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News Tokimeki Memorial: forever with you Emotional announced, coming 2025, Japan Only as of now

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This is the original Tokimeki series where you, as a boy, date with girls, right? Not sure if there's even market for those in the west. Tokimeki Memorial also has been an otome series as Girl's Side for a while now and those recent re-releases have better chance to get localized as there's a big otome audience outside of Japan.

A quick check says all three Girl's Mode games arrived on Switch earlier this year. They need to be localized first.
 
9-Volt said:
This is the original Tokimeki series where you, as a boy, date with girls, right? Not sure if there's even market for those in the west. Tokimeki Memorial also has been an otome series as Girl's Side for a while now and those recent re-releases have better chance to get localized as there's a big otome audience outside of Japan.

A quick check says all three Girl's Mode games arrived on Switch earlier this year. They need to be localized first.
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the genre is inherently niche but has a faithful base. it'd do just fine thanks to the historical qualities and the fact that the market for such games have grown (to actual existence)
 
ILikeFeet said:
I've seen a lot of posts like this lambasting games like Date Everything, calling them "ironic dating sims". shit's so weird to me
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the whole reason this disconnect exists is because actually localizing VNs back in the day was hit with the double punch of
  1. Nintendo's censorship guidelines getting in the way
  2. the rise in 3D consoles leading to a decrease in interest for 2D games outside Japan.
a lot of historically significant games took decades to get translated officially, if at all. as a result of these issues.
 
ILikeFeet said:
I've seen a lot of posts like this lambasting games like Date Everything, calling them "ironic dating sims". shit's so weird to me
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I mean, what else would you call the common part of the genre that practically only exists to make fun of the concept? They feel like they all come from a place of "we gotta make this wacky so we're not seen as a game for lonely losers, make it so people can play it for the comedy of it all" rather than a sincere game in a genre. I don't play these types of games, but I really can't see what else games like that official Colonel Sanders Dating Sim would be?

Sure, Parody Dating Sim works, but they usually feel very "we're rolling our eyes at this thing and making it ironically" more than "we like this thing and poke fun at it" like a lot of other parodies.
 
Mekanos said:
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This is one of those Tumblr posts that's mad about some highly specific thing I've never heard of in my life. Is this something anyone actually says? Who is out there equating all VNs with dating sims? I get that dating sims have a reputation as cringe waifu games for losers, but this scenario makes no sense.
 
Stilt Village said:
This is one of those Tumblr posts that's mad about some highly specific thing I've never heard of in my life. Is this something anyone actually says? Who is out there equating all VNs with dating sims? I get that dating sims have a reputation as cringe waifu games for losers, but this scenario makes no sense.
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I believe this post was probably in response to a GamesRadar article around that time ranking "The Best Dating Sims" and most of them were shitpost dating sims. It's more so that the genre having the "cringe waifu game" stigma has led to a lot more focus being placed on the subversive silly ones (or subversive horror ones, cause Doki Doki Literature Club is lumped in with the genre despite just being a VN really), and since the subversive ones are more popular, it feeds into itself of more people wanting to make goofy ones, possibly without playing the vanilla attempts at the genre.
 
JazzyFuture said:
I mean, what else would you call the common part of the genre that practically only exists to make fun of the concept? They feel like they all come from a place of "we gotta make this wacky so we're not seen as a game for lonely losers, make it so people can play it for the comedy of it all" rather than a sincere game in a genre. I don't play these types of games, but I really can't see what else games like that official Colonel Sanders Dating Sim would be?

Sure, Parody Dating Sim works, but they usually feel very "we're rolling our eyes at this thing and making it ironically" more than "we like this thing and poke fun at it" like a lot of other parodies.
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that veers onto the "making fun of shitty [x] by making shitty [x]". that's not clever, that's just trying to cover up the fact you made shitty [x]. I personally just don't jive with the idea they're making dating sims but with wacky elements to make fun of dating sims. at the end of the day, they just made a dating sim

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as for Tokimeki Memorial, that ball is in Konami's court. if anything, instead of leading the charge, they left the driver seat open. I'd say knock on their door since other localization initiatives have worked out to some degree.
 
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JazzyFuture said:
I believe this post was probably in response to a GamesRadar article around that time ranking "The Best Dating Sims" and most of them were shitpost dating sims. It's more so that the genre having the "cringe waifu game" stigma has led to a lot more focus being placed on the subversive silly ones (or subversive horror ones, cause Doki Doki Literature Club is lumped in with the genre despite just being a VN really), and since the subversive ones are more popular, it feeds into itself of more people wanting to make goofy ones, possibly without playing the vanilla attempts at the genre.
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Midway through responding to this I suddenly realized that they probably meant the developer they made up was specifically making a shitpost dating sim and not just, like, a random VN. I was under the impression that even calling dating sims VNs to begin with is a little dubious, at least the better ones, because of all the stats and stuff that pushes it far beyond a digital CYOA book with minigames. So if anything the stigma should be the other way around, which seems to be the point of the post. It makes sense now.

It really is so strange the state the genre is in here though. I follow gaming really closely and I have no idea if any notable dating sims have been released in English at all aside from Katawa Shoujo. I only know that Tokimeki Memorial and Angelique aren't. And the thing is, even if their reputation was 100% accurate, it's not like cringe waifu games for losers wouldn't sell. Persona and Fire Emblem are doing great! It kind of just seems like no big publishers realized there's an audience, and so the only famous ones here are subversions like Hatoful Boyfriend that get popular as content for streamers.
 
ILikeFeet said:
the genre is inherently niche but has a faithful base. it'd do just fine thanks to the historical qualities and the fact that the market for such games have grown (to actual existence)
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Male dating VN's are even more niche, kinda endangered species today. Unlike otomes. They're alive and well. Globally. If Konami wants to take a chance at the series in west, Girl's Mode trilogy is the best way to start. We've been getting some really good otomes in the recent years, good enough to top metacritic annual lists, never been a better time to ride this romantic train, imo.
 
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I am hopeful that, at the very least, this version is more friendly to fan translators and we can finally get an English version with full voice acting.
 
I'd be interested if this ever gets localised. I've been meaning to play Kanon too but that's probably a while away. Dating Sims can be quite fun and there's a big management aspect to it, though I kind of just prefer playing as myself. I played the translation of Sakura Wars the other year and it was just so much fun meeting all the girls and being part of the crew but also having to act liek a real person. I had a lot of fun with Kanna
 
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Stilt Village said:
Midway through responding to this I suddenly realized that they probably meant the developer they made up was specifically making a shitpost dating sim and not just, like, a random VN. I was under the impression that even calling dating sims VNs to begin with is a little dubious, at least the better ones, because of all the stats and stuff that pushes it far beyond a digital CYOA book with minigames. So if anything the stigma should be the other way around, which seems to be the point of the post. It makes sense now.

It really is so strange the state the genre is in here though. I follow gaming really closely and I have no idea if any notable dating sims have been released in English at all aside from Katawa Shoujo. I only know that Tokimeki Memorial and Angelique aren't. And the thing is, even if their reputation was 100% accurate, it's not like cringe waifu games for losers wouldn't sell. Persona and Fire Emblem are doing great! It kind of just seems like no big publishers realized there's an audience, and so the only famous ones here are subversions like Hatoful Boyfriend that get popular as content for streamers.
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I guess you kinda have to define dating sim. Visual novels like Clannad that involve dating have obviously been released in the west. There do exist more earnest dating-focused visual novels that got western releases, like Christine Love's games. Sakura Wars V, an RPG that's probably more heavy on the dating sim elements than something like Persona, got a budget localization. Eroge games like Come See Me Tonight were sold as boxed PC games on really niche websites way back in the day. But yeah, huge mainstays of the genre like Tokimeki Memorial and Love Plus have obviously gone entirely unlocalized.
 
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This is great, anyone with a very basic elementary school level Japanese (with the help of a kanji database) should try it. Have a translating tool nearby for anything you don't know and it should be fine.

I bought a Japanese PS1 just for this game (I even got the collector version with the mouse controller lol, all in perfect condition, for like 80€) a couple years ago and it was great.

The only annoyance is that during anime cutscenes, well you can't pause the dialogues so if you struggle a bit with your Japanese you might miss some things.
 
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Nmanic said:
I am hopeful that, at the very least, this version is more friendly to fan translators and we can finally get an English version with full voice acting.
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there's already an english translation with voice acting
www.translated.games

Translated.Games - Heartthrob Memorial

Developer: Konami Publisher: Konami Genre: Dating sim Release Date: February 9, 1996 On February 9th, 1996, Konami released a dating sim called Heartthrob Memorial: Under the Tree of Legends for the Super Famicom. The Super Famicom release came two years after the original version of the
www.translated.games www.translated.games
 
Superstarxalien said:
there's already an english translation with voice acting
www.translated.games

Translated.Games - Heartthrob Memorial

Developer: Konami Publisher: Konami Genre: Dating sim Release Date: February 9, 1996 On February 9th, 1996, Konami released a dating sim called Heartthrob Memorial: Under the Tree of Legends for the Super Famicom. The Super Famicom release came two years after the original version of the
www.translated.games www.translated.games
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I have played this version. It only includes voice acting for key scenes, whereas in the PS1/Saturn versions, every line is voice acted. What's why I said hopefully we'll get a version with "full" voice acting.
 
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