Milano’s Odd Job Collection Review – On The Job

Milano’s Odd Job Collection stands out as a rather interesting example of a retro re-release. Retro re-releases are exceptionally common these days, as classic games are not always made readily available by their publishers or developers for a variety of reasons. You’ll often see old favorites getting a new chance at life on newer hardware, and perhaps sometimes cult classics slip through as well, to find a new devoted audience. But what about a game that never left Japan? The time and effort needed to localise a lesser known title is often too great of a risk for companies to take the chance, meaning that passionate fans often have to take up the gauntlet instead.

Milano’s Odd Job Collection (originally known as Milano no Arbeit Collection) might have fallen into relative obscurity, had it not been picked up by Implicit Conversions. Originally published by Victory Interactive and developed by Westone, the game launched on the PS1 in 1999 and never left Japan. But after 26 years, Marvelous and Implcit Conversions have partnered with fan-translation group Hilltop Works to bring this game to modern consoles and PC! I had originally never heard of this game, but when this re-release was announced earlier this year, I couldn’t help but be interested in it! It does feel like a lot has gone into bringing this little game to other territories, so let’s see if it has paid off.

Milano’s Busy Little Life

Milano’s Odd Job Collection stars Milano, the titular eleven-year old, who has to go stay with her uncle during her summer vacation. But due to a serious lack of communication, her uncle has gone away on vacation too! Left all alone at her uncle’s home in Zucchini Town, she figures that this is an ideal opportunity to impress her parents and prove how independent she can be. So she takes it upon herself to housesit and even takes up several part time jobs around town. Whether it’s delivering pizzas, serving fast food or even performing in her very own concert, Milano certainly has a busy summer ahead of her to say the least.

To put it simply, Milano’s Odd Job Collection consists of eight mini-games, as well as some very light raising-sim elements. At the start of each in-game day, you pick one of the currently available jobs and if you manage to perform well, then you’ll get paid! After each work shift, you’ll get to spend some time at home, where you can do two activities until it’s time for bed. The activity you do will sometimes increase one of Milano’s three stats, her energy, her mood and her skill. These three stats determine how long Milano can work, which of the eight jobs she can do and also which difficulty levels are available to the player.

There isn’t an awful lot of depth to this stat management system as Milano’s stats don’t seem to decrease at all no matter what you do. On one hand, this gives the game a very casual pace, but as a trade-off, it isn’t very engaging. You can very easily max out all three stats over the course of your playthrough with the hardest initially being raising Milano’s skill, which you can only do reliably after buying a specific item. Using your wages, you can furnish your uncle’s abode however you like, which does add a nice element of personalisation, but the space you can decorate is actually very limited. The main reason for buying new items is so that you can unlock new activities, which will further help in upping Milano’s stats. But even without these new items, you can pretty easily have Milano’s mood and energy to their max level just using the base activities.

Watching Milano do these activities is actually very endearing; the animations for each one are charming and have a lot of character to them. They add a lot to the cosy feel of the game and if you’re in the right mood for it, I think there’s definitely a pleasant quality to the life-sim sections. But over the forty in-game days, it can be very easy to lose interest.

Milano’s Collection of Odd Jobs

The bulk of the entertainment in Milano’s Odd Job Collection comes from the eight jobs that are on offer. Each one is its own distinct minigame and on the whole, they’re quite fun! Nothing incredibly deep, I’d say they’re somewhat shallow in-fact, but they are enjoyable enough and remind me of games like Bishi Bashi Special from the same era. The five difficulty levels are also a very welcome feature, with the fifth in particular actually being exceptionally challenging. The game also encourages you to just focus on your favorites while playing, so there’s no pressure to play a minigame that you either can’t get to grips with or just aren’t very fond of.

Here’s a quick round-up of each game: ‘Round-about Wrangler’ sees you milking airborne cows while avoiding rampaging creatures on the same path; ‘Tick Tock Takeout’ is a memory game where you have to take orders from rabbit creatures as fast as you can; ‘Pastry Pileup’ is a puzzle game where you need to clear matching sets of ingredients; ‘Dishwash Woosh’ has you cleaning plates in a kitchen, while avoiding ladles; ‘Pizza Pronto’ puts Milano behind the wheel of a delivery scooter and you have to manage your speed and time while avoiding traffic and obstacles; ‘Fresh Fruit Freefall’ is a simple fruit catching game; ‘Pop Star Power’ is a rhythm game and ‘Viral Vamoose’ is a mix of a memory game, a reaction test and a button masher.

The variety is quite good and each of them do offer up an enjoyable experience. They are short bursts of fun that feel very arcadey in nature and it’s nice that outside of the main game itself, you can play each of them from the main menu and try for a high score. But despite how enjoyable they are, I think they only really work in short bursts. Prolonged exposure to them is bound to sour you on them eventually as there really isn’t much to give them any long standing appeal. It could definitely be fun to try and conquer each of the games on their hardest difficulty, but outside of that, I don’t think there’s much to keep you coming back for more.

Milano’s Bubbly & Lively Aesthetics

Milano’s Odd Job Collection aesthetically is quite a treat; the visuals are going to appeal to anyone who has an appreciation for late-90s early 2000s anime stylings and PS1 era visual design. I think one of the things that stood out to me the most was all of the weird little creatures that Milano interacts with during her different jobs. It seems that everyone in Zucchini Town aside from Milano and her family are some sort of critter and that definitely adds a lot to the overall visual character of the game. I especially love the little hedgehog guys that you serve during the fast food minigame. Otherwise, everything is just so pleasant, colourful and vibrant. There are a fair few visual options, including scanline filters, which will be hit or miss, depending on who you are.

You also have the option of switching the in-game voices to either the original Japanese, or to the newly produced English dub, featuring Kayli Mills as the title character. Genuinely, I think going the extra mile to include an english dub is really unexpected. The dub itself is pretty good,  but the fact that it’s here at all is what impressed me the most. There isn’t really that much dialogue in the game, outside of a few short FMV scenes and Milano’s sound bytes during gameplay. I imagine it would have been easier, and cheaper, to forgo the english dub, so i’m glad they went above and beyond in this area at least. You can even switch the in-game text back to Japanese as well if you’d like, so if you want to experience the game in its original, unlocalised form, then they have you covered.

Now, when it comes to extra features, Milano’s Odd Job Collection is a rather modest package. The fact that it has an english dub is an extra feature itself, but outside of that and the rest of the localisation, this is pretty much the game as released. This release of the game runs via Implicit Conversion’s Syrup engine, which offers some very standard emulator features such as rewind and save states. Within the emulator menus you can also take a look at a gallery which shows off some promotional artwork and production materials, which are a thoughtful inclusion, but are just a nice bonus and kind of just feels a bit tacked on, with little ceremony, commentary or even context added alongside each piece.

Final Verdict: Is Milano’s Odd Job Collection Worth Your Time?

It’s a bit of a minor miracle that Milano’s Odd Job Collection has seen a release in the west at all, especially all these years after it was relevant even in its home country. It perhaps seems like a strange title to resurrect, but I think unearthing these lesser known, region locked titles is an important part of preservation. So perhaps, despite what I may think about the game itself, if you’re at all curious about this game, then I’d say it’s well worth the price of admission.

It is a niche little curio of a game, that charms throughout its short runtime and sometimes that’s all you need. On repeat play sessions, the charm might wear a little thin though and if you’re looking for something a little more substantial, then you might want to look elsewhere. However, if this is just the beginning of Implicit Conversions and Marvelous resurrecting more unique titles for modern audiences, then that’s fine by me.