Title: Otometeki Koi Kakumei: Love Revo DS!!
Price: $48.90
System(s): Nintendo DS
Release Date: 2/14/08
Publisher (Developer): Interchannel-Holon (Interchannel-Holon)
ESRB Rating: N/A
Pros: Pretty English friendly, good character art, funny storyline, handy quick save/quick load options and CG events happen naturally provided you meet the stat requirements.
Cons: Get out your Action Replay DS – you’re gonna need it. These guys are hard to please, and the hara heri hunger/stress gauge just keeps rising. Some people may also find the story insulting.
Overall Score: 8/10

Otometeki Koi Kakumei: Love Revo DS!! sends a pretty clear message to players – gorgeous guys will only date and fall in love with thin, toned and intelligent girls who are willing to tell the guys what they want to hear. Of course most dating sims require the player to tell their in-game mates what they want to hear, and many also require players to improve their avatar’s traits to win a character’s heart. However Love Revo DS!! is the first game I’ve played where weight can make or break a relationship.

Amazingly enough, it accomplishes this task without being insulting. Rather than feeling like the boyfriend candidates are shallow individuals, the whole set-up seems rather funny. The girl (the player) was adorable as a child, she won beauty pageants and was just precious. Then she got lazy. At the start of the game she’s a 100kg (~220lb) slob who’s dumb as a stump.

She and and an old family friend (an older guy she refers to as her brother), move into an apartment complex/dorm near her school for the school year. And surprise surprise, so do seven other attractive, eligible guys. She introduces herself and basically expresses her interest, and the guys express their own thoughts on her, and her less than perfect physique.

So with the assistance of her “brother”, advice from the school doctor (also an elligible bachelor) and help from her friends, she decides to get thin the proper and healthy way and win some guy’s heart along the way.

I have seen the enemy, and it is the Hara Heri gauge.

After prying the game from my friend’s hands to borrow it, and promising to return it as soon as possible, I set off to play Otometeki Koi Kakumei Love Revo DS!!. I decided on my first run through to go for the blue haired guy Souta. He’s in the grade below the main character and is definitely jailbait, but I’d heard he was one of the easier guys to get. Plus he struck me as being a better person than the other male bachelors, because he likes the main character right away and has the lowest required weight (75kg/165lb).

At first things didn’t seem to go too badly. I managed to trigger two CG cutscene images. Then the hara heri gauge struck. Every activity the girl engages in causes her hara heri stress/hunger gauge to rise. If its blue, she’ll get the most stat boosts from activities. At yellow she’ll get average boosts. At red, well, when it hits red you have to either feed her or make her work, because she’s useless. Snacking reduces the gauge, but there’s a catch – snacking makes her gain weight.

So basically by the middle of the game (which lasts spans one school year), I would basically be forced to feed her, making her gain 1-3kg, then working those off for two weeks, only to have them come right back with friends a week later. Many CGs (which must be seen to raise guys affections) are triggered by weight loss goals in the game, and since she was stagnant around 82kg/180lb for a while I missed some needed CGs and so got a bad ending where the main character’s mocked by a mean, thin girl.

Even the fat boy didn’t want my character.

Frustrated, I decided to give it another chance before resorting to printing out a guide from the Otome-Wiki. I decided to go for the fat guy Toru, who’s supposedly the girl’s childhood friend. I’d heard Souta and Toru were the easiest characters to win over, and figured he’d be easy.

I was wrong. Horribly wrong. About two days after starting a Toru track, I happened to check the Otome-Wiki and a Gamefaqs guide and discovered a horrible truth – Toru’s stat requirements were higher than Souta’s. For my character to win Toru’s heart, she’d have to weigh under 65kg/143lb, have an 85 overall muscle stat, and her reading and facial stats would have to each be at 60. Granted, Souta required the reading stat to be at 65 and the sports stat at 85, but his weight requirement was 10kg/22lb less!

At that point I abandoned that save. There was no way I was going to waste hours playing when I knew in my heart he’d never want me. I had one alternative left – Action Replay.

Resorting to Action Replay.

I cheated. I admit it. Any one of you would have done the same though! It’s the hara heri gauge and those guys’ unrealistic expectations! They made me do it. (Also they made me conjure up a shiny leafeon for my Pokemon Diamond.)

Surprisingly I didn’t have to look very hard. The Japanese code list in the Action Replay DS client had codes for Otometeki Koi Kakumei: Love Revo DS!!, and also for Tokimeki Memorial Girl’s Side: 1st Love and 2nd Season. I simply dragged and dropped, and set out to play a successful run through of Love Revo DS!!.

I decided I still wanted a challenge, so I didn’t use any of the stat codes – I simply gave my character unlimited cash. For the first week in my new Souta game, I sent my character to the Rose Garden health spa every day and had her get the 15,000 yen full body treatment. In one week I had her go from 100kg/220lb to 84kg/185lb. Needless to say, with the help of Action Replay and the Otome-Wiki, I completed a perfect Souta run.

Surprisingly import friendly.

Despite the difficulty level, I’d have to say Otometeki Koi Kakumei: Love Revo DS!! is extremely import friendly. Perhaps even more so than the Tokimeki Memorial Girl’s Side DS titles I love so much. All of the CG events occur automatically, provided your stats are right.

Also there’s a quick save and quick load button on the main screen. During a conversation with a guy, you can quick save before answering. Correct answers always cause a little jingle noise to play, so if you answer incorrectly and don’t hear a jingle, you can quick load and choose a different option.

Plus its entertaining. Despite the serious moral implications and such concerning weight, its presented in a humorous and light-hearted way.

Except for Ayato’s storyline. Ayato’s storyline nearly made me cry.

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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: Last week Important Importables discussed strange Neon Genesis Evangelion games.

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