Gakuen KING

About
Gakuen KING is an RPG released by Alicesoft for PC-98 (also on floppy), TOWNS and Windows 98 (Alice CDs). It also had a Win 3.1 demo version and Alice CD ver1.02 included the manual and some tips for the game. As usual fans made some ports or patches, a DOS/V version was made an a (missing) fan-made CDDA patch for the Windows 98 version which normally does not support CD audio.

It also received a sequel in the form of Gakuen KING Extra -Hidehiko Makes Curry- on the Alice CDs which takes place directly after the events of the game. It is included up to V2 of the CDs.

It is available as freeware.

Story
This game follows Amatsugami Hidehiko. He is the young scion of the Amatsugami family, an obscenely rich and powerful zaibatsu which has its hands in many worldly affairs.

His grandfather tasks him with re-conquering the artificial island of Kunlun/崑崙. This island was made by the Amatsugami to provide education to the best and brightest in many fields for the Japanese people, however after the turmoil of WW2 it declared its independence and the Amatsugami were forced to condede it due to other affairs. Each school was given a mandate of authority which shows they have the right to independence.

Hidehiko, joined by his ridiculously competentent butler Kobayashi Yoshihito, has to build his own school and take over the others. To do this he needs to acquire these mandates and then destroy the schools, merging them into Tentei/天帝 Academy. Join him as he tries to deal with these rebellious schools in the name of the Amatsugami family.

Gameplay
It is a pretty regular RPG with map movement and basic battles. It focuses more on the map exploration than battles which are supposed to hinder you.

It has an odd leveling system where you have to run into a special enemy called "Up-chan (2/3)" which levels you up to a max of 10/20/30 respectively, they only seem to appear if you fight battles. You have to decide whether you want to level and get the slight increase in stats and unit size or ignore battles. At first you might want to do so for your stats, but later on you get items for that and it is only useful for max army size.

You can change the leading/fighting character, though this only changes things in battle due to their different stats and special skills. Later on in the game when armies get big enough, you can change what type of unit it is which does change things a bit.

See the enemies section for these roles and your character's special skills.

Staff
The extras means the NPCs, apparently they made Alicesoft User Club members into NPCs for this game.

Scenario: Fumya Main character original drawings: Chomoyama subcharacter original drawings: Yoshida Goten, Youichiro Map and programming: Shade CGs: Chiibou, Noddy!, Shikigami Azuma, Akino Kōrogi, Chimiroimu, 三重紙, Naritaya, Pukapi~, Saeki Takashi Orignal background drawings: Youichiro Shading: Yoshida Goten Scenario assistance: Moomin CD SFX recording: Shade Voice actors: Chimiroimu, Ou Shuran Photography: WAO Original drawing supervision: YOK German assistance: Dairagi Extras: Alicesoft User Club members Director: Chomoyama Producer: TADA Special Thanks: Yukimi and all Alicesoft friends!