo pick this up and release it on Wii. With Chibi-Robo about to be re-released on Wii, there's no excuse.

edit: I've managed to order a US version, which should be here by next week.

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