is a dating sim video game developed and published by

Konami , is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company, video game and entertainment company headquartered in Chūō, Tokyo, Chūō, Tokyo, it also produces and distributes trading cards, anime, tokusatsu, pachinko machin ...

. The first game in the ''

Tokimeki Memorial is a dating simulation series by Konami. It consists of six main games in addition to many spin-offs. The games are notable in the dating sim genre for being highly nonlinear. Their nickname amongst their fans is the contraction ''TokiMemo''. Th ...

'' series, it was first released for the

PC Engine The TurboGrafx-16, known as the outside North America, is a home video game console designed by Hudson Soft and sold by NEC Home Electronics. It was the first console marketed in the fourth generation, commonly known as the 16-bit era, though ...

's Super CD-ROM² System on May 27, 1994. It was directed by Yoshiaki Nagata, with Koji Igarashi working on scenario writing. It later received ports to the

PlayStation is a video gaming brand that consists of five home video game consoles, two handhelds, a media center, and a smartphone, as well as an online service and multiple magazines. The brand is produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment, a divisi ...

in 1995,

Sega Saturn The is a home video game console developed by Sega and released on November 22, 1994, in Japan, May 11, 1995, in North America, and July 8, 1995, in Europe. Part of the fifth generation of video game consoles, it was the successor to the succ ...

and

Super Famicom The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), commonly shortened to Super NES or Super Nintendo, is a 16-bit home video game console developed by Nintendo that was released in 1990 in Japan and South Korea, 1991 in North America, 1992 in Euro ...

in 1996,

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

in 1997,

Game Boy Color The (commonly abbreviated as GBC) is a handheld game console, manufactured by Nintendo, which was released in Japan on October 21, 1998 and to international markets that November. It is the successor to the Game Boy and is part of the Game ...

in 1999,

mobile phone A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whil ...

s in 2004, and

PlayStation Portable The PlayStation Portable (PSP) is a handheld game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on December 12, 2004, in North America on March 24, 2005, and in PAL regions on September 1, 2005, ...

in 2006. The game is considered one of the major titles in the dating sim genre, and eschews the sexual content of other games in the genre.

Gameplay

''Tokimeki Memorial'' is a dating sim game in which the player controls a male freshman from Kirameki High School. The game is particularly notable for its "bomb" feature, where neglected, infrequently-dated girls would eventually become angry and gossip to their friends, severely reducing love meters across the board. In the middle of the game, when the number of known girls is high, these "bombs" became the primary concern of the player, forcing careful planning and strategies like round-robin dating. Although the feature was still present in the later games, these games considerably reduced its importance and the difficulty in avoiding it. Players pick options as responses when prompted by the characters in the game.

Development

The dating simulator genre was preceded by the raising simulation genre best codified by the ''

Princess Maker is a series of social simulation bishōjo games where the player must act as a parental figure and raise a young girl. The series was produced by the video game and anime production company Gainax. The first ''Princess Maker'', while popular en ...

'' series by

Gainax Gainax Co., Ltd. (stylized as GAINAX; ja, 株式会社ガイナックス, Hepburn romanization, Hepburn: ) is a Japanese anime studio famous for productions such as ''Neon Genesis Evangelion'', ''Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise, Roya ...

, which focused on child raising rather than dating. Writer Koji Igarashi says when he was tasked with writing the story for the game, he got assistance from his girlfriend at the time, who would later become his wife. She gave him advice on how to write the story to the game, while he would play '' Castlevania: Rondo of Blood'', the game she was working on at the time. Igarashi requested to not work on a sequel to the game, and instead was allowed to request to work on the next ''

Castlevania ''Castlevania'' (), known in Japan as is a gothic horror action-adventure video game series and media franchise about Dracula (Castlevania), Dracula, created and developed by Konami. It has been released on various platforms, from early system ...

'' game instead. The goal of the developers was to hearken back to high school days. Konami director Akihiko Nagata said "the person who created the game wanted to have experiences like this back in his high school days".

Release history

The original was released for the PC Engine in 1994. It was remade as ''Tokimeki Memorial: Forever With You'' on the

(

1995 File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is O. J. Simpson murder case, acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the 1994, year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The ...

(

1996 File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A Centennial Olympic Park bombing, bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical Anti-abortion violence, anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 8 ...

) and PC (

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of t ...

) with a new opening video, improved graphics and sound, and new minigames. In 1996, it was ported to the

as ''Tokimeki Memorial: Densetsu no Ki no Shita de'', and although drastically reduced in graphic and sound quality (the only voice clips were available during loading), included an exclusive CD with a

radio drama Radio drama (or audio drama, audio play, radio play, radio theatre, or audio theatre) is a dramatized, purely acoustic performance. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine ...

and new arrangement of the ending theme, "Futari no Toki", this time sung by the majority of the girls, instead of just Shiori Fujisaki (the heroine of the first game). A

fan translation Fan translation (or user-generated translation) refers to the unofficial translation of various forms of written or multimedia products made by fans (fan labor), often into a language in which an official translated version is not yet available. ...

of this version into English, re-titled ''Heartthrob Memorial: Under the Tree of Legends'', was released in March 2022. In 1999, the game was ported again to the

in two versions, ''Tokimeki Memorial Sports Version: Kotei no Photograph'' and ''Tokimeki Memorial Culture Version: Komorebi no Melody'', dividing 10 of the characters between the two games and adding three new winnable characters, Patricia McGrath, Naomi Munakata, and Kyoko Izumi. The Game Boy Color versions also featured a

Beatmania (styled as ''beatmania'') is a Rhythm game, rhythm video game developed and distributed by Japan, Japanese game developer Konami and first released in December 1997. It contributed largely to the boom of music games in 1998, and the series e ...

mini-game, compatibility with the

Super Game Boy The is a peripheral that allows Game Boy cartridges to be played on a Super Nintendo Entertainment System console. Released in June 1994, it retailed for $59.99 in the United States and £49.99 in the United Kingdom. In South Korea, it is calle ...

, a screen saver mode, and a two-player ''versus'' minigame. The game received a sequel the same year. Konami announced a

mobile game A mobile game, or smartphone game, is a video game that is typically played on a mobile phone. The term also refers to all games that are played on any portable device, including from mobile phone (feature phone or smartphone), tablet, PDA to ...

version of ''Tokimeki Memorial'' for the

i-mode NTT DoCoMo's i-mode is a mobile internet (distinct from wireless internet) service popular in Japan. Unlike Wireless Application Protocols, i-mode encompasses a wider variety of internet standards, including web access, e-mail, and the packet- ...

mobile platform in 1999, and it was expected to release in January 2000. In 2004, ''Tokimeki Memorial'' was released for mobile phones in Japan, and in 2006, was ported to the

portable system, which is virtually identical to the PlayStation version. In 2009, the PlayStation version of ''Tokimeki Memorial: Forever With You'' was released on the Japanese

PlayStation Store The PlayStation Store (PS Store) is a digital media store available to users of Sony's PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 game consoles via the PlayStation Network. The store offers a range of downloadable content ...

to celebrate the franchise's 15th anniversary. In 2017, the mobile game ''Tokimeki Idol'' was released.

Reception

''Tokimeki Memorial'' sold 1.1 million copies by 1996. The game, a classic of the dating sim genre, was voted as the 23rd Favorite video game of all-time in a 2006 reader poll by Japanese magazine ''

Famitsu formerly ''Famicom Tsūshin'', is a line of Japanese video game magazines published by Kadokawa Game Linkage (previously known as Gzbrain), a subsidiary of Kadokawa. ''Famitsu'' is published in both weekly and monthly formats as well as in the fo ...

''. ''Tokimeki Memorial'' popularized the use of social statistics-raising mechanics in games for following decades. The game became more well-known in English-speaking communities after a

video essay A video essay is a piece of video content that, much like a written essay, advances an argument. Video essays take advantage of the structure and language of film to advance their arguments. Popularity While the medium has its roots in academia, ...

by Tim Rogers gained attention, and a

of the Super Famicom port was published.

References

External Links

* {{Tokimeki Memorial Tokimeki Memorial 1994 video games Game Boy Color games Japan-exclusive video games Mobile games PlayStation (console) games PlayStation Network games PlayStation Portable games Sega Saturn games Super Nintendo Entertainment System games TurboGrafx-CD games Video games developed in Japan Video games scored by Miki Higashino Windows games