Yogurting JP Finally Shuts its Doors.

I would like to interrupt regular blogging to bring you this article. I did a story on this game when I first started this blog all those years ago, back when the blog was nothing like it is today. Yougurting has been a game that I had followed occasionally for a few years on an on-and-off basis until an IP Ban blocked all foreigners from entering the servers. However I found out recently that the game closed last month, leaving only one version left for people to access (The Thailand version I believe which is also locked to people from the region). I have managed to locate some images of mine which I shall include in this article.

Weapons System

The weapons system allowed you to switch between four different types of weapons, fists, instruments, swords and backpacks. Each of these weapons each had a unique function and a lot of them were based off similar school equipment. You would find that each person had their own tastes into what weapon they preferred to use, such as I preferred to use the fist weapons. However, I did find that the instrument weapons were the most popular, due to their ranged capabilities and the fact that each of them had a special music clip after each of their unique skills, which was unique to the weapon, not the weapon class. Did add for some variety!

Here is an image of some weapons in use against a giant mecha butler.

On the other side of the spectrum, there was an extensive array of uniforms for your characters to wear and mix and match, with these dropping occasionally in the battle field. The annoying thing I found that if you did find a good uniform set, you may find that you could not wear it because you were not a student at the proper school or were the wrong gender (Some of the thumbnail images looked multigender). Still, there was enough variety to not have everyone looking the same, and heck, even if you did look the same, it was a school uniform so…..

My characters appearance during a grade promotion cutscene. In this costumes case, the male had the dog costume and the female had the cat costume.

One World Two Schools

At the beginning of the game, you have to choose which school you would like to attend, you have a choice between the more modern Estiva Academy and the modern, more spooky but pretty Yoizuki Academy. The choice you made in the first few moments, even before choosing your name determined what uniforms you can and cannot wear, the quests you can get, the assistant character you would have and the community you would primarily be working with. Of course, the other school is but a bus away, however you could not transfer to the other school and may not be able to use any of the items gained in the quests there.

The two assistant characters which you could get depending on school you chose (Yoizuki or Estiva). As well, it shows the default uniforms for each of the campus’s.

Some of the many players I met ingame

Community

Okay, this is more a personal note on the community, I found it a very pleasant bunch of people to play with, both the Japanese and the English gamers. I remember each time you would walk into a room the players would all say hello and if they realized that you were an english speaker, I found a fair few said hello in english as well, but I conversed with them in Japanese since at the time I was studying it. I also was part for a short while before the IP Ban, a member of the english guild which was full of helpful people. There was also a close following at the forums http://yogurting.tk/ which at the time, was one of the best resources anyone could hope for, and even after the ban, helped provide workarounds for those who wished to do it.

Monsters

All the enemies were surprisingly cute, especially the boxes, however whenever they appeared they would usually be spammed throughout the level by the end of the mission.

Waiting for a mission to start

The “Gaming” Part to the Game

Okay, so I might have scared you off thinking that this might be something educational, however I would like to make it clear now that this game is entirely mission and fighting based in a school setting. You first have to choose a mission and there was something like 8-12 missions per grade, which allowed you to be promoted after completing all levels and getting to a certain character level. You are then dropped into a small classroom where you wait for party members (Classrooms vary between schools). You basically needed a party at the lower levels since the missions would kill you instantly until you were about ten levels above the recommended level. Once the class leader decided they had enough players, the game started.

ATTACK OF THE HENS!

The missions had a variety of different styles. Some of the missions were:

• Clear a level of the school building of monsters in X Minutes
• Kill all the monsters in a level spammed full of them
• Get from X to Y whilst opening barriers with buttons that require boxes to be placed on them
• Get through a level then defeat a painfully hard boss (For example, the final mission of Grade 1 set you against a giant robot bookcase

There was a variety of mission types and each welcomed party play. Unfortunately I would have posted more images however cannot find them at the moment.

Let there be music!

If you enjoy music in online gaming, I don’t think many games of the time could beat the variety of Yogurting, I got the soundtrack and I had it on loop for a week after getting it. As well, music was a big thing in the promos, as can be seen above and in the video below. Also, the video above shows the giant robot bookcase I mentioned above.

A Final Note….

I really am sad that I was not able to take part in the final years of Yogurting, however I would like to say that I did enjoy playing the game, and it did help me improve my Japanese language, which currently no other Japanese online game has managed to do. I want to thank everyone I met even through I doubt you would remember me, as well as everyone who had made a contribution to the small English community over the years.

Resources to this article come from the Gungho Yogurting Website [yogurting.jp], prior images from the blog and my own collection of images.