Why Itadaki Street Special is the Best Game on this Godforsaken Planet
Fortune Street is a series near-and-dear to my heart with its deceptively straightforward gameplay and slew of strategies. The premise is simple: Monopoly with the stock market. You go around buying properties on boards alongside three other players, and grow said properties until you either make enough money or bankrupt someone else. You get extra money via promotions by going around the board and picking up four Suits, then return to the starting square for a nice chunk of G (the game’s currency). A simplified version of the stock market is present that lets you invest in others’ districts so you make money when they do, allowing for a wide array of tactics with no clear definitive one. It’s unique, thought-provoking, and most people don’t have a clue that this is a series — or even a game!
But wait, I’m going too fast! Let’s back up for a second and first talk about what Fortune Street is as a franchise.
Fortune Street originated as a small title by ASCII Entertainment, called Itadaki Street: Watashi no Omise ni Yottette (it really rolls off the tongue in English), and was created by Yuji Horii of Dragon Quest fame. While basic, it set the groundwork for what would be the entire series as you went around buying properties and generally angering your friends and family as they land on your expensive shops. However, while the game was still fun, it didn’t exactly get much recognition. Heck, most people are unaware that this and 10 out of its 11 other games exist, except for…
FORTUNE STREET!
No, really, it’s just called Fortune Street. This and a mobile phone version were the only titles to be released internationally, though the latter never gained much of any recognition. You play as a mix of Super Mario and Dragon Quest characters, with boards being inspired by both of their worlds. You don’t have to know either franchise to get enjoyment out of the game, but it makes for some nice fanservice if you’re a fan of either one. Also featured are the Wii’s titular Mii characters, so you can play as yourself in the game and dress in a number of outfits. This smells like a recipe for success with Nintendo’s reputation, so why is it the only mainline game to be released internationally besides a mobile version?
Fortune Street sold roughly 480 thousand copies worldwide, which is by no means a small feat, but let’s put that into perspective. The Wii sold just over 101 million units in its lifespan, making it one of the best-selling consoles of all time. To simplify things, only about 0.5% of all Wii owners bought this game. For a Mario title, that’s abysmal.
New Super Mario Bros Wii and Super Mario Galaxy — Mario’s flagship 2D and 3D platformer on the system — sold 30.32 million and 12.8 million copies respectively. This isn’t even mentioning that it’s a collaboration with Dragon Quest, another goliath in the video game scene (specifically in Japan). It had three Wii games (not counting Fortune Street), and it only outdid a Japanese-exclusive 25th anniversary collection of the original trilogy by around 100 thousand copies out of every Mario and Dragon Quest game for the system.
Err, yeah, it wasn’t nearly as profitable as they had hoped. It (probably) made its money back, but when two titans in the video game scene flop this hard there are bound to be ripple effects — and ripple it did! It got a mobile game (that died a silent death) as well as a Japanese-exclusive title in 2017 for the PS4. And now? Nothing.
Even the fandom has slowly drifted away, with the main exception being the incredible modding scene (please give them some much-needed love). Fortune Street Wii’s only trailer barely passed over 100 thousand views, with the comments mourning the silence of a series that barely made it off the ground internationally.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVTFo2Hlegc
Yet, the franchise isn’t dead.
Fortune Street Wii is by far the most popular, with famous YouTubers such as TheRunawayGuys giving it plenty of attention in Let’s Plays. And while the somewhat recent PS4 title is only in Japanese, it being digital and the number-based gameplay allows anyone to pick up and play if they don’t mind figuring out the menus. So even if the series is in a rough patch, there are plenty of things to appreciate regarding the wonderfully dedicated community. But by far the most captivating entry is none other than Dragon Quest & Final Fantasy in Itadaki Street Special on the PlayStation 2.
While the core gameplay loop is roughly the same as the first entry, Special was unique in that it was the first game in the series to borrow from other franchises. If the title didn’t make it obvious enough, all of the boards and characters were based off of Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest for a total roster of 36 playable pieces and 18 boards; half belonging to each franchise. While none of the characters have unique quirks (in the main mode anyway), it’s really the boards that steal the whole franchise’s show.
Every. Single. One. Is. Unique.
And I don’t mean that in a layout way (every entry has that much), but in that every board has a slight twist to the formula to help all of them stand out. One has a layout that forces you to take a new path for Suits each time you level-up, another has players charging shops with electricity to jack up the prices, and my favorite has switches rotating the center of the board — the Suits going with it! These aren’t radical changes, but instead nice variations to help keep each game fresh, which is highly appreciated coming fresh off of Fortune Street Wii having almost every board use the same gimmick.
Another major enhancement over the Wii iteration is the pacing, which is leagues better despite coming roughly 7 years prior. The menu and UI are overall more snappy and responsive, the characters waste no time going from tile-to-tile, and there’s minimal fluff coming between you and the gameplay. While there is no option to disable the AI characters talking, putting the game on max speed might as well have thanks to how uncannily fast they do their turns. What once took 2–3 hours minimum on Wii is practically cut in half, with the average runtime of a match in my 70 hours taking ~1.5. These may sound like minimal things, but those microscopic adjustments put together make a huge difference and make it into a fast-paced strategy game where you‘re always thinking. And if you preferred the slower pacing, then there are options to match.
So, what’s the catch? Surely there must be some Achilles heel to this beacon of hope for the video game industry, right? Nothing is perfect so there are naturally a few flaws, but thankfully nothing deterring…maybe. First and foremost, if you didn’t already pick up on this earlier, the game is entirely in Japanese. Because it was such a niche title, the game never had any language options. And while the game is perfectly playable if you’re willing to fiddle with the menu (numbers are universal, after all), it’s still less than desirable to the average player who just wants to kick back and play a game. Not to mention that if you have a physical copy, you’d also need a Japanese PlayStation 2 (or a hacked console) thanks to region-locking.
There is a fan-made translation put together by the oh-so-lovely Choppasmith that makes it infinitely more accessible with English menus and descriptions. However, the oodles of dialogue nearly every character has is still in Japanese due to the sheer scale of it all. And that’s a huge shame, because there was clearly a lot of labor and love put into them that only Japanese-reading players (or those willing to sit down and translate) can truly experience.
The AI is also very unique, in that it’s simultaneously incredibly vicious and rather generous at the same time. In Fortune Street Wii, the AI can be pretty mean-spirited and kick you while you’re down, having every character that isn’t a human gang up and actively collaborate just to make sure you don’t win. In Special, the AI absolutely cheats and will actively screw themselves over to ensure you don’t get the target amount of money, but they’re more equal-opportunist in their approach. Special’s AI would shoot themselves in the chest if it means nailing someone else in the foot, and it’s hysterical to see play out when it happens to a computer player on the verge of winning. They may be irritating at points, but I’ll take “crazy aggressive at everyone” over “incredibly vile towards the only human player” any day of the week.
The last flaw lies in Tournament Mode, the singleplayer side of the game. There it has you playing through all 18 boards broken up into chunks: two sets of three boards and two sets of six that you have to play in a row as you get 1st or 2nd place in each one. While it does allow for saving in-between tournaments, that doesn’t change the fact that it can be extremely annoying playing a board (especially when it feels like the AI is cheating, which it absolutely does).
If it was just additional characters locked away then it wouldn’t be a big deal, but it also includes the four biggest boards and more, meaning you’ll have to trudge through it if you’d like to experience everything. It’s not the worst thanks to the aforementioned better pacing, but it’s a deterrent nonetheless. That being said, don’t let my nitpicking sway you away from trying this masterpiece out!
Overall, Itadaki Street Special does a great job catering to both those new to the franchise and seasoned veterans with extensive options, some of the best board variety in the franchise, and loving fanservice to Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest fans. If you have a Japanese system or the capabilities to emulate and this review piqued your curiosity, then I seriously cannot recommend it enough in spite of my minor gripes. However…
It’s
NOT
OVER
YET
Because there is a whole different game mode I’ve yet to mention that’s exclusive to this one lonesome title and makes it stand valiantly above the entire franchise! Enter: Sphere Battle Mode.
Right on the main menu is a mysterious second set of options that are initially greyed out and inaccessible. After clearing every tournament and watching the credits roll, the game teases an all-new mode for you to try out with little explanation, being Sphere Battles. Starting a match will have everything seem normal, except now every character has a Job pertaining to the new item you’ll be seeing a lot of: Spheres.
Loosely based off of Final Fantasy X, Spheres can be boiled down to spells your character can cast after choosing what space to land on and before they pay. You earn Spheres by either landing on a Suit space, an opponent’s shop, or the new Sphere space (which replaces Venture tiles). These spells can range from simple things such as rolling again, only paying half rent, or increasing your shop price, to incredibly devious actions like forced buyouts, teleporting opponents, and deleting their Suits.
You can hold as many as you want, but only a maximum of six can go on the die you roll to randomly cast one of them. So while you aren’t guaranteed to get the one you want, you have the option to save them up for later and blow through them all rapid-fire. It’s ultimately up to your playing style, and odds are it’ll work in your favor so long as you don’t use them poorly.
Your character’s Job determines what Spheres the character will be more likely to get, with the option to change Jobs opening up after clearing a second set of tournaments. While that may sound dreadful if you binged through everything, it’s actually a fun challenge to have the same Job work on radically different boards alongside AIs who are hellbent on making their dumb tactics work. It can be frustrating when they get a large string of good luck, but with how extreme Spheres are, you can artificially nudge fate back in your favor and throw a made-up strategy in retaliation.
Sphere Battle’s greatest strength also happens to be its weakness: balance, or lack thereof. Everything and everyone is overpowered in some way, meaning matches usually take between 30 and 90 minutes depending on the board layout, luck, and how petty your competitors are feeling. It’s fully possible for someone to play as a Thief, hoard Bazoom (a Sphere that teleports all other players randomly), and then unload near the end of the game until your best friend is shouting death threats. Alternatively, there’s the option to play as a Monk and exclusively invest in dirt-cheap stock, then unleash your arsenal of Potions (get gold for every stock you have, going up to 10G per stock) to cheese a last-minute victory.
It’s ludicrous. If this lack of balance makes you wary, then I completely understand given how random it has the potential to be. It almost comes across as the developers taking a page out of Mario Party, and it makes me wonder if the reason why it’s never returned is because of backlash. But as someone who plays a game to have a good time, Sphere Battle scratches all the right itches and has a weird amount of depth for something that may seem entirely luck-based at first. Once you get into the groove, it’s a highly addictive strategy game that doesn’t replace regular Fortune Street, but is a great alternative if you want to shake things up.
That’s Itadaki Street Special! An incredibly fun and strategic party game that’s deceptively simple with a tight set of fun mechanics the game expands upon in every conceivable way. It’s brimming with passion and fanservice for the franchises it’s representing, so if any aspect of this title seemed remotely interesting, then please, PLEASE check it out for yourself. The franchise may be dormant, yet the game hasn’t aged a day in spite of being nearly 16 years old. You’d be doing yourself a disservice not playing it, so break out your Japanese PS2 or emulator and try it out for yourself with some people! Just know that they may not be your friends afterwards…