Hideously overrated
Don't let the doutei chuuni kimoota fool you, there's nothing in here that you won't find in a score of other galge.

The system is a throwback to the mass of late 90's SLG-ADV mashups, the thing where you speak into the microphone is extremely unresponsive to all but a very small fixed set of words, the characters calling your name only works when your name or nickname consists of a single syllable (your name is Takeru? Sorry, you're reduced to Ta-kun)...

There's talk of this game being extremely unique and revolutionizing the genre (see: 4gamer); This is nonsense- It's just repackaging of what was everywhere ten years ago. The only new thing is the microphone gimmick, which is a ripoff of stuff like Seaman.

The characters themselves are alright, but are extremely shallow and leave a lot to the imagination; Some people may like that, but I personally do not.

Having been subjected to countless similar, if not identical, games in my youth, all I can say is that it's average at best.

Incredibly overrated, but.
This game was very hyped up in Japan thanks to Konami and mass advertising tactics. The art is very good, and the 3D models are by far the best the DS can handle. That's not saying much, considering that the DS handles 3D games like shit for the most part, but it's still about as impressive as it's going to get with Love Plus.

Love Plus is split into two scenarios. The first scenario consists of you setting daily activities the night before, and certain activities mean you have more of a chance to socialize with a certain girl (one of three). If one girl does a certain activity more often (ie. one of them is with the Tennis Club), going there daily will make you more and more socialized with her.

This must be completed within 100 virtual days, or the game game over's and resets you to the title screen. This abrupt end is very disappointing as it will only allow you to load from your previous saved game, and if your previous saved game is close to the 100th day, you're screwed and can't do anything but play through THE ENTIRE 100 DAYS AGAIN. The objective of the game is to make one of the girls fall in love with you.

This is where the game changes. After this happens, you can now phone her at any given moment, set up dates and also enter Love Plus mode (think Tamagotchi, but with a chick; which is neat because you can talk to her with the microphone.. in Japanese though. And it's usually just basic responses that you can use.)

There's two modes within the second scenario - Real Time and Skip Mode. Skip Mode allows you to play the game as you previously did, setting up your daily activities and progressing faster. Real Time uses the DS's clock and lets you set up dates with your girl on real dates. Note that this can be cheated by adjusting the clock, but if you close the game without saving, she'll get pissed off at you and the game somehow knows you're trying to cheat.

Anyway, the game is not accessible to non-Japanese speakers, like myself. Else I would enjoy it more. A translation project of Love Plus is underway, google it if you want more information. The game is good, but I'm giving it a 4/5 because of the horrible way Konami decided to deal with the 100-day system, and because it was way, way overhyped.

If you do know Japanese, I would definitely recommend this, as there's a desperate lack of worthwhile, unique games like these lately.