Love² Torokko (ラブ・ラブ トロッコ)
Developer: TYO
Release Date: 1999
Platforms: PlayStation
Combining video game minecart levels and dating sim-esque elements, Love² Torokko (“Love Love Trolley”) effectively thrusts you onto five roller coaster rides as it asks you to juggle the operation of a handcart, treasure collecting, and romance all at the same time. A group of four guys and four girls decide to go on a treasure hunting journey in the pursuit of diamonds and they’ll have to navigate incredibly treacherous tracks, dodge all sorts of hazards, and deal with a trio of rival treasure hunters along the way. Before starting the game, you get to pick one guy and one girl. Each pairing leads to a unique ending (with dialogue changes depending on your performance), so it requires 16 playthroughs to see all of the ending screens.
As you navigate levels, making it to the end is rarely the most challenging part. The focus here is more on keeping your chosen girl satisfied by collecting enough items and keeping her out of harm’s way by ducking with good timing. Keeping your speed high is also important since it’s required to make some jumps and retain your time bonus throughout each level. Tons of fruit is scattered throughout levels and having the guy stand up to collect it will increase the girl’s favorability towards you. Each girl has a favorite fruit that provides a bigger boost, but missing any fruit results in a penalty to the heart meter. You can also collect hamburger ingredients to try and create their favorite burger, though collecting the wrong ingredients will upset her instead. The most important items are the hidden diamonds, which not only make the girl very happy, but also put you on track for the best ending. Finding these is a matter of making the correct turns on the track that lead to a key, so once you know the courses, it’s just a matter of repeating the same paths. At the end of each level, your two characters will have a brief heart-to-heart, the tone of which is determined by your performance.
Love² Torokko can be played solo or with two people as they work together to operate the handcart. To accommodate the theme of the game, there’s also a “Love LoveMode” that’ll ask each player a series of questions to determine which character they’ll play as and the players’ compatibility with each other. Love² Torokko is a great, truly unique concept that’s well worth playing through at least once, though it’s hard to imagine its simplistic gameplay holding most peoples’ interest long enough to see all its endings.
