Time Travelers [2] Platinum!

Just platinum-ed this game XD

I have completed the main mode long time ago, but have only beaten the extra mode now.

The extra mode is called TTPhone. TTPhone is a communication game similar to Love Plus and Ciel no Surge, which uses real-time synchronization.

I cheat though, by changing Vita’s date and time as I play the game. It’s kind of bizarre but basically I keep Vita’s Settings app open at the date and time screen, and switch between this screen and the game when I want to advance the time (you can do the whole time-changing thing pretty ‘seamlessly’, like within 4 seconds or so). You can only advance maximum 10 days without calling her though, else it would be game over. Also, if you try to rewind back time, the game will catch it and end with game over as well. This is why I set my Vita to Airplane Mode, to not let it automatically update the time via Internet.

This extra mode has significant amount of trophies: 4 gold trophies for each of the 4 special dates, 2 silver trophies for completing it, and a few miscellaneous bronze trophies, which is why I was stuck to around 50% for so long even though I conquered the main game.

There are 4 special dates: nanabata, summer, christmas eve and new year’s eve. This is why it’s recommended to start the game on 1st of June because the earliest special date is on 7th of July, to give ample but not too long time to build relationship level. In my experience, two weeks are enough though. Each special date unlocks a gold trophy which requires Mikoto to wear a special outfit.

Nanabata:

Summer:

Christmas eve:

New year’s eve:

If you’re wondering why Mikoto looks different from the main game… it’s because at some point she asks you what is your kind of girl, and tries to match your taste. I forgot what the one in the above screenshots is called, but there are also Active and Kawaii.

Original:

Active:

Kawaii:

This is basically the secret behind this promotional image:

(I thought there were more Time Traveler girls besides Mikoto… also called Mikoto ^^;)

One of the miscellaneous trophies requires you to see Mikoto in bath towel. Basically you need to call her as soon as she leaves the bathroom at night and there is a small chance you might see this:

As for the ending, they pull off another ‘beautiful fate’ thing to explain the extra mode, which turns out to be tied to the main game even though at first it seems very unlikely. They also did something clever for the ending. I won’t spoil it, but in case you were wondering about ‘something’ when you first start this mode: yep, it’s not an error.

I really should replay the main game again. It’s short, fun, sweet and I still don’t get the whole time travel plot (the only time travel story I haven’t fully understood yet. I at least understood Time Traveler’s Wife and Cyborg She, even went as far as drew and shared Cyborg She’s time travel diagram at some forum).

Maybe I should get Stein’s Gate next? :p

I still have a few visual novels in my backlog, though… -.-” (Fate, Umineko Chiru, White Album and the upcoming Date A Live)

Time Travelers

I really enjoyed Time Travelers, a Japanese 3D visual novel game for Vita and 3DS, back when it was released. It’s the most complicated time travel plot that I’ve encountered so far. I would be lying if I say that I have ‘gotten’ the story.

I’ve beaten the main game. The thing is, it has an extra mode, called TTPhone, which I skipped over to play other games:

It’s an extra game with different gameplay. Whereas the main game is more like an interactive movie, this one is closer to a dating sim. The concept is that the player is from the future, and he can somehow do a video call with Mikoto, the female protagonist, in 2002. Her existence in 2002 itself is a mystery, since in the main story she doesn’t exist in 2002.

The cool concept about this extra game is that the player’s and Mikoto’s times are synched. The year is different, but the date is the same. In the beginning, since she doesn’t trust the player so much, she often rejects the player’s call (which is what I’m experiencing T.T):

Player can “skip ahead to the next 4 hours’ increments and up to 2 days”. This feature can make Mikoto’s time faster. For example, at the beginning when the times are synched, when player’s time is 5:00pm, Mikoto’s time is also 5:00pm. By doing one skip, player’s time would still be 5:00pm (it’s synched to the device clock, actually), but Mikoto’s time becomes 9:00pm.

I think this feature is useful, for example, when you need to go to school (in real life), but one of the events would occur during school times. So you advance the time in the game, see the event and go to school without worries.

There is a corresponding wait feature that stops Mikoto’s time, to let the player’s time catch up to it after doing some skips (and once it’s synched back, Mikoto’s time would start moving again). The same catching up effect also occurs when player quits the game. Btw, if you don’t use the wait feature or quit after doing some skips, you would maintain the time difference. But like I mentioned, it is capped to 2 days. It feels pretty weird, I must say.

One last thing, this extra game has no auto save mode, so player has to explicitly quit the game (which will also save the game).

Like I mentioned, in the beginning Mikoto tends to reject your call and all you can do is wait. In the meantime, you can look up certain key words that come up during your previous conversations with Mikoto on the net. But the whole thing (the search terms) is pretty much scripted and that’s about the only thing you can do.

This is one of the games with real-time progression. I must say, it would’ve been slightly better if I have gotten the download version. With the cartridge version, it means if I want to play another game while waiting for a new event to come up, I would have to quit the game, take out the Time Travelers’ cartridge and put in another cartridge. Then in other to check TTPhone again, I got to do the reverse. With the download version, you still need to quit to switch games but at least you don’t have to do the taking in and out of cartridges.

The game also penalizes you if you don’t call her even once in a week (or 10 days, maybe). That’s what happened when I tried this game quite a while back. Mikoto would send a mail saying that she wishes to cut all connections with the player (since the player seems to be ignoring her), and it’s game over -.-;

I hope that it doesn’t take a lot of time to beat this mode… The developers assign quite a number of trophies for this mode. If they didn’t, I would’ve platinumed this game long ago -_-;

New Start

It’s been a while since I last posted. With a new resolve, I’m going to try updating this blog every day.

Here are what I’ve been playing:

Time Travelers

It’s a mix of visual novel and interactive movie. It’s one of those things where you make choices and may reach dead ends, and then you would go back and make different decisions to fix things. The story centers around 5 characters and the cool thing is that one character’s choice may lead to another character’s dead end.

I’ve beaten the main mode and unlocked every trophies related to it. It’s not a very long game, but I think it’s not too short either. Beating the main mode unlocks a mini-game which I think resemble games like Love Plus, where you would interact with the main female character and the events are based on real time.

Persona 4 The Golden

I’ve a difficult start playing this game because I’m more used to simple RPG games, and I like to make sure I don’t miss anything. I’ve given up doing that and instead I’m just enjoying the game, making decisions based on my personal preferences. I’m enjoying this game much more now and I think it’s really good.

There are guides around that can tell me how to unlock everything in one playthrough, but I think it will be too restrictive and kill the fun, so I decide to hold off relying on those guides until next playthroughs, when it’s time to clean up for trophies.

Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker HD Edition

The bad thing about online trophies is that the game’s servers may be shut down, and then it would be impossible to earn those trophies. With offline trophies, no matter how difficult they may be to obtain, you can still take your time. I’m worried that this particular game’s server may be closed soon, so I’m getting back to the game.

Even though this is a really nice game, I’m kinda put off that I have to repeat the things I’ve done in PSP version.

Metal Gear Solid 2 HD Edition

I bought Metal Gear HD Collection for Vita. I haven’t touched Metal Gear Solid 3 yet, but I’ve beaten Metal Gear Solid 2 at least once.

It’s amazing to be able to play Metal Gear Solid 2 on a handheld device. It was my dream back then and it was finally realized. Too bad I don’t feel as enthusiastic about it as I did.