STONKS-9800: Stock Market Simulator

This game is impossibly unrealistic. You can actually make money and a beautiful woman will talk to you.

> be me
> dumbass
> "hey its yoshiro, this company's stocks will go up"
> buy said company's stocks
> they go up
> insta sell when they start falling
> profit.jpg
> "you're currently under investigation by le police"
> ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.gif
> lawyer costs a fortune
> jail

10/10 game i will play this on my death bed

This game in many ways finished possibly five or six updates ago, but TERNOX being the chad he is decided to make his dream game come to life with even more updates, addons, in-depth mechanics to essentially build the paradise and subsequent hell of 80's Japan bubble-economy madness.
I say the above as when it was in 'early' early access it already felt rather well built for its release, and had some rougher edges but coming back to it time and time again and finding the new substantial updates has very much made it into a sandbox life-sim that I guess also has stocks as the driving narrative. Buy low, sell high, see the company you've been sailing on plummet to nothing because of terrible management decisions (like real life :0), buy a ♥♥♥♥ car that burns in a horrific fire every six months, have your apartment go the same way, make it all back because another company just soared on the loan you just took out while also winning that blackjack hand you needed--then subsequently have it all get taken away in just one pachinko game.
This game honestly has it all, you can make your fortune on many different markets, whether you're buying metals/oil/property for the long-con, or just riding the stock market on 3x speed hoping to sell at just the right time or hodl as much as you can. The stock market is as gamey or real as you want it to be (I suggest just playing on the realistic settings as it really is the definitive experience). This isn't even mentioning the life-sim aspects of having to manage stress, getting plastered with friends to deal with stress, playing golf with friends to deal with stress, dating Amy to deal with stress (still waiting for that romance update TERNOX DAMN), and the many other city romps that help enhance the image of being a degenerate stock broker in Japan. Now you can marry people too for zaibatsu shenanigans but not AMY YET TERNOX, DAMN.
This isn't even mentioning the whole Yakuza underground aspect where you can make some solid cash before possibly getting killed by same Yakuza because you accidentally sold that stock you were holding for them because of a bad pachinko run.
Anyways, masterpiece of a game. Would buy three times over (already bought it twice here and on GOG) if it means TERNOX is forever chained in the basement making new updates.

Great game, but there are some things that need work. For example, I became the most successful businessman in the world. I bought out many companies in distress, donated loads of money through charity, and hired and trained the brightest minds. In my old company which I created I trained all my employees to near perfect. After the company was successful I resigned as CEO and took a step back. I later created another company, and wanted to hire my old folks from gubo, many of them were not fond of me, after everything I had done to make the former company successful, they had no respect. I suggest that you keep some kind of prestige and respect in my profile and especially when contacting old coworkers, and employees from previous firms that i ran and managed from ground up to a big successful company.

-Be able to manage and create more than one company at a time (2 or 3 would be ideal and fun).
-give the ability to modernize houses you bought as a whole, it was tedious to have to modernize and upgrade every single real estate purchase one by one.

-Allow for more freedom in giving larger salaries. I was not able to give higher salaries to my employees, especially when i gave my new company a budget of 30 trillion, they all kept leaving which was very frustrating.

-perhaps automating the real estate upgrades, or amy could do it if you upgrade her. she could take care of small tasks like repairing your car, upgrading the houses, and buildings you buy.

-include more costs to the company operations such as establishing benefits for employees, severance pay if terminated or layed off, pension plan contributions.

-How about donating to universities, and in return they gear their top students to work for your firm once they graduate.

-Able to buy sports teams, and lobby politics for your own benefit through cash payments.

-Beautifully well done game, I just wish there was more to do once you reach trillion dollar status. I had achieved over 200 trillion, and then that was it.

-and far into the game please allow an option to propose to amy, i was hoping amy would marry me at some point, it was obvious she longed for me (the main character)

Highly Recommended. This game is absolutely fantastic.
In the early stage, you slowly build your fortune through stock trading — every yen counts. You’ll find yourself betting on horse races, playing pachinko, watching every market movement, and managing your relationships carefully.
As long as you catch the stock and real-estate booms before 1989 and 1992 (the years when Japan’s real bubble burst), you’ll get to experience what it truly feels like to be rich.
But later on, everything changes. Money becomes meaningless — just numbers on a screen.
I stopped trading stocks and buying property altogether; my companies were making so much profit every month that I couldn’t even spend it all. I ignored phone calls, went out only with my assistant, and started wasting time on gacha machines (500 yen per spin), even though a single stock trade could easily earn me 500 billion yen.
That’s when I realized — being too rich is actually boring.
Overall, this game perfectly captures the rise and fall of economic ambition.

TL;DR
9/10: Dang making money and hoarding real properties, cars, and artwork is awesome. I also love that assistant Amy. The new girl Sae (the bartender) is pretty good-looking, too. This game really captures the spirit of 1980's Japan, and not just with the third console generation graphics. The only downer is that the game doesn't give enough pointers, and despite the name of the game, the player will be making most of their money through gambling instead of stocks.

Overview

Despite the name Stock Trading Oriented Network and Knowledge Simulator (or simply STONKS-9800) the game primarily isn't about trading stocks. Instead, the player will mostly find themselves going to either the panchinko hall or the racetrack to make lots and lots of yen. The player is well advised to buy stocks once they can afford to wait on making a profit with all of that great inside information. (Or fortunes, if the player was intelligent enough to start the game as a fortune teller.) After amassing enough wealth, the player should start their own non-profit organization so that they'll get some benefit out of money that will otherwise be going to pay taxes. Once the skill-related charity boosts are all purchased, then the player should go ahead and start their own company, and then boost their net worth through stock ownership. (Even if the player chooses to never sell their stocks.) Fun, right?

What's the point of making money if you cannot spend money? There's many types of homes to buy in five different areas, and the player can even choose to live in one if they so wish.


Apart from homes, there's also business properties to purchase to make passive income, artwork (which usually depreciates), and cars. (Which absolutely depreciate.) Despite what happens to artwork and cars, the player is well advised to purchase a lot of both due to numerous achievements to earn.

Graphics and Sound

Both the graphics and the sound are straight out of the third generation of consoles. Fortunately, the player has Amy to look at, which the player will absolutely want to be doing!


Now there's a bartender named Sae to also look out, which isn't quite as likeable to ol' Il Pallino, but dang, anime girls can be so perfect!


The sounds and music are all straight out of the third generation of consoles. The music loop sets the mood, but depending on one's interest (or even tolerance) of game music from the era, the background music can get annoying after awhile.

Positives and Negatives

The reason this category is grouped together, is because in spite of the name Stock Trading Oriented, the player will be making most of their money from gambling. Panchinko is almost a guaranteed payday and horse racing became a bit more difficult to pick the winner after it was modified to have more information to influence the outcome. More than anything, the player seems discouraged from trying to make money from stocks because it can take weeks to buy up all of the remaining shares. (As well as sell all of the remaining shares if the player is trying to cut their losses in a downturn in stock prices.) The important thing is that games are meant to be fun, and making money in STONKS-9800 is hella fun!

What's the point of making money if you can't spend money? The player will be expected to buy themselves a car so that they can drive to business deals or even go out on weekends and holidays if the player's friends all say no. (Amy can offer to keep the player company.) Eventually, the player will need to buy themselves an entire fleet of automobiles just for the sake of earning achievements. (As well as making a grotesque display of wealth.) Housing can also be purchased, which can help the player's mood if the housing is good enough. (After awhile, the player will likely just buy housing so that they can rent out the property, though this earns far less compared to buying out commercial properties.) There's also even art to buy up, which isn't interesting for the most part. (And mostly depreciates in value.) But the player should absolutely amass an art collection for the sake of hunting achievements.

Although the mini game for golf is a nice, casual experience, the game gives no clue to the player as to what they're supposed to be doing in the karaoke mini game (it looks like pressing directional arrows, and sometimes even holding down a directional arrow) and ol' Il Pallino was caught totally off-guard. More than anything, it looks like all of the NPC's in the game are better singers than golfers! Ol' Il Pallino was also caught off-guard the first time it came to making a speech at a stock shareholder's convention. No information was given about how the player should have their fingers concentrated on the "G," "H," and "J" keys. Although the speech mini game is easy enough to do well in (without being perfect) and making a speech can even cause the company's stock value to rise even if the CEO's speech doesn't go over well with shareholders.

For better or for worse, the bar room is a double-edged sword. The player will want to go to do things like get information on horses from Sae, play blackjack against Sae for some pretty cool bonus items, and meet other people. Go to the bar too much, and the player won't be able to decrease their stress as much. Go to the bar way too much, and the player will need treatment for alcoholism, never mind the fact that the player is normally going to go to the bar with an ulterior motive other than getting drunk.

STONKS-9800 doesn't do enough to clue the player in on what they should be doing. Just so the player knows, the player should start with found their own charity after earning enough money. After all of the scholarship upgrades have been purchased, then the player should see about starting their own corporation.

The stats system is interesting. Not only does increasing stats not only drop achievements, but they provide the player with numerous benefits, and they impress Amy!

Conclusion

STONKS-9800 is a strong buy at every price. This is one of the top tier games that involve making money, so go make that money!

The honest word of Il Pallino... OR ELSE!

Follow our curator page, OCG-Curations, if you like and want to see more reviews like this one.

absolute cinema. i think i was meant to be a drunkard japanese businessman in the 80s who gambles billions of yen on horse races every weekend to stay sane