The release of Idol Princess VI: A Melody for the Heavens should have marked the best day of my life; instead, it marked the worst. I know what you’re thinking, how could the release of a video game possibly be that important? Of course, you only wonder that because you are an unenlightened plebian, one of the great unwashed. But never fear, your big sister here will bring you into the light. The Idol Princess series is only the GREATEST video game series of all time, and the sixth installment is slated to be the final entry, destined to wrap up everything into brilliant finale that will leave the world awash in tears.
Hold on, your big sister is getting ahead of herself. You’re totally clueless aren’t you. What rock have you been living under? Whatever. I could go on for hours, but, since I’m sure you’re dying to learn how on a day that should have been a triumph for humanity itself, I was plunged into my own personal hell, I’ll keep things brief. The Idol Princess series is a masterful combination of otome and rhythm games, where every confrontation or romance scene is accompanied by a poignant musical number as the characters burst into song. It was a groundbreaking formula beloved worldwide, until they ruined it all in A Melody for the Heavens.
Now that you’re no longer completely clueless, I can explain how Idol Princess VI, RUINED. MY. LIFE.
Ahem. I’m getting ahead of myself again.
Of course I had release day booked off work, and the game pre-downloaded, like any real fan would. I was all curled up in my coziest pajamas and ready to go at 6:00 AM the moment the game unlocked.
6:01 AM the game was running, and I was savouring the tantalizing music of the menu screen. You only get to press new game for the first time once, so it’s crucial to take your time and luxuriate in the experience. That said, I’m not exactly a saint of patience, so moments later the opening cutscene was playing, and I was immersed in the world of Idol Princess once more. A fresh installment. In that moment my life was perfect.
6:04 AM the first big musical number begins, it’s a confrontation scene between the heroine Miss Nora Bright and the main villainess Lady Aurelia Golden. The back of my neck was tingling in anticipation, my fingers were poised on the controller ready to begin and…. what appeared wasn’t the familiar multicoloured arrows. No. But my archnemeses, lyrics, and a pitch tracker. Those asshole developers had turned Idol Princess VI into a karaoke game.
A karaoke game! Its like they were targeting me personally.
What you might not know about me is that I cannot sing. Like. At all. And its not for lack of trying; I am a huge musical theatre otaku. I practically lived at Gekidan Shiki and listening to productions from Broadway is the only thing that got me through high school English. But, despite a decade of lessons at my parents expense my most notable achievement as a singer was the instructor saying, and I quote: “you are the most talentless pupil I’ve ever had.”
Despite this vicious personal attack I was determined to persist and so I sang my heart out, again, and again. Sigh… and again. But each attempt was met with a game over screen, and the sneering face of that cruel icy villainess uttering “Oh, I seem to have broken her, how pitiful.” --which was super-hot, but we don’t have time to unpack that thought now.
So, swallowing my pride as a super-fan, I caved. I returned to the main menu and set the difficulty to normal. Farewell my cherished expert designation. And I began once more, only to be met with failure, upon failure, upon failure. To add insult to injury, on normal difficulty, it shows you your score for each song out of 100 percent and despite upwards of thirty attempts, I had yet to attain more than a 2%.
At last, defeated. I switched on beginner mode. Yet, as the sunset was beginning to stain the sky, heralding the end of my glorious day off and a return to work, I’d only achieved a measly 11%. Further attempts felt like futility itself. I was heartbroken, I’d never be able to experience the long-awaited glorious finale to the Idol Princess series.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
Weary, exhausted, and anguished I may have composed an email to the developers to give them a piece of my mind, in which I may have said some things that upon reflection were unkind, and hurtful. Including calling down a curse from the goddess of love and music upon the head of the lead developer. And, in a fit of pique, rather than deleting my rash email born of childish frustration and spite I may have pressed send. But who would judge my guilty for such an act, after the misery I experienced?
Afterwards, I got dressed, intending to head to the convenience store for my long delayed meal. When I stepped out the front door it was oddly bright, and my eyes were drawn upwards, to what looked to be an arrow of pure light. An arrow of pure light flying directly towards me. And then, everything went black.
When my consciousness returned, I was standing on my front step next to a pile of burnt ashes and a rapidly dematerializing arrow of light. My first thought was “I got lucky, SO lucky.” That was of course until I looked down and realized I was semi-translucent. Yeah. That pile of ashes on the stairs, that was body.
I didn’t have much time to contemplate my fate before a faint melody seemed to tug on my spirit, carrying me aloft, skywards. If I did scream during the rapid ascent, the people milling below were blissfully unaware of it. My neighbourhood was soon a small blip below me, and then all of Tokyo was spread out before me and shrinking. I felt something tear against my back??? A surreal sensation for a disembodied spirit, and one that made me aware of all the usual sensations that were now absent, the feeling of breathing, of clothes against skin. And it hit me, I was dead. Dead at 23. Laaaame.
I found myself in a white void. Just me, the melody, and in the distance a silhouette of a figure from which the melody seemed to originate. The words were strange and unfamiliar, though they had an unnaturally commonness about them, as if I should have been able to understand them but could not. Yet the melody was unmistakably a lament. The singer was mourning my untimely death
A sudden death, a white void, a sad deific figure. I knew what this was, I was familiar with the troupes. I rushed forward towards the figure, in my excitement stumbling, spirit legs tripping over spirit feet in their eagerness to reach them. Of course! I’d died by an accident caused by the gods, so they were going to offer me a fresh life in a new world with some sort of cool magical power. Goodbye boring job, sorry Mom and Dad, your daughter’s an Isekai protagonist!
The ideas were practically bouncing out of my head. What sort of power should I request? No, before I settled on that I really needed to know what sort of world I was going to end up in. I’d look foolish asking for something useless. Words began to fall from the mouth, the beginnings of a question, which died abruptly when the figure turned to face me. She was undeniably a goddess. Her face twisted in revulsion upon seeing me, but such an ugly expression couldn’t mar her beauty. No, beautiful didn’t even begin to describe her or the withering gaze she fixed me with that seemed to cut through me like a knife.
“You are even more a fool than I thought.” When the goddess spoke each word seemed to harmonize with the next and I was equal parts transfixed by the glory of it and paralyzed by fear at the contents of her words. “I should have smote thee harder for thy sin. Even now seeing your face fills me to the brim with outrage. You audacious little wretch, how dare you level a curse upon my devoted servant, and in my name no less.”
“I- I-“ Phantom legs quavered impossibly beneath me, and the words of an apology my brain was struggling to put together died on my lips as the goddess voice swallowed them up.
“I do so wish I could keep thy soul here to rend asunder for your hubris. But if I were to indulge the other gods would sniff out my tampering, in defiance of our compact.” A fierce twinkle appeared in her eyes. “You wished so dearly to see the story of Idol Princess VI; well, I think I shall indulge you. I have seen your true nature Miss Eiji Kaneko; your personality is rotten, and your words are foul. I cannot imagine someone less fit to be a heroine.”
A blazing bow of light materialized in her hand, and I recognized it as the instrument of my death. Bow in hand, the goddess turned and drew, aiming off into the distance. There was no arrow. Not until she laughed, a mocking melodic laugh, the notes of which resonated within my spirit, and I began to change. Too late I realized, I was the arrow. Something in the melody drew my spirit to her bow. I tried to resist, to apologize. But I was silent wood, iron and feathers, and the goddesses’ will was unyielding.
She loosed, and my spirit soared. The last thing I remember of the void was the goddesses’ mocking smile and her final words: “Try not to die too quickly.”
Then the arrow that was I, pierced the veil between worlds and my consciousness faded to black.