Spice and Wolf: My Year With Holo

Spice and Wolf: My Year With Holo (狼と香辛料 ボクとホロの一年, Ōkami to Kōshinryō Boku to Horo no Ichinen? ) is a dating and business simulation game, developed by ASCII Media Works in collaboration with the Spice & Wolf Production Committee. The game was released in Japan on June 26 2008 for Nintendo DS.

Several key players involved in the anime were called in to help production, including the artists who responsible for the graphics and cutscene art of Holo, and Ami Koshimizu who reprised her role as Holo’s voice actor to act out much of the dialogue and sang the game’s theme song, Next To You (隣にいるよ, Tonari Ni Iru Yo).

Story
A spin-off of the main story, the game takes place in an alternative world following the adventures of an original character loosely based on the series’ protagonist Kraft Lawrence. A novice merchant seeking to expand his business, he signs a contract for ownership of a horse-drawn cart which comes with some very unusual conditions. Accordingly, the player is tasked with the job of delivering Holo, a girl with the ears and tail of a wolf, to her hometown whose location she has forgotten.

Gameplay
Gameplay consists of travelling between towns and villages buying and selling goods whilst collecting information about the identity of Holo’s hometown, known only as the “Forest of the Ancient Wolves” (古狼の森, Ko Oinu no Mori), a name which has since fallen out of use over the centuries.

Interspersed with travelling, the player can also collect rumours about money-making schemes and view randomly occurring conversation events with Holo which provide the chance to improve your relationship, a key mechanic in discovering one of three possible locations to clear the game.

Players who clear the game are given the opportunity to start a New Game +, carrying over their experience from the previous round. On unlocking all the endings, a special message recorded by Ami Koshimizu can be viewed.

Additional Content
The game was released on the same day in limited and regular editions. Those who pre-ordered the game (regardless of the version), received a life-sized poster of Holo as a bride, drawn by Jū Ayakura, artist of the original light novels.

The limited edition of the game also came with a replica of Holo’s wheat pouch complete with sound effects, and a CD featuring the main theme re-arranged into slow and karaoke versions.