15.06.11 / Japanese, Konami, Romance game, Sony PSP, Video game / Author: Kina / Comments: (0)
Tags: itsuki maeda, tokimeki memorial, tokimeki memorial 4
As I’d predicted, the sporty girl was incredibly easy to get. I joined the soccer club and worked on my exercise stat. I also took her to the stadium to watch soccer matches and took her to the “recommended” date spots whenever they opened up. Itsuki likes anything active, so the pool, the beach and the bowling alley were good as well.
Itsuki’s a sweet girl, in the cliched sporty tomboy kind of way. Like sports, lives with dad and brothers, dresses and acts boyish, blushes heavily when she likes you, drags you from place to place at the school festival, etc etc. Nothing unexpected or untoward. She was mine before the second year was up.
And not just her, but most of the other girls at least liked me by the end of the game. I raised all my skills like crazy, which somehow made me utterly irresistible. I even ended up getting chocolate from 7 of them on the final Valentine’s Day. Maki Hoshikawa in particular was only one or two steps away from tokimeki by the final year. I made a second save so I could dump Itsuki and get Maki’s ending instead without having to do her whole route, but now that I think of it, she deserves better. I’ll give her a proper go.
I’ll also do all the other girls in turn (ho. ho.) except the following:
1. Haru. Nothing against her but reading her diary entries gave me a serious case of the yawns. So you want to become a pâtissier, big deal. One vapid, brainless high school girl (Yanagi) is enough for me.
2. Elisa D. Naruse. Daughter of two naturalized weeaboos. I don’t have a problem with that, in fact it’s rather cute. But I can’t live with that backwater Miyagi dialect she speaks. Trashing Miyagi Prefecture may be low in light of what happened there recently, but I’ll come right out and stay it: their accent sounds like shit.
3. Miyako. I’ve watched, played and read a lot of series, and she is hands down the most unfriendly childhood “friend” I have ever encountered. What’s more, I strongly suspect her of pulling a fast one with my allowance. A measly 8 rich raise over three years? Really, Miyako? Really? The real deal-breaker, though, is that she hit me at the start of the game. We all called Saeki an abuser when he hit the MC in TMGS2, and rightly so. So why should Miyako get away with it just because she doesn’t have a penis? Start saying things like “crazy is cute” and “yanderes are great” and it will be you in handcuffs 10 years from now because your crazy girlfriend broke her own nose and told the police you did it. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
4. Satsuki-sempai. Ehh, I dunno. Yamato Nadesico types bore the crap out of me (like Ex-Lax, but worse) so unless she’s going to turn into a raging temptress once she melts a little, there’s nothing in this for me. But on the other hand I would like to join the Student Council and try to get by without a part-time job. Hmm. Okay, I’ll save her for last and then decide.
12.06.11 / Japanese, Konami, Romance game, Sony PSP, Tokimeki Memorial, Video game / Author: Kina / Comments: (0)
Tags: jeanne d'arc, tokimeki memorial, tokimeki memorial 4
I was hoping to have Jeanne d’Arc finished by now, but I’ve been too busy fighting Free Battles and binding Skills instead of progressing the story, so I haven’t gotten very far. The Human Barbeque scene is long over, and it played out like I’d predicted ~_~. Right now I’m fighting reapers while slowly learning who the real bad guys are. My last game ended at the start of the Luxuria battle.
I’ve never played it before, but I’m estimating I’m at the 3/4th mark, because that’s the point where things always start to fall apart for me. Not that I’m sick of Jeanne d’Arc or anything. Au contraire, I’m having a blast. It’s just that the flush of the new has worn off, I’ve gotten used to the good stuff and slowly the not-so-good stuff is starting to bother me juuuust a teeny little bit.
For example, I’ve fallen into a gameplay rut. My party is largely finalized (Jeanne, Gilles, Marcel, La Hire and Richard, with Colet and Beatrix as subs) and they are pretty strong so a bit of complacency is setting in. There are lots of skills around, but most of them are useless, especially given the tiny number of slots, so my skills are finalized as well. Unless something wonderful comes my way, only upgrades I see myself making are updated versions of current equips, e.g. HP Recovery III instead of II, etc. So since I use the same party and the same skills, it’s only natural that the battles feel the same after a while. It’s not just Jeanne d’Arc, this happens to me a lot in other SRPGs as well.
Little things like frequent loading screens and enemies taking their time thinking before they move are also dragging down the experience a bit. Again this has been present from the start, I was just too excited to be bothered by them at first.
The story is also dragging on a bit for me. From the start I was mainly interested in who would get burned at the stake. Stuff that’s happening now with possession and evil royals and kings with mommy-issues and stuff is barely enough to elicit a yawn from me. I don’t care how it ends, but luckily the battles are still fun enough to keep me moving on. As far as SRPGs go, it’s one of the better ones I’ve played so far.
In other news, I seem to be relapsing into my old habit of starting a new game when I’m about to finish another and then abandoning the old for the new. Jeanne d’Arc supplanted Saigo no Yakusoku no Monogatari, and now Tokimeki Memorial 4 is threatening to take Jeanne‘s place. Only it’s not that interesting so far, so I’ve been able to keep the change at bay for now.
I love proper dating sims (i.e. not visual novels) but the girls I’ve seen so far in TM4 all look rather homely. And they have near-identical faces, unlike in TMGS or even the original TM. I hope they have unique, likeable personalities to make up for it, or this isn’t going to take very long. It would be a pity though, because the game interface is beautiful. The DS TMGS games don’t come anywhere near the level of polish this game displays. I’m like a country mouse that just went to the city, playing . Too bad there’s more to making fun games than just graphics, eh?
But really, I only just started. I’m only about a “month” into the game. It’s more complex than GS – a few more stats to raise, your cellphone battery dies if you make too many phone calls, there are all kinds of items and skills to juggle, etc. I’m planning to use my first run to get a general feel for it, then I’ll spend subsequent playthroughs actually getting a girl. Usually the sporty character tends to be the easiest, so I’m raising my sports stats as well, just in case. More updates on the story as they occur.
22.01.11 / Japanese, Konami, Nintendo DS, Otome game, Romance game, Tokimeki Memorial, Video game / Author: Kina / Comments: (2)
Tags: amanohashi, girl's side 3rd story, himuro, oosako, tokimeki memorial, wakaouji
Oosako returned to the wild! I so don’t want him. I put off doing his route as long as I could, and then once I started I rushed through it as quickly as possible just to see the ending. Unlike everyone else’s ending, his doesn’t take place in the church. It takes place on the beach, and instead of him confessing, you confess to him. Then he’s like “Eh, all right, fine.” And you jump on him and that’s it. I wasn’t expecting much so I can’t call it a letdown but still, meh.
What if despite all this you want to get Oosako? He’s pretty easy if you’ve played the games a few times and know how to go about becoming Rose Queen and winning the Sports Festivals:
1. Fail three subjects in your first exam. It’s easy, just don’t raise any stats when you start the game.
2. You’ll have remedials with Oosako.
3. After that raise your stats till you’re first in class to get another scene.
4. Along the way, let your stress get high and you’ll get an event where he lends you a book.
5. Take part in and win an event in all 3 Sports Festivals.
6. Never miss a day of preparation for the Culture Festivals. You should get an event with Oosako every year.
7. During the trip to Hokkaido, turn your friend down when she asks you to take part in the pillow fight. You should get an event with Oosako by the elevator.
8. Last, but not least, be sure to become Rose Queen in your third year.
If you do all that you should get Oosako pretty easily. Make absolutely sure you don’t date any other guy in the process, because every other guy’s ending takes precedence over Oosako’s.
Till the end Oosako’s kiddy looks (fans might call them “boyish good looks”), screechy voice and cheesy lines of encouragement never grew on me, but I’ll give him credit where credit is due: at least he’s decent enough not to date his student while she was his student. As much as I love Himuro, I know in real life he should have been fired and possibly banned from teaching for going out with the MC of TMGS1. And as for Amanohashi, if my 16 year old daughter ever told me her principal had invited her to the pool for the express purpose of checking out her body, I’d be heading over there with a shotgun so fast it would make their heads spin! Heh, maybe that’s why Himuro, Wakaouji and Amano-pervert all went for that student, because she doesn’t have any parents to protest! So kudos to Oosako for having some standards, at least.
On that high note, I say goodbye to TMGS3. Well, not goodbye for ever, I still have it, and I’ll go back eventually and play the 3P mode. For now though, I’m through with it and I need a long, long, long break before I can even think of playing it again.
05.01.11 / Japanese, Konami, Nintendo DS, Otome game, Romance game, Tokimeki Memorial, Video game / Author: Kina / Comments: (8)
Tags: girl's side 3rd story, kouichi, Taiyo Kasuga, tokimeki memorial
Secret character Taiyo Kasuga. The only character that makes me feel like more of a pedophile than Oosako-sensei. Even though you meet him halfway through your second year, you only start to have anything to do with him in your third year, which makes the first two years of that route very boring. Fast moving, though, since you can just join the baseball club and use that command ad nauseam until the end of the game. As with all the other secret character routes, you don’t get to go on proper dates or trips with Taiyo so his route is very dull.
Taiyo doesn’t care about your stats, he doesn’t care about bombs, he doesn’t care about Rose Queen or anything. As long as you join the club by 2nd Year 9/25 and use the club command repeatedly, you shouldn’t fail his route. The correct answer to give in each case is blatantly obvious, and much of the time either option works just fine.
His route takes precedence over the other secret character routes, so what you can do is take a save from one of those towards September of 2nd Year and use that as your Taiyo route then proceed with whatever else you were doing. Be careful not to date any of the regular guys though. Kouichi came after me on this route and I was hard pressed fending him off, but I made sure I didn’t give him the least bit of encouragement and that worked out fine.
As a character Taiyo is a complete crybaby with a huge crush on you, his sempai. He grows up a little over the course of the game but he’s still a big baby by the end of the game. Dating a guy like that would be a huge drag in real life, and I get the sense from the ending that the main character is just playing with him as a boytoy until someone better comes along (Konno-sempai!!!). Well, whatever. That’s how you learn about life, Taiyo-kun!
Now then, I’ve done all the secret characters in TMGS3 except Oosako-chan (ugh…that predator…do not want…), and I’m right before the last boss in Radiant Historia so hopefully my next update will be about one of these two games. Oh, right, I’m also right before the final boss in Suikoden III, I’d forgotten about that. Lots of games to play in this new year but so little time to do it in. I’ll give it my best shot!
As I’d predicted, the sporty girl was incredibly easy to get. I joined the soccer club and worked on my exercise stat. I also took her to the stadium to watch soccer matches and took her to the “recommended” date spots whenever they opened up. Itsuki likes anything active, so the pool, the beach and the bowling alley were good as well.