What items are useless and what are items are usefull

[Sampai]

Inventory started getting full and I've been contemplating which items are useless and which are imperative. I already figured which are important but I'm getting overwhelmed with all the items in my inventory.

[Ace42]

Some of it is contingent on your greater strategy and item synergies, although early on having ones that synergise with the girl(s) you're concentrating on preferred tokens can help too I guess.

My bread-and-butter was the blue boots that give you sentiment when you get four-of-a-kind or better matches, as you can drop that first turn usually and get sentiment throughout the game.
The penguin doll that turns bad tokens into free-move bells; and the earring that gives you additional moves depending on how many bells there are on screen.

I found early on before I had all three of those the bear-doll that converts bad tokens to heart tokens was useful for building passion early on (dropping it second turn gives you a clean board to work from and plenty of time to build passion), and I could synergise that with the locket that converts your passion to affection as a last-turn "hail mary". I seem to recall there was another item that made use of passion matches too? I had that in a combo early on that was effective until I wanted to swap out to the aforementioned bread-and-button set.

Aside from that I seem to recall the doll the fairy swaps you for the magazine is handy as a "I've got more sentiment than I can use up" tool if you've got nothing else to work with; and the "cash in all power tokens" ring was handy for getting the most final-turn value out of lone power tokens I couldn't easily get to.

The items I tended to throw away were the "wipe out all the gems in a row / column / at random; but leave behind bad tokens" ones - eyelash curlers, and I think some makeup or something - I want to get disaffection tokens out of my face, not preserve them and possibly trigger them.
Could maybe synergise those into a "disaffection" novelty build along with the "convert disaffection tokens into affection" item, but that strikes me as very risky and probably not more rewarding than the bread-and-butter set mentioned above.

[moisole]

Here's how I see it, but it's important to find the ones that suit your style / the girl you're dating better. I'll try not to make it too long.

PLUSHIES: These are good to have as they get rid of your broken hearts. The cat just removes them, others change them to useful tokens: Passion (bear), Sentiment (Whale), or Joy (Penguin). The other two work better the more Broken Heart tokens you have, but they don't remove them. The Kyu plushie is too expensive and too time critical IMHO, but I always keep it because it is not replaceable. Throw it away and it's gone forever.

FLOWERS: Some people likes them, try for yourself. There's one flower for every kind of token except Sentiment and Broken Hearts. They all consume all the tokens of their type on the grid, giving you a bunch of points, passion, or moves. Be careful if you have broken hearts on the grid. It's hard to envision how they will fall up after such a big shuffle.

PERFUMES: Perfectly logical if you use flowers, as they work very well together. They increase the rate a certain type of token falls. There's one for each type except Sentiment and Joy. Yes, there's a broken heart perfume. This is for some high risk advanced tactics with plushies and the hoop earrings. Don't bother with that yet.

HEELS: A very strong category. If you are good at setting 4-in-a-row or better matches you can get free moves and sentiments with those. A double three in a T or L shape counts, but two separate threes don't. Also, only counts with the four "Point" tokens (Talent, Romance, Sexuality, and Flirtation). But other gifts in this category (Vintage and Peep Toe) are too niche to be considered. The Cork Wedge Sandals only make sense if you are using Flowers, letting you double-dip on certain items.

JEWELRY: Sort of a catch-all Misc category. The two necklaces are strong finishers used in the alpha strategy, as they can fill the affection bar if you have enough passion and sentiment worked up. The Earrings give you extra moves for every two Joy or Broken Heart tokens (depending on which ones you're using). Those tokens are usually very limited in number, so don't expect a massive amount of moves. And the rings shuffle the board by consuming either random tokens or all power tokens (those with three small symbols). Risky if you have Broken Hearts because you don't control how they'll settle in the grid afterwards.

COSMETICS: In my opinion, the weakest category hands down. They either consume all tokens (except broken hearts) in a selected row, column, or 3x3 area (You get the points and other benefits), which I think it's not worth the date gift slot, as you can only carry six of them into a date. The mirror will let you select one of the four Affection types and replace all of them with Sentiment, Joy, and Passion tokens, but it's at random. OK if you find yourself with a grid full of the tokens the girl you're dating doesn't care about. The other two create power tokens (either three at random with the nail polish, or one of your choice with the lipstick. I've had some success with the latter, especially late when your Charisma is maxed out, but it ends up being replaced by something else by that point. YMMV).

There you have it. I'm not sure I succeeded in not making this too long. :)