The Full Impact of Love Plus on Daily Living Is Not Immediately Apparent
Actually it’s immediately apparent to some people–at least one blogger has made the connection that walking around with a Nintendo DS could be the same as walking around with a dakimakura of your favorite animu gal, or WAIFU, or whatever they’re called. But what does that mean? Why do people do it? There must be more than what meets the eye.
Naturally nobody sane and with an ounce of self-shame would pull a Nisan/Nemutan, and presumably nobody is that curious about what it means to the man who’d go the extremes to do so (although Nisan has his own reasons). And when I was carrying my DS around I didn’t realize this could very well be what is going on in someone’s head while he sits pretty with a box on his lap, or a hugpillow with an anime character on it, riding the train.
There is this strange animistic, Shintoist read on the whole twist on merchandising a franchise. It’s a play on a girlfriend’s intimate relationship with her man, but due out of convenience rather than self-sacrificing devotion. But there is devotion nonetheless. Which really just means that I’ll play the game on October 5th, being Manaka Takane’s birthday.
Let’s restart from the beginning.
Love Plus is Konami’s latest “big” game. They spent some effort, time, and money marketing and developing this game. Being for the Nintendo DS, there is naturally expectations about being able to play it on the go, and I think the game has delivered that very well. And despite the limitation of a DS game (namely in the physical memory a DS cart holds), the game is fully voiced and comes with all kinds of neat stuff. It also has great graphics and whatever for a DS game. It’s a quality product.
However, what sets this game apart from other games like it (dating sims) is the”girlfriend” portion of the game. Roughly speaking, the game is a dating sim through and through, which means you have to schedule what you do every day, to manipulate certain player-based stats, and when the right conditions are met the players trigger some flags which enables the relationship to go forward. This is basically the first half of the game. Once the player has triggered the “GF” flag, the game changes drastically, and it becomes a “living with a GF” sim…which is still a dating sim of sorts, but now the game opens up a series of new mechanics that you can do with your girl. While they are largely more stats-manipulation, much of the direct interaction you have with your girlfriend is through different mini-games, from touch-based to even voice recognition. The most notable portion of this second half, however, is that you can (optionally) engage the game on a day-to-day basis based on the real time clock. In other words, you can play through the day and only for day, and if you play the game in the morning rush hour, you can walk with your girl to school, and do “morning” things. If you clock in some minutes before you go to bed, you can see your GF in her PJs. You get the idea.
Thankfully this is a Konami/PG-13 kind of game!
The game itself is well-made, and it’s fun. But like most dating sims it’s easy to get bored of it rather quickly. I suspect by artificially limiting gameplay based on real time is part of the gimmick to give a game with a hard content limitation (DS cart only holds 256mb) more stay power. But the point is, there really is an incentive carry your DS around. You can unlock time-specific content, plus it’s something to do if you want to play games on the train, right? Thanks to its dating sim format, each game play session could be just a minute long, if all you do is run through the day like a run of the mill. Even going on a date doesn’t take all that long. It’s made for portable gaming.
Let’s talk about 2D versus 3D for a moment. There’s nothing particularly notable about being fascinated with a concept, an ideal, or just a plain idea. One of my favorite idea is fusion, and some of the smartest people on God’s Green Earth are dedicated to this cause. Of course, there is an immense practical aspect to the research and pursuit of fusion that is missing when OhSoRonery, mid 30s salarymen look for in virtual mates, but that hasn’t ever stop anyone. Or rather, in the case for 2D otaku, they may very well be serving their own needs when they do so.
The problem, or advantage from another perspective, is that now Love Plus can serve as a mean to satisfy that sort of thinking, or that kind of longing for the type of interaction you find in the game without really breaking any social norms. Well, it’s no worse than reading manga on the train at any rate. It’s very odd to carry around a 4-foot long hugpillow when you go to work, but nobody would even notice if you sneak a DS lite in your briefcase. Even if they do, they wouldn’t know that your Nintendo DS is now one of the most potent delivery vehicle of junai-kei moe on the planet. It’s like a suitcase nuke, except it’s just kimoi-otaku, pants-wetting stuff.
So what? This simply means even a person like me can empathize someone like Nisan, simply because I could, on my commute, take a look at my virtual companion, and playfully poke her on the ribs on the way to school. She would even react like a teased tsundere. It’s so cute. All that is missing is a fist pounding on my shoulder, to punish for the act. It made me think: why does this feel so odd? Is this what someone who has a “waifu” feels like when they watch their favorite whatever in their games or anime or manga or doujinshi or whatever? Is Konami really joking with their advertising?
And is it really that different than any kind of fan behavior as stereotypically associated with all this moe otaku kind of thing? Like having a character shrine in your room or having a personal favorite route/girl in a straight-up, renai eroge? Is it merely the difference between some kind of pornography that surrounds the player versus the type that distances the viewer? And you can substitute any kind of story in the place of pornography. It’s about the distance between you and the things you like…and how far is too far.
Speaking of not too far, I word-dropped animism earlier, and it’s not too far from the truth. Granted, to someone smitten with Love Plus, a Nintendo DS is just a console to run software, but it is also a vehicle that channels human emotional responses. Desperate farmers praying for rain? Cheering on your modem so your files upload faster? That is only natural. Today, ever more so, as games adapt to players and demand much more than the simple interactivity as video games are stereotyped, the fact that your DS can symbolize your tragic love life is no small analog to the Shintoist respect of nature. The construct that calls herself Rinko sitting inside my DS is my partner in a sustained relationship, as she inhibits a little black box with a blue lid. It’s like idol worship, except Love Plus isn’t made for the PSP or Xbox 360.
Maybe it’s just me; maybe Konami is succeeding in taking dating sims to the next level. I vote the latter.
You do know, this pandering towards your 2D girl is exactly the same principle with that of the Digimon. (I’m being sardonic here, but don’t mind me: Love Plus has been one singular game that is currently in my target sights at the moment.)
The marketing gimmick for Love Plus is not really news to me; the hype is. I don’t understand the notion of being at one “with Niisan/Nemutan” apart from empathising with his situation. I do get, however, that it fills up the socially-awkward role of “socialising” with another of the opposite sex, only portable. [Actually, this paragraph doesn’t make any sense to me, and I don’t intend to delete this, because. I risked being a troll here…]
Well, I can briefly conclude that Love Plus is not really my type of game. I can see the rest of the blogosphere stark raving mad about this game, and I’m fine with that. That said, it does bring to mind that “has-potential-but-bombs-already” movie called “Gamer.”
To some degree, yeah, it could be like Digimon. It could be like the many dating sims that came before it. But com’on now, how is a Digimon moe…
And it doesn’t even have to “fill a need” or anything. It could very well be its own unique thing.
I think Love Plus has succeeded because for the first time I actually feel loved by a 2D girl, and like I desire to continue playing. Never before have I really felt any feeling like this while playing a date sim.
I actually plan on carrying around my DS and playing at various times of the day. It does make me feel a little weird because I probably will have it open while waiting in line for things or waiting for a class to start, but oh well who cares. I’m sure I’ll get over it and get bored of it eventually. It really does make me want to have a real girlfriend though at the moment, but then again 3D is bat shit crazy.
I got it yesterday and now I’m dating Nene. She was so cute in her pajamas and how she puts her hair back in with a pink headband. Very cute. I can’t wait to start unlocking new stuff.
You are not alone. I guess I should say, somewhere, that Love Plus actually makes me feel the way its designers intended the players would. Which is quite a feat, and the main reason why I wrote it up like that.
Now that you put up the mobile perspective, the DS is really an ideal platform for a game like Love Plus. It essentially turns your DS into the “cellphone for your virtual girlfriend”. You open it up to check if she mailed you or whatever. Not to mention the DS battery really lasts like a cellphone. I especially like the sleep mode because it brings you back into the game instantly instead of waiting for it to load when powered off.
Plus, if you’re not really a NEET type you can bring this game freaking anywhere and have instant gratification without necessarily sacrificing your social life or having your full attention to it. The way other software like Brain Age, Nintendogs and Animal Crossing enables you for light and quick DS activities on your multiple downtimes of the day, Love Plus is like the first major otaku-related casual game.
I don’t know if you’ve ever read the William Gibson novel ‘Idoru’. It’s not a fantastic book or anything, but it centered mainly around a ‘virtual idol’. The bulk of the novel mainly exists to namedrop various weaboo terms and it’s pretty clear that he’d watched Macross Plus at some point, but it’s really interesting to see the concept is actually developing in reality now as well. Stuff like this, and Vocaloid as well are quite plausible stepping stones toward that sort of ultimate destination.
I wonder how long before someone constructs a knockoff for the iPhone? :P
I tried reading Gibson, but I fail. Yeah, I heard about Idoru. And it’s not exactly a theme unexplored in anime either.
There are already knock-off type things out there–or I should say, games that are like Love Plus, but what makes Love Plus is partly how well it is executed. It’s no mere tamagochi-type game that is, say, Nintendogs.
Just a matter of time!
What I’m looking forward to now is a Love Plus 2. With more girls, more personality types, and well just more stuff. It’ll happen. This was just to test the waters. I can bet a sequel will be out within the next 3 or 4 years.
We’re not too far off from the idol thing today it’s true. I mean it already started when publishers started using photoshop to touch up models for their magazines.
The point of this game is to make realistic programmed pixels that will tug on your heartstrings. Like cute fluffy puppies and cats on FooPets, Love Plus is the cute anime girl for guys.
Although, as a girl myself, I must admit that I’m planning on getting the game sooner or later. Too cute not to~! xp