Overview
This a quick and dirty guide on the game based on my own observations, as well as those of the community. I’ll let someone else do the more detailed dives, and I’ll instead just put together a few simpler things here that some players may or may not know about. Enjoy, ya pervs~!
Introduction
Thanks to Yangyang Mobile, this kickstarted game known as Love Esquire became a thing, and by the great Fertility God’s booty, we got it within a year!
I even started streaming it! You can check out videos here:
In any case, I thought I’d share my discoveries, tips, and whatever else here for those who are interested.
I’ll try to keep this as updated as possible, but don’t expect anything too much. I don’t plan on making anything too large. Look to someone else for a full walkthrough. Seriously.
Anyway, time to teach all the studs, nerds and pervs out there a thing or two about this game~!
Let’s get started.
Time Management
- Always make sure to get back home by 12am at night. If you get home any later, you will end up wasting an extra 6 hours of your day, as you’ll wake up at 12pm the next day. Sleeping on time will cause you to wake up at 6am, which is preferable.
- All training times will take 4 hours (from what I’ve seen so far).
- All player-triggered conversations with the girls will always take 1 hour. Event related conversations will depend on the event.
- Gifting items to girls will not take any time, but can only be done once per day per girl.
- Combat outside of the city will take 6 hours to complete on a successful run. Not yet sure if this changes depending on what happens.
Combat outside the city with Hugh can only be triggered before 12pm (i.e. be at the Outskirts at the 11am mark at the latest, no later), and not on a Saturday. No matter what time you start, you will always return to the city after combat at 4pm. Not yet sure what happens if you or Hugh is knocked out. - Roughly plan out your day based on all the info above along with travel times between locations.
- Avoid using the time skip option, as that would just be a waste of time you could instead use to move to different locations grabbing items, training, hunting monsters, and talking to girls. Time skipping is interesting, as usually it would be in your best interests to always avoid skipping time, as it is a very valuable and limited resource. However, if you wish to encounter certain girls around town before going to a different location (eg meeting up with Hugh at the Outskirts for battle at exactly 11am), and waiting just 1 hour would enable you to encounter said girls at your current location or en-route to your target location, then that’s when it might be useful to time skip.
- Regarding Pamu’s secret scene: If you encounter Pamu at the Outskirts, be prepared, as it will cause her to knock her out, returning you back to your room at 11pm, completely taking up the rest of your day. Proof is here: [link]
How to Obtain All Items
There are a total of 8 clickable areas to farm for items around the map. Keep in mind that each spot can only be checked once a day, with 2 of the 3 farmable items at the Outskirts appearing randomly, but always guarantee that specific item once clicked. The only thing you need to do is ensure you spend your time wisely while moving around farming up items.
Also, keep an eye out for one of 3 currently known RARE items while farming for items, as apparently they all give +100 to your relationship points~! (Will confirm later once I find one myself). Below is the list of items you can possibly get from each location, along with how much relationship points they provide when being gifted to a girl (currently still WIP):
- Bessy’s Milk: Any Girl +4
Obtained From: Milking Bessy
- Old Silverware
Obtained From: Patting dog in Throne Room - Broken Earring
Obtained From: Patting dog in Throne Room - Mouldy Cheese
Obtained From: Checking flower-statue-mechanism in Castle Hallway - Philosopher’s Stone
Obtained From: Unknown
- Band Aid
Obtained From: Medical supplies container - Potion
Obtained From: Medical supplies container - Herbal Soap
Obtained From: Drawer - Firebird Feather
Obtained From: Unknown
- Tiny Fish
Obtained From: Fishing in river - Tulip
Obtained From: Randomly spawned tulip - Frog
Obtained From: Randomly floating frog - Lady of the Lake Fish
Obtained From: Fishing in river
After obtaining your first yellow heart with any girl, you will eventually be guided by Amy to Serena, who will give you a free Lotus Brooch thanks to a free item coupon Amy had given you earlier. All other items she can provide you can be purchased for gold.
Initially costing 30 gold per gift, the price will increase over time as you progress through the story, or as time passes.
Purchasable Gifts:
- Alluring Cosmetics
- Cupcake of Friendship
- Eredille Necklace
- Fancy Bouquet
- Giant Grimoire
- Kadupul Jewel Box
- Star Compass
- Tarot Cards
- Wild Pinkberry
- Luxurious Ring
Once you beat all combat encounters, you will be able to obtain the Ocarina of Love. DO NOT SELL THIS, as it provides an insane 500 point boost to any girl you gift it to. Use it to help get that romance ending with your one true love!
Training Stats
As with all RPG-esque games, Love Esquire requires you to train. This is due to the fact that you, the Squire, being extremely incompetent, only got promoted to the position cause you saved Hugh from being caught peeping on “wolves”.
The game requires you to train up three stats throughout the course of the game; Charisma, Intelligence, and Strength. Note that no matter what type or difficulty level of training you decide to perform, it will always take 4 hours to complete, and 1 gold per experience point obtained.
These stats are used not only for combat encounters, but also for interacting with each main girl.
Intelligence is the easiest to train up. This is because the Archive, where you would need to go to train that stat up, is located right next to your Home. So, if you decided to spend your entire day studying at the Archive and nothing else, you would just need to spend 2 hours to get there and back, and the remaining 16 hours of your full day (assuming you woke up at 6am) fitting in 4 lots of studying up.
Charisma on the other hand is slightly harder to train up, as you would need to go to the Tavern. If you want to spend a full day training up your Charisma, you would need to spend a total of 4 hours travelling there and back home (before 12am), allowing for only 12 hours or 3 attempts at mingling with the girls at the bar. This leaves you with 2 hours you can do whatever with. A suggestion would be to talk to 2 other girls en-route to the Tavern, or while you are there training.
Strength training will work out in a similar way as Charisma training had, taking a minimum of 2 hours to travel there from Home, totalling a 4 hour round trip. The only difference is that it is much rarer to encounter girls at the Barracks during the night where this training would take place, unlike the Tavern where you would more likely be able to meet with them there in the late hours of the evening.
If you want to spend your entire day balancing out your training regime (for some reason), you can run a circuit around the map. Below is an example of what to do to achieve this:
6am: Wake up, go to Archives
7am: Train up Intelligence (4 hours)
11am: Finished training, go to Tavern
12pm: Train up Charisma (4 hours)
4pm: Finished training, go to Infirmary
5pm: Loot items from Infirmary, go to Barracks
6pm: Train up Strength (4 hours)
10pm: Finished training, go back Home
12am: Go to sleep, ready for the next day
Now, I wouldn’t recommend this, as you would need enough gold to reliably pull this off while still getting strong enough to fight in the next combat encounter you will likely undertake. Focus on just one stat at a time. That way you will feel the benefits of your training faster. I recommend focusing on Strength and Intelligence training, as a large HP pool and lots of healing will help net you more gold per encounter. Keep in mind though that your stats also help improve relationship point gains when interacting with each girl, so don’t just neglect Charisma cause it would make it harder to loot said gold.
Combat
- Taunt early. Only discovered this recently, but if you were to taunt the opponent and take damage, it will increase the amount of loot you can get from 1 to 2. Whether or not that will increase I have not yet found out. Just keep an eye on your HP, as you are much squishier than Hugh. Taunting and then getting hit will increase your Limit Break meter (once that is unlocked), which is then used to perform any unlocked limit break moves you may have.
- After combat, your total gold is based on the gold that you looted along with any mission clear rewards, and then you will unceremoniously be given 1% of all of that. Enjoy~
- Taunt, Loot and Heal will always occur before anyone attacks, while Cheer will occur after enemies attack.
- Hugh will always attack after the enemy, no matter what you do.
- Listen to what the MC and Hugh talk about, as it can hint to what you may need to do next in order to survive.
- Certain creatures gain a sword icon buff after attacking, which displays how many times they have attacked the same target. The higher the number, the more damage they can do to that target. Avoid this by taunting every other turn, so that the enemy does not end up attacking the same person a second time in a row.
- STR increases Max HP of both yourself and Hugh
- CHA increases Hugh’s ATK
- INT increases the healing applied to both yourself and Hugh when using Heal
- Levelling up stats high enough will unlock limit break versions of your moves.
Getting The Girl(s) & Gifting (WIP)
Note (20/10/2019): I will be completely revamping this area over the next few days. For the time being, I would recommend checking out @Miaowkey’s “THE guide to gifts for your waifus”, and @Raine’s “Romance/Harem Ending” guides for all the essential info you may want. The guides can be found below:
I actually recommend prioritising training up your STR, INT and CHA over any other action you can take early on, as each girl will give you bonus relationship points based on your current stats that they favour (10% extra per favoured stat level). I don’t know exactly what each girl wants yet though. Still working on that. According to @Regolant’s observations, the girls will prefer the following stats. The higher the favoured stat, the higher the point gain when interacting with said girl:
- Amy: Charisma
- Princess Beatrice: All Stats (Perfectly balanced, as all things should be… -Thanos)
- Giselle: Intelligence
- Princess Kamala: Charisma (unconfirmed)
- Vel: Strength
- Meeting a girl for the first time nets a nice 40 points. Amy doesn’t get that though… one can only hope your lil’ sis wasn’t left behind…
- Progressing through a girl’s relationship storyline will net a whopping 100 relationship points!
- Both point gains mentioned above will also include the point bonus awarded based on the girl’s favoured stats. Use this to your advantage to reduce the need to speak to girls to progress their narratives.
- If you are gonna talk to the girl, why not also give her a gift?
- Not sure if this is due to the harder difficulty I’m playing on, but Girls will have certain objects they will like or dislike. While it is preferable to actually give favoured items to the girls at all times, make sure to not give the same gift twice in a row, as the girl will not like it as much. Variety is a good thing here.
- Regular gifts a girl favours (items found around the map) will give 4 relationship points. Giving the same gift the next time you meet will net you 2 points if they have grown tired of getting the same thing again. Giving a gift they don’t favour will net you 1 point.
- Amy will eventually introduce you to a shopkeeper who will sell you gifts for 30 gold initially, and will progressively introduce more expensive items as time goes on. She will also buy any items/gifts you no longer want. The gifts being sold will potentially have a greater impact on the girl being given that gift if she favours it.
The following is a growing list of notable items you may want to have, or avoid as much as possible, with each girl:
Note (12/10/2019): As I am currently attending PAX AUS, there will be quite a few places here where there will be item names behind a spoiler bar, but no hint text next to it for those who want to figure it out themselves. Leave suggestions on what I should put in and I might just use it in this guide
+4 Relationship Point Items
- Bessy’s Milk: Everyone loves it, and you will always get one per day every morning (as long as you actually milk Bessy). Also, avoid selling this as you may need it down the road when attempting to provide a variety of gifts to girls.
+4 Relationship Point Items
- Old Silverware: Give it a little polish, and it should be fit for the dining table
- Tiny Fish: Reeled in some free ingredients for the fam
- Tulip: thinking of something witty without making it 2 much of a leap
-_-
+15 Relationship Point Items
- Fancy Bouquet:
- Wild Pinkberry:
+0 Relationship Point Items
- POTIONS: NO!!! JUST NO!!!
- Herbal Soap: I imagine she really loves baths while using this
- Fancy Bouquet: The other thing most people bring when meeting up with a date on Valentine’s Day (Note: it isn’t the chocolate) (Note2: it isn’t the money either)
- Cupcake of Friendship: A sign that all princesses like her, deep down, just need a friend
- Giant Grimoire: Every… uh… ‘researcher’… will always want more of this
- Any Infirmary-obtained item: If you want the item in question to be confiscated, with no relationship points at all to speak of, then go ahead! I’m not one to force my ideas onto others. Play the game as you want to play it!
- Cupcake of Friendship: A sign that all otaku like her, deep down, just need a friend (me included -_- )
- Alluring Cosmetics: What better way to fully display the brilliantly bountiful and alluring… err… GEMS… she has than by giving her more product?
- All medical-related items: With her rough and tough personality, it only stands to reason she would love to get her hands on these.
- Wild Pinkberry: Clearly, this shows us she wants exactly what she currently lacks…
Using Debug Info
For those of you who want to make sure you don’t miss ANYTHING, but don’t want to spend hours and hours on trial and error “like the good ‘ole days” Yangyang Mobile have provided a way for everyone to get debug info on what is currently happening in-game.
Now, this feature is primarily used for hunting down actual bugs, or issues with the inner workings of the game itself. But it also provides information that would help those people out there hunting for that 100% completion rate. All one needs to get this information is just by enabling the debug info in the options menu.
Now, when you are actually in-game, the debug info provides some info at the top on the current version of the game you have, and FPS counter, along with your squire’s name, stats and gold.
What we really care about however, is what comes after.
Specific Location: The name of your current location in-game
Town Location: The name of your current location based on the map
Girl Data:
Arguably the most important, it tells you what “arc” you are currently on with each girl, the relationship points you currently have with her, as well as their current location if they can currently be interacted with at this time.
Example:
Amelie: Arc One=873 FARM_HOUSE_EXTERIOR
This means that Amy is still on Arc #1, currently has 873 relationship points with the Squire, and is currently located outside the house.
Current Daily Events Found: ???
And here’s the second most important section. This will tell you how many potential events you can trigger today, along with specifically which events you can trigger, where it can be triggered, and when it can be triggered.
Example:
Amy Arc 1 Scene 4
FARM_HOUSE_EXTERIOR 1800-2100
This means that in order for me to trigger the next scene to progress my story with Amy, I have to meet with her outside the house between 6pm to 9pm. Usually, arc related scenes have an exclamation mark above the location the girl is currently at even without the debug info, so that you get an idea that this scene is important, and you should probably visit that location to progress the story.
So, what this part of the debug info is mostly used for are the secret, or special scenes each girl has.
Example:
Amy Special Scene 4
Outskirts 1100-1300
This means that my 4th secret scene with Amy can be found when she visits the Outskirts between 11am to 1pm. This scene will likely not have an exclamation mark hovering above the location.
I am currently unaware as to how long this “feature” of the game will stay around. It might be until the game is considered fully bug-free according to Yangyang Mobile, or alternatively just left in the game forever.
Version History
09/10/2019:
- Observation diary released with basic info
10/10/2019:
- Updated with help from @Celezto, @willbenares, @Regolant & @Dasher
- Merged Gifting and Getting The Girl(s) sections
12/10/2019:
- Working on updating the guide with help from @Franka_Scythe, @Regolant, @ringloth & @Robbz (will take time as I am still in the middle of PAX AUS)
18/10/2019:
- Updated Introduction with link to newest live streamed episode, now with less audio issues!
- Updated Time Management section relating to going out with Hugh to fight outside the city
- Updated Farmable Items to have additional info regarding what items you can find where
- Updated Combat, crossing out slightly misleading info
19/10/2019:
- Updated Time Management section with additional info on meeting up with Hugh at the Outskirts before 12pm, usage of time skipping, and Pamu’s secret scene
- Updated Introduction section with link to newest live streamed episode
20/10/2019:
- Updated Introduction section with link to newest live streamed episode, added game logo and main menu artwork in wallpaper form
- Added images all throughout the guide
- Added Training Stats section
- Reworked Farmable Items section, removing some text fluff
- Beginning work on revamping Getting The Girl(s) & Gifting (WIP) section, and referencing guides from @Miaowkey and @Raine
21/10/2019:
- Added Using Debug Info section to help teach players how to use the info provided correctly
- Changed Farmable Items section to How to Obtain All Items, added info on items from Serena and the Ocarina of Love
23/10/2019:
- Updated Training Stats section to provide an example of training each stat once in a full day