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.