To Heart is a Japanese adult visual novel developed by Leaf and released on May 23, 1997 for the PC. It was later ported to the PlayStation and given voice acting. The PlayStation version had the adult scenes removed.
To Heart was adapted into a thirteen-episode TV anime series by Oriental Light and Magic aired between April and July 1999, and a second anime, To Heart: Remember My Memories, aired between October and December 2004.
The gameplay in To Heart requires little player interaction as much of the game's duration is spent reading the text that appears on the screen, which represents either dialogue between various characters or the inner thoughts of the protagonist. Every so often the player will come to a "decision point", where he or she is given the chance to choose from multiple options. The time between these points is variable and can occur anywhere from a minute to much longer. Gameplay pauses at these points, and depending on which choice the player makes, the plot will progress in a specific direction. There are eight main plot lines that the player will have the chance to experience, one for each of the heroines. In order to view all eight plot lines, the player will have to replay the game multiple times and make difference decisions to progress the plot in an alternate direction.
In this game, you play as Hiroyuki Fujita, a high-school student who seems to have more interest in romance than in his studies. In his school there are several pretty girls, and his goal is to be nice to one of them, to make the right decisions when talking to her, and ultimately to win her heart.
"To Heart" plays like a "choose your own adventure" book: you read text and look at CG images, and at some point you'll have to choose a response or an action out of several available ones. Your decisions determine the outcome of the story. Each girl has her own "path" and ending, with various degrees of difficulty to attain.
The Playstation version got also unlockables voices and cg galleries of the characters that will be unlocked with the saves made during playing the adventure.
The PlayStation version of To Heart, got three lighthearted bonus mini games available to play featuring the characters super deformed:
1 - The first game is called "Heart to Heart", and each stage consists of a few enemies and other To Heart characters to defeat, using attacks unique to each character. There is only one screen per stage and is not a side-scrolling game. There are thirty stages to play, with a 100-second time limit for every stage. It supports up to two players. There are two bosses, fighting Serio and Multi together, and at stage thirty, a robot version of Daniel, Serika's butler. The player can choose between all of the female cast in To Heart, except Ayaka, Serio and Rio, whom need to be unlocked by finishing each character's scenario in the main game. All characters have certain moves in common: they are able to do a super jump, which can be used to stun enemies if hit from the bottom, and they can charge up their shots up to three levels.
2 - The second mini game, "CircleTriangleSquareX", is a puzzle game in which the player needs to arrange blocks with designated shapes together to form and eliminate lines. The name of the game reflects the PlayStation controller, of which the four shapes and the controller layout plays a large role.
3 - The final game is Ojo-sama wa Majo, a side-scrolling shooter game featuring Serika Kurusugawa as a witch riding on her broomstick. There are three different types of shot that can be used, which can be leveled up by collecting power-ups. Each type of shot will only work on some enemies, and they all have different types of arching shots. Serika has access to three different levels of power-ups, which increases the power and effectiveness of the shot. She also has access to three 'bombs', which destroys everything on the screen. The bombs themselves are her butler shouting at the enemies.
MAIN CHARACTERS:
- HIROYUKI FUJITA: Hiroyuki is the main male character and has a very dry attitude. He is surprisingly empathetic though, but usually shows it through his actions rather than what he says or how he acts towards people. Hiroyuki is also a childhood friend of Akari , and gradually throughout the storyline falls in love with her. He lives alone.
- AKARI KAMIGISHI: Akari is Hiroyuki's childhood friend. She will almost always go to wake Hiroyuki up in the morning to go to school. She is especially fond of teddy bears, with special emphasis on the one that Hiroyuki gave her during their childhood. Both Akari and Hiroyuki have known each other since kindergarten and they are extremely close. She is very much in love with Hiroyuki and spends a lot of time around him. Akari likes to call Hiroyuki with the -chan suffix attached, despite his occasional protests. Akari is very adept at cooking and is a member of the school's cooking club.
In the game, she is just one of several female characters, but in the anime she adopts a central role, acting as narrator, with her romantic aspirations forming the main recurring theme of the series. In one episode she actually supplants Hiroyuki as the main character when she befriends the psychic girl Kotone: in all other episodes it is Hiroyuki who befriends the "guest" character of the episode. (In the manga Akari has a less pivotal role (though still a major one), and it is Hiroyuki who befriends Kotone.)
- SHIHO NAGAOKA: Shiho first met Akari, Hiroyuki and Masashi during the first year of junior-high school. She is more of a tomboy than Akari, and often finds herself at odds with Hiroyuki, but towards the end of the 1st Anime series she starts to develop feelings for Hiroyuki, but later decides her friendship with Akari is more important. She is feisty and aggressive, yet close to Akari. She is a real gossip fanatic, often coming up with random ideas that she titles "Shiho's News" or "Shiho's Advice". Most of what goes on in school and the students do not pass by her unnoticed. However, according to Hiroyuki, "90% of what she says isn't true." Though this is a bit of a hyperbole, Shiho does sometimes get her facts wrong.
- MULTI: An experimental humanoid maid robot from the HM (Human Maiden) series robots made by Kurusugawa Electronics. She was sent to Fujita's school to learn how to behave like a human. Multi is a very cheerful girl who loves to clean. Unfortunately, she isn't very good at it nor household chores, which contradicts her purpose. In the anime, Hiroyuki and Akari help Multi to improve her skills. In order to charge her batteries, she needs to be connected to a laptop with a cable stored in her hand. She becomes a central character in To Heart: Remember My Memories when she appears to have had her memories erased (particularly those of her times spent with Hiroyuki), resulting in a dilemma for Hiroyuki and inadvertently causing grief for Akari.
- TOMOKO HOSHINA: Tomoko is a native of Kobe and speaks the Kansai dialect. She has a very serious, responsible nature, and serves as the class president. Her seriousness is conveyed by her tightly bound hair and coke-bottle glasses, though she is quite pretty when she removes these features (in fact, the change is so drastic that in To Heart: Remember My Memories Hiroyuki and company don't recognize her at all when they encounter her in Kobe, until she puts on her glasses and holds her hair in a ponytail). It is hinted that she might have liked Hiroyuki in To Heart: Remember My Memories as she said he was slow when he asked her why did she tell him about her family's past. She moved from Kobe as a result of problems between her parents. Her quiet and concentrated nature is one of her ways of hiding her problems and she will often keep to herself.
- SERIKA KURUSAGAWA: Serika is a member of the Kurusugawa family, which is quite wealthy and operates a conglomerate of companies in their name, including the labs which produced Multi and Serio. She speaks very quietly and it is very difficult to hear what she says unless standing right beside her - as a result, we often see Hiroyuki repeat what she just said. She is addressed as "ojo-sama" (a very respectful title) by the family servants and is picked up by a limousine everyday. Serika is also very much into the occult and is the sole member of the school's Occult Research Club. She is also often protected by her butler, Sebastian. In To Heart: Remember My Memories, she demonstrates the level of authority she has over the Kurusugawa group by overruling the security of a Kurusugawa-owned Amusement Park when Hiroyuki and company try to break into it at night.
- AYAKA KURUSUGAWA: Ayaka is Serika's younger sister. Despite looking similar, they have totally different character personalities. Ayaka is very outgoing and confident, and enjoys martial arts. They get along very well, but go to different schools and have different paths in life.
- LEMMY MIYAUCHI: Lemmy is half American, half Japanese - her full name is Lemmy Christopher Helen Miyauchi. She speaks Japanese with a stereotypical American accent, and often makes mistakes with the meanings of Japanese sayings. She also has a tendency to slip in English words during conversations when she has the chance. She also ends a lot of her sentences with "-ne" and overuses the word "fantastic". Near the end of To Heart: Remember My Memories she admits to Hiroyuki that she has always loved him and wants him to return to America with her so he can go to a good school with robotic engineering. She is exceptionally tall and is the only major character who is taller than Hiroyuki. Her height, bust, blue eyes, blonde hair, and unusual personality is how her foreign blood is represented which is typical of many Japanese series that contain foreigners. Note that a picture shows that she has black hair originally. Lemmy is also a member of the kyudo club (Japanese archery).
- AOI MATSUBARA: She is a practitioner of a particular style of martial arts known as "Extreme Rules". However, because she doesn't adhere to the more traditional martial arts such as Karate, she is spurned by the mainstream martial artists. She is still a very determined girl. She idolizes Ayaka Kurusugawa since the latter also happens to practice the same "Extreme Rules" form of martial arts. She possibly likes Hiroyuki as shown during her conversation with Yoshikata, as the latter described Kotone as "Aoi's rival for that guy", which she replies "I guess you could say it that way".
- KOTONE HIMEKAWA: A girl with psychic powers, but is unable to fully control them. When she was introduced, it is revealed that she does not have control over her psychic powers; instead bottling them up until she can no longer restrain them anymore, causing devastation. She likes udon. Her psychic power is psychokinesis in the game, and prediction in the anime series. This has changed back into psychokinesis in To Heart: Remember My Memories. She had a crush on Masashi in the first season, though in Remember My Memories, she admits to being in love with Hiroyuki, and her relationship with Masashi not mentioned.
- RIO HINAYAMA: She can be unlocked after completing Akari's scenario. She spends time on getting part-time jobs, and is a fan of romance manga and anime. She is very self-sufficient, and has several part-time jobs including selling cakes at Christmas and delivering the paper. She has feelings for Hiroyuki. She has the feature of "hair antennae" (a pair of long hairs that stick straight up), which is rampant in some anime but unique in this one.
Manufacturer's description:
Ported from the PC version of the popular PS Heartfelt romantic comedy unfolds at the high school stage. OP & ED song a song to, add the movie. Additional factors such as being packed Sabukyara heroine! The hero, a childhood friend Akari and Masashi sent to his friends and high school life and Shiho, and romance unfolds a variety of women met in the spring of sophomore year.
Features:
- First person perspective.
- 2D graphics
- Cartoon graphics
- Dating & Anime themes.
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