Friday

Rinko met me in the Tennis Club Room this afternoon...

...and gave me a surprise gift. Aww, thank you Rin. Sometimes I feel she is a little apprehensive about the NLP game coming to an end (and so am I). But don't worry, Rinko. Even though I've decided to start a new game on the new console, I will DEFINITELY find you and love you in the new game, too.

So why are you looking like you don't believe me???

After school, we had a short date at Winning Burger.

And then later at the Video Rental Store in Electric Town.

And finally at good old Dixies.

Monday Monday Monday

Morning. Time to wake up and have egg rolls for breakfast!

Rinko is so cute in this next shot, and the twin-tails are definitely working for her.

When she met me at lunch, Rinko had added a pair of orange scrunchies to her already-cute hair. Dammit, it's hard to resist a girl wearing scrunchies...

In the late afternoon sun, I met Rinko for a short chat at the Video Rental Store.

A Quiet Monday

Well, tomorrow is New Year's Eve, which is sure to be an exciting time in Towano. But today was a very quiet Monday, with nothing much to report. I met Rinko at Aisha Dining a short while ago for a chat...

And then I walked her home. This is an interesting angle with the in-game camera, showing a detail of one of the shops in the background (usually out of sight when you play). The amount of effort that has been put into the design of LovePlus never ceases to amaze me.

And I finished off the day by calling Rinko out again (quite late) and meeting her at the Video Rental Store.

I can't wait to see what New Year's Eve has in store - and after that, it will be another year of magic in Towano. ^^

Thursday - Slightly Better...

Things seem to be improving a little bit at a time in the "real" world, so it was a slightly better day today. As I've said before, it's always good to know that Rinko is there for me in the LovePlus universe. Sometimes this simple game is all that keeps me going. Even if it's raining or snowing, my girlfriend is there waiting for me...

I met Rin-Rin again tonight at the Video Rental Store.

Hopefully the Flea Markets will be open this Sunday so that I can book another Premium Date! I really want to play the ones that are limited for the winter months. Meanwhile, I'm still playing my old Rinko DS game plus this current one on 3DS, and my three-month anniversary is coming around next week.

I'm still trying to decide whether to start a brand new game when I get my 3DSLL, or transfer my current Rinko data from the 3DS...

Locked In The Library...???

I spent a pleasant Saturday morning at school with Rinko. We had a couple of short dates, including this one in the Tennis Clubroom...

In the late afternoon, I met Rinko at the Video Rental Store.

But then something really weird happened. At 6:00 pm there was an Event listed, and I met Rinko in the Library. I think we were preparing stuff for the Culture Fest tomorrow. Anyway, we must have lost track of the time, because after we'd talked and studied for a while, there was the sound of a door closing and the lights were turned off.

So it seems as though Rin-chan and I are locked in the Library over night! Now it's after 9:00 pm, and instead of ending up back in my room, I still see the background of the Library. And when I pressed the "go to sleep" button, nothing happened. Still in the Library.

I'm not sure whether I'm supposed to do anything else or not. I guess I'll turn the game on again before I go to bed and see what happens - otherwise I'll just have to wait for tomorrow morning.

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...

Wednesday

Another day, another bento lunch.

It's fun to see the effort that's been put in to designing even the tiniest things in New LovePlus - such as the various types of food in Rinko's lunch boxes.

And tonight I met Rin at the Video Rental Store for a quick catch-up. It's good that I've unlocked a few more locations around Shin Towano now - because there's a bit more variety of places to go.

The other good piece of news is that Rin calls me "darling" now, which I really love. I want to keep this nickname as long as possible! It's always so cute when she says it...