I finished the drama CD for Shiori's route of Tokimemo Drama Vol. 3 earlier and it was sweet, but lacking. So, I'm plunging back into the world of Feeling Sad About Shiori! Maybe I'll make this a thread about all the cool ways KojiPro translated a dating sim to an adventure game?

For those of you who are new, while most people think KojiPro's adventure game output starts and stops at Snatcher and Policenauts, that's not true. From 1997 to 1999, they developed a series of three Tokimeki Memorial adventure game spinoffs in the leadup to Tokimemo 2.

Each one centers on a different heroine from the original: Saki for Vol. 1, Ayaka for Vol. 2, and mascot Shiori for Vol. 3. These aren't frivolous fanservice, either. Each one builds upon the existing cast in significant ways while feeling true to the (sparse) source material.

As games built in a time when VNs were still in their infancy, developing largely away from consoles, they're fascinating experiments in injecting more structured narrative into a series that wasn't originally built for it using a far more mature genre in Japan: adventure games.

As I've said before, I think most foreign KojiPro fans have ignored these because of their subject matter, which is a shame. Major talent contributed to these games and this final volume in particular is a deeply intelligent, empathetic game that is in part about Tokimemo itself.

I don't think this is going to turn into a serious LP thread (I still want to finish the original one I started eventually!). But I hope that as this thread grows, you'll see just what makes them so special in both the Tokimemo and KojiPro canon. Look forward to more! c:

A brief note before I dive further: while this won't be an out and out LP, I probably will delve into story spoilers at least from time to time because some of the game's most inventive aspects relate to the sort of introspective story it tells in relation to the original game.

Honestly, because of how easy these Drama games are to write off, I think they're the types of spoilers that, once you know them, can entice folks to play to see how it executes those ideas in practice. Still, I'll try to throw up tags at the beginning and end of such stretches.

With that out of the way, let's discuss the setup. Shiori's volume is unique in that unlike the previous two Drama games, which have you playing the Tokimemo protagonist as a second year, here, you play as a third year two weeks away from graduation.

But it's under a particular set of circumstances, one where that protagonist has spent his three years at Kirameki High School yearning for Shiori, his canonical childhood friend, the entire time. He's friendly with the other girls, but never gone out of his way to pursue them.

Only, their relationship hasn't progressed the entire time. As he puts it, it's never moved past him being her admirer and he's beginning to wonder if she plans to confess to a guy under the school's iconic tree for her happily ever after, per the legend at the heart of Tokimemo.

If you've played the original Tokimemo, what this implies is Shiori's volume is a story about doing a Shiori run in the original game. But it's not a run that's gone well. This guy's stats aren't perfect. It's stalled out and the gulf between him and her feels as vast as ever.

In effect, Shiori's volume is a game that explores the implications of the original game's most fundamental, sacrosanct premise. What would it actually be like to go through high school trying to be the perfect guy you think Shiori wants and not necessarily living up to it?

Bear in mind, this final volume came out in 1999 as the last original Tokimeki Memorial game before 2 arrived later that year. The original PCE release was in 1994. This is a final chance for the series to reflect on its success and as you'll see, reflect on it it does. A *lot*.

The initial goal at the start is to thus spend more time with Shiori and find an opportunity to make a move. Yoshio, a friend from the original who offers intel on different girls, enlists the protagonist to help build an essay/article anthology for the graduation class. Why?

Because Shiori is the other volunteer, so what better excuse to spend time together during these last few weeks as high schoolers, especially with Valentine's just around the corner? The road ahead is as long and treacherous as ever, but, hey, it's a start, right?

This brings us to a recurring design trend that runs through all three of these Drama games. More or less every in-game day, you have a recurring task of some sort and in this game, that involves assembling the anthology in question with Shiori in time for graduation.

For these segments, you have to manually proofread several paragraphs of an article/essay by poring over the text and pressing O on anything erroneous to correct it. The faults can range from stuff like forgotten punctuation to misspelled names or even sudden changes in dialect.

These recurring tasks in these Drama games aren't intended to be fun, but they serve an important purpose in underlining each game's themes. Here, proofreading offers the protagonist a chance to reflect on his middling high school career through the lens of his peers' lives.

As a non-native, the proofreading segments can be a bit challenging, but hardly impossible. There's also no obligation to do them perfectly. The ending doesn't hinge on aceing these and you can stop them at any time. Shiori will find anything you miss and the story will move on.

Another key component of these KojiPro Tokimemo games is their dialogue system. As games built on Policenauts' engine, all three of them repurpose its point and click system, where you either discuss what you're looking at or a general topic with the highlighted character.

This system gets used in all sorts of contexts. Sometimes you need to engage in it to advance the plot. Other times, like on your routine walk home with Shiori, it's simply a means of passing time. Different topics also regularly elicit new responses as the plot develops.

This latter application addresses a weakness with the original game. You can walk home with the girls and generally should to be in good standing, but you'd rarely see anything unfold. Occasionally, you'd get interstitials where you discuss an upcoming event, but that's about it.

That was often par for the course with early dating sims, which generally opted to focus more on systems-driven storytelling over linear storylines like in VNs. It's what brings me to dating sims of all stripes, but it can make it achieving a good balance with dialogue tricky.

This particular application of Policenauts' style dialogue for walking sequences may well have been inspired by a competing series, however: True Love Story, the progenitor of Kadokawa-style dating sims with robust conversation systems, including KimiKiss and Amagami.

First arriving in 1996 amidst a sea of Tokimemo clones, one of its selling points was the ability to, indeed, converse with girls as they walk home. During those stretches, you select topics, each of which elicits different reactions. Do well and you might get to hang out more.

While I've never seen TLS cited as a specific influence on the Tokimemo Drama games, the sequences like the one in the video resemble them quite a bit. At the very least, any dev working in dating sims would've known of them, as they were a successful series in their own right.

One thing the Tokimemo Drama games cleverly adapt from the original is the phone. Whereas in the original game, the phone is mostly used to arrange dates with girls, here it's a way to have a few final conversations with characters of your choosing before turning in for the day.

With characters like Shiori, these calls change every day, encouraging you to call them up every night. They don't advance the plot, but they're pleasantly grounded and breezy in a way you never get in the original game. They're one of my favorite things about the Drama series.

So one thing that I haven't discussed is the real catalyst for why the protagonist starts to contemplate the meaning of his time spent in high school. On your first walk back with Shiori, she asks the protagonist what he intends to write for his graduation.

The topic: the time in high school you shined brightest. It's deliberately ambiguous and while Shiori knows what she's going to write, it's a perennial struggle for the protagonist. Because again, this is implicitly a stalled Shiori run and he doesn't have much to show for it.

Initially, this inability to come up with a topic isn't a big deal. But over time, as other things happen, it leads to a crisis in confidence as he begins to grapple with the implications of spending his high school career on trying, and so far failing, to win over Shiori.

It's a story about Tokimemo that could only be told in hindsight after its success, perhaps only with a team of outsiders like KojiPro. It demonstrates a fascinating self-awareness about the limitations of the original premise and plays with it in intriguing ways as time goes on.

[SPOILERS]

So, picking up where we left off: Valentine's Day, which hasn't been depicted in the other two volumes, is set up as a big deal. Shiori and your character are set to spend the day together, albeit to run errands, and it might be a chance to make his big confession.

Towards the end of the day, after some reminiscing about their time playing together as kids, Shiori finally gives your character his chocolates, but she delivers them with some choice words: "Wherever life takes us once we graduate, you'll always be that sweet little boy to me."

Though he tries not to show it to her, this takes pretty much all the wind out of his sails, as he takes it to mean that she still sees him as just her childhood friend and nothing more. It's here his looming crisis about how he's spent his high school years starts to set in.

And he reflects on it in very specific terms, talking about trying to force himself to be all things to Shiori in what's a very telling nod to the stat grinding inherent to wooing her in the original game. Perhaps doing so in earnest would come at a cost, Tokimemo Drama posits.

As he poignantly puts it, "Shiori's always shined so bright to me whenever I look at her. But maybe the only reason she looks so bright is because I have no light to shine back."

It's a deep conundrum to face, especially so soon to graduation. Which is to say, the final first generation Tokimeki Memorial game isn't really about winning over Shiori one more time. It's about the protagonist struggling to find fulfillment on his own terms.

[END SPOILERS]

Thought I forgot about this thread, didn't you? (You probably didn't.) Let's talk about a big part of this game that opens up after your day out with Shiori: the many, many minigames that populate the Tokimemo Drama games.

As I wrote in my essay on Tokimemo itself, minigames are a key part of that original game's recipes. Not only do they add variety to the gameplay proceedings, they also help ground what was a significantly radical departure for Konami within the continuity of its greater canon.

The minigames in the Tokimemo Drama games fulfill similar purposes, adding both extra interactivity to a largely point-and-click affair, as well as typically tying into the underlying theme in some way, which is especially true for this final game with Shiori.

Give the protagonist's struggle to discover himself at the end of his high school career, it's fitting that many of the minigames here revolve around self-improvement of some sort. A major recurring one involves marathon training with star athlete Nozomi from the original game.

In an early plot thread, Yoshio ropes your character into training with her to pay him back for working on the anthology with Shiori. Initially, the protagonist gives up since he's so out of shape. But in light of the events on Valentines, he decides to give it another shot.

It's a somewhat elaborate minigame. Like the original game, you have different stats to foster and you can choose different training regimens that influence them differently. Then, you try to press O and X rhythmically for as long as your current stamina level allows.

It's a clever retooling of the original Tokimemo's design on a multitude of levels, adding some conceptual familiarity for existing series fans in what's otherwise a very differently playing game while still feeling like a unique contribution from a different team in a good way.