Idea no Hi

イデアの日 (Idea no Hi. Officially but incorrectly translated Day of the Idea, more accurately The Edea Incident) is a very non-standard jRPG released on the Super Famicom in 1994. Created by the team behind Maka Maka (but this time around is not a prototype cartridge turned gold by the publisher without the team's knowledge) with character designs by Koji Aihara (Known in the west largely for Even a Monkey Can Draw Manga). The main character, a young boy with Psychic Powers is kidnapped by some shady people and tortured to show off his powers. Things go horribly right when they kill his dog to provoke him into using his full powers, causing him to destroy the test chamber, killing the scientists behind it while the "Dr. Poe" in charge flees. One of the dying scientists mentions a "Lady Edea" and a search of the now abandoned facility reveals a fax on the torture testing to a research facility on Easter Island.

A mostly forgotten game in its home country, though is decently popular among Super Famicom enthusiasts due to how unique it is and the very low price of used copies.


 * And Your Reward Is Clothes: Common given the clothing based nature of equipment in this game. Special mention to the reward for trading in enough of the rare "あの本" ("That book" or "Uhh book"): an invisible or non-existent bra (when equipped to female characters it generates convenient stars over their nipples)
 * After the End: Notable for having within that post-apocalyptic world
 * Arbitrary Headcount Limit: An odd example in that it prevents a character from joining the party entirely, forcing you to acquire the ability to deposit party members to continue the plot
 * The Atoner:
 * Awesome But Impractical: The game mechanics mean you don't actually equip weapons, but select items from your inventory to attack with. The idea being that you will use different weapons as the situation demands, but due to how little effects vary between weapons and inventory space limits you'll rarely make use of this and just give each character one weapon.
 * Bad Future:
 * Cast From Hit Points: Annoyingly running is this, having a chance to decrease your health based on a character's endurance every so often, and the main character is a Squishy Wizard. It's based on the party average and the HP loss doesn't scale at all so the problem quickly disappears, making you wonder why they bothered.
 * Checkpoint Charlie: One Broken Bridge is the large border walls on the borders of the former United States, restricting your progress till you can open the large gate or gain sea/air travel. The massive wall between the US and Mexico is ironic given the real world version's infamous Swiss Cheese Security.
 * Commonplace Rare: You will not find any boxers in Japan, and you can only buy them once you go to Mexico.
 * Crossdresser: Aside from the hidden Atlantis armor that is main character only, any party member that can wear clothes can wear any article of clothing. They all have different overworld sprites if they are equipped this way.
 * Creator Provincialism: While the game is loosely based on real world geography, Japan is huge and the game largely obeys the jRPG trope that exotic lands have far fewer towns than your home area.
 * Everything Trying to Kill You: Mutant turtles, girls that have escaped from an anime, half-naked girls screaming at you for being a pervert that look like the kidnapped party member you are trying to rescue, men with megaphones for mouths, living roulette wheels, cameras with human legs and arms, and even "アレ" (a pair of conjoined typographical characters) appear in fights. Predictably each and everyone of them hostile.
 * Face Full of Alien Wing-Wong: . It's that kind of game.
 * Betting Minigame: Many towns have a gotchapon machine. Most of the time this produces random consumables, but the one in Hentai Town gives out a bunch of otherwise finite items.
 * Global Currency: "Money", abbreviated "M".
 * Game Over: While the game largely sticks to the Dragon Quest style returning you to the last save point with half your money gone (but all other progress intact), there are several points where death or failure will cause a game over. These include a minigame where you are transporting unstable explosives on a truck with no brakes which will explode if you bump into anything (there's a save point right before this event) and most of the Marathon Level examples.
 * Inn Security: The town in Antarctica has Freddy (Yes, that Freddy) haunting the dreams of the inhabitants. Sleeping there before you kill him in a well hidden dungeon nearby will result in him attacking the character in front of the party during the night. This is a very difficult fight, has no special reward for winning and continues to happen until you resolve the area's plot and seal Freddy off from the dream world.
 * Intimate Healing: Played for laughs: Recurring Gentleman Adventurer Manakata is first found by Rinko lying in pain from a poisonous snake bite asking you to suck it out. Where was he bitten that he wants a random highschool girl to suck?.
 * Improbable Weapon User: Until late game (where spears and knifes are common and there are even a couple swords) these make up most of your weaponry. Some (A spanner) more plausible than others (cheese grater, pantyhose).
 * Kleptomaniac Hero, Found Underwear: Frequent given underwear is equipment slot.
 * Lady Land and No Woman's Land: Encountered late in the game in Canada. Reconciling them involves lots of crossdressing from both men and women.
 * Limit Break: The main character has one. Possibly one of the oldest jRPG examples.
 * Marathon Level: To avoid Unwinnable situations the game doesn't have save points during events where your travel is restricted. This means these events, which can be fairly long, have to be completed in one go.
 * No Export for You: Even without Nintendo's famed censorship in the era, this probably never would have gotten translated due to the game's crude and bizarre nature.
 * Non-Human Sidekick: Several animals (and one Chestburster) can be befriended by the main character as part of small sidequests then added to your party. Their actions in combat are random and they can't level up, but they use their own dedicated slot in battle.
 * Hat of Power: Several. Every piece of lower body underwear can be worn as a hat.
 * Preexisting Encounters: Enemies in dungeons are visible and avoidable.
 * Power-Up Food: Kaminariiwa, a Sumo wrestler character, can't equip clothes. Instead he has very high growth rates and at fixed points in the game can obtain special dishes that help him bulk up.
 * Secret Character: Tom-Tom, a weird non-human entity with a bunch of free and useful special attacks.
 * Stuck Items: For obvious reasons, underwear and (for female characters) the bottom torso layer can be replaced, but not removed without a cheating device (there's nothing there anyways).
 * Team Shot: The cover. While most of the party members are introduced under the player's control, the doctor on the cover isn't. Thankfully you never see said character's face that well till you get control of him and look as his equipment screen so you won't realize it's.
 * Translation Train Wreck: The box and title include the English phrase "Day of the Idea", which may seem OK out of context but is clearly wrong if you play the game with a knowledge of both languages.
 * Trauma Inn: Played straight. Unlike most jRPGs at the end game you no longer have to use them for MP restoration as one of the character learns a move that restores all of a party member's HP and MP, enabling full recovery for the party anywhere as long as she has enough max MP to cast it twice.
 * Underground Monkey
 * Virtual Paper Doll: One of the game's most notable features. What you wear is actually important at several points, as characters with exposed skin will be attacked by leaches when exploring near the Amazon river, characters not in winter clothing will take damage in snowy areas, you need to crossdress to enter the male and female only towns, during a trip to the Earth's core characters not dressed for the hot environment will be also take damage, and . No NPC will react to the party walking around half-naked however.