I am weeping with joy because the full English language patch for Tokimeki Memorial Girls Side 2 is finally out, and that means it’s time for BLS-kun to mack on some boys again!
(If you have no idea what I am talking about, here is the previous thread.
… No? So anyway, the game starts with the protagonist as a little girl lost on a beach. She runs into a little boy who is obsessed with mermaids, and he takes her to talk to his grandpa who is also obsessed with mermaids. They team up to tell her a story about a mermaid who fell in love with a man, but the cruel villagers chased her back into the ocean so he spent the rest of his life gazing at the sea. This makes Balls-chan cry, so the little boy promises her that the man definitely found his mermaid again, and then he promises to find Balls again someday and gives her a kiss.
Then Balls wakes up from her dream. She has just moved to a city by the sea that she visited when she was young and, in the grand tradition of romantic heroines in Japanese media, is hopelessly lost. She finds her way to a little restaurant run out of an old lighthouse and there she meets this fine gentleman, who looks suspiciously like the guy on the box.
You wouldn’t happen to be obsessed with mermaids, would you?
Oh look, he’s an asshole. He MUST be the guy from the cover.
Oh look, he is the guy from the cover. He has a different hairstyle at school, and is oddly paranoid that people might find out that he has a part-time job.
So Balls finally gets to school and gets to meet her very first BFF, Toudou! They immediately start gossiping about Saeki, as one does.
Not really seeing the ninja thing there, Toudou. She then immediately skips class.
Yeah, I don’t think hanging out with her is going to improve Balls’s intelligence. But Balls thinks she is super cool.
Then it’s time to meet the homeroom teacher, Wakaouji. As in TMGS1, the teacher is totally romancable, but, well…
He’s a pretty little airhead, is socially stunted, and generally has nothing on the hotness incarnate that was Himuro.
Mmm-hmm. I’ve played this game before and done Wakaouji’s route and it is, well, all over the place. His backstory is pretty hilarious, and he’s very inappropriate because he’s socially stunted. It’s also pretty funny and cute at times, but man, lots of WTF going on there. Anyway, after this, Waka leaves and has you fill out a self-introduction sheet. The first three questions are pretty normal but question #4 is “What type of guy do you like?”
Oh Waka-chan, you are so awkward.
Well, I went with the most pretentious guy I could last time, so we’ll go with “Cool” this time.
So the game asks me again. Did you not hear me the first time? I SAID COOL. And after that we leave school, I guess that personality questionnaire was really tiring. And we get to meet the stalker-helper of this game. In the first game, it was your little brother.
In this game it’s your younger next door neighbor.
And his bedroom window looks directly into yours.
Oh look, he has an option that the little brother in the first game didn’t have. Well, that makes sense, the touching system is a lot more complex in this game, because now you don’t just poke the boys, you can also rub, hold, and slap them. I am not making this up. Well, I should brush up on my boytouching skills…
Anyway, Saeki explains his concerns that Balls will tell everyone about his job and his grandpa tells him to lighten up and hires Balls anyway. Grandpa tells Saeki to train her and Balls is amazed at how mature and cool he seems when he’s working.
Could he possibly look more smug? Where’s my skinship cursor, I wanna slap him.
AND THEN HE BEATS HER WITH A TRAY. WTF, GAME?
The violent asshole is surrounded by adoring fangirls? Why yes, this is exactly like in manga. Anyway, he lies to his fanclub and says he has to help Balls get home so that he can get away from them. He does eventually explain that he’s hiding his part time job because the cafe is open late and he doesn’t want any of his teachers calling his parents and asking them to make him quit.
Patton Oswalt would love that. Death Lighthouse: The Lighthouse That Eats People. Toudou hears the strangest rumors.
Even though Saeki is a violent jerk and I hate him, he’s the only guy I know so far in the game, so I ask him to go to the Botanic Gardens. His overcomes his initial OVERWHELMING SUSPICION of what I could possibly have planned and agrees to go. He is late for our date, so I hit him.
So it’s really gonna be like that, eh? We wander around the garden and he talks constantly about how much he loves summer and generally acts like a normal person.
It was a date. Don’t fall into denial.
A short while later, Saeki and I are walking to the cafe after school when Balls trips and falls into Saeki. Mouth first. And lands on his mouth.
As you can see, the protagonist in this game is a little bit brighter than the gal from TMGS1.
I kind of want to see what he would say if she said no, but I don’t get the option to lie to him.
