Starting Off...Again

Having successfully cleared Stage One of the game with the green personality Rinko as my girlfriend, I started off again today on Stage Two after my heartbreaking data loss. One of the most exciting things about Stage Two is the ability to use the in-game camera almost anywhere. If you're walking down the street, or on a date with your girlfriend, you can just stop, click the camera icon, and take a photo. Your girlfriend will wait and pose for you! Later on in the game, when you've earned enough money, you can even upgrade your camera with better lenses, more effects, etc.

These photos show how beautiful the 3D character modelling is, and also how detailed and textured the backgrounds are in almost every shot. Here you can see Rinko walking to school with me on the first day. It's late winter in Towano, and my girlfriend is wearing a blue woollen jacket, a grey scarf, and snappy red gloves. But look at the background detail - paving stones, brick fence, metal gate, trees and even a street sign. Wow.

Rinko very sweetly asked me to hold her hand. When you see a silhouette of your girlfriend appear on the bottom screen of the 3DS, you have entered the "skinship" mode, which means you can use your stylus to touch her. To hold her hand, just watch the eye meter (to see when not too many people are looking) and touch any part of her arm. She'll usually tell you whether it's okay to hold her hand or not. If it is, then touch her arm a second time. Then she walks closer to you, like the picture below, and voila! You're holding hands. Rinko usually blushes when I do this.

Once again, check out the detail of the house in the background. Another cool thing about the in-game camera is that you can move it around in the 3D environment, change the angle of the shot, and so on. This is Rinko's default hairstyle, by the way.

Rinko phoned me to arrange our first official date later in the day. She wore a camo cap and also changed her hairstyle. Sometimes early in the game this happens randomly, and then later your girlfriend will ask you if you like her current hairstyle or if you want her to try something different. Eventually I want to have Rinko with either long or medium-long hair...though the short hair is cute for now.

But the BIG surprise was when Rinko brought out a bento box lunch to share with me! I've never seen this happen in "LovePlus" or "New LovePlus" before, and it was just so charming.

You can't see it very well in this shot, but Rinko ate her lunch very politely with a pair of pink chopsticks. It's so cool that you can actually watch your girlfriend eat in the new game!