After purchasing a FX Pak Pro and putting the fantranslated
Tokimeki Memorial on it, I figured I'd play it for a few minutes to see if it worked. In addition to sticking in my mind via a
fascinating, entertaining video produced by Tim Rogers, I'd always been somewhat curious about it, as it kept coming up while people discussed other things I loved, such as Castlevania, for example. The video made the game actually look fun, which is wild, since so much of it is just juggling stats.
I ended up playing it for nearly four hours yesterday. I'm not very good at it; the game cleverly makes you choose which date location to go to if you've scheduled more than one at a time, which is a good thing to do to keep up with making everyone like you. Forgetting where you're supposed to be and thus standing up a girl obviously pisses her off, so you have to get it right. Choosing the correct dialogue option not only feels good, but it makes it seem like you're actually learning what this person is actually
like. Don't be wishy-washy while talking to Nozomi. Even if she disagrees with you, tell her what you really think and unless you're a big jerk about it, she'll appreciate it. It's pretty neat. I haven't even gotten to the part where the various women will trash talk me and ruin my relationships, which I'm sort of dreading because I've been focusing on pleasing Nozomi a little too much, mainly because I feel like I understand her likes and dislikes (she seems to be, essentially, a sports playing tomboy who secretly likes to be treated as overly feminine. It's more complicated than that in some cases, but I think I'm pretty close to the truth here). Going in (somewhat) blind is fun, too, because figuring out how to balance your stats becomes less of a mechanical, robotic choice and more like a vibe - I did poorly on the art portion of my test, so I should probably raise that stat a bit. Ooh, after doing so, Shiori said to keep studying! I must be doing something right. Etc.
I have no idea if I'll succeed in getting a good ending where any girl ends up under the tree at graduation, but I'm going to try. I can't believe how much fun I had yesterday playing it. The translation seems pretty good, too, as far as I can tell. I highly recommend it!