https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUkgmB76X8Y
Would recommend watching the intro so you can see what I mean about the 3d models and character designs.
I'll start with talking about the graphics since I think the change to 3D is probably one of the first things you notice if you look up this game. It's a 2002 PS2 game so I'm not going to talk about texture quality or resolution or so on because it doesn't matter, but the main downside with these models is that the individual characters don't look as unique anymore. The character art in Tokimemo 1 and 2 was always full of such character, so immediately it creates a bad impression for this game (or at least it did for me.)
The character designs themselves are also pretty mundane. The outfits are still nice, but there's nothing as funny or memorable as Homura's Mao outfit from Tokimemo 2 for example. The most interesting outfit I remember was Chitose's sexy(?) santa outfit with angel's wings, and that's probably just because it reminded me of Kanon.
However, that being said while I think the models themselves kind of all look the same (except the two guy friends who I guess I'll get to later) the animations in this game do have a ton of personality and do the heavy lifting for most of the game. If you've ever played or seen Idolm@ster it's a very similar feeling, the animations are just very charming. I don't think Tokimemo 3 does it as well as Idolm@ster, but maybe if they kept the 3D models past this game they would've gotten there after another game or two.
There's also a lot of system changes in this game, most notably the introduction of hobbies and the inventory system but insight was also removed, and appearance replaced with the clothing system.
The clothing system is... well it's a bit of a pain in the ass honestly. Maybe I just missed something, but it seemed to be mostly trial and error to figure out what was liked vs not, and it seems to vary between girls, seemingly depends on the time of year/weather, and definitely depends on where you're at. Also, there's not a ton of options for clothes, again, maybe I missed something but you can't buy clothes as far as I can tell so you're stuck with what you get at the start besides whatever you get as gifts or make yourself through the hobby system. I think the Girl's Side games improve on this aspect but I haven't played them yet so I don't know.
Inventory system is fine, it forces you to be a bit more proactive about birthdays rather than just picking whatever seems best the day of, and means you actually get something (not necessarily something useful) from your birthday and the Christmas party. Good addition really.
Hobbies system is also a good addition I think. It's mainly used to get new items or get new topics (for restaurant/cafe dates, I'll get to those later.) It's also kind of vital since this game made it absurdly easy to raise your stats.
All the stats in this game rise really fast, to the point I think I got almost the highest score on all the tests in the game, and was also able to do ok in the athletics events with minimal effort. On top of this, you can prepare for the humanities or science (no idea what the fan translations for these are besides insight) stats on weekends, and then you get a buff to raising those the entire week. You can't do this for art or athletics, but they're also very easy to raise so no big deal. Since appearance is gone, reducing stress and increasing your health is really easy to do as well.
I imagine this was done as a bit of an over adjustment to account for the fact that it's a bit harder (in theory) to date girls in this game, since you can no longer just call someone to get their info: you have to get it from them or their friends now.
You start with the childhood friend's number, but the rest you have to get by taking girls on dates until they like you enough to give you their number while walking home from school. Relationships seem to raise pretty damn fast though so this ultimately isn't an issue. The biggest issue can come from girls you don't have the phone number for going into a bomb state, since it can be a bit of a pain in the ass to get the chance to ask them on a date, and then actually setup a date that works.
There's some nice additions to dates themselves, such as girls readjusting the location or time sometimes (and seemingly dependent on their relationship with you) instead of flat out refusing.
The previously mentioned cafe/restaurant dates are more or less just adding more meat to what I think was an addition to Tokimemo 2 but don't really remember (girls that like you sometimes asking you to go to a restaurant or cafe after the main date.) Running out of conversation topics is kind of an issue, but that might've just been me being lazy since it's so easy to raise your relationship in this game anyway that squeezing more out of the dates isn't worth it. This is where you get info like birthdays and so on by the way. Sometimes you get topics relating to the story arcs of the girl's themselves which is nice.
Oh right, there's two male rivals in this game. I think they were trying to recreate the Tokimemo 2 male friends (who were enjoyable) but these guys suck. I guess they wanted having to hang out with them instead of the girls feel like a punishment. The girls themselves are fine, but not as good as the previous casts and there's a lot less of them.
I think the main drawback for me with this game however is that it feels a lot more subdued in general than the previous two games. I only got 5 out of the 10 or so girls, but all of them were pretty damn tame; even the mad scientist one didn't do much compared to Yuina in Tokimemo 1 (admittedly I didn't spend a ton of time with her.) The most exciting character feature I found was a girl with a Kansai accent. They try and do some more extended character arcs in this (well, extended compared to what I've seen in Tokimemo 1 and 2, which is definitely not the entirety of those games,) but it's just not quite the same. I still enjoyed them, but I can't say I'll remember them.
The minigames also don't include anything too out there like the shoot-em-ups or jrpg parody battles from 1 and 2. There is a pillow fight during the school trip minigame though that reminded me of Tom and Jerry: War of the Whiskers so that made me happy. (Side note: there only seemed to be one school-trip option in this game. Maybe that's just random per playthrough or something though.)
Overall, it's the worst Tokimemo game I've played but it was still fun. I doubt it'll ever get translated, but if it does definitely try it out if only to witness the girls faces going through all stages of grief every time you show up in a bad outfit or say something stupid.
Extra: There's also a fake internet in the game if that's something you enjoy. There's a penpal type relationship you can get into but I don't think it results in dating or anything, it's just a nice little friendship online.
Would recommend watching the intro so you can see what I mean about the 3d models and character designs.
I'll start with talking about the graphics since I think the change to 3D is probably one of the first things you notice if you look up this game. It's a 2002 PS2 game so I'm not going to talk about texture quality or resolution or so on because it doesn't matter, but the main downside with these models is that the individual characters don't look as unique anymore. The character art in Tokimemo 1 and 2 was always full of such character, so immediately it creates a bad impression for this game (or at least it did for me.)
The character designs themselves are also pretty mundane. The outfits are still nice, but there's nothing as funny or memorable as Homura's Mao outfit from Tokimemo 2 for example. The most interesting outfit I remember was Chitose's sexy(?) santa outfit with angel's wings, and that's probably just because it reminded me of Kanon.
However, that being said while I think the models themselves kind of all look the same (except the two guy friends who I guess I'll get to later) the animations in this game do have a ton of personality and do the heavy lifting for most of the game. If you've ever played or seen Idolm@ster it's a very similar feeling, the animations are just very charming. I don't think Tokimemo 3 does it as well as Idolm@ster, but maybe if they kept the 3D models past this game they would've gotten there after another game or two.
There's also a lot of system changes in this game, most notably the introduction of hobbies and the inventory system but insight was also removed, and appearance replaced with the clothing system.
The clothing system is... well it's a bit of a pain in the ass honestly. Maybe I just missed something, but it seemed to be mostly trial and error to figure out what was liked vs not, and it seems to vary between girls, seemingly depends on the time of year/weather, and definitely depends on where you're at. Also, there's not a ton of options for clothes, again, maybe I missed something but you can't buy clothes as far as I can tell so you're stuck with what you get at the start besides whatever you get as gifts or make yourself through the hobby system. I think the Girl's Side games improve on this aspect but I haven't played them yet so I don't know.
Inventory system is fine, it forces you to be a bit more proactive about birthdays rather than just picking whatever seems best the day of, and means you actually get something (not necessarily something useful) from your birthday and the Christmas party. Good addition really.
Hobbies system is also a good addition I think. It's mainly used to get new items or get new topics (for restaurant/cafe dates, I'll get to those later.) It's also kind of vital since this game made it absurdly easy to raise your stats.
All the stats in this game rise really fast, to the point I think I got almost the highest score on all the tests in the game, and was also able to do ok in the athletics events with minimal effort. On top of this, you can prepare for the humanities or science (no idea what the fan translations for these are besides insight) stats on weekends, and then you get a buff to raising those the entire week. You can't do this for art or athletics, but they're also very easy to raise so no big deal. Since appearance is gone, reducing stress and increasing your health is really easy to do as well.
I imagine this was done as a bit of an over adjustment to account for the fact that it's a bit harder (in theory) to date girls in this game, since you can no longer just call someone to get their info: you have to get it from them or their friends now.
You start with the childhood friend's number, but the rest you have to get by taking girls on dates until they like you enough to give you their number while walking home from school. Relationships seem to raise pretty damn fast though so this ultimately isn't an issue. The biggest issue can come from girls you don't have the phone number for going into a bomb state, since it can be a bit of a pain in the ass to get the chance to ask them on a date, and then actually setup a date that works.
There's some nice additions to dates themselves, such as girls readjusting the location or time sometimes (and seemingly dependent on their relationship with you) instead of flat out refusing.
The previously mentioned cafe/restaurant dates are more or less just adding more meat to what I think was an addition to Tokimemo 2 but don't really remember (girls that like you sometimes asking you to go to a restaurant or cafe after the main date.) Running out of conversation topics is kind of an issue, but that might've just been me being lazy since it's so easy to raise your relationship in this game anyway that squeezing more out of the dates isn't worth it. This is where you get info like birthdays and so on by the way. Sometimes you get topics relating to the story arcs of the girl's themselves which is nice.
Oh right, there's two male rivals in this game. I think they were trying to recreate the Tokimemo 2 male friends (who were enjoyable) but these guys suck. I guess they wanted having to hang out with them instead of the girls feel like a punishment. The girls themselves are fine, but not as good as the previous casts and there's a lot less of them.
I think the main drawback for me with this game however is that it feels a lot more subdued in general than the previous two games. I only got 5 out of the 10 or so girls, but all of them were pretty damn tame; even the mad scientist one didn't do much compared to Yuina in Tokimemo 1 (admittedly I didn't spend a ton of time with her.) The most exciting character feature I found was a girl with a Kansai accent. They try and do some more extended character arcs in this (well, extended compared to what I've seen in Tokimemo 1 and 2, which is definitely not the entirety of those games,) but it's just not quite the same. I still enjoyed them, but I can't say I'll remember them.
The minigames also don't include anything too out there like the shoot-em-ups or jrpg parody battles from 1 and 2. There is a pillow fight during the school trip minigame though that reminded me of Tom and Jerry: War of the Whiskers so that made me happy. (Side note: there only seemed to be one school-trip option in this game. Maybe that's just random per playthrough or something though.)
Overall, it's the worst Tokimemo game I've played but it was still fun. I doubt it'll ever get translated, but if it does definitely try it out if only to witness the girls faces going through all stages of grief every time you show up in a bad outfit or say something stupid.
Extra: There's also a fake internet in the game if that's something you enjoy. There's a penpal type relationship you can get into but I don't think it results in dating or anything, it's just a nice little friendship online.