Love Plus: Shades of Realism

How do you define what is real in a videogame? The general consensus is, especially among developers like Peter Molyneux, the more detailed, the more interactive, the better. That can be debated. Alyx Vance from Half-Life 2 is one of the more realistic depictions of a human being I have ever seen. The way she talks, moves, and looks is distinctly human, and this comes from her character. If an actor can make us cry, if they can make us laugh, if they can make us care, then they can immerse us into the game. Alyx had substance. Something about her drove the player towards completing the game. Through her character, she was able to capture the player and help them to develop a relationship with her. She made me care about the game.

What I’ve noticed in the past few years is that characters that are distinctly human are less effective in developing empathy from the player. It’s not necessarily that being too human is a bad thing, but that there has to be substance below the character model. If you’ve ever played Oblivion you might know what I’m talking about. The issue wasn’t that the NPCs were blank-staring and robotic. The issue was that their characters had no depth. Most of the time they would just stand around or they would aimlessly wander the cities. Oblivion didn’t give the player an impression of what a living and thriving fantasy world should be. There wasn’t enough focus on individual characters to fully develop a deep narrative that a player could care about. If they had gone to length and provided the player with a companion maybe then some humanity would have risen to the surface. And companionship is a great way of making players care.

Love Plus is a relationship simulator produced by Konami that gives the player a virtual girlfriend to court and to take care of. Your tool set: patience, time and affection. You might be thinking, now this is familiar Japanese dating-simulation territory. If you were thinking that you’d be wrong, very wrong, dead wrong, but pretty close to being right. From what I have seen, Love Plus is immersive and deep. It puts a heavy onus on the player to make an effort at creating a lasting and strong relationship. You have to call the girl you are with, you have to take her out to dinner and you have to spend time with her. It’s just like having a real girlfriend, except you can put them in your pocket. Without having played the game it’s difficult to tell you what it’s like, but there is a game that is extremely similar in substance and style.

Back in the day, I was obsessed with Harvest Moon 64. It was there mainly as an outlet for a spur of the moment passion for farming. My ten-year-old focus soon changed. Do you remember Karen? I do. I was married to her once. Building relationships has been a staple of the series and it's one of the game’s largest draws. Being married to her made me care about the game; it immersed me within the experience. It’s an odd sentiment for a character with few dialogue options, fewer illustrated emotions and little in the way of realistic features. I became a bit lost in the experience. I think by the sixth year I decided to put the game up, but by then I had upgraded my home, watched my child grow up into a toddler, and raised an awesome farm that could easily sustain our family. How immersive the Harvest Moon experience becomes depends on how much effort you are willing to put into the game. It’s a game that gives back to the player.

Minus the farming, Love Plus and Harvest Moon are similar games. You build relationships with characters and you have to maintain them. The major difference is the kind of relationship you build. After you get married in Harvest Moon, your spouse just helps you out on the farm. Having a child with her is definitely a big deal for any player, but daily interaction becomes little more than giving her a present once in a while and making sure she doesn’t drop any eggs. After the courting ritual is over, you start to care less and less about maintaining that giddy love you had for them before. Love Plus is much more involved.

You are given three possible girls to court from left to right: Rinko Kobayakawa, Manaka Takane and Nene Anegasaki. Rinko is shy, Manoka is athletic and Nene is charming. The game gives you a diverse array of girls to choose from. You might not think it, but these common anime archetypes are important in defining how real the girls can become. Through their base characteristics they develop as characters. It sounds like standard fare, but this is where the “plus” comes in. What makes Love Plus stand out is that after the whole courtship ritual the game asks, “Well, what now?” The game doesn’t just end when you get the girl. This is where the true experience begins. You are tasked with taking care of your girlfriend and making the relationship last.

“Dating sims should strive for whatever level of realism is entertaining,” said Alfe Clemencio president of Sakura River and story designer of the interactive visual novel Fading Hearts. “I don't really believe there is one factor that is the most important in character development. I believe that as long as you express a character well through whatever method you use, then it should work. Dialogue, appearance and interactivity are methods of expressing how a character is like.” For characters like Nene, Monoka and Rinko, personality is a huge focus. Just by looking at them you might be able to see some of their personality. Nene looks a little more welcoming than Rinko who looks tomboy-ish and wistful. This plays a huge role in determining what experience you might have with these girls. Appearances can be deceiving. The characters of Love Plus have a complex set of emotions and scales that help determine how they evolve. Their characters are more defined below their anime exteriors. “I don't believe it is mostly because of the anime art style that makes it work,” said Clemencio. “I think it is because of other things present in the game that usually comes with the style.”

The way the characters of Love Plus appear is completely unrealistic, but at the same time hints of human qualities add to their characters. Appearing in three dimensions is an important quality of these girls. It gives the player the sense that they are more than just still images, but that they have some life behind them. As well, the use of the DSi’s camera adds another layer of realism to the characters. Using eye-tracking technology their player models follow your movements when you play. They are looking at you. This might seem a little too out of the simulation for the normal player, but this is a layer of humanity seen in the game. It helps immerse you into the experience and makes you care.

Love Plus strives to create an accurate simulation of a relationship. Most Japanese dating-simulations revolve around reaching a specific climax. In Love Plus, you never get to consummate your relationship through sex. You get to touch, but it doesn’t go farther than that. Love Plus is being targeted towards a younger demographic of player. "From the Japanese students, I have gotten 'very fun' 'very real'," said "Richard", an English teacher and writer living in Oita, Japan (who wished for us not to reveal his identity). "From the boys: 'very enjoyable, cute girls, all of us want it, it's a girl game, and it's all sold-out'." For some, this would seem like a break in the immersive experience. Sex is an important aspect of a relationship, but this was a conscious choice on the game developer who is catering to a younger audience, and I think it gives the game a greater sense of maturity. Relationships in videogames aren’t all about sex. Well, not all games.

Mass Effect used relationships to make you care about your team mates. It worked, to an extent. Just by being in a physical relationship with another character didn’t mean that I wasn’t going to use them to draw fire from a horde of Geth. It does make you care, I will admit that. The characters of Mass Effect are extremely deep and interactive. Commander Shepard is an endearing character because of the range of choices we can make for her. Whether you chose to be a war hero or an orphan raised on the streets, her personality automatically grabs the player. Knowing her past allows the player to mould an appropriate disposition that reflects her previous life experiences. This effects how she makes plot changing decisions. The Commander Shepard I know is a stoic and somewhat disconnected badass, who doesn’t laugh at Joker’s quips and fully takes advantage of the Asari Consort’s services, but not without some guilt. What was interesting about her character is that she began to develop her own personality through the narrative. For me, this was unprecedented and it played a huge role in how I developed relationships with other characters.

This kind of narrative interactivity is seen in Love Plus. At one point during the game the girl who you are with asks you, “What kind of girl do you like?” Their personalities evolve as you play the game and the range of choices you can make for them increases. You call them, go out on dates with them and have physical relationships with them. It’s an odd comparison, but you are in a position like Commander Shepard. The girls begin to change and adapt to your personality and they become active characters within the narrative’s development.

Mass Effect took the idea of relationship building and used it to create an emphatic response from the player. Sex was seen as an achievement, and even if it was a small part of the game it nonetheless made me care; it immersed me.

Sex is still a big hurdle for videogames to jump. The problem with something that is so inherently human is that there has to be an overwhelming sense of maturity around it. We are not at a point in videogames where something like sex can be a central focus. This is why games like Love Plus are good. They show the player that before you can begin a physical relationship you have to build trust and that you have to put in a great deal of effort into the game. In a way it’s kind of like being with a real person, and that’s the point.

Love Plus probably won’t reach a North American audience. If you’ve ever taken the time and looked up the game there seems to be an odd stigma surrounding it. Comments about the game usually go like “Man you must be desperate for a girlfriend to pick this one up” or “Ultimate game for virgins.” I don’t see Love Plus as this. I have a much more optimistic view of it. If I picked the game up, I’d probably see it as a kind of guilty pleasure. That’s no reason to discount the immersive experience the game is offering. How real the game becomes depends on how much effort you put into it.

I care about games like Harvest Moon because of the relationships you establish and the feeling that they are depending on you. This gives me a sense of purpose within the game and a place in the world. Tame experiences like Harvest Moon appeal to gamers because they are not involved, they don’t ask for commitment. People are afraid of games that try to immerse the player within a simulation. Love Plus is a relationship-simulator designed to make you care. The game has its limitations, but it sets a mature precedent for games to come. If it does make it to North America, I’ll pick it up, though I’m not too sure how Karen feels about sharing.

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