Posts Tagged ‘japanese teacher’

I first heard about this game from AnimeVice but as I read more about it I realized something grand: I must own this game. LovePlus is an upcoming eroge from Konami which will be released on Nintendo DS sometime this summer in Japan. The game takes place in two halves; the first half has you courting three different girls in order to get one of them to confess their love for you. Sounds about standard so far right?

The second half is where LovePlus becomes amazing. In the second half of the game, players no longer have a goal to pursue. You’ve already gotten the girl to confess after all so what else is there for a player to do? Enjoy their new girlfriend, of course. Using real time technology the chosen girl will then start interacting with the player as a real girlfriend. Players will be able to set how they wish to be addressed by their girlfriend with various honorifics and from there the imagination is the limit. Whenever you turn on your DS your new “girlfriend” will greet you as per usual but how you interact with her from there is up to you.

Fully supported by the microphone and touchpad, players can call or mail their girl and may get a reply right away or after she “gets your message” simulating her own life. As for the touchpad, well… you have a girlfriend, you have a touchpad and eventually you’re going to get home one night after a hard day at work and she’ll be there waiting… this is an eroge after all.

What really caught my attention about LovePlus though is the study feature that has been embedded inside. With two programmers who at one point wanted to be teachers on staff, the game actually has a study and quiz feature for players involving various subjects. Do well on the study session and you’ll get a reward. Have a quiz in real life that you need to prepare for? Tell your girlfriend so that she can ask you how you did afterwards and have a suitable reward ready for you.

Imagine this however, LovePlus… the eroge that teaches you Japanese? Go with me on this… fully supported by microphone; this isn’t a Japanese girlfriend who will get frustrated by your clumsy Japanese. In fact, it sounds like she’d be more than willing to help you learn to speak the language better. On that note, what single better motivation could you give an otaku to learn Japanese than “you’ll get to do more H with your girlfriend”? With over 5000 recorded scripts and 25000 voices from the various girls, there is a limitless supply of dialogue that someone can have with LovePlus. That gives players an infinite amount of opportunities to practice their language skills before applying them to the real world.

While I certainly won’t know enough Japanese to order this game right off the bat, once I get some kanji under my belt and a new DS in my hands I’ll be placing an order for LovePlus.

What do you think? Has Konami accidently created the greatest Japanese teaching device ever?