After School Bowling

It was my first day at home (off work) today, and I started off by playing A LOT of Skip Mode days in my DS game in an attempt to change Rinko's hairstyle. It took my two weeks of dating and grinding, but finally I got her away from the default hairstyle into something that's still short but at least it's cute.

In my 3DS game, meanwhile, I arranged my third After School Date with Rin-chan. Same as the last couple of times, she was waiting for me in the hallway...

We headed off to Aisha Dining for a snack, and Rinko had an ice cream parfait which looked really yummy.

With our energy replenished, we set off for the Towano Bowling Alley for the main part of our date.

I'm not entirely sure whether Rinko likes bowling or not. She seemed pretty happy with the date, though.

Here's an interesting shot of her outside, after our game...

An an extreme close-up while we were walking home (thanks to the zoom lens of my in-game camera).

Last of all, here's Rinko waving goodbye. I'm enjoying the After School Dates, because they give you a slightly different dating experience in the game.

Tomorrow is my two-month anniversary of playing this new game with Rinko. I've been super-dedicated these two months, and haven't missed a single time slot of a single day! I DID forget to buy a present, though - so I did a very quick day in Skip Mode just now to get one - a nice pair of boots from the Shopping Mall. I hope Rinko will be happy with them when I meet her tomorrow morning.

Thursday

Another day, another walk to school with my GF. But wow, you don't need to beg me, Rinko...

Later this morning, I met Rinko at the back of the school buildings for a quick kiss. Not the most romantic spot at Towano High, but what can you do?

And lunchtime was Bento time again!

Looks kinda like fried squid today. I must remember to tell Rinko that I don't like seafood.

Another short meet-up at the school courtyard...

After school at the Convenience Store...

And tonight at the Coffee Shop.

Wow, it's been quite a busy day. Next Monday and Tuesday I am off work, so I'm hoping to devote a bit of time to the game, and I may even play a few weeks in Skip Mode to help unlock a few more date locations.

Up And Down Day

I had a lot of frustration with the new game I started on the DS yesterday (with the English patch). Despite getting Rinko's confession and working through the tutorials, I was completely unable to kiss Rinko or even hold her hand! Her affection went right down to the point where she almost gave me the skull face, and everything I did just seemed to make matters worse.

With little hope of fixing the game, I deleted and started a new game (yet again!). Finally this afternoon I got a confession from the green personality Rinko (again!) and things went smoothly this time. I played through a date in Skip Mode, unlocked the kissing and skinship features, and got Rinko up to the big happy face without any problems. Now life is good.

For anyone who's never played the DS version of LovePlus before, here's some advice about how to proceed after you get confession from your girl:

1. After confession, the game will automatically save and return to the sign-on screen.

2. Open in Real Time mode. Be sure to select the "Practice Skinship" option and work through the skinship tutorial.

3. Book a date with your girlfriend on the coming Sunday (the game should prompt you to do this anyway).

4. Save the game and go back to the sign-on screen.

5. Open in Skip Mode. Book a date with the girl for the upcoming Sunday in Skip Mode. After this, select the "Practice Kissing" option and work through the kissing tutorial.

6. Do not close or save the game.

7. Continue playing in Skip Mode until Sunday, then play through the date. You should now be able to access both skinship and kissing normally.

8. After the date is over, save the game and go back to the sign-on screen.

You can now enjoy your new life (in either Real Time or Skip Mode) with your girlfriend. Just remember that the kissing tutorial is only available in Skip Mode, and until you work through this you WILL NOT be able to kiss your girlfriend. So I really recommend the above steps, because they're the easiest way to avoid the kind of problems I had.

Anyway, my "main" Rinko game on the 3DS got off to a good start when Rinko was waiting to walk me to school again. I always like this.

One thing went wrong, though. I got an email this morning starting with "Ano sa..." and which had a number 9 in it. I couldn't find it in my list of emails, so I selected the first option (like I always do when I'm not sure what the message says) and forgot about it. When I opened the game again at lunch time, I had a bad email from Rinko calling me "baka" (dummy). Then I realised that the morning email had been asking me to meet her at 9:00am.

Note to self: Have to be more careful of these emails in the future.

Anyway, fortunately my affection level with Rinko is so astronomically high that she's willing to forgive just about anything. I called her out for a quick meet-up to apologise, and everything was back to normal. What a day!

I met Rin-chan late in the afternoon at the Video Rental Store.

For anyone who's visited the Mandarake stores in Japan, or some of the shops in Nakano Broadway, this shot is sure to bring back memories.

So it was an up and down day. Hopefully tomorrow will be a bit more normal in both games. If there is such a thing as "normal", that is...

Very First After School Date

Today was an important day, because I managed to do something I've never done before in 18+ months of playing New LovePlus - I had my very first After School Date with Rinko.

After School Dates are a special kind of date. Normally you can't date your girlfriend on a school day - only on Sundays (except for holidays). In After School Dates, your girlfriend meets you at the end of the school day and goes out with you, wearing her school uniform. Everything else is the same as a regular Sunday date.  Oh, and I worked out what I was doing wrong when I tried to do an After School Date before. If anyone wants to try it, here's how it works:

1. Call your girlfriend early in the morning, just after the 8:00am timeslot starts.

2. You have to call BEFORE you've booked a date for the upcoming Sunday.

3. Book a date (same as usual) but select the afternoon of the same day for the day of the date.

4. You can only go out in a place you can walk to from school - that is, it must be in Shin Towano area (New Towano).

5. The time will default to 3:30pm, but you can change this. I changed my date to 4:00pm without any problems, so any time before the 6:00pm timeslot starts should be fine.

Note that you can only play this type of date in Real Time Mode - so for those of us who work through the day, it's kinda awkward (unless you can take a really long toilet break ^^). Still, I wanted to try it - and it worked!

Rin-chan met me in the corridor at 4:00pm.

We walked out of school together and headed off for our date on the way home.

Then we arrived at the Temple for the main part of our date. The autumn leaves look so nice in the background of this shot.

Interestingly we were able to go into the main courtyard of the Temple, which you never get to see on short dates. It reminds me so much of the beautiful Towa temple we visited in Harajuku.

After the date we had a second option, and I chose to have a meal. Sadly when you have to stay around the school area, there aren't a lot of fancy options for food. I chose Aisha Dining, because Rin usually likes going there.

The lemon kaki-gori (shaved ice) is not exactly perfect for autumn, with the weather turning colder. Rinko looked a little unsure about eating it.

When the date was over, I walked Rinko back home and kissed her goodbye. It's nice to date Rin in her school uniform, which doesn't normally happen, so I think I like After School Dates. Trouble is, you burn up all your hearts before the weekend.

Now that I stopped my 3DS game with Manaka, I thought I might have some fun and start off a game with Rinko on the old DS version of the game (with the English patch). I played a lot through the day, and the green personality Rinko confessed to me after just 63 days. I thought it might be fun to go back to the beginning, where I first started playing the old game with Rinko. And the DS version of LovePlus is much less demanding that the 3DS one - so having a second game going this way actually shouldn't be too bad. But from now on I will only ever date Rinko (unless Konami decides to put Akira Yukino into the new game........then I might have to think twice.

Busy Tuesday

After accidentally deleting nearly all my photos from yesterday, I decided to give the in-game camera a thorough workout today by taking as many shots through the day as possible. Fortunately, there was A LOT to photograph!

First up, Rinko's "Seishun No. 1 Page" story about starting a rock band seems to be drawing near the end. Today was a dress rehearsal (I think) in the school auditorium, which started with an evocative shot of the empty hall:

Then there's a few back-stage shots of Rinko, overcoming her last nerves and getting ready to debut as In The Rye's new bass player.

Rinko met up with me in the hallway at lunch time and announced that she had made another bento for lunch! This is always a sweet treat (and seems to happen almost every day lately).

Here's Rin-chan very proudly displaying her lunch box creation (complete with yet another cute face).

And the moment when she asks you if you want to share some lunch with her (like anyone's going to say no)...

Open wide...

"Well? Was it good?"

Then there's a cute moment where Rinko tells you that you have some rice stuck to your face, and she reaches towards the DS screen to pick it off. (I don't know what's up with her expression in the next shot, though?)

On the bus going home I played a couple of days of Skip Mode, because I've booked the Premium Date (at the movies) with Rinko tomorrow night, and I need to build up a few more hearts before then. But the first day started off with an odd little scene in a place that looks like the staff room. 

Don't know what that was all about. But it's been a great and busy day in Towano. And tomorrow night at 6:00 pm is my first Premium Date with Rinko in the new game. I can't wait.