232. American Dream (C-Dream, Famicom, 1989)

American Dream can best be described as an casino JRPG, though unfortunately here casino is limited to slot machines, and JRPG is limited to a world map with random encounters. Published by Coconuts Japan, who mostly produced pachinko simulators. American Dream opens with a nice lady saying, basically: "here's $1,000, but I need $900 for this helicopter to take you to Brooklyn." So then you land in Brooklyn's grassy plains with $100 to your name and have to gamble your way to greatness across New York City. You do have to find a passport before they let you in to the casino, which was a weird bit of progress-impeding design.

Around the JRPG-style world map, you can get into random gambling encounters, most of which seem to end in you losing money (I checked with save states and consistently lost no matter my choices). You can also have positive encounters, like finding some money on the ground. Speaking of save states, this game would be excruciating without them (and is not super exciting even with them).

Once you are in a casino (the only buildings you can actually enter), there are a bunch of identically designed rooms with different dollar amounts. here you can convert your money into chips and gamble to your heart's content. At least there are a few different kinds of slot machines, compared to some of the pachinko games I've played that only have one machine. 

I actually got a little better understanding for how real slot machines work, though they are still my least favorite kind of gambling. American Dream does make you hold down on the d-pad to pull the lever on the slot machines which is a nice touch. I turned my $100 into a little over $3,000 abusing save seats until I got too bored of staring at slot machines.

2/5, a slot-machine based adventure game set in a weird version of New York City