3RRSS Refrain

Refrain Love is kind of like that box of cereal you find at the store that
has a really fancy mascot on the box and has adverts for free surprises
in the box plastered all over it. It just looks like it promises something
great but it's all superficial to what's really important. I mean, Refrain
Love comes in this oversized slip case to hold the 2 disk game and a
special heart shaped CD single. It also comes with a pack of cards and
a memory card sticker. There's all these little gifts in the box but when
you actually play the game, it's nothing all that special. But it's not bad
either.

You play a college student who happens to live right by the campus.
It's summer and I think you're going to America for Christmas, but
you'd love to get a woman before then. Enter you're three buddies
Kousuke the jock, Tetsuya the DJ, and Taizo the... nerd. All of you vow
to find a girlfriend before Christmas time and what do you know, there
are quite a few suitable ladies in town. You yourself have been having
weird dreams of some mystery girl and when a walk in the park leads
you to find a girl that looks suspiciously like the one of your dreams,
you find that maybe you do have chance with the ladies. But, let's face
it. You have to juggle part time jobs, romance, and seeing your dude
friends. Welcome to Refrain Love.

While there are many females in the game, only three of them are
really suitable love interests as I think only the three main girls have
actual endings (which is a shame, since I liked the other girls more,
like the chick who works at the office building, or the cafe keeper's
daughter). And if you don't make a move on the girls then you're
buddies will and you'll end up all alone. Ouch!

The game is broken up into Adventure mode and Simulation mode.
Adventure mode is typical date-sim fare: go places, look for girls, talk
to girls, choose the right thing to say, and then hopefully get some sort
of CG picture. The simulation mode is where you have to go to work to
raise your stats. If you have low stats, then you are prone to passing
out and you have to go to the hospital. You decide where to go by
clicking on houses on the map and the map is fairly large. Lots of
places in town from the clubhouse where you DJ friends spins records,
to the school campus, the video store, and the park. As well as all the
apartment buildings where all your friends live.

In your room, you can choose to stay at home and raise your stats by
watching TV, listen to music (which raises your "sense" stats), save
the game, call people, or decide which part-time job to take on. Calling
people is essential as that's how you set up dates. However, I could
never figure out where to meet up with the girl or when. I've tried going
to their apartments, but I guess that's not the way. Hmm.

As for the jobs, I liked this part a bit. It's cute. The jobs change with
the seasons. I was a lifeguard at the pool (got to meet many bikini
girls), a baby sitter first for some little boy, then for a slightly older girl
(oh my), the clerk at the video store, a construction worker, a host, an
office building security guard and more. Working on the job allows you
to meet all the various women associated with each work place. Plus
they all do different things to your stats. Some raise your pride (like the
security guard), while others lower your pride and raise your humor
(host). All of them eat up at your stamina, so you have to go home and
sleep sometimes in the morning to make sure you don't pass out.

And that's really the flow of the game. Go places, look for people, talk
to people, raise stats, go to work, get money, call people, go on dates,
and repeat. Do this from July all the way to Christmas Eve. That's a
long time and while it's a much shorter timeframe then say Tokimeki
Memorial, it just seems like it drags on. For one, I found it kind of hard
to meet people at the places (most locations were always empty). Plus
is just gets into this routine of wake up, go to a few places, work, and
repeat. To be fair, there were a good number of times in the game
when your buddies called or showed up at your place to go to a club
that night, but the game just seems to drag on.

The artwork for the CGs are pretty nice (not as good as Pia Carrot).
The backgrounds are nice 2D locations and the characters have a
healthy amount of different facial expressions and costumes. When
you take on a job or stay at home to raise your stats it shows a little
pia carrot-esque animation of the main character doing his job. Looks
cute. There are over 85 pieces of CG to find and to top it all off, a nice
amount of anime scenes to watch, especially at the beginning of the
game in the prologue. The anime scenes are a bit grainy, but still it was
nice to have them. Overall, the characters aren't too memorable and
the art isn't fantastic: the CGs aren't terribly detailed, but nothing is
wrong with them. It's just not as polished as the dating sim greats.

One good point, though, goes to the fact that all the characters (minus
you) have full voice-overs. Always a plus in my book. The music in the
game is nothing to write home about. The opening and closing themes
are ok, but again, nothing special. The in game music is just kinda this
unoriginal piano fluff we've heard in these types of games till the end
of time. No memorable tunes that stay in your head like Doukyusei, it's
all just there.

Replay? Different endings. All that CG. Once you beat the game you
fully open omake mode, where you can listen to the music of the game,
view CGs and character designs, and hear the voice actors talk about
the characters. So that's cool. Also, the cool heart shaped CD single is
neat. Has 4 tracks on it, most of which are just pleasant sounds of the
ocean or a sweet melody with a voice actress talking. Still, very
calming. However, I can't see myself going back to this dating sim. It
has a healthy amount of things to do, it's just not as memorable as
some of the greats.

IMPORT WARNING: Okay, this was a harder one for me to get into.
Finding out how the stat system works was a cake walk, but dating
girls was impossible. I just don't know where to go to meet them or
when. So playing the game dateless does make things a bit boring.
However, there is a bright side. After you beat the game once (even if
you end up alone) there is a button code that unlocks all the CG in the
game. Highlight visual mode in the omake section then press "up left
down right up left down right z,y,x, and then start". You'll hear a
character's voice chime in saying you did it right. Then you can view all
the CG pictures and the anime scenes. That was a plus!

So Refrain Love comes in a nice little box with some cool little goodies,
but the actual gameplay is nothing as sweet as the packaging. If you
are really hurting for a green label dating sim (well there were some
hot bikini pics, I'm not gonna lie) then there are better games to try.
Like the stat building? Pia Carrot and Tokimeki does it better. Like
clicking on a map going places to meet people? Doukyusei games have
you walk around the map and it's way easier to meet people and get
CG in that game. Still, it's a decent simulation that just doesn't break
the mold. Oh well. Least it looks nice on the shelf.

Review by: Orochi Sonic