That one time I graduated with the highest GPA of my graduating class because of Tokimeki Memorial

I was studying for my first Japanese oral performance exam for the year. The task was relatively simple: Invite someone out to eat or go see a movie. There were a few problems I had to figure out though. The textbook I used had pretty terrible practice conversations and it really wasn’t helping. Due to the pandemic, I was stranded without a Japanese conversation partner to confer to. Well, I did have a few people, but the time zone difference between the U.S and Japan made things difficult. I wasn’t sure what to do. I was going through my textbook, trying to rack my brain for a solution, and then I had an epiphany. “Wait a second,” I thought to myself. “Isn’t asking people out in Japanese all you do in Tokimeki Memorial???” See, I had never heard about the 1995 Playstation dating simulator until Tim Rogers, my favorite content creator, released a six-hour-long review for Tokimeki Memorial that completely changed the way I look at video games. It’s that good.

Even after watching that video, there was still a part of me that was going, “So, I’m really going to do this?” For the people that might not know this 30-year-old dating simulator, Tokimeki Memorial puts you in the shoes of a nameless high school student. The player's goal is to live a normal high school life whose social interactions will eventually lead them to meet a special someone under the school’s “Tree of Destiny” at the end of their high school life. It’s rumored that if two people meet under the tree, they will live happily ever after with a bountiful and prosperous relationship. It’s all very innocent on the surface. However, this game is deceptive because there is so much more happening under the surface. It’s packed with subtle details and players have to pay attention to subtle facial animations to understand the person the player is talking to. While this piece is mostly focused on how this game helped me with my Japanese. For a deeper dive into the themes and what this game objectifies, I will point you to Tim Roger’s review of Tokimeki Memorial. However, the director of Tokimeki Memorial also directed the gothic vampire adventure, Castlevania: Rondo of Blood. I felt like I had to know more about this game when I found that fact out.

However, the overly insecure high-school me of the past would be balking at the idea of college me playing a dating simulator. But, buddy, without Tokimeki Memorial, Final Fantasy probably wouldn’t be as good as it is. Also, Cyberpunk 2077 wouldn’t exist. But I need to move on. After I installed the game onto my PC, I booted it went through the main theme, met the creep that I needed the most named Yoshio, scheduled a date with Mio, and was on my way. I knew Mio was the stereotypical bookworm depiction, so I invited her to the library. I started to write down lines on a piece of paper from both sides of the conversation as I was scheduling the date. I was excited to go on the date with Mio. I wondered what we would talk about. When Mio and I both arrived at the library, we did not exchange a single word. I watched as Mio read in silence, staring affectionately into the pages of her book. She wasn’t ignoring me, she was just that transfixed in the book. The date was silent, but the dialogue I had written down to ask her out to the date proved useful for my Japanese studies, as it felt better and more natural than the dialogue from my Japanese textbook. I did change one thing, and that was the main character referring to himself as 俺様 which is basically calling yourself “my excellency.” It feels like taping a piece of paper to your back with the words, “PLEASE ACKNOWLEDGE MY TOXIC MASCULINITY” written on it. That wouldn’t have gone down well at all during the oral performance.

I continued to progress through the game and I realized something. One of the things I had been missing from my Japanese studies was conversation practice. When studying any language, outputting the target language through speech or writing is just as important as input. Video games and reading are great ways to receive input. Games like Dragon Quest have sweeping stories with troves of dialogue to read. The thing that holds me back from recommending it as a main form of study is that players spend so much time in battle. However, the core action of “Tokimeki Memorial” is talking. While the game is about dating and relationships, the core mechanic of the game is socialization. This was the tool I needed to study for my Japanese oral exam. The more I played Tokimeki Memorial the more confident I became in inviting someone somewhere in the context of an oral performance for college. The jury is still out for my actual life, but we don’t need to talk about that, you didn’t read that, you think you did, but no you didn’t.

After writing down various script samples from the game, I went over them using the memorization methods I learned during my time in high school theater. I made sure to memorize the most relevant scripts for the oral performance. When exam day finally came, I used the words written from Tokimeki Memorial on my exam partner. I invited them to the movie theater with the same words I used to invite Mio to that silent date to the library. It worked. There was a bit of improvisation needed since my partner went down a different route. But after the oral, I felt a sense of victory because I was able to get through the oral. It ended up being the highest oral performance score I received for the term. This 30-year-old dating simulator that I had never heard about, that I had been hesitant to play because of the stigma surrounding these types of games, had just saved my 4.1 GPA. (Yeah, yeah, I know weird flex and all, but I’m not exaggerating here)

This experience built one of the foundational values I utilize for my language studies now: adopting unorthodox methods of language studies can be the best way to adopt a language. What inspired me to write this piece was the reaction I received when I told someone that Tokimeki Memorial actually helped me with my Japanese. Hint: it was the reaction that I would’ve received from overly insecure high school me. This is a game that is a huge boon to language learners, but due to the stigma of dating simulators, many are losing out. Let’s be real here, some of those dating simulators out there do deserve that stigma. Tokimeki Memorial is not one of those. Modern problems require modern solutions. If you need convincing, let me once again direct your attention to Tim Rogers’ six-hour-long review. It changed my stance on how I viewed these sorts of games. While I will still pick up Final Fantasy over Tokimeki Memorial, I can’t deny the benefit this game had to my language abilities. If you are an English learner, and you want some game recommendations let me know and I can point you to some. Pssst. Life is Strange might be a good choice.