Am I disappointed that I can't produce Azusa? Yes. Am I lamenting some of the gameplay changes? Yes. Does this mean Im@s2 has to be a bad game? No.
The thing is, Im@s is changing, and it's inevitable that it will lose its appeal to certain members of the fanbase. But when you're changing the game like this... I feel like a broken record... FOR A SERIES TO STAY ALIVE AND FRESH IT MUST CHANGE. Be disappointed by the changes, sure, and based on the very fact it's changing will cause some people to no longer be a part of the fanbase. This is normal, this happens, accept it, it's a fact. It can happen to you, that's just how things go.
But, if you've got any shred of a gamer in you, any part of fandom left alive, you should be able to give it an honest critique that isn't just colored by the fact that it's changed, but rather how those changes were executed. When you get right down to it,
it might kill your appeal to the game, but does it actually kill the game itself? It might not be something you're in to, but it can still be a good game.
I want to stress here that the reason I think we can only produce 9 idols is because that's a manageable number to actually make a game for. Whatever you might think about the people making these games, they've got limitations. They've got to make decisions. They've only got so many resources to use. I can understand this decision, and I don't think it's something they did specifically for... whatever evil reasons one could think of. If they didn't have to make this decision, I don't think they would have.
Although... with all that said, I don't know if American and Japanese opinions differ, and it might be a small set of people, but...
http://forum.project-imas.com/index.php/topic,420.msg15599.html#msg15599Excluding Haruka, who's the main character, check the second list and look who's at the bottom of the popularity list.
