In Tokimeki Memorial 2, male players make their way through three years of high school, while trying to attract a female character from a pool of dateable characters. With 13 different girls to pursue, each with their own unique likes, dislikes, and characteristics, there's hours of dating fun to be had. Will you be able to win the affection of the girl of your dreams in this short time?
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Yes I did watch that Tim Rogers video what are you gonna do about it
Game is lovely but it's actually insulting to make a character like Takumi and then not have him be a romance option smh.
God Damn.
The first Tokimemo game was an honest stroke of genius. While it certainly wasn't the first gal game, Konami used their experience in game development to make a social simulator that gamifies the high school experience in a way that combines the snappy, quick, replayable nature of arcade games with the narrative and stat growth systems of then-contemporary console and PC games. With the sequel, Konami set their sights to the goddamn moon. and they actually delivered.
The core gameplay remains unchanged between this game and its predecessor. There's still the fun balancing act of having to juggle academic stats, personal health stats, and relationship stats within your 2 actions per week. The iconic bomb system is here, albeit nerfed a tad (I don't think I had more than one bomb at once to worry about on my playthrough here, whereas tokimemo 1 might as well have been mfin bombergirl). They didn't bother reinventing the game mechanics, instead focusing on bolstering those mechanics with a world as dense and alive as the Playstation 1 could possibly provide.
The cast of characters in this game is much more vibrant and quirky here than in game 1, for better or for worse. It can make the game feel a bit more tropey than the more reserved and down to earth vibes that the first game provided, but it also has a bit more spice in it because of that. There's even a prologue section to establish childhood friend relationships/give the player a personality test that influences stat growth in the proper game, rather than just throwing you into high school with no proper context of your classmates. Despite each character usually having a central trope or gimmick, none of the characters are one-note and have a myriad of different events and situations to enjoy. Each of them live different lifestyles, and as such require completely different approaches. Even the dude side character has gone from the comedic relief sleazeball homie that hooks you up but isn't a threat in the first game to two rival characters that look for love of their own, even potentially competing with you. Hell, they even managed to make a GOOD Ijuuin character!!! Characters are what make or break a game like this, and this game has an extremely strong cast.
The world and overall interaction with it is done with such a bespoke attention to detail, it's crazy. Characters have a myriad of outfits they wear depending on the weather and their affection with you. You can choose which honorifics to use with each character, where calling characters differently at different stages in their relationship yields different results. There's a seasonal brochure you get every few in-game months that lists various timed events and happenings in the area, whether you care about them or not. You can even sacrifice an entire memory cards worth of data to create voice synthesis data for a girl of your choosing to pronounce your name in dialogue. To put the amount of content this game has in terms of detail into comparison here, this game uses a whopping five discs to contain all the different events, interactions, and variations of everything, yet completing a run still only takes 8-10 hours. The world density also makes the game incredibly personal; no two runs will ever be the same. I highly suggest finding someone else to play through the game alongside you to compare and contrast how each of your playthroughs and school lives are going.
Overall, yeah. They took the already incredibly solid base the first game had, and polished it to a wonderful, glistening sheen. The technical culmination of the genre. The gal game to end all gal games. The Gran Turismo 4 of dating sims. With how modern hardware is and game budgets/manpower ballooning to the point they are today, I doubt there could be another game to challenge this games relative scope for its time. It really does feel like konami gave the tokimemo team a blank check to make the best thing they possibly could, and they succeeded. I can't say something like that could ever happen again. Did I also mention that the OST and its many arrangements are absolute bangers?
I have a pretty big backlog to the point where a lot of games I play are one-and-dones, but I can safely say for certain this won't be the last time I play through this game. I've only got Miyuki's ending, there's still so much more to do! An absolute must-play.
The first Tokimemo game was an honest stroke of genius. While it certainly wasn't the first gal game, Konami used their experience in game development to make a social simulator that gamifies the high school experience in a way that combines the snappy, quick, replayable nature of arcade games with the narrative and stat growth systems of then-contemporary console and PC games. With the sequel, Konami set their sights to the goddamn moon. and they actually delivered.
The core gameplay remains unchanged between this game and its predecessor. There's still the fun balancing act of having to juggle academic stats, personal health stats, and relationship stats within your 2 actions per week. The iconic bomb system is here, albeit nerfed a tad (I don't think I had more than one bomb at once to worry about on my playthrough here, whereas tokimemo 1 might as well have been mfin bombergirl). They didn't bother reinventing the game mechanics, instead focusing on bolstering those mechanics with a world as dense and alive as the Playstation 1 could possibly provide.
The cast of characters in this game is much more vibrant and quirky here than in game 1, for better or for worse. It can make the game feel a bit more tropey than the more reserved and down to earth vibes that the first game provided, but it also has a bit more spice in it because of that. There's even a prologue section to establish childhood friend relationships/give the player a personality test that influences stat growth in the proper game, rather than just throwing you into high school with no proper context of your classmates. Despite each character usually having a central trope or gimmick, none of the characters are one-note and have a myriad of different events and situations to enjoy. Each of them live different lifestyles, and as such require completely different approaches. Even the dude side character has gone from the comedic relief sleazeball homie that hooks you up but isn't a threat in the first game to two rival characters that look for love of their own, even potentially competing with you. Hell, they even managed to make a GOOD Ijuuin character!!! Characters are what make or break a game like this, and this game has an extremely strong cast.
The world and overall interaction with it is done with such a bespoke attention to detail, it's crazy. Characters have a myriad of outfits they wear depending on the weather and their affection with you. You can choose which honorifics to use with each character, where calling characters differently at different stages in their relationship yields different results. There's a seasonal brochure you get every few in-game months that lists various timed events and happenings in the area, whether you care about them or not. You can even sacrifice an entire memory cards worth of data to create voice synthesis data for a girl of your choosing to pronounce your name in dialogue. To put the amount of content this game has in terms of detail into comparison here, this game uses a whopping five discs to contain all the different events, interactions, and variations of everything, yet completing a run still only takes 8-10 hours. The world density also makes the game incredibly personal; no two runs will ever be the same. I highly suggest finding someone else to play through the game alongside you to compare and contrast how each of your playthroughs and school lives are going.
Overall, yeah. They took the already incredibly solid base the first game had, and polished it to a wonderful, glistening sheen. The technical culmination of the genre. The gal game to end all gal games. The Gran Turismo 4 of dating sims. With how modern hardware is and game budgets/manpower ballooning to the point they are today, I doubt there could be another game to challenge this games relative scope for its time. It really does feel like konami gave the tokimemo team a blank check to make the best thing they possibly could, and they succeeded. I can't say something like that could ever happen again. Did I also mention that the OST and its many arrangements are absolute bangers?
I have a pretty big backlog to the point where a lot of games I play are one-and-dones, but I can safely say for certain this won't be the last time I play through this game. I've only got Miyuki's ending, there's still so much more to do! An absolute must-play.
The sequel to the grandfather of what could be considered dating sims. It's an archaic format nowadays, sort of, but 1999 has never seen a visual novel of this grandeur.
What this game takes from its predecessor, takes it and gives it a nice spitshine. It sounds derogatory, but I don't think I have any other word to describe it. Mechanics are more or less the same, but with quality of life changes, especially with the dating system. You don't take notes as often, or at all, with this game, compared to the first one. It makes for a more streamlined playthrough where you get to manage your character and the girls you have to deal with, until one of them decides to activate bomb mode and ruins your plans for the next 3 months or so. That's the name of the game, and for some reason, I like it.
The characters range from pretty damn annoying to level headed, which doesn't mean much, but there are enough archetypes for the majority of people to find a character they "like", so long as you don't go for the teacher/childhood adult figure, you weirdo.
My main concern is over how easy it is to get a certain ending. No, not even the one where you don't get any of the girls, I'm talking about Hikari. She's head over heels for your character from day 1, so playing nice will most likely result in her ending, rather than another that you poured 90% more effort into. Tokimemo 1 had a character like this, but she wasn't the main poster girl. It feels weird to have your protagonist be a complete 180 from the 1st game in terms of route difficulty, making the game entice you perhaps a bit too much to be friends with her, leading to most likely a mistake.
I still got Kotoko though, so suck it.
What this game takes from its predecessor, takes it and gives it a nice spitshine. It sounds derogatory, but I don't think I have any other word to describe it. Mechanics are more or less the same, but with quality of life changes, especially with the dating system. You don't take notes as often, or at all, with this game, compared to the first one. It makes for a more streamlined playthrough where you get to manage your character and the girls you have to deal with, until one of them decides to activate bomb mode and ruins your plans for the next 3 months or so. That's the name of the game, and for some reason, I like it.
The characters range from pretty damn annoying to level headed, which doesn't mean much, but there are enough archetypes for the majority of people to find a character they "like", so long as you don't go for the teacher/childhood adult figure, you weirdo.
My main concern is over how easy it is to get a certain ending. No, not even the one where you don't get any of the girls, I'm talking about Hikari. She's head over heels for your character from day 1, so playing nice will most likely result in her ending, rather than another that you poured 90% more effort into. Tokimemo 1 had a character like this, but she wasn't the main poster girl. It feels weird to have your protagonist be a complete 180 from the 1st game in terms of route difficulty, making the game entice you perhaps a bit too much to be friends with her, leading to most likely a mistake.
I still got Kotoko though, so suck it.
At first I didn't like this quite as much as the first one but I think after finishing my first run I'm pretty sure I like it as much as Tokimeki 1. It's a bit slower paced, and it definitely doesn't want you to date as many girls as tokimeki 1, but I think it ends up making its own style that works out in the end.
Since I've only done one run I can't exactly go super deep into mechanical criticism but it definitely felt like they tuned Tokimeki 2 to be a bit harder to get the best results in. Relationship rating and stats themselves seem to raise a bit slower in this one, and unlike tokimeki 1 where I messed around and still got into a top-rate university, I was unable to even get into an average one in this. Don't really have a problem with this, it's just different from the first one.
https://imgur.com/KIgPFWd
The childhood prologue is interesting and provides some more reasons to care about the childhood friend this time around (I'll admit I ignored Shiori in Tokimeki 1.) It's mostly just walking around and examining locations/talking to people for about 45ish minutes, but it's a nice change of pace. I don't think it has any impact on the main game, but I could be wrong.
On the character side of things I don't have a ton to say although I do think it's interesting that your guy friends will end up dating some of the potential love interests if you don't spend time with them. I'm not sure if it's fixed who they end up with or not, but I kind of liked it. It always felt weird to me in games with romance options when everyone just remained single forever to avoid stepping on the player's toes.
https://imgur.com/WPn2c3n
When you finish the game there's a nice album feature that has images of various events and dates you had with whoever you ended up with. It's cute, and a very nice feature for this sort of game. Also, during the credits scene there's little epilogues for all the characters you met which I appreciate. Since this game felt like it wanted me to focus I didn't hang out with most of them but it was still cool to see what happened to them in the end.
Overall I enjoyed it, I'll probably go back and play tokimeki 1 again before doing a second run though.
Edit: I forgot to mention the Emotional Voice System which uses a synthesized voice program to have the voice actors say the name you input. I don't know enough about voice synthesizers to say whether or not the EVS is impressive for 1999 or not, but it seemed pretty well made for something meant to work on a PS1. Unfortunately it (in my experience, I'll admit I didn't mess with it too much) can only load one synthesized voice at a time so it ended up being more awkward than no voice acting for the main character's name at all. The voice itself of course sounds a bit out of place but I won't complain about that since it is a 1999 PS1 game after all.
Since I've only done one run I can't exactly go super deep into mechanical criticism but it definitely felt like they tuned Tokimeki 2 to be a bit harder to get the best results in. Relationship rating and stats themselves seem to raise a bit slower in this one, and unlike tokimeki 1 where I messed around and still got into a top-rate university, I was unable to even get into an average one in this. Don't really have a problem with this, it's just different from the first one.
https://imgur.com/KIgPFWd
The childhood prologue is interesting and provides some more reasons to care about the childhood friend this time around (I'll admit I ignored Shiori in Tokimeki 1.) It's mostly just walking around and examining locations/talking to people for about 45ish minutes, but it's a nice change of pace. I don't think it has any impact on the main game, but I could be wrong.
On the character side of things I don't have a ton to say although I do think it's interesting that your guy friends will end up dating some of the potential love interests if you don't spend time with them. I'm not sure if it's fixed who they end up with or not, but I kind of liked it. It always felt weird to me in games with romance options when everyone just remained single forever to avoid stepping on the player's toes.
https://imgur.com/WPn2c3n
When you finish the game there's a nice album feature that has images of various events and dates you had with whoever you ended up with. It's cute, and a very nice feature for this sort of game. Also, during the credits scene there's little epilogues for all the characters you met which I appreciate. Since this game felt like it wanted me to focus I didn't hang out with most of them but it was still cool to see what happened to them in the end.
Overall I enjoyed it, I'll probably go back and play tokimeki 1 again before doing a second run though.
Edit: I forgot to mention the Emotional Voice System which uses a synthesized voice program to have the voice actors say the name you input. I don't know enough about voice synthesizers to say whether or not the EVS is impressive for 1999 or not, but it seemed pretty well made for something meant to work on a PS1. Unfortunately it (in my experience, I'll admit I didn't mess with it too much) can only load one synthesized voice at a time so it ended up being more awkward than no voice acting for the main character's name at all. The voice itself of course sounds a bit out of place but I won't complain about that since it is a 1999 PS1 game after all.
Third run, once again a very solid character, even if I don't like her as much as Mei or Miyuki personality-wise
She has cool events and an interesting arc/story-line
Hope I never meet her again in my other runs
She has cool events and an interesting arc/story-line
Hope I never meet her again in my other runs