Girlish Love Revolution!! DS

                   
           I'm finally back!!!! Sorry for the long wait, so let's just get on to the review. Black Angel~               

                     
                           


                  Otometeki Koi Kakumei Love Revo!!, translated to Girlish Love Revolution DS!! (which I will call Love Revo in this review for simplicity) is an otome game first released on PS2 in 2006 and then re-released two years later for the Nintendo DS. It's also released on PC and PSP, but only the DS version was translated (thanks to the altruistic translation team, we are forever grateful). There's also a drama CD and a manga adaption for this game, which actually contributed to my procrastination on this review :p. Unlike the Tokimeki Memorial series, this is just a stand-alone game, which I'm glad about. Not that this was a bad game, it was quite good; it was interesting. This is quite the unique otome game, which was what intrigued me to try it. I played this game without reading any background information, which was fortunate because if I had I probably wouldn't have picked it up so early on (actually, I take that back, I might still be too curious about it to let it go); so when I started playing I was like "Wait, what?!" and literally just rolled on the floor laughing. Well, I won't keep you in suspense any longer, let's get to the point.

Summary:
              You are a fat girl. Yes, you heard (or should I say seen?) me right. Not only are you fat, you are pretty immense, at 100 kg (220 pounds for us stupid Americans who don't use the metric system). You were a pretty girl who used to win all the beauty pageants, but after a whole lot of sweets and doting from your hot onii-chan    "You're really cute, and you look cuter when you're eating!" you've become pretty careless about your self-image and succumbed to food. Until one fateful day, when your family decides to rent rooms, and the No.5, whom are the hottest five boys at school (funny how hottest automatically became bolded...I'll keep it that way). That's when you decided to shape up to acquire the boy of your dreams!!! You spend the rest of the game on your diet plan, becoming the beautiful girl you once were.

Characters: 
(even more guys than TMGS (one more to be exact)...)

 Hitomi Sakuragawa
The main character, played by you. I'm sexy and I know it~

 Ren Ichinose
He's the first of the No.5 (oh by the way, the numbers go by ranking of hotness). Hes the typical perfect, rich, honor student everyone strives to be, and of course he's extremely cold towards you. Okay, fine I'll admit he's really hot, but he's so mean! Still, he has a really interesting (and rather sad) past, and he gradually opens up to you, I absolutely loved his ending, it was so cute!

Masaki Kahara
The second of the No.5. He's generally an easygoing, friendly, happy-go-lucky guy, which is really amusing to watch. I don't want to give too much away, but let's just say appearances aren't all what they seem. He didn't impress me that much, but he's an okay character.

Souta (the Shouta) Fukami
Ah, the shouta. I love this guy. No, it's not because I have a thing for younger guys or that I think he's really adorable, but I love him because he accepts me for who I am!! Right from the beginning he's nice to me and defends me from the evil girl bullying me about my weight. He's the third, and he's always encouraging me and even gives me sweets, so cute. He's really energetic and sporty, what a handful. Okay fine, I'll admit I also love the fact that he's the easiest to obtain.

Kennosuke Tachibana
His smile, it's blinding me! The fourth most popular, Kenny is usually a cool, collected dude which is why this scene of him smiling is a rare, rare sight; he likes playing basketball. It's so cute when he blushes, I just want to ruffle his hair! His ending is super adorable too. This guy, this guy people, you need to go through his route. And I'm not usually crazy about the cool, collected types.

Ayato Kamishiro
Ayatoooo-sempaaaiii <3. Marry me maybe? The fifth most popular, for what reason I have no idea why, because he's number one in my books (see what I did there ;)). Oh well, more for me. He's really sweet and nice to everyone and is always sitting somewhere reading a book. Unfortunately, he's rather sickly which is the reason why he doesn't like being close to anyone. He's my favorite out of the whole game, I've spent way too much time on his route...even though his ending is, well, okay awesome.


Done with the F5!! Let's go on to the others!

Kaede Tokita
 A transfer student that also resides in your apartment soon after the game begins. Despite his megane and passion for books, he's actually really airheaded and careless....or is he? Anyways, he might be my second favorite (tied with souta) since he's so adorable with glasses (and I have a huge glasses fetish), but when he takes them off and ties his hair in a ponytail. He.Is.Sexiness. Literally, my mouth dropped when I saw him that way I was like "Woah, where'd that come from?!" I highly recommend his route as well.

Toru Kinomura
Hitomi's childhood friend. This guy just pisses me off. He's her childhood friend who's not even good-looking, so his parameters shouldn't be all that high right? WRONG. He has pretty high standards, I don't even know what he's thinking. I've played his route once, but I was bored to death and wasn't interesting in the least. Sorry Toru, but you're a no-go. (I didn't enter a CG for him because they were spoliers)

Ryutaro Wakatsuki
"S-sensei! What are you doing?!" This guy is the school nurse, and well, let's just say if he was my school nurse, I'd be sick every day. He's probably the most teenage-like out of all the characters, ironically. He's childish and loves to tease, and always has his headphones either on his ears or around his neck. He's a good-hearted guy though and helps Hitomi during her diet. He smokes though, blegh, what a turn-off. Have you ever kissed someone who smoked? It's nasty! (Not speaking out of experience by the way o.o)

Takashi Sakuragawa
Onii-chan!! Yes, this is your helpful older brother who is the one of the causes of your huge weight gain. I'll admit, when i first met him I though "Please let him be an obtainable character! >.<". Yes I know that sounds really messed up, but he's really hot!! And nice!!! And he loves me (he has a HUGE sister complex if you haven't guessed)!!! So imagine my surprise when he appeared to be an obtainable character on my third try playing? Yes, Black Angel was very pleased :3. He does your monthly charts of how well your ranking to the other guys.

And that's all folks!! On to the analysis!

Game Length: It's not all that long. To be exact, it took me 3 hours and 30 minutes to finish one route only skipping most of the introduction (yes I played this game until 3 in the morning...playing the whole route in one shot....two nights in a row, not a very good idea). For a first-timer it'll probably take around an hour more, but no more than that. The reason this game is pretty short is because it takes place over one year (unlike TMGS where it's 3 years)

Target Audience: The same as always. teenage girls. If anything, you need a good sense of humor to play this game. It doesn't have any mature scenes or anything, so it's 13+

Gameplay: Obviously, as I had already mentioned, you spend most of this game trying to lose weight. When you decide to exercise, there will be a selection of exercises you have to choose from, each of them designed specifically for a purpose (full body, arms, legs, face, muscles etc), to fill your parameters. The less hungry you are, the more you will get out of your exercise. However, once you become really hungry, you will have to succumb to the sweets, and make sure they're as low-calorie as possible to prevent any serious weight gain. The only other parameters are general studies, PE, science, and social science, so count on a lot of parameters you have to fill, almost double that of TMGS. Also, at the end of each month, Onii-chan will create a little note about how well (or rather, not well) your parameters are to the guys. Although, exercise isn't the only thing that will help you lose weight, you can also go to the gym and buy health foods for a hefty price, but it'll help you lose weight quickly. On the weekends, you can choose to go on dates or visit the boy of your dreams, and now you can just knock on their doors and ask, which is a nice change of pace. Unfortunately, there's not a lot of options for date place and not much variety in conversation, with the right choices staying consistent through the game, so you don't get to enjoy much interaction with the character until pretty much the end, where all the important events happen. Also, it's hard to know whether you picked the right choice or not by the visuals, there will only be a "ding!" noise when you get the right answer, so keep your volume on! There's a lot of endings though, with multiple bad endings for each guy, a normal ending, and a good ending, so that should keep you entertained. Also, I love how it had a "Quick Save" and a "Quick Load" which I extremely over abused in case something went wrong, it was so handy!

Characters: These characters are super hot obviously ;). There's a reason this game was chosen to be English-patched. To my VERY VERY disappointment, the DS version of this game wasn't voiced, only the PSP and PC version were :(.  Other than that, I don't have any complaints about the characters. They pretty much covered all the areas that a girl's type would be, they have the cold one, the happy one, the shouta, the sexy megane airhead, the cool one, the quiet bookish one (<3), and the childhood friend otaku...yeah pretty much. So I'm loving this cast of characters, and I'm pretty sure you will too. (It was them after all, that made me want to play this game). They even have a mean antagonist girl, which can get pretty heated up and funny.

Story: There isn't an overall plot like the PC games, but like I repeated before, each guy has his own route that you follow and uncover his own story. Some are better than others, but I overall liked each story. And of course, there's the whole main story of you losing weight, so I like that (and trust me, you will SUBMERGE yourself into losing weight, I felt as if I was actually the one losing the weight during this game. A little more, just a little more >.<)

CG/Art: The art is AMAZING~. It's so pretty, bishies everywhere. Did you look at those CGs?! They're so amazing, I just keep scrolling up to look at them (well more like Ayato, looks like someone's getting a new wallpaper <3). The CGs are hands down one of the best. My only complaint about the in-game art is that the characters seem...to light to me. Maybe it's just me because they're so small (since the DS isn't portrait-style like TMGS) but the colors don't seem bright or vivid, but instead blending into the surroundings. Anyways, you get used to it, so A+ on the art.

Music: This game doesn't really have an opening or ending theme song, so I can't really comment. The music during the game is okay I guess. I'm too zoned in the game to pay attention :3.

Difficulty: Did I mentions that this game is the HARDEST otome game I have ever played? The third time was the charm in this game, when I finally managed to capture Souta, did I mention he was the easiest character in the game?! This game is super difficult when it comes to balancing your weight, keeping your parameters high, AND trying to get the guy to fall in love with you ALL at the same time. You need to plan it really well to get a good ending with your guy, and I'll just say hats off to you if you manage to capture Ren *takes off hat and bows*. So I wouldn't recommend this game unless you're an otome game rookie. However, it's the challenge of the difficulty that keeps you coming, so it's refreshing.

That's the end of my review!! Hope you enjoyed  ^_^.

Rom Download Link:
Girlish Love Revolution DS!!

I already English-patched it so you don't have to worry about that :). Go to the NDS Emulator Tutorial on this site to figure out how to play it.