October 29, 2026TM3 Progress

Tokimeki Memorial 3 v0.46: a sakura date, and the girls say your name

Patch v0.46 is built. I started a fresh game for this round, so I got to translate the very beginning of the story as I played it, and then my first real date with Makihara.

The legend

Right after you name yourself, you walk up to school for the first time, past an old shrine and up a stone staircase covered in falling petals. Then the screen goes white and the school legend fades in over the petals, one line at a time.

A white screen with pink sakura petals drifting across it. Pink italic text in the middle reads "On that fated day,".

That text is drawn into the art, so I couldn't just change a line in the script. It's redrawn now in a soft pink italic, and it fades in and out the same way the Japanese does. Here's the whole thing:

On that fated day, amid the dancing sakura, the two who pledge their love will be bound together forever...

You'll hear Aizawa quote it later, so her line uses the same words.

A date under the sakura

My first date with Makihara was on a sunny Sunday in April at Hilltop Park.

A park entrance on a sunny day with people strolling and a bus stop. Duniphin says "Hey, Makihara-san. Did I keep you waiting?"

Makihara, a girl with short red hair, yellow ribbons and a pale yellow jacket, smiles at the park entrance. She says "The sakura are in full bloom! Hey, want to go check out the tree-lined path?"

I decided to say "sakura" everywhere instead of "cherry blossoms." It's a word most of us already know, and it keeps a little more of the feeling of the original. The legend, the dialogue and the town magazine all use it now.

Makihara stands on a path lined with sakura trees in full bloom, with people having picnics on the grass. She says "Hey, the row of sakura trees is really beautiful, isn't it?"

You get three ways to answer her about the trees.

Makihara under the sakura trees with three answers to choose from: "There's no other word for it than 'wonderful'.", "Makihara-san, you look like a painting under the sakura." and "I don't think it's all that great..."

I told her she looked like a painting standing under them, and she got so flustered.

Makihara looks away and blushes under the sakura. She says "...N-No, that's not true at all."

Makihara under the sakura with a shy smile. She says "But thank you... I'm happy."

Saying your name

This was the big fix of the round. Tokimeki Memorial 3 has a voice feature where the girls say your name out loud. The game builds whatever she calls you, like your family name with -kun, and then tries to match it to recorded voice clips. Those clips only cover Japanese sounds, so an English name never matched, and the game quietly dropped it. The girls would say "Oh, heading home?" with a little gap where your name should be.

That happens in over 7,000 lines, so it was worth fixing properly. Now, when the game can't voice the name, it shows it as text instead, with the right punctuation after it.

Makihara in her school uniform in a classroom after school. She says "Oh, Duniphin-kun, um, did you need something?"

Oda, a girl with long golden hair tied with a white ribbon, stands by the shoe lockers with a hand raised to her chin, looking straight ahead. She says "Oh my, Duniphin-kun,".

As you get closer to someone, the game changes what she calls you, the same way it does in Japanese.

Meet Oda Mari

I had been calling one of the girls "Mita" in my notes, because her family name can be read a few ways. Then I heard her say it in the game: it's Oda. She's Oda Mari now everywhere, including the name tags drawn into the art. She also gave me a very chilly first hello, which I enjoyed translating.

Little fixes

Every line I translate now gets checked against the real width of the text box, so nothing scrolls off.
One goodbye line is used in 317 different scenes, so I picked something that works for all of them: "Okay, bye then."
The phone menu says "Invite out," since you can call your friend Yabe too, not just the girls.
Short labels like "Zoo" got a little more room.

What's next

More of the story as I play, the Sports Day art, and the rest of my draft menu wording.

There's no patch to download yet. When there is, I'll announce it here.

Unofficial and made for fun.