Part 2: Planning for Perfection: Or, How I Learned to Start Worrying and Hate the Bomb

Planning for Perfection: Or, How I Learned to Start Worrying and Hate the Bomb

Since D won the poll, we're going to need to go back in time and retcon a few things in order to fulfill the requirements of UTTER PERFECTION.

First: I mentioned that there is a special event that you can see with Shiori if you set her birthday to be the same as yours. To see this special event (which is exclusive to the Forever With You versions of the game), you also have to fulfill the following conditions:
1) The shared birthday has to fall on a Sunday or holiday in 1995, 1996, or 1997.
2) Your relationship status with Shiori has to already be at friendship level.
3) You can't have any dates on that day.
4) If that day happens to be the third Sunday of the month, when most clubs have their compulsory activities/practice matches/swimming meets/etc., you will be kicked out of the club if you see this event instead of choosing the club activity.

Because of the demanding requirements of the special event, most people set this shared birthday in March to give themselves the maximum amount of time to meet the requirements.

Second: Because of the previously mentioned (day + month*3) mod 11 formula, Shiori routes depend on certain birthdays in order to isolate Shiori to a club activity that won't gain the notice of anyone else. This is because the game scales in difficulty with how many girls you have met. Allow me to explain:

In TokiMemo, you meet certain girls by either sharing a club activity with them or fulfilling a minimum stat requirement and performing the generic activity on a school day. The exceptions to this in TokiMemo 1 are Shiori, who you've known forever, and Yumi (Yoshio's little sister), who is a year younger than you and automatically meets you at the beginning of your second year. But here are all of the girls and the conditions to meet them (skip to Spreading Yourself Too Thin if you don't care about this list):

There is a third way to meet girls at random - if you're at the Christmas party and you know fewer than three girls, the game will introduce them to you at random until you know three.


How to meet Mio method 1: Study Literature on a schoolday while your Lit stat is 55+ (75+ if you've already met two non-Shiori/Yumi characters)
How to meet Mio method 2: Join the same club as her (Drama club or Lit club, depending on where Shiori is) and choose club activities 5 times, or she will automatically appear in the club's summer camp)


Yuina method 1: Study Science with Science 60+ (85+)
Yuina method 2: Science club or Computer club


Ayako method 1: Practice Art with Art 50+ (65+)
Ayako method 2: Concert band or Art club


Saki method 1: Do anything with Guts 36+ (96+)
Saki method 2: Baseball team or Soccer team


Yukari method 1: Exercise while your Looks are 81+ (84+)
Yukari method 2: Tennis club


Nozomi method 1: Exercise while your Guts are 31+ (71+)
Nozomi method 2: Swimming club


Mira method 1: Preen while your Looks are 101+ (126+)
(there is no method 2 for Mira)


Yuuko method 1: Hang Out with General Knowledge 91+
(there is no method 2 for Yuuko)


Megumi method 1: Special - Shiori will introduce Megumi to you at the Ijuuin Christmas party if you're really standing out in academics and/or your club activities.
Megumi method 2: If you don't meet Megumi at the Ijuuin Christmas party, Shiori will introduce her to you on the following Valentine's Day


Spreading Yourself Too Thin: or, Why This All Matters

Shiori is a very demanding girl - in order to win her heart, you have to be exceptional in all aspects of school life. These are the stats you'll need:

Stamina 50+ | Lit 130+ | Science 130+
Art 130+ | Sports 110+ | General knowledge 120+
Looks 100+ | Guts 100+ | Stress 50-

If you look at the chart above, you'll note that earning these stats will force you to meet every girl if you're not careful.

So, what is it about meeting girls that makes the game harder? Now we'll have to explain how the relationship chart works.


That's not so bad, right?

This is Yoshio's graphical representation of how much girls like you. As you can see, it ranges from "Tokimeki" on the left (the girl is in love with you) to "oh god why" on the right (the girl hates your guts), with various levels of friendship in between. For all non-secret characters, you must be at Tokimeki level with a girl in order to see her ending.

You raise a girl's affection by going on successful dates, walking home from school with her, and seeing special events. You lower a girl's affection by going on bad dates... or ignoring her for a while (about 3 months, usually) and making her feel jealous and hurt, represented in-game by bombs.


This is a nightmare case and has sabotaged many a Shiori route. Beware the mad bombers!

If you ignore a bomb and it explodes, then you will receive an ominous call from Yoshio, who tells you that there's a bad rumor going around that you've hurt <X girl>. When this happens, every other girl's affection for you will go down, often dooming you to the Forever Alone ending. Yumi and Megumi are especially notorious bombers - Yumi because she starts out at a high affection level and has the shortest bomb timer in the game, and Megumi because she gets really hurt every time you walk home with a girl who is not her.

In order to defuse a bomb or prevent one from ever appearing, you need to make sure to go on a date with a girl at least once every 4 months, which destroys your schedule - it takes one Sunday/holiday to invite a girl on a date, and another Sunday/holiday to do it. With a full 11 girls, you basically need to take 22 days out of every 3-4 months in order to keep a bomb from forming... and there are only 12-13 Sundays every 3 months, plus a variable number of Japanese holidays. You can see how this can quickly spiral out of control!

Time to man up!

There is a relatively easy way of winning Shiori's heart while fulfilling all of these requirements. We jokingly call it the Teen Wolf route: what you essentially do is lay low for two years, never standing out in anything and not caring about any bombs that may go off. Then, in year three you suddenly burst out of your shell to raise your stats to ridiculous levels, go on nonstop dates with Shiori (only taking time out to avoid 9 months of bombs from girls you will probably just meet in year 3), and call it a win.

We didn't know about this method back in 1995 - the Internet was pretty young and knowledge was concentrated in magazines, books, and mooks (magazine books). This path is also boring, sees very few if any of the special events, and does not fulfill the requirements of Utter Perfection. So, in Monday's update, we will be starting down the path of UTTER PERFECTION and showing you the true path of the High School Superman.

Goon, we salute you. You will truly be the greatest of men.