I feel kind of embarrassed to say it, but I'm completely addicted to Tokimeki Memorial Girl's Side: 2nd Kiss. So addicted that I felt the need to post about it. Remember when I bought NANA on DS a while back? Well, both Tokimeki and NANA were made by Konami so they're quite similar as far as simulation games go. The main difference is that Tokimeki is a dating sim, with an emphasis on falling in love, while the aim of NANA was to get hired to work with the band.

Story: It starts as a rip-off of Disney's "The Little Mermaid". A young boy met a young girl by the seashore and they fell in love. The girl was a mermaid in human form and couldn't speak. But the girl's gentle ocean-like eyes conveyed much more than words. The villagers found out that she was a mermaid so she had to go back to the ocean. But instead of saying goodbye, they exchanged a kiss. They believed that one day they would meet again by the sea. After they parted, the young boy would spend day after day staring out at sea. And at last with determination, he rowed out to sea in the moonlight.

After that, the young boy never returned.

(the above is my dodgy translation, so pardon the weird expression)

Anyway, the game starts on the beach. You are starting your life as a high-school student with the aim of building relationships with people you meet and getting one lucky guy to fall hopelessly in love with you. You can join a club at school (I joined Oendan as a Cheerleader), get a part-time job (I work as a waitress) and decide how you want to spend each day. On the right-hand of the screen your stats are displayed. They are: stress, study, sports, style, wealth, art, social, charm. The actions you choose can increase or decrease your stats. For example, if you select 'study', your 'study' stats will increase but your 'sport' stats will decrease. You have to consider what guy you are pursuing and build on the stats that he'll like, e.g. if your target is sporty and academically bright you need to focus on building those stats. However you need to sleep sometimes to reduce the stress stats which increase with almost every action. You also need to consider your weekly fortune in various areas of life e.g. love, studies, health etc. by accessing the internet through the PC in your room. Your weekly fortune will determine how successful you are in the activities you participate in. For example if your fortune is bad for sports and you go to cheerleading practice, you might drop your pom-poms and your stats will drop and so will your charm. V. harsh indeed.

On the weekends you can go shopping, call someone or go on a date. The Tokimeki calendar follows the Japanese one so there are added events such as 'Fireworks Viewing Festival', 'Cherry Blossom Viewing' etc. as well as Christmas, Valentines Day and birthdays. I went to the fireworks wearing a Yukata with my target Saeki Teru.

One thing I love about this game is that the characters can SAY YOUR NAME if you enter it in at the start. Of course none of them can say my last name 'Sng', translated as 'Sun' in Japanese, but they can manage a 'Suu' so they call me 'Suu-san' or 'Suu-sempai'.

Oh and Skinship... is so amusing. There are so many different kinds of skinship... like you can make eye-contact, stroke their face/arm, ruffle their hair or even kiss them! But they won't let you kiss them until they really like you. I found this out pretty early because I'm so forward, hohoho.

To be continued! Too sleepy to keep writing...