ACTION BUTTON REVIEWS TOKIMEKI MEMORIAL
Added 2021-01-01 18:08:59 +0000 UTCWell, ACTION BUTTON REVIEWS Tokimeki Memorial will be live at 1:08pm Eastern on YouTube Dot Com Slash Action Button. I figure this timestamp is fitting for the New Year's Day launch of a video about a video game that takes place in Japan, in which New Year's Day figures as a pivotal moment in each of the story's three in-game years. (Temple bells ring 108 times on New Year's Day, for those unfamiliar with the reference here.)
This video is different from the four before it. First of all, it's different because it has to be: I don't want any two of these videos to be exactly the same. Though also it's different because I understand that only an extreme minority of my viewers have ever played the game under review--I know this for certain because a great deal of you messaged me with your concerns. I know many of you like to play the game under review before my review launches, and I know that many of you didn't feel able to do that with this big, long, dense, weird game that's entirely in a language you don't speak. I assured many of you privately over email, and I assure you again here, for one last time: you don't need to have played Tokimeki Memorial in order to watch my review, because I played it for you.
My review of Tokimeki Memorial, if you look at it as a "YouTube Video," is five hours, fifty-six minutes, and twenty-six seconds long. If you think of it as a "YouTube Video," yes, it's a Six-Hour YouTube Video.
However, I encourage you to try thinking of it as six ONE-hour *episodes* of a mini-series.
In fact, this is how I want people to watch all Action Button Reviews: one episode at a time. All my previous videos, which ran at more or less three hours each, likely seemed to many viewers as intended for viewing in one sitting. Most of the comments I receive regarding the videos concern their length. I received at least a hundred emails in 2020 from well-meaning viewers promising me that if my videos were shorter, I'd have more subscribers. Many of these nice-enough emailers tell me to split my reviews into multiple videos to "maximize engagement". Maybe all of these people have PhDs in social media! Maybe not. Who knows!
I knew I had to formally address my videos' disastrous length at some point in the future. I figured, why not now? Thus this Tokimeki Memorial review begs you with its big, visible timestamp to watch it in sections. I'd recommend one episode per day.
I faced a genuine dilemma here: how do I entertain you with a video about a game you might never be able to play? The clearest solution was that I should stream the game non-stop for a month, though who has time to watch all that? So instead, I painstakingly logged footage from fourteen playthroughs, and composed two full, feature-length let's plays of two complete playthroughs. In part three of this review, you'll see my first playthrough, in which I fail. In part four of this review, you'll see my fourteenth playthrough, in which I succeed.
I wrote up both of these segments--and recorded their on-camera scenes--thinking I would cut them from the video. Writing them up was instrumental in my formulating the conclusions I make in chapter five.
However, faced with all the footage lined up and logged and color-coded all beautifully, I figured, what the heck? I edited them as meticulously as I edited the rest of the video.
(Trust me: my concept of a "let's play" is probably as congruent with that of the masses as my concept of a "review".)
Overall, I believe this review encapsulates everything I've ever tried (and failed) to like about myself more than anything else I've ever made. It is home to some of the trickiest video editing I've ever perpetrated. It's got some decent jokes. And there's even a sixteen-minute *deleted scene* that I'll be uploading to Vimeo next week, once enough of you have watched the video for it to be relevant. (There may yet be a Vimeo for Pac-Man, by the way. Give me a minute over here.)
The bulk of the difficulty in producing this Tokimeki Memorial review, oddly, all happened at the end. If you read my previous post you know what I'm talking about: Adobe Premiere just didn't like this project. Maybe I hit the limit on how many nested sequences you can nest inside a nested sequence. (Lotta nested sequences in here, Jerry.) Whatever it was, Adobe Premiere became at last a nightmare factory: constant crashes, freezes, blue screens of death--and more! Ultimately, Ryan Taylor stepped in to help me export the most of the video. Peculiarly, though our systems have almost identical specs, he had close to none of the issues I had. Computers are mysterious!
(That's why I'm making a new one this week. That, and for my continuing Cyberpunk 2077 research.)
Also, computers are mysterious! . . . is a theme of this Tokimeki Memorial review, which as you'll see from the intro dives quite loudly into notions of post-cyberpunk speculative fiction. Oh yes, Tokimeki Memorial, it turns out, was the perfect lead in to Cyberpunk 2077 all along.
I confess: I started working on this Tokimeki Memorial video before even launching this Patreon. I pitched it as a series to Kotaku about nine times. I started playing through the game right before I got COVID in March. I was playing it hard-core the day my Square-Enix buddy sent me my pre-release code for The Final Fantasy VII Remake. In summary, this video is everything this channel has been leading up to.
The Cyberpunk video is next. Then, I can finally tell you what "Season Two" is. (Hint: I decided to turn those other two videos to which I previously alluded into "Season Two." Season Two is all about me, uh, sorta having a little vacation and just reviewing games I love, like this Patreon initially pitched. Hmm, maybe I should rewrite the pitch.)
Anyway, see you soon on Twitch Dot TV Slash Action Button for some Cyberpunk 2077 streams!
Having said all that, I'm going to play Demon's Souls all day today in my fancy Christmas Pajamas. We still got four days of Christmas left!
Comments
fwiw, this was the video that convinced me to sign up
Christopher Hyde
2021-03-25 21:11:09 +0000 UTCWatched the video, immediately subbed up to the patreon and followed the final advice to play TM1 once in a breezy, non-overthinking way (I got Nozomi, it was a joy) and now I'm a few playthroughs into Tokimeki Memorial 2. I strongly empathize with the feeling of wanting to be able to talk to more people about how great this game is! So I guess I'll do it here?! What pleasantly surprised me is that the "catch em all" -friendly structure of 2 is as enjoyable to engage with as it is. Any one play through gives you just enough information about at least one girl character that you can sketch the outline of a boy character in your mind that that girl might connect with. The next time round, you can try to roleplay as that character, but crucially the game is forgiving enough that you can do it in an intuitive, naturalistic and fun way, making a few mistakes and not feeling like you have to psychopathically min/max your character to "clear the objective". It doesn't feel like manipulating the girl to like you, it feels like trying earnestly to give this already-existing character a partner (or foil) with whom they can grow into their true self, or at least reveal a part of their self that they wouldn't show otherwise. Or to put it another way, it felt to me like a _collaborative_ writing process, where you need to write your guy's part in such a way that the full arc of the heroine's story can play out. In that sense, your guy isn't necessarily even the protagonist any more, because the heroine in any particular playthrough develops and grows much more than the structure of the game allows him to. Each playthrough's story is "about" the girl. Needless to say, I like it A LOT. Thank you for giving these games the attention they should probably have had all along. Looking forward immensely to Cyberpunk 2077 and season 2!
xct
2021-02-13 07:05:37 +0000 UTCI watched the 6 hour review, then I watched 13 hours of recorded stream in which you played the game with the goal of dating Megumi Mikihara, then I watched the 6 hour review again. I now consider Tokimeki Memorial The Best Game I've Never Played and Probably Will Never Play. And the game I spent most time one without actually playing it. (I really want to though I wish there was a possibility without me having to learn Japanese)
Celes
2021-02-08 18:23:58 +0000 UTCThis 6-hour video reviewing a untranslated 1994 Konami dating sim seems almost spitefully made, Tim. Surely not?
Scab120
2021-02-02 06:42:51 +0000 UTCJust finished, and as many people already have written, this was fantastic; and very informative, since I really had just a very little idea of what this game was, and definitely had no idea of how good it is. I really hope they will eventually translate it (Konami, or some rogue translating hero). I also got curious about the mention of your favorite Japanese pop albums, it would be really cool if you could either write down a list or maybe put together a Spotify playlist with some of those. Got really into Japanese City Pop in the past year, but I'm pretty sure the playlist easy available to non-Japanese speakers barely scratch the surface. Keep on keepin on, sir
Emilio Bellu
2021-01-16 15:01:40 +0000 UTCI'm a guy with 2 kids and a full time job and I'm currently 4 hours and 20 minutes into this amazing video. Just a data point.
Jason Nugent
2021-01-13 07:43:23 +0000 UTCI've sat through the video in 1 sitting and have some thoughts. I think the pre-playthrough and the playthrough are the strongest part of the video. The Point sort of circled around the your realization but never quite reach the firm conclusion the review needs. I would get to the point after you shared personal experience with your novel. I know what you are getting at because I've played Japanese visual novels for 20+ years, and the one thing that initially stopped me from playing, 20 years ago, is the same realization as you did that every time I do another route, a piece of 'history' is lost with the characters. Sadness and guilt was what I felt whenever I finished a route. It sounds funny but this realization stopped me from finishing my first visual novel for more than a year. The other realization that I need to 'min/max' my character's behavior to appease the heroine also puts me off. I don't self-insert into any visual novel I play, but creating a fake persona to court another virtual persona is just too tedious and not really my idea of fun. I could get more into this, but I just want to know- when is the review for Tokimeki Memorial 2? I know you need to 'marinate' the confluence of feels, but at least make a short snippet of what to expect from Tokimeki Memorial 2. (For the record I've never played 1-3. I played a bit of 4 but it was pretty, eh, forgettable. It probably didn't help that I too tend to play dating simulation games like creating personality checklists...for every heroine (ie. 'what would she like....') . What a chore. )
T L
2021-01-11 22:19:10 +0000 UTCI hope you're able to get your hands on that Analogue Super Nt because otherwise I'll mail you mine from Germany because I can't live without Action Button Reviews anymore god DARN IT!
Bartosz Schneider
2021-01-11 16:20:18 +0000 UTCI’ve been trying to learn Japanese with Duolingo for a little while but now I’m trying much harder because this video inspired me. Tim 💜
Francesca Kitson-Woodhouse
2021-01-09 23:53:05 +0000 UTCNow I finally understand why Tokimeki Memorial is referenced so much. Man, I really want to play all the Tokimeki games now.
Eva Tran
2021-01-09 16:00:00 +0000 UTCI've spent a lot of time since watching this trying to find a dating sim I might love half as much as you love Tokimeki Memorial. I found out that Sakura Wars 1996 for the Saturn was fan translated to English 2 years ago. It seems wonderful so far. What a weird, weird universe these characters live in. Thanks, Tim! Really cool to explore a new (to me) genre.
CertainlyCity
2021-01-09 14:31:07 +0000 UTCthis shit is fully incredible
foglabs
2021-01-08 21:27:35 +0000 UTCThe best entertainment I’ve had this year! Although now I really really want to play Tokimeki Memorial.
Paulfunyun
2021-01-08 00:10:03 +0000 UTCThis is a masterpiece, thank you Tim. The care, detail and thought put into each of these videos is rare to find. Very excited by the L.A Noire teaser, for a game of its budget & publisher size, it does feel oddly historically under- appreciated. It was such an ambitious game, I’ve long dreamed of what could be capable from a sequel 2 console generations down the line. It was especially something that i couldn’t get out of my mind while exploring the vast detail of RDR2.
Adam Williams
2021-01-07 00:57:05 +0000 UTCThis video convinced me to search out a copy of Tokimeki Memorial AND finally back this Patreon! Success?
Jon Gill
2021-01-06 06:53:05 +0000 UTCIf you join at the $78/mo level, Tim will review your life. He will not be generous, but he will use the word "luxurious" several times in a few hour span.
Mike Amarilio
2021-01-06 00:57:49 +0000 UTC"Hi, I'm Terry Gross, and I'm sitting down with Action Button's Tim Rodgers. Tim... tha fuck?"
Mike Amarilio
2021-01-06 00:55:36 +0000 UTCProbably my favorite video so far. Thank you!
Mu Fayez
2021-01-05 16:55:29 +0000 UTCThe ones which to me looked gold/round but I'm bad with colors. From the review portions.
Paul
2021-01-05 15:42:18 +0000 UTCJust tell me what we need to do to read the books, Tim. Please.
Blake Bouza
2021-01-05 11:07:04 +0000 UTCThe best one to date. Always entertaining, occasionally profound.
LG
2021-01-05 06:15:09 +0000 UTCThis is beautiful. I never quite understood the importance of Tokimeki Memorial, and got more and more curious the more I interact with Konami via the Bemani side, as Shiori and TokiMemo keeps showing up, over and over. I even once had a chance to buy the Bombergirl figure in a small shop in Canada (I did not, but I did take a picture and send it to Tom James on Twitter). But now it, and other games in the genre, make sense as something much bigger than it looks on the surface; if anything, the fact that they look superficial and hide something profound feels like The Entire Point. Through seeking wish fulfillment, you end up learning something else about yourself entirely. And what is the issue with wish fulfillment, anyway? We get lots of power fantasies in video game tradition - why is the one related to love somehow worse than, say, a Call of Duty game? I don't know how much TokiMemo would have changed Western videogames with a localization, but the lack of knowledge via cultural barrier makes the "wacky Japanese" things in games seem more understandable as an evolution of the concept, and shows how oddly far behind the big budget narrative AAA games of today are, because of lacking this and other historical narrative-driven concepts. Haven't gotten inspired to write something this long in a Patreon comment before. This video is why I'm in this Patreon at all - first one of these I watched, and I'm looking forward to Cyberpunk now. Thanks a lot!
Vinushika
2021-01-05 03:48:34 +0000 UTCThis was such a fun watch - I loved the two playthroughs especially, and your summary of the drama that transpired in them had me laughing and crying and gasping in shock!!
Lyn Vakulenko
2021-01-05 03:34:31 +0000 UTCThank you for this video, Tim. My wife and I are incredible fans of your work, and though she herself does NOT play games of any type, she is enamored with your eloquent execution of your long form essays. I created/run an interactive dating simulator comedy show and the insights I gained from this massive undertaking will definitely influence my future shows. Happy New Year!
Samuel J. Weller
2021-01-04 22:57:55 +0000 UTCYour best video by a country mile Tim, finally finished it (after watching it in chunks!!!!) and that was my favorite so far. Hilarious, evocative, emotional, just excellent work, so glad to see you getting back to your best work.
Spencer Ward
2021-01-04 22:43:56 +0000 UTCI will join this chorus calling for "at icepick velocity." You think we can sit through a 6 hour video and not handle a 15 minute intermission?
Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham
2021-01-04 18:07:38 +0000 UTCFantastic work. I remember PlayStation World magazine ran an article about dating sims titled something along the lines of "Mum, Dad meet my new Girlfriend... After this loading screen!". The descriptions there definitely made it all seem unsavoury, but this was the case with much of the Japanese coverage from the lads mag style writing in PSW and other FREE CHOCOLATE BAR games magazines in the UK and Ireland at the time.
Luke
2021-01-04 17:29:15 +0000 UTCI'm not really a t-shirt guy but I would pay a lot of money for a poster-sized print of that design.
Jacob
2021-01-04 12:16:24 +0000 UTCAlright Tim, you win. Up till now I couldn't understand why you don't just release these as a batch of separate episodes, Netflix style. With this latest.. I dunno, somehow it all makes sense now. Loved it.
ubie
2021-01-04 06:58:21 +0000 UTCI also had to do some serious OCR to figure out what Fujisaki said at right around the anecdote part. Which seems to be: 藤崎 「最近、センス 良くなってきたね。 Google translate says: "Recently, sense it's getting better."
eliott
2021-01-04 04:55:12 +0000 UTCAmazing video. Really enjoyed it. It put me in a very reflective mood, and made me think about the choices in my life that have led me today. At the end, I felt sad that it was over.
eliott
2021-01-04 04:52:22 +0000 UTCthank you tim. i needed this so much!can we have the sixteen-minute intermission "at icepick velocity (or, "for example hungry hungry hippos)" please? <3
WAKWAKNORF
2021-01-03 22:11:21 +0000 UTCCompanion podcast?! Yes, please!
lunarlasso
2021-01-03 21:52:08 +0000 UTCI had to pause watching the Tokimeki video 24 minutes in. Your videos are brilliant. It would be glorious to have your reviews on Blu-ray sir. With the Action Button magazine art covering each case. (Maybe a detailed Table of Content "instruction booklet" inside the case). In the event of network/internet collapse and/or catastrophe. We could still enjoy Action Button content. And it would be awesome on a book/movie shelf. Ok, back to watching Action Button.
lunarlasso
2021-01-03 21:46:53 +0000 UTCThank you, Tim. This video is absurdly, unbearably important.
Squit
2021-01-03 20:53:11 +0000 UTCthis is really something else, Tim. outstanding as always.
Kyle Green
2021-01-03 20:31:04 +0000 UTCJust finished it last night. This was always a game I wanted to play ever since finding it small blurbs of it in game magazines as a kid. The 2 playthrough format was my favorite parts. I loved the journey along with your thoughts and methodology as you were playing. I so wish this localized one day so that I can also experience this game but this video was just as satisfying. My favorite video in the series so far. Really looking forward to the Rondo vid!
Bryan Marcelo
2021-01-03 19:25:34 +0000 UTCBut seriously, a great video - with some easter eggs relating to your personal essays?!
Alex Spalding
2021-01-03 12:13:07 +0000 UTCAnother great video - until you made me feel guilty for still not finishing Neuromancer. That book is really hard to get through!
Alex Spalding
2021-01-03 12:12:15 +0000 UTCGot through the first let’s play section and pausing to savor, and also to stop by and comment: these videos have been my favorite thing to look forward to all year. This is the first video in your series on a game I’d never heard of and I’m having a blast! Thank you and happy new year!!
Liz Uraga
2021-01-03 10:05:15 +0000 UTCWow!!! I'm amazed. This rivals Let's Mosey for the greatest long-form thing you've ever made. And since I'm a guy who likes your long-form stuff even better than your short ("short") form stuff, this means this is one of the best things you've ever made (IMO). Amazing work! I truly can't wait to see the next thing you create. I hope, whatever it is, it touches you deeply, just like Tokimeki Memorial did.
Joey
2021-01-03 06:01:08 +0000 UTCJust finished. Felt like an HBO miniseries. I'm jonesing for the companion podcast with a public radio personality where you describe what went into making it and things you didn't have time for. Post-review scratched that itch a little bit though. Cannot endorse keeping those lets plays in there enough.
Keith_B
2021-01-03 01:43:44 +0000 UTC"Season Two is all about me, uh, sorta having a little vacation and just reviewing games I love, like this Patreon initially pitched..." Does this mean you didn't love some of the games from "Season One"? I feel you liked all of them but I'm guessing that does not equate to love. If so, which ones you would say you don't love?
Angelo D'Elia
2021-01-03 00:57:46 +0000 UTCIf it makes any sense, watching your reviews always feels more akin to reading a book! I like to take it in segments so I can think about what you’re saying and get the most out of your review. Looking forward to this one, hope you’re having a great new year!
Kaelynn
2021-01-02 14:04:38 +0000 UTCThis is the perfect way to start 2021, thank you Tim!
zerogouki_
2021-01-02 11:30:59 +0000 UTCI just finished this, it was great. Really thorough and made me look at this game in a different light. A real arboretum of a review. I really like how you're drawing attention to important games like this that a lot of people haven't heard of (Or like, can't, because they can't speak the only language it's available in). Can't wait for the next one.
Kewl0210
2021-01-02 08:18:19 +0000 UTCI'm watching this in one go while in bed at the beginnings of a covid 19 nightmare. This is an interesting experience.
Missing Mimic
2021-01-02 07:29:58 +0000 UTCCouldn't resist becoming a backer after this one. Standing ovation. You've re-awakened my long dormant desire to learn some Japanese so that I can play this game
Scott
2021-01-02 07:05:19 +0000 UTCI say this as objectively as I can Tim. This is the best video you have made so far (both at kotaku and here). The feeling of finishing the video was akin to turning the last page on a good book and feeling both full, and starving.
Canis_Divinus
2021-01-02 06:45:57 +0000 UTC"The clearest solution was that I should stream the game non-stop for a month, though who has time to watch all that?" Personally I do, and others like me are already filling that time with other bozo's (at best lesser, and at worst genuinely damaging) content. What I'm trying to say is, if you do want to release any other content, but are resisting due to oversaturation concerns, then please know that if it exists i will watch it. I love your work and hope you know that comments remarking about video-length are not representative of your viewers hunger for your work.
Jordan Cummins
2021-01-02 06:22:42 +0000 UTCwhich ones? the first, or the second? they're both the same brand (hakusan), though i definitely do not wear the second ones outside of the house most of the time!
tim rogers
2021-01-02 05:01:44 +0000 UTCThose glasses frames you have in this video are really awesome. I was watching the video and the thought came into my head "Those are really good glasses frames" and a few seconds later my wife turned to me and said "Those are really good glasses frames"
Paul
2021-01-02 04:36:36 +0000 UTCIt has been binged. I sent a Twitter dm before the release explaining my excitement for this review, and how I would sign up on patreon this day. 6 hours and 2 playthroughs is so much more than I expected. At the 2 hour mark I paused & I subscribed to patreon at a higher tier than I initially planned to. Thank you so much for this review.
Travis Harnar
2021-01-02 03:16:53 +0000 UTCWas that an intentional glitch at 53m36s to protect the name of the innocent? lol
Tommy_
2021-01-02 00:25:41 +0000 UTCI am excited to watch! Also, I am glad that someone else is down for the 12 days of Christmas.
David Noo
2021-01-01 21:30:28 +0000 UTCA six hour action button review? What an amazing start to the year. Fabulous.
Lee
2021-01-01 20:36:22 +0000 UTCA six hour mini series. Tim, I'll be honest here. I'm putting you down as my favorite part of 2020. No hyperbole. Your rationale, critical thinking and emotional honesty (and your jokes)! Helped me work through some of the darkest moments of this dumpster we just crawled out of, on our way into the next one. Thank you for what you do. You are a treasure. I'm also incredibly ungrateful - I've been dying to see this series you just posted, but I need, need! That Cyberpunk dissection in my veins. Happy New Year!
Nathan Noble
2021-01-01 20:27:35 +0000 UTCJust finished the first episode of your review and I'm loving it! I played through the game a few times on the PC engine mini a couple of months ago and the first bad ending really stung. The emotional honesty in this video is such a wonderful start to 2021. I will attempt to exercise restraint and not watch the rest of the review in one go, but I can't promise anything. Top quality content, I'm upping my pledge by as much as I can afford!
Robert Rostant
2021-01-01 20:21:33 +0000 UTCYou da man Tim
Andy
2021-01-01 18:36:44 +0000 UTCWhat a nice start to 2021! Thank you for all your hard work!
Billy Monks
2021-01-01 18:35:51 +0000 UTC6 hours. Never stop you legend
LG
2021-01-01 18:32:42 +0000 UTCThis morning I was looking at a couple of 4-5 hour YouTube videos I had been recommended and then closed the tabs because I "would never watch something that long." Spoke about three hours too soon. Whoops.
Alec Kubas-Meyer
2021-01-01 18:24:46 +0000 UTCSo excited to watch this! Happy Christmas Tim.
Jonathan Merkt
2021-01-01 18:20:59 +0000 UTCCongrats Tim, can’t wait to watch it. Enjoy your days of Christmas and hopefully get some rest!
Spencer Ward
2021-01-01 18:18:21 +0000 UTCalso, shop.actionbutton.net
tim rogers
2021-01-01 18:11:07 +0000 UTC178 hours of processing!!
Squit
2021-01-01 18:10:50 +0000 UTC
