28.11.10 / Japanese, Konami, Nintendo DS, Otome game, Romance game, Tokimeki Memorial, Video game / Author: Kina / Comments: (3)
Tags: aizawa shougo, girl's side 3rd story, novelist, ruka, tokimeki memorial
You know I’m supposed to be going after novelist Aizawa Shougo in this route, right? You know that, don’t you? DON’T YOU, RUKA?!!
So why do you always have to ruin everything? Why do you always have to get in my way?! Damn you! Damn you!!!!!
Well… Okay, it was my fault a bit I guess. I missed a lot of Ruka CGs on his route because I spent much of it in a 3P relationship with Kou. So I tried to make up for it by befriending Ruka a bit so I could see them. It worked, but maybe it worked a little too well, because even though I got all of the Aizawa’s triggers and even got his save icon, on graduation day it was Ruka who showed up at the church. Like, whatever.
Turning him down was very satisfying though. He gives you a little “I will survive” speech and leaves, never to be seen again. If only I could carry this over to my next game and never see him again, heh heh heh.
And now I am very definitely sick of TMGS3, so I’m going to concentrate my energies on finishing Radiant Historia and possibly on starting something new after that, we’ll see.
08.11.10 / Japanese, Konami, Nintendo DS, Otome game, Romance game, Tokimeki Memorial, Video game / Author: Kina / Comments: (12)
Tags: aizawa shougo, GameFAQs, girl's side 3rd story, hazuki, kenta, konno, kouichi, oosako, ruka, taira, tokimeki memorial
Ta-daa! Secret character No.1, Taira Kenta! Taira is a rather shy, awkward boy in your class whose confession you can only get by following a very specific series of events. Miss one and it’s good-bye to love.
Fortunately enough the steps are easy enough to follow and several of them are automatic so you know you’re on the right track. I got my info from Gamefaqs, but GF threads are known to disappear, so I’ll just reproduce the steps here so you can get him if you want. Remember, you can’t get him on your first playthrough, only subsequent ones.
1st Year
April 4th (04/04) – First Day of School
Before you meet Mr Oosako, the teacher, you need to touch him in class once. He’s the one with the “x” on his back on 
the far right hand side of the touch screen. See picture on the right. After you meet Mr Oosako, you need to touch him again. He’ll then introduce himself…and get teased by his friends.
June 13th (06/13), Sports Day
During the folk dance, after you’re done dancing with all 3 or so of the main characters, he is the guy in the background dancing with the other girl. Touch him.
December 7th (12/07), Exams
Automatic Event.
December 12th (12/12)
Automatic Event, follow up from Dec 7th.
February 13th (02/13), Valentine’s Day
As you’re leaving school, you will hear Taira being teased by his friends about Valentine’s Day. He’s the guy in front of the shoe box near the center of the touchscreen. Touch him.
2nd Year
April 5th (04/05), First Day of School
Automatic event.
June 12th (06/12), Sports Day
Just like in the first year, you need to touch him after you’re done dancing with all the main characters.
September 13th, School Trip to Hokkaido
The bus scene, on the very first day. You need to touch the guy in front of the bus near the center of the touch screen.
October 1st
December 1st
January 8th
On the first two dates above, he will ask you to walk home with him after school. Say yes. On the third date, you can choose to ask him to walk home with you. You have to choose to, otherwise you’ll miss him.
February
Automatic event. You may need Rose Queen parameters (130 or more in everything) to trigger this, not sure.
3rd Year
April 4th (04/04), First Day of School
Automatic event.
June 11th (06/11), Sports Day
Touch him after you’re done dancing with the main characters.
October 30th (10/30), Preparation for Culture Festival
You need to have Rose Queen parameters going INTO this period to trigger Taira’s Culture festival event. 
Prepare with him for the play. Choose the Culture Festival event every single day, then enjoy the cute CG! Btw, you have to get chosen as Rose Queen to get his ending, so stay on top of your stats and make sure no guys detest you.
December 1st
After Mr Oosako’s little speech, you will see the same background as you did first year Valentine’s Day (in front of shoe boxes, leaving school). He’s the same guy in front of the shoe box. Touch him and there is a conversation event.
If you complete all of the above, you should get Taira’s save icon, and you should be in the clear.
The jury’s still out on whether getting any of the main guys to Tokimeki mode will override Taira’s ending, but just to be on the safe side, try to avoid going on too many dates with the other guys. It might be a bit hard because once your stats start to rise, the other guys start to like you even without you doing anything. To worsen matters, I was aiming for Rose Queen so I decided to be nice to everyone – buying them birthday presents, walking them home after school, etc.
After a while Ruka suddenly decided he was in love with me and started asking me out on dates. Geez, Ruka, haven’t you had enough? If it was Konno or Kou asking me out I’d have been in real trouble, but Ruka was easy enough to turn down. Oh, but I finally figured out why his grades are so skewed. It turns out he read all the textbooks cover to cover because he was bored in class. That makes exams easy for him. Math, he’s just good at math, but reading the textbook doesn’t help him in Japanese, which is why he always gets terrible grades in that. Well, that’s better than Hazuki randomly falling asleep, I guess.
I spent all of yesterday working on the Taira ending instead of playing more Radiant Historia. I don’t know about that game…wait, mustn’t make another of my snap judgments. Anyway, since I wasn’t dating and rarely went shopping on the Taira route, I had many more days to work on my stats, so they were ridiculously high by the end. Over 200 for everything! Naturally I decided to go to a 1st-class university at the end, only to find out that Taira only got into a 2nd-class uni. Oh no, poor Taira. With him in another school and me and Konno together in one place…tut tut, it’s all over for you, dear boy. 
I also took the chance and started the route for another secret character, the novelist Aizawa Shougo. But this time I’m really going to play Radiant Historia, so the report on cranky old Aizawa will have to wait till later. See ya!
06.11.10 / Japanese, Konami, Nintendo DS, Otome game, Romance game, RPG, Tokimeki Memorial, Video game / Author: Kina / Comments: (0)
Tags: arashi, girl's side 3rd story, junpei, konno, kouichi, oosako, ruka, shitara, taira, tokimeki memorial
Finally! I’ve gone through all the standard guys in the game and gotten their ending! I’m feeling very satisfied now, I’m not sure why.
Well well, Sakurai Ruka huh? I believe I’ve referred to him as a slimebag and a borderline criminal in the past, but I take those words back now. He’s not such a bad guy at all. The Sakurai brothers just act tough to begin with but when you get to know them they’re really very sweet.
Ruka’s route was far less boring than, say Arashi’s or Shitara’s, but the boy himself didn’t move me. As befitting the main character, though, all his CGs were great. I only wish I’d gotten more of them, but what’s why these kinds of games have so much replay value. You get some fun events on his route too, like the school trip where you and Ruka and Kou sneak out to eat crabs and get caught by Himurocchi, and so on.
Ruka himself…well, he’s a decent kid. He starts out friendly to begin with, but it’s a friendly flirtatiousness designed to prevent anyone from coming too close. Once you get under his skin and he falls in love with you, he’s much more honest and forthcoming and I like that Ruka much better. I’ll put him third behind Kou and Konno because while I like him, in general those sensitive “boo hoo, I’m afraid to love because I’ve already lost so much boo hoo” guys always piss me off. Give me Konno or Kou any day.
And you know, the game did give me Kou! For no reason at all! I don’t know what I did but by third year Kou was in love with me and asking me out on dates and stuff! Okay, okay, maybe I did give him handmade chocolate that one time, and I did give him birthday presents twice, but that was it! Honest!
He’s a bad brother, seriously. How dare you fall in love with your little brother’s girlfriend! And how dare she accept your dates and go out with— *gulp* So! Anyway! Thanks to that, I got a three-way relationship by accident! You’ve heard of those, right? If you raise Ruka-Kou/Konno-Shitara/Arashi-Junpei’s affection to similar levels, you start being able to hang out with them together! Go on dates together, walk home together, and there are plenty of joint CGs you can’t get unless you do the triangle relationship. Because I was doing a three-way at a time, I got a joint CG for the school play, which was Romeo and Juliet with a twist and sooooo funny! I’m grinning just remembering it .
Eventually I felt a little guilty, so I turned Kou down a few times and before I knew it the three-way option was gone. After that I just had to work on my stats for the next few months and then get the Ruka ending! Yay! I’d like to go back and do a three-way sometime, but there’s still a couple of character endings to get, starting with Oosako’s…I really don’t want to do him. Starting with Taira then, but not just yet.
Up next, Radiant Historia is out! It sounds like a cross between Chrono Trigger/Cross (travel to the past to change the present) with hints of Stella Deus (world being swallowed up) and people say it looks like Radiata Stories, which I’ve never played.
I’m a sucker for lovely dreamy cover art like that, so I’ve been waiting a long time for this to come out! Plus I watched the trailers and the battle system looks like it’s turn-based (I hate Action RPGs), but not a bland “just mash X” kind of system, so it’ll keep me on my toes. Not to mention the promise of multiple endings means there’ll be lots of replay value,I hope! Time to play!
02.11.10 / Japanese, Konami, Nintendo DS, Otome game, Romance game, Tokimeki Memorial, Video game / Author: Kina / Comments: (0)
Tags: girl's side 3rd story, girls’ side, junpei, karen, konno, kouichi, miyo, ruka, tokimeki memorial
Konno-sempai is mine at last, tra la la la! I thought he would be harder than that, but I just used my usual method and it worked out fine. I identified Academics as his most important stat and raised it like crazy, and then I raised all the other stats normally and got him in the end. I had something like Ac – 238, Sp – 160, Soc – 260 etc, etc by the end, but since I didn’t raise my Charm that high, I wasn’t elected Rose Queen. Doesn’t matter though, ‘cos I got to be in the school play twice, first with Konno as my prince and then with Miyo and Karen (who looks spiffy as a prince, TMGS4 really needs a girl-girl option).
My verdict on Konno? His route actually blew me away. The guy himself is on the dull side, but he’s a kind, decent, hardworking and respectful character without being a complete milquetoast like Sakuya in GS1. Even on the worst of dates he never gets nasty or snippy with you or tries to order you around. I mean, this is a guy who spends his Christmas Eve playing Santa for little kids in hospital! He’s like the model boyfriend, right?
Even better, his route appeals to the overachiever in me because even in games I hate getting bad results in exams. On Konno’s route you can study like crazy and get praised for it. Remember how Madoka in GS1 would get all cool towards you if you were too smart? I hated that. Konno’s end is good too: you both go to a first class university and keep dating, and with a stable guy like that, you might as well vote this “Ending most likely to end in a Wedding and Four Kids.” It’s an ending with a future, catch my drift?
More importantly, for some reason all his CGs are really easy to unlock. I mean, really easy, you just walk around town, bump into someone and bam, new CG. Or you go on a date, pick a certain store and bam, new CG. For most other guys you often need a FAQ: “Spring, Year 2, Affection must be XYZ, Go to store X and do YYY while holding ZZZ and singing AAA”, obscure stuff like that. I got all his school CGs except one, all his love CGs except one and all his (that other one) CGs, again except one. And I love getting CGs, so Konno’s path was the most satisfying for me so far.
On the minus side, he really is a bit of a bore. I mean, just a bit. They went a little overboard on the Mr. Perfect Guy thing (did I mention he’s totally hot without the glasses?), so even his attempts at angst and depth – the whole “nobody really sees me for who I really am” bit – come across as a bit shallow and empty. And since he’s your senior you don’t get to compete with him on grades and you don’t get to go on the school trip with him, which is a bit sad. But he’s still a breath of fresh air from gruff old Kouichi or weird Ruka or playboy Junpei so I’ll take him any day.
What’s next? I’m trying to find some detailed FAQs or walkthroughs because I want those secret characters! I ran into one at the bookstore, some old-looking guy, I’m sure there’s at least one or two others. And I hear you can date your teacher, which I do NOT want to do. I mean, that’s just wrong on so many levels! And he’s not even cute. Anyway, the search continues!
02.11.10 / Japanese, Konami, Nintendo DS, Otome game, Romance game, Tokimeki Memorial, Video game / Author: Kina / Comments: (0)
Tags: fujiyama arashi, girl's side 3rd story, karen, kouichi, miyo, oosako chikara, ruka, tokimeki memorial
Bwahahaha! All your Fujiyama Arashi are belong to me! Mwaha!
He was a piece of cake. Since there were no guides or wikis out when I started, I had to go with my gut, and my gut told me that the sporty guys are always the easiest to get. You just work your sports stat up as high as it will go, keep the rest of your stats up (everything was at least 130 by the end) and date him regularly until he’s all over you. Oh, and join the judo club when he asks you to. I also chose to work at the Habataki Pool where he also works, which was kind of fun.
Sad thing is, unlike Shiba from TMGS2, Arashi didn’t do it for me at all. I don’t like his stupid hair or his dorky face, his voice is blah, almost nothing happens with the sports club, you almost never get to see him blush, his sense of fashion is boring and repetitive, etc, etc, over and over again. I got him because he was easy, but I’m not satisfied!
Unfortunately I’m also not satisfied with most of the rest of the game. Most of it is because I replayed TMGS1 extensively last year, so a lot of the locations and events in the game are very familiar to me. I should have let at least two years pass between replays, because after the first year the whole thing was one giant snoozefest.
Much has been made of the two princes you get to woo in this game, but in my humble opinion…they’re both dicks. When I compare their assholish lines and behaviors to dear, sweet Kei Hazuki in the first game, ahh, what a difference. He was a little cold in the beginning, but he was a really cool, decent character. Saeki Teru was a serious dick too, but at least he wasn’t a borderline crook like Kouichi and Ruka in this game. These guys are slimeballs.
Having said that, I can kind of see myself going for Kou. He reminds me a lot of Shiba in terms of being mean-looking but probably sweet when you soften him up. Near the end of my game I somehow found him liking me (gotta pinpoint the stats he’s attracted to and go for him), plus I know his tastes are rock-and-roll and motorbikes, so it shouldn’t be too hard to date him. He showed up three whole times at my workplace to sneer at me and by the end I was thinking “Oooh, just wait till I get my hands on you!!” Ruka’s just a creep though, so forget about him. Sakuraaaaaiiii!
Other last impressions: I really like what they did with the girl friends in this game. I hated the two-faced, backstabbing bitches in the previous two installments. “Hey, we’re friends, right?” “Right, until I want to get my sticky hands on your man that is.” I really hated them. In my game I got to be friends with Miyo and Karen, who is totally a lesbian, and you get to hang out with them and have sleepovers and stuff, call them on the phone, make Valentine’s chocolate together, etc, etc. It’s a lot of fun and they seem to genuinely like you, which is really cool. I just wish there was a second pair of friends you could get, that would be even better. Btw, Room #6 is really cool, I want it.
Last thought: Your class teacher is GROSS. Even his name is gross, Oosako Chikara. Sounds like a fish or something. He looks all of 12 years old, his voice is weird and you don’t even get to date him so I don’t know what he’s in the story for. What were the Japanese thinking?! I can’t wrap my mind around this one.
Gotta go, I’m going to play something else for a while and then come back to get Kou later on. He WILL be mine!
