One Week Has Passed

One week has passed since TMO was launched. Kagayaki High School (in TMO world) is a good place to spend a weekday night, too.

By the way, I hope that many beta-testers will continue to play TMO after 30-day free trial period.

I had a great time

I spent most of my time playing TMO last weekend. It was great and I had a lot of fun.

BTW, cherry blossoms represent the beginning of the school year in Japan. In fact, cherry trees suddenly began to bloom immediately after the start of the service of TMO.

A New MMO Era was born as the Tokimeki Memorial ONLINE (TMO)

I have been waiting for this moment. The time has come. Tokimeki Memorial ONLINE (TMO) is now successfully launched on schedule!

After applying several hundreds of patches (over 700!) and struggles with registration system, I have just restarted my virtual school life at Kagayaki High School in TMO World. Come and see me if you have time.

What's New with TMO

I received an email from KONAMI telling me of latest updates for TMO yesterday. Disclosing further details is not allowed because of confidentiality matters but it is revealed that TMO is still evolving.

Wait with keen interest till tomorrow!

I cannot wait!

Wow, TMO will be ready in 2 days. I am really looking forward to meeting my friends again in TMO.

Character Data Transfer

It is announced that TMO beta-players who want to transfer their game character data and information relating to the game can do so by registrating their key again. For more details, please see official website .

This is quite important for both beta-players and newbies because this confirmation step will help unused character data to be removed and it will make room for newbies, IMO.

TMO Client (retail package) Limited Edition available

TMO game client Limited Edition is now available. It contains the game client, free 30-days subscription and some fan items including bonus audio CD, mug cup and more and costs around 65 USD.

To tell you the truth, I also purchased it and I am very impressed with dangle-dolly "hiyokokko". How cute it is!

The TMO Software Ready for Download!

The TMO client software is now ready for download! This is an important milestone. Though, beta release is announced to be upgradable to official release automatically.

Adjourned Sale

SOURCENEXT, the distributor of Tokimeki Memorial ONLINE (retail package), announces that they will not deliver the item as agreed, which was March 23 and they postpone the dispatching time to late March due to unknown reasons. For more details, please read this page.

I hope that the service of TMO will be launched on schedule (March 23, 2006).

TMO Ready Computer

Do you need a new PC and do you have an interest in TMO? This is it!

http://www.clevery.co.jp/project-k/

It is announced that this PC comes with customized wallpaper, sound files, mouse pad (TMO is pre-installed, of course). In addition, you get the first 90 days of TMO subscription free! But, remember this; It costs 673 USD (79,800 JPY) at minimum.

Fan Site Accreditation (follow-up report）

Recently I received an e-mail saying "Your application is confirmed and your site is under examination" from KONAMI's online customer service.

I hope it will get better.

Fan Site Accreditation

Maybe you know the saying "A picture is worth a thousand words". That is certainly the case for fan site administrators. For example, it is quite useful for administrators to show a typical screenshot.

As for TMO, only accredited fan sites are allowed to use screenshot. Thus, I applied for the fan site accreditation program last week or so and its process is now underway.

However, rumor says that websites using CGI service (including Blogs) have the least chance (I don't know why). Prospects may be grim... sigh.

TMO Launch Day

Official website says that KONAMI plans to lauch TMO officially on March 23, 2006. Only 10 days until it starts.

Stay tuned!

More details (3. mini-RPG)

Tired of chat or just want to stay away from duel? Then why don't you try mini-RPG ("drama event")? Tons of scenarios are available.

You can play intra-TMO drama event with either PC or NPC but I would recommend you to play with PC. Because of nondisclosure obligation as a beta-tester, unfortunately, I cannot describe further details about drama event here at this moment. However, it is fun to play, impressive and 100% guaranteed!

Yeah, please remember that the locations you can play club activity/volunteer training/drama event are limited.

More details (2. "club activity")

Club activity is very similar to trading card game. You create a deck of your own and take on NPC as an opponent . To create your deck, keywords are used instead of cards in TMO world.

You may wonder how you can manage to obtain keywords. Don't worry. Basic set of keywords are given when you create your character. Additional keywords are sometimes provided after the game and/or mini-RPG (to be described later). In addition, you can even define new keyword by using keyword and items you already have. This user-defined keyword is called "Ougi" (arcanum, in English).

Do you want to have PC as an opponent? Sure! "Voluntary training" mode is for you. It is almost the same as Club activity except for that your opponent is not a NPC but a PC.

I have very little experience playing Club activity (and Voluntary training) during beta2 test. Thus, further explanation is beyond my reach. If you are familiar with trading card games such as Yu-Gi-Oh!, you may like it. It is noted that playing Club activity is not mandatory.

More details (1. "Classwork")

I think that it is a time to explain more details of TMO. Generally TMO is comprised of three parts ("classwork", "club activity" and "mini RPG"). Well, first of all, I will explain what classwork in TMO is.

Classwork is a kind of quiz game. You can play the game together with other players around your character (max. total 9 players) at the same time. Each quiz consists of ten qustions and you might have some items after the quiz ocasionally such as ribbon, glasses, box lunch or something like that (your character is able to wear some of them).

It is noted that chat about the question is allowed among players! So, you can teste a sense of unity.

Beta2 Test was started at last

Long-awaited beta2 test of TMO was started after 3 months of delay on February 1, 2006 with a bad patch. Systems went down due to overwhelming access by testers as soon as the test began. The test was resumed practically on February 9. On the day the test was restarted, I could create my character successfully (my character name is "YOSHINO Kasumi". see also my profile) after executing login procedures.

Upon the entrance of TMO world, my question was resolved. Although it is difficult to explain what TMO correctly is, in a nutshell, players can relive their school days in TMO; making friends, pleasant chat and discussion, sweet and sour shcool romance with Non-Player Characters (maybe also with Player Character), classworks (quiz game) and more. In fact, you (plapyer) can change your gender and try to know how the other half lives, if you want. In other words, player can experience school days as someone new!

Tokimeki-Memorial was now reemerged with a new look and beloved characteristics concerved (i.e. super-deformed and/or very kawaii (cute) characters and lively comical BGMs). TMO got me hooked!

The emergence of TMO

It was in the first half of 2005 that I discovered TMO. I can remember that I was very surprised at it and I was excited about it. At the same time, I also wondered "How KONAMI implement online version of Tokimeki Memorial?".

In the meantime first beta testing plans of TMO were made public. I applied to beta1- and beta2-tester and I was lucky enough to became accredited as a beta2 tester. After all sorts of troubles and difficulties, beta2-test began on February 1, 2006.

Short history of "Tokimeki Memorial" (TokiMemo)

I can hardly explain Tokimeki Memorial Online (TMO) without taking "Tokimeki Memorial" (shortly, TokiMemo) into account. "TokiMemo" is a variant of strategic simulation game developed and released by KONAMI for PCEngine (a.k.a Turbo Grafx in US) early in '90s. You, as a player, control your skills (such as scholarship, appearance, physical strength, stress level and so on) to impress heroine(s). The object of this game is to make one of heroine fall in love with you and to let her confess her love to you. This is not so easy as you expected because increasing one skill (parameter) down-regulates other parameter. In addition, as well as particular heroine you are thinking of, you are also asked to maintain a good relationship with other heroines to prevent a "false rumor" from spreading! Otherwise, your attempt will fail :-(.

This "high school romance" concept is completely novel to users at that time and therefore, "TokiMemo" became a blockbuster hit. This game was ported to various platforms such as PlayStation, Sega Saturn, Nintendo and PC. Furthermore, some sequels were also made (TokiMemo2, TokiMemo3, TokiMemo Girl's Side). Meanwhile, about a decade has passed since 1st TokiMemo was released...

At the beginning...

From now on, I try to put my impression of Tokimeki Memorial Online (referred to as TMO hereafter) here in English. Because English is not my mother tongue, I cannot update this blog frequently but I will do my best.

Why English? It's a good question. There are a few reasons. I'd like to make a much wider users aware of this impressive Japanese-made massively multiplayer online game. And also, practice in writing English for myself :-)

Any comments on this blog and TMO itself are appreciated. If you find ungrammatical, nonstandard, incorrect wording on this blog, please let me know (remember to remove NOSPAM from my address).