Tokimeki Memorial: Densetsu no Ki no Shita de

"What? No robots?"

It's no wonder that the dating simulator craze never caught on in North America; no one's ever released a dating simulator here. Perhaps it's for the best. Konami's Tokimeki Memorial is easily one of the strangest import games I've ever played. You play the role of a guy in high school. Your goal - get some lovin' before high schools over. How? Easy, by doing a bunch of useless tasks like studying and practicing chemistry. On a whole this game feels a lot like Monster Rancher for the PSX, you do a bunch of stupid jobs to raise your skills to achieve your goal.

Here are some positive and negative aspects-

+ Excellent graphics. Well drawn and animated anime style characters merge with nicely drawn backgrounds to create quite an appearance. Also, simple sprite representations of your character are nothing to scoff at.

+ Easy to understand menus. I don't speak Japanese (or read it) so these are incredibly helpful. Books mean studying, the dumbbell means exercising, etc.

+ Tons of date possibilities

- It's all in Japanese. Not that I have anything against Japanese, I just can't read it. Luckily you learn what certain things probably mean. Also, when talking to a girl, all the right answers are on top.

- Hard. It's very, very hard. Again probably due to it being Japanese.

- No ninjas

On a whole, if you like sim type games, and just can't seem to wow any real ladies then this may very well be the game for you.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 11/01/99, Updated 11/01/99