Japan is getting another dating sim

Loveplus is one of Konami's more niche franchises. Essentially, the game is a dating sim that has you choose a virtual girlfriend to carry about on your handheld. It was released on the Nintendo DS way back in 2009 and it became a cult hit among the Japanese.

A sequel was made in the form of New Loveplus for the 3DS and now an updated adaptation that will fix all the problems players complained about with the first attempt is coming to the system.

It's called New Loveplus+ and it was announced in the latest Famitsu magazine. In an interview with the publication (translated by Polygon), senior producer Akari Uchida said:

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With the previous game, a lot of people said it had gotten harder to play after we reworked the gameplay system and interface. We are reconsidering the entire game here, including rolling back on some of those new features. In addition to that, though, I’ve written a massive amount of new story scenarios for each of the three heroines.

Those three heroines are Manaka Takane, who's mad on tennis, library committee member Rinko Kobayakawa and restaurant worker Nene Anegasaki and they're all back and of course, you can date them. For reasons unknown, the fourth female candidate Akira Yukino from the first 3DS game will not feature in this one, though.

In some of the concept art found in the Famitsu article the trio are placed in strange scenarios, including on a pirate ship and around Egyptian ruins. Though the first assumption is that the player can go back in time, that's not entirely the case as Uchida continued:

We deliberately drew them up in order to make people think that, but they represent the themes behind the new features in this game. You aren't traveling through time, but we had wanted to do some kind of travel-related events in the game for a while now.

Very cryptic indeed. There's no release date for this one, though the producer did say Konami won't have people wait too long. Of course, this is down for a Japan-only release - none of the Loveplus titles have ever made it overseas.

Is there a market for this type of game in the West? Let us know your thoughts on it in the comment section below.

[source polygon.com]