Best Date Gifts and Combinations?

[brentaro]

Ok, I have to admit the match 3+ in this game ramps up in difficulty pretty fast. If you suck at puzzle games, like I do, it's even harder. However, I was able to unlock all girls (and hidden ones) with help from certain Date Gifts. Post what you think are the best date gifts and combinations of them are. Here are a couple I think helped me beat the game.

SS Rank

Stuffed Whale - Convert all Broken Heart Tokens into Sentiment Tokens
Even with a cost of 6, this helps fuel your other Date Gifts easily and gets rid of Broken Hearts.

S Rank

Stuffed Sheep - +1 Passion Level for every 2 Broken Heart Tokens on the Grid
Very very effective at building Passion meter, especially when you approach your max. The tradeoff is so good, even after you have a Maxed out Passion Trait.

A Rank

White Pansy/OrangeCosmos/Red Tulip/Blue Orchid - Consume all Flirtation/Romance/Sexuality/Talent Tokens on the grid.
Once you have high enough passion, popping one of these fills up a huge part of your affection bar. Feel free to take out the type the girl you're dating dislikes.

B Rank
Everything else.

My strategy with this setup. Start trying to match as many Sentiment tokens (teardrops) as you can. In general match Joy Tokens (bells) as often as you can as well to give you as many turns as possible. When you have 12 Sentiment, start focusing on Passion Tokens to buff your meter. Once there are a good number of Broken Hearts on the screen and your passion meter is fairly high (shoot for level 6ish), pop the stuffed sheep, then the stuffed whale. Match a couple sentiment tokens if you don't have enough for your flower date gifts. Pop whatever appears the most on your board except the token the girl dislikes. With this you should see a huge spike in affection everytime you pop a flower.

Hope this helps.

[TwilightDusk]

My main setup is:

Suede Ankle Boots - 3 sentiment, makes all 4+ matches give 3 sentiment for the rest of the date.
Leopard Print Pumps - 8 sentiment, makes all 4+ matches give 1 move for the rest of the date.

I can usually get 3 sentiment pretty quickly for the suede boots, and once I have both of them up and running, any 4+ match is a free move and some sentiment to fuel other things. Other items I like include:

Perfume / Flower combos: There's one perfume and one flower for each token type, the perfume makes the type of token more likely to drop, and the flower collects all of them. I always bring along the flower and perfume that corresponds to my date's favorite token

Sunflower: Consuming all of the joy bells on the screen at once can give you a good lifeline for when you're about to run out of time. I generally save it until I have 7 or 8 bells on the board, for 5-6 extra turns.

My last slot I'm not so sure about. I had the stuffed sheep in it until recently, but I found the usefulness wasn't worth the risks inherent with having too many broken hearts on the board. The Cork Wedge Sandles were my favorite for a while, particularly for use with the sunflower, but I feel like I'd want to put in more items that take advantage of it as a combo if I'm going to use it. It works well with the Cosmetics category items too of course, since you get a free row, colum, or 3x3 "consumed" without actually leaving the board. It makes the Silver Ring (random 10 consumed) less risky to use as well, since you don't have to worry about things chaotically shifting around after you use it.

[brentaro]

The perfumes, I'm not exactly sold on. Yes they increase a certain type to fall, but I feel there aren't enough moves to make it worth it. I would still use stuffed sheep and whale before it, and by that time, it's not as effective. To be most effective you'd want to use the perfume in the beginning. But in this game I think building up the Passion meter is priority, at least to a certain point.

As for the 4+ match Date Gifts, they'd be super powerful if this was a match 3+ like Puzzles & Dragon's where you could drag the jewel in multiple directions. Getting a 4+ doesn't happen often enough to warrant those Date gifts in my experience.

Thanks though for your ideas. I especially like the Sunflower idea as the ace in the hole.

[TwilightDusk]

I find it's easy enough to set up 4+ pops if you're looking for them that the leopard print pumps end up outclassing any other +move item, even the sunflower. Maybe I've just been getting lucky, but I've also been more deliberately looking to set up 4+ combos after I started using them.

[Mallomar]

My current setup:

Rose perfume and whichever perfume is their most desired trait - I usually spend my first 6 sentiment to get in early on one of these. I can often get this going with 17 or 18 moves to go, so it's worth it.
Stuffed Bear - to build up passion faster, especially if your board is getting too crowded
Stuffed Penguin - less risky than the Sunflower in my opinion, good for desperation
Heart Necklace - absolutely indispensable. If you build up passion properly, you should be rocking 10 passion at least near the end, at which point you can end the game with 20% of your score to go.
Stuffed Monkey - in case I can't afford the necklace and I'm running out of time, or if I have extra sentiment, to be used in conjunction with the heart necklace.

[Kongroo]

This is a kind of older post, but the absolute best combination imo in which I haven't actually lost a single date since I've set it up is: Stuffed Penguin, Gold Earrings, Sunflower, Leopard Print Pumps, Nail Polish, and Silver ring.

I mean all you do is use the penguin when there is a ton of broken hearts then the earrings then the sunflower and you accumulate soooo many moves it's nearly impossible to lose and the other items are just to support that playstyle of basically unlimited moves.

[Snaggle_tongue]

I use:
Leopard Print Pumps - +1 move for matches of 4+
Suede Ankle Boots - +1 sentiment for matches of 4+
Pearl Necklace - Converts sentiment into affection at a ratio of 1 sentiment = 1% total affection needed for date
The above three are the only ones that do not vary at all. Especially once you start getting into the higher Alpha Mode dates, you need them.
Stuffed Penguin - Converts broken hearts into joy tokens
Gold Earrings - +1 move for every 2 joy tokens on the grid. (I'd use the one that gives +1 move for every joy token after the first two, but I don't want to waste a slot on the shoes that stop gifts from consuming tokens)
Stuffed Bear/Whale - Converts broken hearts to passion/sentiment - I like passion, but obviously the sentiment is useful with the pearl necklace. I tend to swap from bear to whale after 10-ish Alpha dates, just to be safe.