Milano’s Odd Job Collection

Some games from the late ’90s return as curiosities, appreciated mainly by retro enthusiasts. Milano’s Odd Job Collection is not one of them. Originally released in 1999 in Japan under the name Milano no Arubaito for the PlayStation 1, the game makes its worldwide debut more than two decades later, lovingly rebuilt using Implicit Conversions’ Syrup Engine and fully localized by XSEED Games. This new release includes full English text, English voice acting and modern quality-of-life opti...

Milano’s Odd Job Collection is a charming game that is basic and straight to the point. Do a bunch of mini-games as jobs to earn money, then spend that money on decorating the house or learning recipes.

We don’t know what we’ve done to deserve it, but we’re living in charmed times for retro re-releases.

As its name implies, Milano's Odd Job Collection is an odd game. On one hand, it succeeds in its goal of localizing a game from 1999 for modern audiences. However, due to its age, certain elements of its design, such as the repetitive gameplay and a lack of variety in extra content, can often create an experience that is more tedious than fun. For only $15, though, and considering its importance in preserving an older title, these issues are somewhat negligible. If you're a fan of life sim ga...

Sometimes, I wonder if people would have better lives if we just let nostalgia remain nostalgia. We, as a species, love to wax poetic on the good old days, on how things used to feel and taste and smell. Some of it is fairly relevant: I haven’t seen an actual night sky since The OC was on the air, and The Pirates of Dark Water remains a top tier Western animation. But going back to some of the shows, movies and games of my childhood remind me they aren’t actually that spectacular, just a ...