A new school, a new cast, a new tokimeki.

Motto! Motto! Tokimeki- Tokimeki Memorial 2 and Beyond
On the eve of 25 November 1999, a queue of over 50 waited outside the LaOX computer game outlet in Akihabara. Long queues preceding any release of a major game title is hardly a rare sight in Japan, but for the TokiMemo fans who stood in the drizzling rain that night, it was nevertheless a special moment. Almost six years after Konami first released TokiMemo, the long-awaited sequel had finally arrived.

Featuring a whole new cast of 13 characters-including a new red-haired heroine in Hikari Hinomoto-and set in the town of Hibikino and its Hibikino Senior High, Tokimeki Memorial 2, as the game was official called, was more than just an improved version of the original. With the game's new 'Emotional Voice System' (EVS), Konami was once again setting new standards for the industry. Whereas love-sims of the day only displayed players' name on the screen, the EVS allows him to program his name before the game starts so that the TokiMemo2 characters will call his name out. Konami shipped TokiMemo2 in five discs, and later released additional EVS voice-data discs.

Tokimeki Memorial 2 >> movie clip <<

Tokimemo2 didn't quite redefine the genre the way the original did. But it surpassed the original in almost every aspect. The game was fun (and funnier than the original), had some interesting storylines to go with, and despite what some TokiMemo fans like Eddie Lau thought were "ugly character designs", there were still enough quirky and kawaii (cute) characters to make both die-hard fans and new converts happy.

Within six months of its release, Konami had achieved over 375,229 copies of the game sold in Japan. It was also nominated for the Grand Prize at Japan's fourth annual CESA Academy Awards in 2000. Konami followed up last year with the first drama-adventure title for TokiMemo2 (Tokimeki Memorial 2 Substories: Dancing Summer Vacation, which was basically a Dance Dance Revolution tie-in), and the second is scheduled for release this March. And true to the TokiMemo tradition, Konami has also been flooding the market with related merchandising and audio recordings.

And when Konami started a 'game fund' with Monex, an online investment company in Japan, late last year, TokiMemo was the game they chose. Known as the Game Fund Tokimeki Memorial, fans could now even invest in the development of future TokiMemo titles like TokiMemo3 for the PlayStation2.

Expect the TokiMemo legacy to be felt right into the 21st century. Konami currently hopes to woo a new legion of fans with a love-sim targeted at female gamers (currently called 'New Tokimeki' by its developers), while the company is also busy producing the third TokiMemo game for the Sony PlayStation2.

Real-time cel-shading means that TokiMemo fans can speak to future heroines from any possible angle.

At the Tokyo Game Show Spring 2000, the company gave its vision of TokiMemo in a new era. One is to transform the static TokiMemo world into one that is constantly changing through the use of networking; another is to use what the company calls 'emotional interfaces' to make interaction between the player and the game's characters more authentic; and thirdly to make use of new technologies to breach the gap between the virtual and real world. All this may translate into an improvement of the EVS system through DVD technology, real-time graphics and animation, players conversing with the game characters via voice-recognition, and even players competing among themselves over the network for the affections of the game's heroines.

"We're hoping that the evolution of the EVS and other graphics technologies will not only help create a smooth transition to TokiMemo3 for fans, but also let the heroines in the game interact more naturally with them," says Metaru Yuuki, the music director for the original TokiMemo and producer for the sequel.