No. Just no.
Here's the gyst of the entire game. You just move in. The most popular guy around teaches you how to babble right, babble hard, and do it with a variety of hand gestures and strange looking movements. You jump in a dumpster to find an amp and a guitar. You use them on the popular guy. Know he likes you. You get your own pig sty. Whether you are good at designing or not, you apartment will never be pretty. Your pet will pee everywhere, you and any guest will most likely put whatever food they had on the floor, and your apartment really isn't worth going to for anything. Now you run to one of the local districts. You find yourself in neon Japan. Lots of weird lookin weirdos and a completely neon environment. You think "That's..... Yeah... I'm leaving." Now you go to the skateboarder people district. Here is your common lot of awesome people everybody would like to become. So you walk around and babble the interesting bable with people. Thing is, not even you know what you're saying. It's very difficult to figure out what someone might like because you don't know what they're saying. The more people you become friends with, the more moves you will learn to use on people to get them to like you. However, different people like different things, and since they were smart enough to know we wouldn't be able to know what they like, they color coded the moves. A move highlighted in green will most probably be liked, yellow is nothing, red is angry. Power Socials let you amp up your relationship with a character, but power socials are items, and they are tough to find, so use them wisely and rarely. Unfortunately, running around and clicking on the green words isn't as spectatular as you might think, so you can also buy things or do things. Buying things consists of using Simoleons to exchange for some usually admittedly funny items, such as the Boob Tube(tv) or the Diablo Espresso Machine. Interacting with things you buy isn't really too fun either. You just hit the button, watch the animation and whatever need that item supplies go up, and then go do something else. In the time of today, selecting something and watching it happen in about 5 seconds is not anyone's idea of fun, or a good game. Some of the things that level up yout stats (like strength) such as working out will requrie you to jam X like your life depends on it. It does if this is your favorite game, but otherwise, this gets old pretty quick. Jobs will require you to hit the right button before it cannot be hit. However, almost every job works the same, and they are all easy to do anyway, so still the point or challenge of this game will be missed by many. You need to change your clothes every time you enter a new district, or you will have difficulty making friends. Surprisingly, in a game about socializing and getting your point out to society, this game has a very limited amount of clothing options for each district. There is nothing more to say about the gameplay. You want the whole story? Ok, fine. You will do the above for hours until you get the penthouse and are the most popular person in the city. That's it. Sure each person does have their own personality ( as much as they can have without speech or subtitles ) but they feel very... there's a word for it....wrong. Yup, that's the one. They just don't feel right. It's hard to explain, but for being a game about social interaction, they are way too toned down.
The sound is the most mind numbing junk I've ever heard. Rap in the background, babbling in the foreground. It will make you swallow your tongue.
The graphics are bad. Not terrible, but not good. Sometimes it gets choppy, the character don't look top notch, the environments are in no way good looking.
Replay Value- I didn't even finish the game. Does that say anything? I got about 8 hours in, and then just left the controller for my old friends. Koolaid, Cornchips, Mountain Dew, and Onimusha. I never looked back. Never played the game again.
Overall, this is easily the best way to waste $50 on a brand new copy of this game. Don't even rent it. Not your worth your time. 4.5 out of 10.