Is this what they mean by “Too little, too late?” I finally got Fumiko Yanagi and I’m very happy about it, but after goodness knows how many playthroughs, Tokimeki Memorial 4
Yanagi herself is very sweet and friendly from the start, no defrosting ice queens here. The downside of that is that even when she falls in love with you, there’s not much difference in her attitude and behavior, so you don’t feel like you’ve progressed much. But I’ll take that over the Tsugumi Godou type any day.
There’s no “story” on this route, unlike how, say, Maki wants to be a nurse or Yuu wants to gather up the courage to confess to you. You just go out on dates, pig out on sweets afterwards and walk her home. Rinse, repeat. I didn’t get most of her CGs, and the two I did get involved her falling down on you. Ooh, clever. But her low-drama, feel-good atmosphere is precisely what’s so good about Yanagi. Her ability to cheer up the MC dramatically when he’s down makes her an automatic keeper.
In the end she blunders and confesses to the MC in front of the whole school by means of the P.A. system, which I thought was cute. Like Rizumi she didn’t confess under the legendary tree,, so there’s no in-game guarantee that their relationship will last forever. A naive ditzy girl like Fumiko will have lots of wolves after her, so I sent my MC to the best university possible juuust in case. As long as he gets a great job and can afford to keep her stocked up on parfaits and cookies, I think they should be okay.
MOVING ON! But before that! This has been bugging me for a while, but is it really necessary to wait three years to confess in these games? I mean, how dumb are high school students these days if they have to go out on date after date after date and hold hands and spend whole days together and STILL not figure out that this is more than an ordinary friendship? This is high school, teenage hormone central! Where a careless “Hi” in the hallway can fuel a whole month’s worth of “Do you think he likes me” conferences! And there you go, blithely picking up the phone and inviting girls to spend time with you one-on-one. And not just once, but for three years and you both STILL can’t figure out you love each other until you spell it out? Tut, tut. Kids these days.
Okay, now moving on for real. I tried to go back to Dragoneer’s Aria, but I couldn’t bring myself to continue. Right now I’m juggling between Blade Dancer and Tactics Ogre: Let us cling together. Neither one is doing miracles for me at the moment, but TO has the advantage of being an SRPG (*bliss*) so I might drop BD and focus solely on TO in the coming days.
I’ve always wondered about that myself. Why does it take 3 years with dates and holding hands and (in case of TMGS for the DS) being all touchy and stuff but no confession til the end of that time? Very realistic.
That what I liked about Love Plus. It’s reduced to one year and you use that time to decide who of the three available girls you want to date and make her want you as well. Then you date and the game goes on. …not that it kept my interest long from that point on, but it was interesting and fresh and much more logical. (I also very much liked how you could influence your girl’s character and style and have her change it, giving the 3 girls a lot more of variety – though I guess it’s rather questionable to want to change your girlfriend’s character…. ^^;)
Anyways, I stumbled upon your blog when looking for some info on Lair Land and ended up reading your Tokimemo 4, Criminal Girls and Tactics Ogre reviews. I’ll definitely keep following your blog.
Thanks for reading! If you get the chance to play Criminal Girls, I strongly recommend it.
Like you I also enjoyed the first year of Love Plus. Once you confess and actually start dating, the game gets so boring and repetitive that it’s not worth continuing. You go on dates and send the same texts day in day out, and sometimes she lets you kiss her and sometimes she doesn’t, and there’s no more progress in the game from then on. Three years to confess is a bit much, but the “infinite dating” system in Love Plus is even worse.
Yeah, it would have been nice if there would have been some sort of goal you could reach from there. Like.. bringing all those stats you raised to some use and get into some kind of career, managing geting promoted / recognised and keeping up with your girlfriend’s needs at the same time. And if you manage well, bam, marriage.
A concept like that would have kept me interested. :>
I’d play a game like that in a heartbeat.
Can i ask you something. Is there a way to know if the girl will confess at the end. Having the heart full pink is enough or do you need more. I screwed up while chassing chemistry lab girl koriyama.[spoilers] I got full heart pink, but turns out i need to go to her university too so i need over 500 science 🙁 I will load an earlier save and attempt again, but i just want to check.
P.S found your blog by accident too ^ ^ . Really enjoyed your posts.
Thanks for dropping by! Unfortunately there’s no way to know ahead of time what those special requirements are. Konami probably wants you to buy the strategy guide.
I usually aim for the highest stats possible in that girl’s specialty (e.g. humanities for Tsugumi) and the best university I can get into, but that isn’t always enough.
Fortunately you’ve found the right trick: keeping a spare save about 3 months before the end.
Ok, Thank you.
You know I applaud you for being able to play the game more than once. I’m on my second playthrough just on sheer stubborness to reach the ending. I found amagami a lot less straining.
Isn’t Amagami that PS2 game where the guy has one month to get a girlfriend before Christmas? And all the girls look virtually identical? I found that game such heavy going that I never finished it.
Yeah, it got a psp port. Maybe because on my first playthrough of Tokimeki Memorial 4, i decided to stay focused on one girl ignoring other girls as much as possible( only going on dates to avoid bombs), it felt that way. In Amagami you just have more interaction with the characters (almost every day).
I initially wanted to play kimikiss, but i don’t have a ps2 anymore, so i settled for Amagami after getting a glimpse of the anime.
I usually stick with one character, but there’s no real penalty for playing around in TM4. If you’re bored but want to do more than one girl, spend the first two years dating them both/all, then make separate saves before hand-holding time and enjoy each ending.
I’m actually going to try that, but only go after 3 girls. I stopped my second playthrough and will start from the begining ^ ^”. I wanted to see Elisa because i didn’t see her on my first playthrough, and boy was i dissapointed. That voice, That accent, couldn’t get through 2 sentences. I wish I read your earlier comment about her before going through that agony T-T.
It takes a lot of getting used to, doesn’t it? I never did chemistry girl, Elisa or the diary-exchange girl, so let me know how those work out if you finish any of them.
[…] playthrough though, I went with Fei in the Medicine department. She’s like a cross between Fumiko Yanagi of Tokimeki Memorial 4 and Asa-sempai of Shuffle!, especially the latter. Sweet girl, round face, […]