Answer mmosite

Love Plus is Konami’s latest “big” game. They spent some effort, time, and money marketing and developing this game. Being for the Nintendo DS, there is naturally expectations about being able to play it on the go, and I think the game has delivered that very well. And despite the limitation of a DS game (namely in the physical memory a DS cart holds), the game is fully voiced and comes with all kinds of neat stuff. It also has great graphics and whatever for a DS game. It’s a quality product.

However, what sets this game apart from other games like it (dating sims) is the”girlfriend” portion of the game. Roughly speaking, the game is a dating sim through and through, which means you have to schedule what you do every day, to manipulate certain player-based stats, and when the right conditions are met the players trigger some flags which enables the relationship to go forward. This is basically the first half of the game. Once the player has triggered the “GF” flag, the game changes drastically, and it becomes a “living with a GF” sim…which is still a dating sim of sorts, but now the game opens up a series of new mechanics that you can do with your girl. While they are largely more stats-manipulation, much of the direct interaction you have with your girlfriend is through different mini-games, from touch-based to even voice recognition. The most notable portion of this second half, however, is that you can (optionally) engage the game on a day-to-day basis based on the real time clock. In other words, you can play through the day and only for day, and if you play the game in the morning rush hour, you can walk with your girl to school, and do “morning” things. If you clock in some minutes before you go to bed, you can see your GF in her PJs. You get the idea.

Thankfully this is a Konami/PG-13 kind of game!

The game itself is well-made, and it’s fun. But like most dating sims it’s easy to get bored of it rather quickly. I suspect by artificially limiting gameplay based on real time is part of the gimmick to give a game with a hard content limitation (DS cart only holds 256mb) more stay power. But the point is, there really is an incentive carry your DS around. You can unlock time-specific content, plus it’s something to do if you want to play games on the train, right? Thanks to its dating sim format, each game play session could be just a minute long, if all you do is run through the day like a run of the mill. Even going on a date doesn’t take all that long. It’s made for portable gaming.

Let’s talk about 2D versus 3D for a moment. There’s nothing particularly notable about being fascinated with a concept, an ideal, or just a plain idea. One of my favorite idea is fusion, and some of the smartest people on God’s Green Earth are dedicated to this cause. Of course, there is an immense practical aspect to the research and pursuit of fusion that is missing when OhSoRonery, mid 30s salarymen look for in virtual mates, but that hasn’t ever stop anyone. Or rather, in the case for 2D otaku, they may very well be serving their own needs when they do so.

The problem, or advantage from another perspective, is that now Love Plus can serve as a mean to satisfy that sort of thinking, or that kind of longing for the type of interaction you find in the game without really breaking any social norms. Well, it’s no worse than reading manga on the train at any rate. It’s very odd to carry around a 4-foot long hugpillow when you go to work, but nobody would even notice if you sneak a DS lite in your briefcase. Even if they do, they wouldn’t know that your Nintendo DS is now one of the most potent delivery vehicle of junai-kei moe on the planet. It’s like a suitcase nuke, except it’s just kimoi-otaku, pants-wetting stuff.

So what? This simply means even a person like me can empathize someone like Nisan, simply because I could, on my commute, take a look at my virtual companion, and playfully poke her on the ribs on the way to school. She would even react like a teased tsundere. It’s so cute. All that is missing is a fist pounding on my shoulder, to punish for the act. It made me think: why does this feel so odd? Is this what someone who has a “waifu” feels like when they watch their favorite whatever in their games or anime or manga or doujinshi or whatever? Is Konami really joking with their advertising?

And is it really that different than any kind of fan behavior as stereotypically associated with all this moe otaku kind of thing? Like having a character shrine in your room or having a personal favorite route/girl in a straight-up, renai eroge? Is it merely the difference between some kind of pornography that surrounds the player versus the type that distances the viewer? And you can substitute any kind of story in the place of pornography. It’s about the distance between you and the things you like…and how far is too far.

Speaking of not too far, I word-dropped animism earlier, and it’s not too far from the truth. Granted, to someone smitten with Love Plus, a Nintendo DS is just a console to run software, but it is also a vehicle that channels human emotional responses. Desperate farmers praying for rain? Cheering on your modem so your files upload faster? That is only natural. Today, ever more so, as games adapt to players and demand much more than the simple interactivity as video games are stereotyped, the fact that your DS can symbolize your tragic love life is no small analog to the Shintoist respect of nature. The construct that calls herself Rinko sitting inside my DS is my partner in a sustained relationship, as she inhibits a little black box with a blue lid. It’s like idol worship, except Love Plus isn’t made for the PSP or Xbox 360.