Tokimeki Memorial Girl's Side 3rd Story

Hello!

It's been a while since I wrote anything and the reason is that I haven't been playing anything reasonable. Mainly free visual novels that haven't been worth mentioning really. I did start playing the Witcher 3, finally! It's going to take me some time to come up with enough material though, so just wait.

 So I recently started playing Tokimeki Memorial Girl's Side and I have to admit, it's quite addicting! The idea is quite basic: You go to high school for three years while increasing your stats, making friends and possibly even meeting your boyfriend~. I didn't read any guides before starting so I was totally lost in my first walkthrough. I became the most popular student in my 3rd year with my high stats, but I kept changing my target so I didn't get a boyfriend. This time I made some preparations and I know what to do. There are six possible boyfriend candidates and on my first walkthrough I didn't even meet the sixth one, how mysterious... I'll try to woo Ruka this time, even though my favourite's Junpei!

What makes this game extremely difficult at first is dressing up. Every month there's a different trend and by dressing accordingly you may increase your fashion level. In the beginning you don't have much to pick from since you only start with 125 coins. Later on you may choose a part-time job but it'll take a long while to have a proper closet. On top of following the trends you must dress to your target's liking. For instance I've discovered that Ruka likes when you dress up naturally or cutely, but once my style was too vivid and he was absolutely terrified. A bit superficial I think but hey, it's just a game. Different occasions have their own clothing, for instance during the fireworks in summer you dress up in a yukata (if you own one!), in the Christmas Party in a dress and on the beach in a swimming suit. Just keep in mind that you need to be fashionable and to your guy's liking in all occasions... So troublesome.

 Every Sunday you have the opportunity to invite a guy to a date! I even read that it's possible to have a three-way date once you're familiar enough with the guys, but I think it's difficult enough to date one person yet alone two at the same time... Anyways you should keep a lookout on special events and in general what's going on around the town. For instance I still haven't had the chance to see the fireworks with anyone since like I mentioned, I was a bit lost in my first walkthrough.

What I haven't understood yet is the approaching system. I'm playing on a PSP but on a DS you can touch your date through the touch screen, which is incredibly weird!! You may approach them, touch different parts of them and oh God, this is getting super weird. I still don't know how to approach the date but I guess I'll find out sooner of later by just smashing the buttons. Going on dates is one way to increase your relationship, also by calling them with the appropriate name and answering their questions correctly.

 So what I got really excited about once I begun playing is that TMGS 3rd has animated sprites! It's the first time I've seen something like that in a visual novel since most of them only have the characters' mouths moving. In TMGS the whole character moves and I think that's pretty neat. Also, in the beginning you give out your name and if it's found in the voice acting database, the characters actually call you by your real name instead of "hey, you" like in so many other visual novel games. I have a Finnish name so of course they don't call me by my full name, but "Takai San" is pretty close! I actually got a bit flustered the first time they called out my name, ha ha... I keep cracking up though when Junpei calls me "San-san". Equally ridiculous would be Kun-kun or Chan-chan.

There are also a few minigames in TMGS 3rd but my favourite of them all is the guys or they even make it themselves. You also have both options in the game but I think making your own chocolate is more personal. If the guy accepts the chocolate they may return the favor on White Day, one month after Valentine's Day. My chocolates look terrible every time (try drawing a heart with a D-pad!) but so far Junpei and Ruka have enjoyed them. There's other minigames as well, mainly part of the Sports Festival in school, but they're not as fun as the Valentine's minigame.

 I think Ruka is pretty weird. During the Cultural Festival you may bump into him while he's acting as a guide to the guests. You don't know this during the first year and he asks you "Is something bothering you" or something similar. I automatically thought it came out of the bushes. Once you tell him that all's okay, he pretty much tells you to get the fuck out of his way. Nice. At the time I was going on dates with him every second weekend and I thought our relationship was okay, but that event made me pick Junpei instead. In the end I was trying to target Junpei but I still ended up with Ruka (your save file has his image and he hangs around you when you do activities). I guess he was impressed by my popularity and good grades.

There's so many things I haven't explained yet but I think I got the most important ones covered. I'll be back with another game next time, possibly Witcher ;-)

Gems of War

Hiya!

I wasn't sure at first whether I should write about this game or not but since I've really enjoyed it for the past 50+ hours I decided to give this a try. For a simple "match 3"-game Gems of War is really complex when you get deeper into its gameplay.

 In Gems of War your task is to unlock different kingdoms, help the characters in every kingdom's storyline and level up your cards. The actual gameplay is quite simple. You have your main character plus 3-4 cards (4 if you choose not to play with your character) that have their own health, attack power, shield power and magic. Your objective is to beat the enemy cards by matching gems. Every card has its own element/colour and by matching gems of certain colour you add power to your cards. Once a card's element bar is filled, it can unleash its special power onto the opposite team. Some cards are meant to defend but most cards afflict damage or status effects on the enemy cards. Of course, the most straight forward way to victory is matching skull gems, that causes damage worth your first card's attack power onto the first card in line in the enemy deck. Be sure to match all 4+ gems on your turn - you get extra coins, an extra turn and if it's a colour you already have in your deck, extra power to your cards!

 Let's talk about the cards. You acquire cards through opening chests or completing a storyline. At the end of a storyline you get the card of the character involved in the story (for some reason they all want to join you on your quest after finishing the job). For instance in the picture above, the epic purple card Atlanta is a storyline card. Anyways, depending on the level of the chest you get cards of different levels and other neat stuff like souls (used to level up cards) or rune stones (used to unlock card abilities). The best way to acquire keys to open chests is of course to sacrifice yourself to micro transactions. I have to admit I paid 5€ to get myself a cool new outfit, coins and keys. But you get gold keys (the lowest kind) through gameplay and higher level keys by using treasure maps. By using a treasure map you enter a mini-game, where your goal is to match coins, that through re-matching turn into more valuable items, small pouches and chests. After the game ends you get the coins plus all the cool stuff that were inside the chests (originally mere bronze coins). Some of these chests may include keys and the more valuable the chest is, the more valuable the keys.

 Here comes the fun part - you can level up pretty much everything. Your cards, your character class and kingdoms. By leveling up your cards they become more stronger but there is always a limit. Once you hit the level limit for a card you know that you need to ascend the card by combining cards of the same kind. For instance having a rare Banshee and combining it with 5 more you get an ultra-rare Banshee. The stats of the card increase a little and so does the level limit. You can level up your character class as well and the effect is the same as with the cards - your stats increase. You get new classes through playing the main storylines. So far I've been content with the warrior class that you begin with. On top of that you get a new weapon for your character once you play 250 or so games with a certain class. I like the weapon you get from the warrior class, which inflicts ( that's for me at the moment, your weapon grows in power when you increase you magic stat) 10DMG + the attack power of the chosen enemy. I forgot to mention that while the cards have their own special ability, your character has weapons of certain colour which you can change to your liking. Last but not least by leveling up your kingdom you get more coins. You can choose your own home kingdom where the other kingdoms pay tribute which size depends on the level of that particular kingdom. Coins are especially useful when you're in a guild. Guilds have different tasks that can be completed by paying coins. When all the coins have been gathered for a task every guild member receives a neat prize.

Let me talk a bit about my current deck, which I think is pretty decent. So I already talked about my own character and its weapon, that is quite useful. Second in line I have the Berserker that gains power from blue and red gems. It's special power is doing 3-8DMG to your chosen enemy, while the card itself takes 2DMG and attack power increases by 4. Since my Berserker has leveled up and gained more magic power, the special power does around 8-14DMG at the moment. My third card is my favourite, the Sacred Guardian. It does 2+MAGIC DMG (=8 for me at the moment) to the chosen enemy PLUS, the card's shield power increases by the same amount. So if you use your Sacred Guardian a lot in a match, you can have a tremendous amount of shield power at the end of the game. For that reason the Sacred Guardian is usually my last card if I'm in a tough battle. My last card is the one I'm leveling up at the moment since I only got it recently. The Infernal King is my first legendary card! It was also the final boss of one of the story lines I played. Its special power is quite complex, extremely powerful but on the other hand it can also turn to your disadvantage. The Infernal King deals 13 damage to all the enemy cards, split randomly. On top of that it changes all green gems into skulls and, brown gems to red. So the ideal scenario is that you get skull matches inflicting damage on the first enemy, and 4+ match of red gems, allowing you to continue with an extra turn. On your extra turn you match possible skulls, causing even more damage and hopefully there's no cards left when the Infernal King is finished torturing the enemy team. On the other hand, you may not get an extra turn and skull matches, which probably means there are dozens of free skulls on the field and the enemy gets to match them on their turn. Which has happened to me sometimes but it's not too serious in playing the storyline - the battles aren't too difficult on normal difficulty. It's a whole different story in PvP. Those battles can be brutal and nearly impossible to win if you make a mistake like blowing the special move of the Infernal King.

 

And what I hate about this game? GOBLINS. I hate it when I start a PvP battle against someone, think that it's gonna be easy since they're a bit below my own level, and when I enter the match they have a goblin team. The different goblin cards have their own special moves but what they all have in common is they get an extra turn after activating the move. So if you're against a Goblin, a Goblin Shaman, a Boar Rider and a Goblin Rocket and they ALL have their special powers ready, be ready to end up in deep shit. Sometimes I just close my eyes, wait for the enemy goblins finish what they're doing and hope for the best - let my Sacred Guardian be alive. So to all of you playing with a goblin deck - I hate you. 

 

 I have gotten bored of the game couple of times already but I still think that Gems of War is very addictive. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys a bit of strategy and RPG, and is looking for a "match-3"-game other than Candy Crush. The PvP system was recently updated and even though it's still not perfect, it is a clear improvement. On top of that it's completely free so you won't lose anything but your time if you stay clear of the micro transactions. So go there, find yourself a nice guild and start matching those gems!