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Have you ever heard of this amazing Wii game titled Fortune Street? It’s okay if you haven’t until now, but I’m going to talk about it for a while. The only entry America got was, you guessed it, the Wii version which mixed Dragon Quest characters and Mario characters in a game very similar to Monopoly. We’re getting slightly ahead of ourselves though, so let’s look at the past.
The History
The series originated in Japan, which is where you’ll find all the games. It began in 1991 on the Famicon, and the last entry being on the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita in 2017. Currently, it is owned by Square Enix.
The only game to make it out of Japan is the one I’ve already mentioned. There were multiple entries across different systems and even on mobile too.
The Gameplay
I’ve already mentioned that Fortune Street is like Monopoly, but I felt I should elaborate. There’s a few different ways to play this game. You can play alone or you can play with friends. Now, I’ve always played with a 2nd player, so I can’t speak for the single player mode, but multi-player allows you to choose your characters, and then a board. You could pick between simple rules or the regular ones.
The simple rules are what we typically go with, so I’ll explain those. You’ll start off at the bank, roll your die and go forward however many spaces. If you land on a shop, you can buy it. Each shop has a shop value, and then a price. This means X shop will net you X amount of dollars if someone lands on it.
The more shops in a row you have, the more money each shop will bring in. It also raises the capital of the shop, which brings us to the next point of topic. If you land on your own shop, you’re given the chance to invest money into a shop of your own, and this raises the prices as well.
There’s also various other squares, besides shops, to land on such as the arcade, dice rolls, commissions, and others. Finally, you have the main goal of the game, to reach the target amount to win. The best part is, it is customizable.
Great for Family Fun
I know we have had Mario Party and Mario Kart for years, and both are phenomenal in their own right. However, this game could also be something great if more people got into it. You could buy each other’s shops, try to mess with your competitors and also make them go bankrupt.
This also equals people getting potentially mad at you, but it’s all fun and games, right? Actually, I can’t tell you how many times I have actually made someone mad over doing this. Now this is with the simplified rules. The original rules of the game include more details, such as shops being bought in the same zone making you more money, the ability to purchase and sell stock and also setting up different types of posts that aren’t just all shops. All of this equates to a much more complex but fun times.
My Personal Vision
This will all be strictly my personal opinions, but I would love to see the series come back on the PS5, XSX and the new Nintendo console. We wouldn’t get Mario characters on but one of those systems, but they could mix it up and make it worth it. The last entry included Final Fantasy characters, so why not? It also should be local play and also online.
Conclusion
Fortunate Street may or may not make a comeback, I really can’t say. If it does, hopefully it be localized and my vision will come true. If not, at least we have the Wii version, which runs about $15-30 on Mercari. If you haven’t given this one a chance, I totally recommend it.
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