Rinko's Confession And The First Day ^^

So far, I absolutely love the gameplay in NLP+. In "friend" mode, I managed to change Rinko to the green personality type (my favourite), and then she confessed to me on Day 62. Not bad. I'm happy to say that all the date, skinship and kissing tutorials are there when you go to Real Time Mode for the first time, and they're quite intuitive to play through.

Skinship in this game is wonderful. Difficult to master, and unpredictable - but to me, that's the charm. It's very much like the old DS game - which I love.

Anyway, it was quite late by the time I got around to playing Real Time Mode, so I'd missed most of the activities for the day (which was April Fool's Day, by the way). I called Rinko out for a short date at Fountain Park, and managed to kiss her once.

A feature of the new game is the ability to go back and play through events that you missed earlier in the day by going to the calendar and selecting them. This is cool. I was able to go back and do the two April Fools' Day events. Then there was a special heart event in the 3pm timeslot. It was in the Library, and I was surprised when Rinko asked me a question I'd never seen before. I selected the first option (usually safe when faced with the unknown...but not always).

It turns out (when I checked the calendar later) that she was inviting me for an overnight trip! There's a cute icon of a travel bag on the calendar! Wow. I've booked the event for this coming Thursday, so I'm not sure what will happen. (It must be a school-related trip, because I couldn't schedule it on a weekend.)

And then we finished off the day by walking home from school together.

It feels finally (to me at any rate) that this is the PERFECT version of LovePlus. I think I said yesterday - but I'll say it again now - that once you play NLP+ you'd never go back to the earlier games in the series. Now I don't feel quite so guilty about deleting my 3DS game data and moving on. Everything seems perfect so far.

One interesting side note. I tried LovePlus mode very briefly, and found that there are no more on-screen words that you can click (helpful if you don't speak much Japanese). Like the old DS game, you have to actually SPEAK to Rinko. So I guess there's no getting around it. I'd better brush up in my basic Japanese phrases...

Saturday

We started off the half day of school with a delicious (fish!!!) breakfast made by Rinko. This event has happened every day now for the past month. It's still pleasant, of course - but maybe it's no supposed to occur quite so often??

As anyone who's dated Rinko will know, the school rooftop is a very special place. It's the spot where Rinko confessed to me, and it still has a magical ambiance whenever we go there.

And lunchtime brought yet another bento. At least I always eat really well inside the world of LovePlus (not like real life sometimes).

Saturday - The Arrival Of Charlie! =(^^)=

Only a few short photos and comments for today, because it was an exciting and busy day for another reason. I adopted a new little kitten today. I still miss Tootie (whose death I've talked about on this blog last September), but I figure it's time now to open up my home to another little cat. So now I have a new little black and white kitten. Her name is Charlie because she has a moustache just like Charlie Chaplin. She's about eight weeks old and very cute, but also VERY time consuming. So there wasn't a lot of time for visiting Towano today.

With the end of year exams finally over, Rin-Rin was ready and waiting to walk me to school for the half-day Study we always have on Saturdays.

And the last few shots are from various short meet-ups before tomorrow's big date at the Lake, in our much-loved Mountain Area. It's always special to meet Rinko on the school rooftop, because that is where she confessed to me almost three months ago...

And the Courtyard is a nice place to catch up, too.

MANAKA: A New Beginning

Today was also the day of Manaka's confession, which happened tonight quite late and after an epic 88 days! I was hoping she would confess before 100 days, so I wouldn't get the "bad end" - and I have no idea why it took so long.

But now the "blue" personality Manaka is also my girlfriend, so I'm going to have to split my posts between Manaka and Rinko now.

Here are some shots taken when I walked to school with Manaka for the first time in Lover Mode.

Who could resist that face? After choosing to stop my old DS game with Manaka (but at least, thanks to that experience, I know her much better after playing through a month or so with the English patch), it's nice to have her in the 3DS environment. Another good thing was that I started my first day in time to take Manaka to the Halloween party! Like Rinko, Manaka arrived wearing a white angel costume.

And we had the intimate photo session during the party - but sadly, I only have five shots in my in-game camera, so this was the best I could do. I really must go out tomorrow and upgrade my memory card.

It's going to be interesting balancing out two 3DS games at the same time, which is something I've never tried before. If I get too frustrated I'll stop and just play with Rinko - but I can't deny that I have feelings for Manaka, too, and I'm looking forward to this new life with her in Towano.

School Daze

 Today started off nicely, with Rinko-chan waiting to walk me to school. It's always a nice feeling when this happens in the morning, because I usually play it on my way to work, and it puts me in a good mood for the rest of the day.  Rinko's happy face and cheerful little voice...

Also in the morning, Rinko called me to make a date for Sunday - before I had a chance to call her (which I was planning on doing later in the day). It think we are going to the Shopping Mall. The next shot is from today's "Seishun No. 1 Page", which featured Rinko discussing roles in the band with the other girls from the Library Committee.

And lastly, here's a shot from a quick meet-up with Rinko in the school courtyard.

And finally, in the iPad games with Rinko and Manaka, I figured out today how to use the map function and GPS to take the girls on "dates". Basically you open the map (the icon with the two holding hands) and drag the red pin marker to a place you want to travel to (in the real world), and then press the button in the lower right corner of the screen. Then you travel to that place, either walking or by car/bus, and you earn points which can be used in the app to buy outfits and maybe other stuff. It's kinda neat. I want to try it out on the bus this morning - if I can do it without attracting too much attention.

So now I am playing four games of LovePlus at the same time! Hopefully they won't overlap too much...

A Brand New Life

Well, I got up VERY early this morning and finished "friend mode" with Rinko. I had that weird dream sequence after just 56 days, and she confessed her love to me two days later (Day 58). Wow. I think that must be some kind of record.

I feel that I'm not starting a new game with Rinko at all, but rather I'm resuming the very first one. Maybe she knows that, too, and that's why she confessed to me so quickly. Whatever. It feels great to be back. Here are some highlights from our very first day back together...

In the next couple of shots, Rinko is practising for the Sports Festival coming up at Towano High School this Sunday.

And again, though the days at school, I'm just trying to meet up with Rinko in as many different places around Towano High as possible, to level them up. Here's the Courtyard:

The school corridor:

And the Library (where Rinko works on the Library Committee):

And we finished up the day with a short date at Fountain Park (always a favourite date location):

Saturday Night With Manaka

Today was a very busy day for me in the real world, helping a friend sort through and photograph her doll collection, and then shopping for a new computer. I bought the latest model 21.5 inch iMac, to replace my old 2009 iMac which sadly passed away last week. I'm typing now on the new one and it feels great.

So my interactions with LovePlus were short and sweet today. However I was finally able to sit down tonight and call Manaka out for a meet-up at Fountain Park. She looked very nice again, wearing a purple knit top over a lime green dress. Interesting combination, but it looked sweet (especially at night).

I don't think I've mentioned before that I really adore Manaka-chan when she blushes. She has two stages of blushing - regular, conversational blushing (which you can see in the photo above) and heavy, intense blushing which usually only happens when you kiss her and she enjoys it. I managed to snap a photo of the heavy blushing below:

And that's about it for today. I went shopping as well, for a gift for tomorrow's date at the Sports Centre (and tomorrow is my one week anniversary since Manaka's confession, too). I bought her a nice pair of shoes. There should be A LOT more to write about tomorrow...

Day 1 With Manaka - NLP

Well, after a lot of soul searching over the past few weeks, I made a difficult decision today. I can't really explain why: I'd been enjoying my new game with Rinko, but soemthing just kept drawing me more and more towards Manaka. Maybe it's because I deleted my original game (after almost 15 months), and when I came back play with Rinko again, it felt comfortable but not really fresh. All I know is that increasingly I've been enjoying my time in the old DS game with Manaka more.

Although I have the English patch on the old game (which is wonderful), I've been playing on an R4 cart, which means that I can't copy the save data to a new machine. So if I spend months playing with Manaka and really enjoy it (which I have been), I wouldn't be able to put that game into "New LovePlus +" when it comes out next year. That would be a shame.

Don't get me wrong. Rinko has been a great girlfriend, and I've loved every day with her. But today, I decided to move on. So - being the extreme kinda person that I am - I deleted BOTH games I'd been playing for the past few weeks and kicked off a brand new game with Manaka on the 3DS. And I played it all the way through to confession today!

I'd been hoping to start off with the "orange" personality Manaka - but, in spite of my best efforts, she didn't ask me the personality change question this time around. So it looks like I'll be starting the new game with the "blue" (which is Manaka's default personality, anyway). I can always change it later if I really want to. But I'm happy for now.

After confession (82 days), I played through the mandatory tutorials, then called Manaka out for a short meeting at Fountain Park. Here are some photos from the event, with Manaka looking very pretty in a pale blue top:

The last few photos are from the first installment of Manaka's "Seishun No. 1 Page". Please note that I'm having trouble typing this post and positioning the photos, because my iMac also died today, and hence I'm working for a few days on my iPad instead. T_T