What is DCC?

Dream C Club (ドリームクラブ; Dorimu Shii Kurabu) or DCC for short, is a franchise of "dating/hostess club sim" style games (with the exception of Mahjong★Dream C Club; which is more like a card game but with Japanese rules mahjong, and Host Girls on Stage; which is just a modified version of the karaoke mini-game.) It is developed by Japanese game developer Tamsoft Corporation and published by D3 Publisher, Inc (a subsidiary of Bandai Namco Holdings.) The producer of the franchise is Nobuyuki Okajima (岡島信幸).

Japanese dating sims are usually wacky and/or hentai. Dream C Club in general is no exception and uses a combination of this (the hentai parts are mostly in the conversational dialog though with various innuendo), set to a hostess club environment as the background for the real objective of the game; to get the player to spend real money on virtual DLC items (in the form of cosmetic items and songs.) Sure, there is the game objective of getting a happy ending with each host girl (to unlock the VIP room), but the ulterior motive with all DCC games is to entice the player to purchase DLC's. Since the question will inevitably come up, none of the games that run on official firmware have any sort of nudity in them. There are some modified versions that run on custom firmware consoles which have had some of the DLC costumes edited to create said effect.

The developer has actually done a good job at giving each hostess their own simple back stories and personalities to go along with the artwork and their associated character songs. And while it may not seem like it, the game has a high amount of re-playablity even if one has managed to get all the main achievements/trophies since it is possible to collect a large amount of in-game items that are meant to be given as gifts to the hostesses (some of them being key items which leads to specific endings). DLC accessories purchased are global to all hostesses but items acquired in-game and given to a specific hostess, are only usable by that girl. The same goes for events that unlock specific things (like all the hair arrangement ones and certain costumes); those need to be done for each specific host girl. See the Gameplay Guide section for more details (currently a work-in-progress.)

There is no open/free play mode which means that once an "years time" has passed in-game, you get kicked back to the start of the game (where you have to start over with each hostess in terms of increasing their impression). Fortunately, present items, in-game currency, DCC points, alcohol level, and stars earned for each girl are all retained on your club membership card. Thus it is possible to employ different strategies when playing (like some folks may choose to primarily build up a huge amount of currency which has a cap of ¥999999, to build up their alcohol tolerance level (max level 10), unlock songs for karaoke, unlocking each girls profile data, etc before attempting each happy ending scenario.)

The game was originally an Xbox 360 exclusive released in August 2009 and called Dream C Club. A followup with three new hostesses (Asuka, Haruka, and Nonono) was released in January 2011 and called Dream C Club Zero on the Xbox 360. All Xbox 360 versions are region locked which means you need a Japanese version of the console or one that has been JTAG modded. All PlayStation versions are not region locked (you only need a Japanese PSN account if you plan on purchasing DLC's or in the case of Host Girls on Stage, want to be able to download it for free and to also get its DLC's.)

Dream C Club was ported over to the PlayStation Portable in October 2009 and called Dream C Club PORTABLE. A PlayStation Vita version called Dream C Club Zero Portable was released in December 2011. PlayStation 3 owners however expressed their desire for the game to be brought to their console; D3 Publisher obliged and released the PS3 version of Dream C Club as Dream C Club Complete Edipyon! in November 2012. The PS3 version of Dream C Club Zero was released as Dream C Club Zero Special Edipyon! in January 2013. Dream C Club Gogo is the latest in the series with all new hostesses and songs; it was released in April 2014 for the PS3. There currently are no full versions of these games for the PS4 and Xbox One.

Note: The events of Dream C Club Zero (Xbox 360), Dream C Club Zero Portable (PS Vita) and Dream C Club Zero Special Edipyon (PS3) precede the original game by 5 months and contains extra events (these are the versions to get for the most content).

The reason it's a prequel is the games producer jokingly responded to numerous inquiries whether there would ever be a Dream C Club 2 by saying, "there would never be a Dream C Club 2" sequel. So this is why the follow on game was called Dream C Club Zero (0 preceding 1 aka the first version) with events preceding the original version. It's also why the latest game, Dream C Club Gogo is referred to as the sequel to Dream C Club (and not Dream C Club Zero.) No one really knows if the original 13 host girls will see any sort of role in future Dream C Club games.

All of the properties (with the exception of some English text in Dream C Club PureClock Amane) are Japanese language only.