Gameplay
To Heart is a romance visual novel.[2] Its gameplay requires little player interaction as much of the game's duration is spent on reading the text that appears on the screen, which represents the story's narrative and dialogue. The text is accompanied by character sprites, which represent who Hiroyuki is talking to, over background art. Throughout the game, the player encounters CG artwork at certain points in the story, which take the place of the background art and character sprites. A gallery of the viewed CGs and played background music is available on the game's title screen. To Heart follows a branching plotline with multiple endings, and depending on the decisions that the player makes during the game, the plot will progress in a specific direction.
The game divides each school day of the storyline into four segments. These segments illustrate the events that occur during Hiroyuki's commute to school, during school, after school, and after he returns home at the end of each day.[2] Depending on the time of the day and the player's actions, they may be presented one of four types of events: dated events, which occur automatically during certain points in the game's plotline; affection events, which occur during certain periods of time only if specific conditions pertaining to a character's affection towards Hiroyuki are met; frequency events, which occur after meeting a character a predetermined number of times; and VS events, which occurs if two characters' affection towards Hiroyuki conflict with one another.[2]
At the end of each school day, the player is given the option to navigate to various locations within the game's setting.[2] Each choosable location is accompanied by an image of a heroine in order to allow the choices to be easier to make. Every so often, the player will also come to a "decision point", where they are given the chance to choose from multiple options. Text progression pauses at these points, and depending on the choices that the player makes, the affection rate of the heroine associated with the event will either increase, decrease, or remain the same.[2] This mechanism determines which direction of the plot the player will progress into.[2] There are ten plotlines that the player will have the chance to experience, one for each of the heroines in the story. The game also contains a bad ending in which the player is unable to pursue the other scenarios. In order to view all of the plot lines, the player will have to replay the game multiple times and make different decisions to progress the plot in an alternate direction.
In the versions released since the original, there are six bonus minigames available. The first game is a platform game called "Heart by Heart", in which the player controls a To Heart character in one of the thirty static, non-moving levels.[2][3] The player's objective is to defeat all of the enemies in the level using various attacks within a time limit. The minigame also features a two-player variation, in which the players may compete or cooperate with each other within the game's levels. The second, "", is a puzzle game in which the player gains points by forming and eliminating lines of three or more blocks of the same shape. The player achieves this by swapping the preexisting blocks in the game's screen with those in a bank of blocks allotted to them.[3] The third minigame, titled "Ojō-sama wa Majo" (お嬢様は魔女), is a side-scrolling shooter game featuring Serika Kurusugawa.[3] The player's goal is to progress through a horizontally scrolling level, while attacking enemies and dodging their attacks. "Katamomi Multi" (肩もみマルチ) and "Katamomi Serio" (肩もみセリオ) are bonus scenarios in which the player is given simulated massages by the characters Multi or Serio using the DualShock controller's vibration function.[2]
