I’m a big advocate of game preservation. I’m always happy to see an older, obscure title being released again for new audiences to enjoy. Milano’s Odd Job Collection brings an untranslated Japanese game to international audiences. However, I can’t help but feel that this game could have benefited from more changes to the source material to make it more enjoyable in 2025.
Obscurity
One sad fact about media releases in general is that some never make it outside their country of origin, meaning that not everyone can enjoy them. More often than not, this is due to a lack of translation into English. Gaming, especially in the nineties and early noughties, had a lot of these titles. This gave rise to fan translations of popular titles, but not all were that lucky. One such game that never made it outside of Japan is Milano’s Odd Job Collection. Originally released on PS1 in 1999, it became a niche game sought after by collectors to complete their collections and increased in value. The last eBay sale I found for this game was for an eye-watering 385 dollars.
But if you were aware of this game, there’s no need to worry. As of 9 December, there is another legal way to play it, as XSeed Games have republished this 26-year-old game, marking Milano’s English-language debut. So, what is Milano’s Odd Job Collection, and is it worth playing? Let me try to answer both questions clearly.
Summer Break
School’s out for summer! The summer holidays are about to start, and Milano has two months to enjoy her break. Unfortunately, her mother is in hospital and her father is too busy at work, so she has to go and live with her uncle. There’s just one small problem: her uncle is also on holiday! For the next forty days, Milano will have to fend for herself, so she decides that the best course of action is to get a job and earn some money. She goes all in and gets eight different jobs to choose from, all presented in the form of a short minigame. You can choose from the following tasks:
- Dishwashing at the local Chinese restaurant.
- Milking flying cows at the local farm.
- Preparing meals in a fast food restaurant.
- Baking pastries in a block-connecting minigame for the baker.
- Delivering pizzas by scooter.
- Curing sick aliens at the hospital.
- Picking fruit at the orchard.
- Perform songs at a concert.
But work is only a means to an end. The game is split into two parts: The workday and the evening. After each day, you can relax in your uncle’s house. You can do household tasks such as washing up, feeding his cat, watching TV, drinking tea and cooking. You might say that this gives the game a cosy feel.
The money you earn from working can be spent on new items with which to decorate the house, making your uncle’s living space increasingly your own. You could buy a new TV set, some plants or a radio. Save up, spend, and use a free day to decorate. Repeat until summer is over. That is the gameplay loop of Milano’s Odd Job Collection.
Replayable or repetitive?
I had fun with Milano’s Odd Job Collection at first. Admittedly, not all mini-games are created equal. Dishwashing, for example, was one of the most frustrating gaming experiences I’ve had in the last year. I failed every time I tried it. Failing at a minigame can be very frustrating because you don’t receive any rewards for completing it, meaning you have to look at your new fancy piece of furniture for at least an in-game day longer. Most of the time, I eventually gravitated towards the baking game because I could complete it in under twenty seconds. This made it low risk and high reward.
The evening sections weren’t that long either. Unless you’re decorating. An in-game day can take under five minutes. This made the overall experience feel repetitive really quickly. Perhaps this is a sign of ageing in a world where indie games are now so well represented.
I also struggled with the game’s overall presentation. Modern-day conveniences like a rewind feature and save states are present in this new version. But wouldn’t it have been a great opportunity to make it widescreen with improved graphics too? To be fair, I played the Switch version for this article, and the pixel art still looks great, but some in-game moments, especially cutscenes, look pretty rough. If I hadn’t already known that this game didn’t have an original English release, I would have thought it was still using the original PS1 audio files.
I don’t want to be too hard on Milano’s Odd Job Collection. I think game preservation is an important topic, and every new release of an older game is important in preventing it from disappearing into obscurity. However, if you’re going to the effort of porting an older title, why not go the extra mile and give it the upgrade it deserves?
Conclusion
Milano’s Odd Job Collection brings the 26-year-old game to an international audience for the first time. It’s a mix of eight mini-games and evening activities, offering a cosy gaming experience where you can decorate your living space and perform household tasks. It’s a shame that the minigames are so short because the five-minute in-game days make the game repetitive really quickly. The rerelease also deserved a bit more attention, as the audio and video design, especially during cutscenes, sometimes look rough and dated. Nevertheless, this new release makes the game much more widely available, as it can now be played on PC, PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox and Switch. There is even a Nintendo Switch 2 patch in development. So, if you’re curious, you can spend €15 and see if this collector’s holy grail is truly worth $385. (Spoiler alert: no game is…)
