My World, My Way (released in Japan under 世界はあたしでまわってる, The World Revolves Around Me) is an RPG for the DS where you play the role of Princess Elise, the most self-centered girl you will ever meet in your life. She was given anything her heart desired, from the prettiest dresses, to the most exotic pets available. At the age of 15, Elise realized the only thing missing from her life was the perfect boyfriend. Elise tells her father to hold a ball in her honor in the hopes that she will meet her dream prince at the regal event. While at the ball she meets a handsome lad whom she immediately falls in love with. The only thing is, this fellow turns out to not be of royalty, but an adventurer instead. Elise asks the adventurer to take her with him, and for them to be together. The adventurer replies with a remark of disgust against Elise's pampered lifestyle. He says that for any hope of them being together, she must cut her hair, replace her frilly dress with some armory, and go out on an adventure of her own. Being rejected for the first time in her life, she decides it's time to take action. She does as the adventurer tells her to; she cuts her long beautiful hair to shoulder length, puts on some armor she had lying in her closet, and left the castle to gain her own experience in life and become mature in the eyes of her future lover.


What do you do?
Now about what you actually do in My World, My Way. You go from town to town. In each town there's a mayor. The mayor tells you to go kill an "x" amount of a certain beast or collect an "x" amount of a certain item. Once you complete the quest he gives you a gate key so you can advance to the next town. At each gate there's a mini-boss. You then kill this easy boss. After about four towns you go to a dungeon where you fight a medium difficulty boss. Once the dungeon boss is defeated you go to a new town. Rinse and repeat about 3 or four times. Then you win the game.



How do you do it?
While on the main overworld you can choose which location to go to with A, or check the menu(your typical menu, showing status, equip etc.) with B. Once inside a town you have a few choices, you can eat and sleep at the Inn, buy or sell at the armory, buy or sell at the item shop, talk to the fortune teller, or go through the town gate.. If you choose to stay at a town's Inn you can choose to eat something before you rest. What the Inn offers you to eat depends on the location, and each meal has different effects. Eating meals plays an important role in the game as they can raise your stats, give you EXP, or increase your PP. All of this is done on the DS bottom screen. The top screen only shows your current party member stats, as well as the map for whatever area you are currently inhabiting.



In order for the mundane quest from the Mayor to be completed, you simply have to go to the outside fields of the current town you're in and start your hunting. While on the outskirts of town, you have a few actions that you can do. With A you will search the current screen you're in for items or monsters. B will bring up the menu. Y will bring up the Recover menu where you can use healing spells or potions. And finally X will bring up the Pout menu. Pouting is one of Elise's greatest skills, and she adapts it well into her new adventurous life. With Pout you can do a few things, all which will give you a great advantage, these pouts are;

*I hate this area! :: Change the terrain of the current area you are in. This will give you an advantage if you need to find a certain beast or item.
*I Wanna find stuff! :: Use this if you've already wiped an area of its monsters or items. It will practically replenish the terrain.
*The monsters stink! :: Lower or higher monsters levels for the area
*Where're the items?! :: Foes will drop more items
*I hate being poor! :: Foes drop more money
*Gimme more EXP! :: Foes give more exp
*Quests are annoying! :: Instantly complete a quest

Of course, using these pouts takes up your PP points. Using these points wisely before you have to go back to an Inn to replenish them is very important to get through the game without any hassle. Pouting can also be used in battle, although it's effects are different.

Now, battles in MWMW are very Motheresque. You never see your party members. All you see are your foe(s), your commands in a row at the bottom of the screen, and whatever attacks you execute on your enemy. The commands you choose are your typical jRPG options, Attack, Magic, Item, Defend, and Escape. With Elise though, you have the option to pout. When you choose pout, you can choose to put your enemies freeze them in place, silence them, or cause one or more to flee. You can also use pout at the beginning of a battle, which gives you one of three options.



Battle Start :: Begin battle without pouting
Ladies first! :: Guaranteed a first strike
This is annoying! :: Battle ends with no victor.

So battles are pretty straightforward. It's just important that you take your pout skills into consideration, as they can really help you. However, you will have to remind yourself every so often that you even have the pouting skills.

Movement
Just some quick notes on how you move around in MWMW.
Once you get through with the games New File introduction, you'll find yourself on the overworld map, with your first location being Grass Town. You'll also notice that the way you move on the overworld is not your usual jRPG overworld movement. It's more of an overworld menu, where you basically control a stationary animated sprite of Elise and choose which town or location you want to go to. When you're in a town(which by the way are lazily named with the same template; "noun" followed by Town) it's basically the same, except the animated sprite is replaced with a tiny portrait of Elise's face. If you're on the fields outside of a town you will see a full bodied bouncing Elise on the bottom screen waiting for you to give a command, or choose a direction for her to walk. And finally, while you're in a dungeon you will have full control of Elise as you walk around a 3D isometric plane, fighting enemies and collecting items.

My thoughts?
If this were an Eegra five word review, it would be something like Incredibly Cute Loli Is Cute. That's mainly what this game projected to me, cuteness. I liked how the story puts you into a position where you play a girl who is trying to get a guy. Not many games come to mind with the same premise. And the whole time through the game she persists on proving herself as mature in such an adorably bitchy way that you can't help but D'AAAW when you see her(if you're into that sort of thing of course). The biggest flaw is the sheer repetitiveness in the quests you need to complete in order to advance. I can see most gamers just give up or get bored with the tired formula after(or during) the first town because of this. You can definitely sense the laziness of the developers during the game(some monster sprites are even reused from Master of The Monster Lair), but they weren't afraid of poking fun of themselves through Elise's dialogue(with her punching a hole in the fourth wall with comments about how all the NPCs look alike). In order to even complete MWMW you would have to be like me, and allow the cutscenes and Elise's character to be enough motivation for you to push forward. Her conversations with the townsfolk, the sage owl, or even the damn bosses always managed to put a smile on my face. Seeing her bossy ways was enough for me to get masochistic and tell myself to go through another 4 rounds of killing 20 of a certain beast in the most boring way possible so I can defeat another boss with absolutely no reward then to see Elise be happy. Of course no one is as retarded as I am when it comes to their gaming philosophy.

Besides that there isn't much else to say about the game, since all it really has going for it are the cute story and the lovable tsundere Elise. Bottom line? Buy it if you're an ATLUS fan so you can add it to your collection. To the average gamer, or even a die hard jRPG fan, I wouldn't even recommend a rental. This is more of a game you complete in 5 to 10 minutes bursts while sitting on the toilet. That's what this is. A toilet game.