Ciel Fledge: A Daughter Raising Simulator Rapid Review
Fast Facts
Title: Ciel Fledge – A Daughter Raising Simulator
Developer: Studio Namaapa
Publisher: PQube Games
Website: https://pqube.co.uk/cielfledge/
Genre: Adventure, RPG, Simulation
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Age Rating: PEGI 7
Release Date: 21/02/2020
Price: £17.99 – Rapid Reviews was very kindly provided with a review code for this title.
Ciel Fledge: A Daughter Raising Simulator has been on my radar since it was announced. So let me just start by saying I was pretty hyped to be reviewing this. Developed by Studio Namaapa, an Indonesian Developer, and published by Pqube, the game looks to be an adorable and entertaining one. Will it follow through with my initial impressions of it? Read on to find out!
Starting off, something to note is that the game does have achievements: 43 of them, to be exact, which you can access from the main menu. This is something cool for those who enjoy achievements/trophies. Personally I don’t always care for them, as I usually miss one or two in games, but I’m excited to see how many achievements I can unlock in this game!
The premise of the plot is that humans in the thirtieth century live up in the skies. This is due to the fact that an alien creature known as the Gigant annihilated the majority of human civilizations on the surface of the planet. Humans now live in “Arks” in the sky, one of which was recently destroyed by the Gigant. There was one survivor of that Ark: a little girl. This is where the story begins.
A representative from the Ark Administration comes to see you. You are then able to choose your gender, marital status, as well as your name. You can also choose your background: are you a surface dweller, born there before evacuation to an Ark? Were you born on an Ark? Or were you a “vatgrown” baby, a genetically engineered child? These choices impact stats. One will decrease stamina for exploration and battle time. Another will increase friendship encounter rates. One will make it so you have a limited time to explore. And another will increase SPI in battles by 20%.
It’s up to you to decide what boons and banes you desire, and how that will impact your playthrough. You also get to choose your skill focus. Will you choose strength, intelligence, charm, imagination, or spiritual? I went with imagination. You then get to choose your prior occupation, which impacts the skills your daughter starts with. I went with architect, as that gives your daughter a start of level three crafting!
The Ark Administration tells you that they lack resources and that citizens can help by housing survivors of the destroyed Ark. Enter Ciel (or whatever you choose to name her). She’s adorable, in good physical condition, and has no psychological damage, according to the Ark Administration. She looks like a little hellion based on her facial expression, which seems blank. But we’ll see what she’s really like as the game progresses! She’ll be under my care for ten years.
You receive the “Administration’s Guide For Sudden Parents Raising Teenage Children.” (Which is sorely needed! Haha!) Something interesting to note is that the administration has enforced a curfew between 5 PM and 7 AM. Leaving your residence between those hours is prohibited. (I mean, I’m no night owl, so I suppose that’d work for me!)
What you do is choose Ciel’s schedule. She can have a basic, lavish, or average meal plan. This affects her growth and your wallet more or less depending on which you choose. You then can send her to public school, arithmetics class, art class, civic education, etc. I chose a variety of different classes for each day to make her balanced. We’ll see how that turns out! The classes also cost money, so be careful with your budget!
Your child will then make friends on her first day of school, meeting Vivi, Marco, and Becky. Aww, isn’t that cute! At the end of the week, you’ll see stat increases from classes and friendship increases from encounters. Ciel got sick the first week due to over scheduling activities. This earned me a warning from the administration, and my character could go to jail for mistreatment should it continue!
Once Ciel’s stamina goes below 0, all activities for the next few days get skipped and she’ll get sick. Uh-oh! Something you can do is change your policies in raising Ciel: her allowance, once it is lavish, reduces stamina usage. Forgiving mistakes reduces stress gain, encouraging her increases mood recovery, and using softer speech increases discipline recovery. Make sure to check that out under the personal tab!
Outside and inside of school, there are chances for “battles.” There are quiz battles, score battles, and fight battles. These use decks, and you must match three of the same colour to use a move, from what I understand so far. You can have your daughter’s friends help her in these battles depending on how high their friendship is. Battling can be a bit clunky control-wise unless you use the touch controls, which are much more user friendly in battle.
Something I wish was different is that Ciel has encounters with her friends throughout the week, but we don’t really get to see the scene as it happens. It’s just a cute little set of miniature characters with chat animations instead of actual dialogue. I wish we had more dialogue. It feels a little bland and monotonous at times until you randomly see an event with friends and acquaintances.
Something I adored was being able to dress Ciel. I’m a sucker for dress up games and fashion in general, so this was a nice touch. I do wish we made more money though, as I couldn’t spend much money on fashion for Ciel, at least in the beginning, as I had to conserve money for her food, allowance, and classes. No money for me to indulge in fashion for my precocious little daughter! (I eventually figured out how to save money and got her new clothes. When she grows out of her old clothes you can also sell those to make money back for new clothes!)
Eventually, you’ll be able to send your daughter on explorations/field trips to the surface. Why you want to send her there when it’s somewhat dangerous is slightly unclear; however, the administration makes it clear that it is mandatory at some point to go. Perhaps it is to prepare children for danger from the Gigant eventually? You are able to send companions with Ciel, thankfully.
The graphics are adorable and the music is quirky. The plot, when it happens, is interesting. (There are some typos every once in a while, however.) I obtained a very unpleasant ending, but that may be because I didn’t understand the game mechanics well enough at first. I’m still looking forward to replaying the game over and over again to try and obtain a good ending though. My first playthrough took fifteen hours, so it was slightly discouraging to receive a bad ending, but I’ll definitely persevere and try to get one of the better endings out of the twenty-three available.
There is a new game plus, where you keep money as well as items. Hopefully, that will help me perform better next time, as I achieved an F rating at the end of the game lol.
Overall, it’s a fascinating simulation game that I’d recommend to anyone that enjoys simulation games in the first place. I do wish there was a little bit more substance to it in terms of plot and character interaction, as we do play through ten whole years of the game, but what I experienced I did enjoy quite a lot.
Rapid Reviews Rating
You can purchase from the Nintendo eShop on the following link, https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Nintendo-Switch-download-software/Ciel-Fledge-A-Daughter-Raising-Simulator-1706861.html#Overview
