To Heart 2 - Development

Development

To Heart 2's development originally began as a collaborative effort for the PlayStation 2 between the Osaka and Tokyo studios of Aquaplus. During one of the staff meetings for the partnered project, To Heart 2 was conceived when a staff member jokingly mentioned the possibility of a sequel for the original To Heart. Production began shortly after once the team realized the popularity and success of the forerunner. Naoya Shimokawa, the president of Aquaplus, produced the resulting project, and Tsutomu Washimi served as the game's director.

The work on the game's scenario was split between four writers. Shōsuke Miyake drafted the game's overall storyline as well as the scenarios for Sango, Ruri, and Lucy; Nagare Makura wrote the scenarios for Manaka and Yuma; Takeshi Marui for Karin and Yūki; and Munemitsu for Konomi and Tamaki. Likewise, the game's character designs were split amongst four artists. Misato Mitsumi provided the character designs and illustrations for Konomi and Yuma; Hisashi Kawata for Lucy and Karin; Tatsuki Amazuyu for Tamaki and Manaka; and Takeshi Nakamura for Sango, Ruri, and Yūki. The game's music was composed by Shimokawa, Junya Matsuoka, Shinya Ishikawa, Kazue Nakagami, and Michio Kinugasa.

Since the development staff had an equal number of writers as illustrators, it was originally planned to pair each illustrator with a single scenario writer; Mistumi was also to provide designs for the main heroine. Though this would have simplified the project's work load by easing communications among the staff, the idea was scrapped once the staff realized that the final product might merely be a collection of four distinct pieces. Ultimately, writing and design responsibilities were divided based on the staff members' individual preferences. The staff also commented that the development team faced communication difficulties because of the physical distance between the two Aquaplus studios. Early in production, members from both studios gathered in a single location to discuss development, but as production progressed, they began to rely on other methods of communication such as telephone calls and instant messaging. Washimi noted that these methods made it complicated for the writers and illustrators to communicate effectively, and during the development of To Heart 2 X Rated, Miyake took a two-month long business trip to Osaka to rectify the problem.

Rather than creating a new setting for To Heart 2, the development team chose to roll over various inherent features from the original. The majority of the game is set within the same school and town, but instead focuses on the northern side of town, rather than the southern side, which is the primary setting of To Heart. The story is set two years after To Heart, and its lack of mobile phones was an attempt to replicate the technological themes of its predecessor. Despite the story's inclusion of maid robots, the writers stated that the story's setting was influenced by the 1990s, during which To Heart took place. As the only artist to return from the original's development team, Kawata was consulted by the other illustrators for character designs. He commented that the other artists attempted to create their designs with respect to the previous work, but he decided otherwise by attempting to "shape a new image" for the designs. The illustrators avoided creating a character with green hair as a heroine, because of the overwhelming impression the character Multi had left them in To Heart. Miyake noted that it was difficult for him to write the scenario for To Heart 2 because the game's development began during the time he was writing December When There Is No Angel, and Ruri and Sango's original scenario had to be rewritten because of their overwhelming resemblance to the latter title.