Even though more lenient in the individual relationship management, the Girl’s Side of Tokimeki Memorial still carries the stressful view on high school romance centered life that the original one had. Some new ideas are introduced, such as being able to choose your clothes for every date and having to manage money to buy such clothes, and every single one of them still contributes to making this period of life a stressful strategic one.
And to sympathize with the motives is not that hard. Tokimeki always saw those teenage years as a period where every decision you took mattered towards how others perceived you, and to feel like you are about to make the wrong move all the time. For this reason, dates are not really interesting for what they are (if you go to a concert, the performance itself is skipped, if you go bowling, the game itself is skipped) because what matters is the actions you decide to take and the response of your romantic interest.
The consequence of this is immediate, romance is turned into a strategy game not that far from keeping your relationships healthy in Crusader Kings. Love is war, they say. And while it doesn’t necessarily mean to be a worthless approach, it doesn’t quite succeed.
The strategic elements end up being quite simple because of two reasons. First, it’s based on repeating a routine and keeping an eye out for obvious dangerous scenarios (bombs), it ends up lacking depth and because of the hard coded "victory" conditions you either know exactly how to succeed in a particular relationship or you don’t have a clue. Secondly, and most decisively, all the boys (...or men…) are boring at best and a hazard to avoid at worst. Perhaps the strategic options would carry more weight if you truly cared who you would end up falling in love with, but because of the game philosophy deciding to prioritize the cold strategy over the warm heartfelt moments the stakes are never there.
There is one notable exception regarding the disinterest towards any relationship. Turns out that in this game you can have up to four female friends that, precisely because you get to know them through random events that just occur and not through dates where you need to ponder what your optimal actions are, end up being genuine charismatic relationships. You see some friends hanging around having a good time and wish to be with them, you go on a school trip and the first one to get your back will be that girl from your club you read fashion magazines with during the week. The game seems to recognize the quality that it rejects by giving you a friendship ending option where you end up with the people that you truly cared about during all of these three years. Of course, with romance out of the question.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LK8WOxVpsNc
And to sympathize with the motives is not that hard. Tokimeki always saw those teenage years as a period where every decision you took mattered towards how others perceived you, and to feel like you are about to make the wrong move all the time. For this reason, dates are not really interesting for what they are (if you go to a concert, the performance itself is skipped, if you go bowling, the game itself is skipped) because what matters is the actions you decide to take and the response of your romantic interest.
The consequence of this is immediate, romance is turned into a strategy game not that far from keeping your relationships healthy in Crusader Kings. Love is war, they say. And while it doesn’t necessarily mean to be a worthless approach, it doesn’t quite succeed.
The strategic elements end up being quite simple because of two reasons. First, it’s based on repeating a routine and keeping an eye out for obvious dangerous scenarios (bombs), it ends up lacking depth and because of the hard coded "victory" conditions you either know exactly how to succeed in a particular relationship or you don’t have a clue. Secondly, and most decisively, all the boys (...or men…) are boring at best and a hazard to avoid at worst. Perhaps the strategic options would carry more weight if you truly cared who you would end up falling in love with, but because of the game philosophy deciding to prioritize the cold strategy over the warm heartfelt moments the stakes are never there.
There is one notable exception regarding the disinterest towards any relationship. Turns out that in this game you can have up to four female friends that, precisely because you get to know them through random events that just occur and not through dates where you need to ponder what your optimal actions are, end up being genuine charismatic relationships. You see some friends hanging around having a good time and wish to be with them, you go on a school trip and the first one to get your back will be that girl from your club you read fashion magazines with during the week. The game seems to recognize the quality that it rejects by giving you a friendship ending option where you end up with the people that you truly cared about during all of these three years. Of course, with romance out of the question.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LK8WOxVpsNc