ToHeart Review

Honestly, I’ve always held ToHeart in something close to sacred regard.

Sounds like bullshit, but that’s how it is. When I was a kid I played it by pure chance — no idea which version, probably on a PS emulator or something, some pirated disc anyway. It blew my mind, mostly because I couldn’t read a single word and just clicked around at random. Around the same time my cousin was playing Princess Maker and Uncharted Waters, and I remember some magazine — Computer Fan or Popular Software, can’t recall which — running a piece where someone gushed about Sakura Wars, said you had to play it in this lifetime or you’d regret it forever.

So I came to see these games — Japanese, text-and-dialogue-driven, choices tied to a calendar — as something lofty and sacred.

That’s the impression ToHeart left on me. Later, after I got into anime, I kept spotting homages to it everywhere, which pretty much cemented its historical status. Some people even say it inspired all the stuff that came after, blah blah blah.

So when the ToHeart remake was announced, I was paying close attention. The promo PV got me hyped — full 3D production, which surely meant a next-gen experience, fundamentally different from those so-called traditional visual novel remakes that are just AI upscales.

Of course, Japanese game pricing. When it launched I couldn’t afford it and had no time to play anyway. Then the winter sale hit, I grabbed it, and after about half a month of playing I painstakingly cleared three routes (not counting the bro). And I was utterly converted…

Insanely good. You’d need a brain clot and a low IQ to screw up a remake this badly.

Let’s get straight to what’s actually wrong with this game.

First, the dogshit performance optimization.

As a 3D HD remake, ToHeart uses the toon-shaded 3D models you see in every modern gacha game these days. But the optimization is a mess. There are three presets: Graphics Accelerator, Performance Mode, and Ultra Light, corresponding to high/medium/low. The funny part: pick Graphics Accelerator and you’ll struggle to hold 60fps no matter how high you crank your specs. At least on my end, a 12700 + B580 can’t hold 60 at 1080p, and a 6800u can’t hold it at 720p either. I have no idea what hardware you’d need — a 9800X3D plus a 5090? Pick Performance Mode, drop the visuals a bit, and things improve immediately…

But that drop comes with an FSR-like resolution reduction, and the hilarious part is it also reduces your system UI. Yes, on medium settings your UI fonts get aliased. And if you’re unlucky enough to enable Ultra Light, enjoy a画面 mush. I never imagined hitting a hardware bottleneck in a dating sim, and having to lower the resolution and stare at a blurry mess just to reach an acceptable framerate.

Oh right — even on Ultra Light you still can’t hold 60fps. Some scenes drop frames anyway.

Second problem: terrible direction.

We established the game is fully 3D, most heroines got new models, and it sacrificed performance for visuals. So the final presentation must be explosive, right?

Not really. It’s actually baffling — in some ways worse than the original.

First, even though it’s 3D, it directs like a 2D visual novel — tons of empty background close-ups, the pure background shots traditional 2D VNs use when switching scenes, usually filled with walls of text.

But the ToHeart remake doesn’t just replicate that stale directing style; it also blurs the background images as much as possible to make them look like flat 2D backgrounds… So you used 3D assets to produce a 2D flat look while burning a huge performance budget. Why?

Next, the romanceable characters did get models, and they look roughly okay — at least average for a modern gacha game. But everyone else, the extras and NPCs, looks pitiful. Some have eyes so big they look like zombies from a horror game. Honestly, just make them faceless. And even the main cast’s models are too stiff for this generation — gestures, expressions, all rigid. Their mouths seem to move when they talk, but it’s so tiny you can barely see it. You can tell the team made just a few animation sets and reuses them constantly: one walk, one holding something out to you with both hands, one leaning over a desk writing, one smiling face shoved right into the camera…

If you’re committing to 3D, use the advantages of 3D instead of holding 3D assets and shipping something that plays like 2D, alright? More expressions for the heroines? The 2D portraits had happy, angry, sad, all of it. You’re in 3D and you have less? Then what’s 3D for?

Now, the team didn’t ignore this entirely. To make sure you feel this is “real 3D,” they added a section where you control the protagonist walking around a fully 3D school. But all you can do is walk from point A to point B and talk to a single heroine. The school is full of invisible walls, and you can’t talk to any NPC except the target. I don’t know what this scene design is for. It’s not even a walking simulator. Is it really just to make sure you know you’re playing a “real 3D game”?

The game spent serious resources making the original 3D, and the best-looking part is the trailer. Everything else feels worse than a gacha game, inheriting the flaws of both 3D and 2D. Honestly, hiring a new-gen artist to redraw the original CGs and character designs would’ve been more sincere.

Third problem, right on its heels: zero changes to the content, and some cuts.

The game has two voice tracks, new and old, freely switchable. You might think that’s a nice touch for nostalgic players, but it also proves… the story has zero changes, so the old voice files could be reused as-is. Yes, compared to the 1997 original there may be minor tweaks, but overall nothing changed. It’s drenched in last-century flavor, and the more you play, the stronger that out-of-place feeling gets.

Early school romance sims mostly relied on the daily routine of meeting different heroines, chatting, farming affection, and confessing at the end. Last century that made sense — the industry was just starting, everyone was figuring out how these games should work, and it was fresh for players then. But bro! This game came out in 2025. I’m not asking for a full rewrite, but at least make some changes that fit the new generation?

Nope. Otherwise why would the old voice files drop into the new game without a seam? So you get plenty of laugh-cry moments. Many old dating sims broke down every single thing the protagonist does after waking up, because it could be reused — same dialogue every morning. This HD remaster inherits that untouched, and even 3D-ifies it. So every day the protagonist loads the scene for ages, then rinses his mouth in an empty shot over an animated bathroom background, rinses for ages, spits, then loads the next scene. That flow was common in old games, but doing it again in a new release, especially in 3D, is completely absurd.

Two years ago, the Tsui no Sora remake massively expanded the original story, even reworking parts to fit a modern context and make the game look “more modern.” Meanwhile ToHeart, a classic powerhouse aiming for full 3D, didn’t touch the ancient story structure at all. Just served it up as-is. Incomprehensible. Especially the last-century “protagonist plays dumb forever” routine, which got roasted to death years ago. Times changed; mainstream anime romance hasn’t been written that way in ages. Why is this ancient technique still being served? Like the plot where the protagonist refuses the heroine’s kindness and torpedoes his classmate’s sincere confession — that’s a total piece of shit, okay? Stop with the “I haven’t confirmed my feelings” garbage. You might as well just do NTR!

Someone might say this is to keep the game “authentic” — “a classic is a classic.” Then I’ll ask: the original ToHeart had some minigames. Why are they gone in the 3D remake? Where’s the authenticity? Even funnier — the game ships with multi-language support including Chinese, but the in-game radio “Heart To Heart” got zero localization, not even subtitles. Is that authenticity too? On the map’s character select, it doesn’t even mark characters’ names. Is this really for new players?

It’s honestly worse than the original, which at least didn’t have these load times. My mind goes to other games — HOOK’s Houkago Cinderella and Pure X Caution, same style, and don’t they all play better than this?

The one innovation: an absurd guide system

The ToHeart remake did innovate once. It added a “Route Guide” system, supposedly an assist for newbies who can’t figure out how to pursue a character. You pick a character at the start, the system marks choices with hearts, and following the hearts gets you onto that route.

Sounds nice, but this kind of feature isn’t new. CUBE’s games had it ages ago… And yet even this simple feature gets botched.

First, the guide is “force-locked.” Once you enable it, you must follow it strictly the whole way. Miss one guided choice and the feature shuts off, no more assistance.

So you can’t pick someone else for a choice or two and then come back. The affection thresholds aren’t that strict — it’s perfectly doable — but this system can’t handle it. You must follow the guide exactly. Then how about a countdown with auto-select? Nope.

Even more absurd: some choices have chibi heroine icons marking them as affection boosts. But after I picked the guide for Akari Kamigishi, the game showed… guide choices and Akari affection choices that didn’t match.

I’m pursuing Akari, so I should raise her affection, but of the three options, option 1 raises Akari’s affection, option 2 is the guide’s recommendation. I can’t pick 1 to see Akari’s events and CGs because that would break my route guide.

I think you should rename this “Route Guide” to “Dad Guide.” Zero freedom, total mansplaining. A visual novel assist system with this much dad energy — unreal!

The ancient prison experience for players without nostalgia

It’s hard to say what the ToHeart remake even is. Shitty optimization, outdated story copied wholesale from the ancient original, mediocre 3D models with less expressive power than 2D dynamic Emotion effects, original minigames cut, incomplete localization, a stiff navigation feature, and constant loading that makes clearing one route agony. There’s not even a fast-forward to the next scene — you just keep watching the same month of repeated story across playthroughs, with meaningless walking-simulator segments in between…

I rarely call a romance visual novel “prison,” but this game earned it. I see a lot of people calling it a love letter to old ToHeart fans, saying seeing the girls again in new form brings familiar emotion. Sure. But for players without much nostalgia, this is more like a verdict. You have to endure hours of prison to clear one route, and that absurd suffering is exactly why I gave up on the platinum. Honestly, I’d rather play the original — at least it fast-forwards repeated story faster.