Playtest: Loving Love Plus?

And as usual, yours truly just HAD to check out another niche Japanese game which seems to be making waves.

So anyway, just WHAT is Love Plus and what sets it apart from the usual Dating Sim? Love Plus is what I would term as a smart dating sim.
You are (as usual) placed in the role of a lonely young man in highschool in search of his lady love. You have three options: the sisterly-ish Nene, the tomboy tsundere Rinko and the ojousama named Manaka.
It goes like any other dating sim: you spend time getting to know the girls and eventually, one of them confesses their love to you and you ride off into the sunset together.
Of course, this is where the game REALLY begins.

Remember what I said about Love Plus being a SMART dating sim?
Here's why.

After you snag yourself a girlfriend, the game starts to run with the DS' clock, prompting real time events. Visit her during different times of the day and different things can happen. During the first half of the game, you can see the RTC in effect already. I just started my game last night and it's September. The girls are in their winter uniforms and the calendar tells me it's fall.
Another thing is most of the girls' lines are fully voiced. Yes, even your name. This is pretty cool if you name is a common Japanese name. Thankfully, I knew how to spell my name right so... the girls are calling me Shin-kun, much to my amusement. When you input your name, you start off selecting the hiragana for it... which brings up a sub menu with Kanji.
Already I was greatly amused.
Also, eventually, the girls will start sending you text messages which you can reply to. You can also text them and they will text back. Messages are limited to pre-set messages tho so... no chance of sending them anything lewd in hopes of them getting blustered.

You schedule your day from morning to evening and certain activities give you certain stats. Minimal Japanese vocab aside, I can see stats for athletics and intelligence. The other two, I'm not so sure about. Of course, the girls have certain standards concerning your stats...



As you can see, the graphics are pretty good for a static picture. Of course, when you're talking to a girl, you are greeted by a pretty good 3D model. The girls move pretty good. They even have the little ticks some females have (IE, playing with their hair, swinging a bit).

If anything, this is an interesting enough game for those who are... lonely. XD;
It needs Japanese reading skills but if you don't have those, you can rely on audio cues. It's worth a look if for the experience alone.