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Let's Play Tokimeki Memorial Girl's Side 2 - Rubbing boys the wrong way
2nd season? That's an interesting name for a sequel.
Technically, it's the name for the Nintendo DS remake! Tokimeki Memorial Girl's Side 2nd Kiss originally came out on PS2 in 2006, 4 years after Tokimeki Memorial Girl's Side. It was the last time a Tokimeki Memorial game was ever released a home console -- after 2nd Kiss, you have 2nd Season (2008, DS), Tokimemo 4 (2009, PSP), and and Girl's Side 3rd Story (2010, DS and 2012, PSP).
Why did they stop making Tokimemo for consoles?
A couple of factors come into play here.
First, making games for the Nintendo DS was just plain good business. While the PS2 was hugely successful, 2006 was when Sony planned to phase out the console -- the PS3 launched in November of that year. Meanwhile, the DS was ludicrously, filthily profitable. Almost everyone in Japan owned a DS for Pokemon and Brain Age and any number of other popular games, and it was pretty common to own two so you could trade Pokemon/fruit/whatever with yourself. The vaunted Castlevania series was notably absent from consoles during this period as well, with a 5-year gap in console releases between Curse of Darkness (2005, PS2) and Lords of Shadow (2010, PS3/Xbox 360). We're just going to ignore Castlevania: Judgment and pretend it never happened, thank you very much.
Second, Konami wasn't exactly in a hurry to pour money into a console version of Tokimemo on unfamiliar hardware a second time. Girl's Side sold well enough on PS2, but Tokimemo was clearly not a hit franchise anymore. Handheld development meant smaller dev teams, smaller budgets, and less risks.
What changed between GS and GS2?
Not a lot. Much like Tokimemo 2, they took their existing formula and refined it, concentrating more on making a likeable cast of characters than on improving the game system.
Most obviously, GS2 changes the fairy tale from a princess story to a mermaid story, and changes the setting very slightly. While the game still takes place in Habataki City, the characters attend Hanegasaki Academy instead of Habataki Academy. This lets them reuse several backgrounds and environments from the previous game while still being able to create an entirely different (and far less creepy!) cast.
Okay, then what did they change in the DS remake?
Due to space limitations, the EVS system is significantly slimmed down. Instead of going syllable by syllable like in previous games, 2nd Season has a limited set of pre-recorded names. If you choose a name outside of that list, things break down quickly. The game will pull out syllables from the name and say "choose one of these to be what all of the characters say" - for example, Fudou gets cut into either Fuu or Dou, so on stream you'll hear a lot of "Fu" when the characters talk.
Oh, and then there's the "Skinship" system. You'll, uh, you'll have to see it to understand it.
That sounds ominous.
I can show you fear in a hand full of DS.
Uh. That was creepy. Can we forget that we ever asked that question?
Okay! Would you like to meet the cast instead?
Is it actually better than the cast of Girl's Side?
Yep. Let's go.