I am a total airhead or this game is super hard. I beat a few puzzles but fail just about every one now.
Priorities outside of dates (note: you don't HAVE to go on a date when you select a pair on the "Finder" screen.. and these two items do not require you to go on a date; just give the items then go back to the "Finder" screen and select a different pair if you want):
- Smoothies. Give the Sexual smoothies to girls who favor Sexuality the most, Romance smoothies to girls who favor Romance the most, etc.
- Shoes and unique gifts.
The items above affect multipliers when you get matches. The more of those gifts you give, the more points you score with those matches.
Priorities pre-date:
- First priority when starting a date for me was determining which girl I would focus on. The game tries to tell you that you should equally split your focus, but that's bullshit in my experience. I have beaten many dates without switching focus at all (stam gem matches - woo), and there was no penalty. Most of the time I would choose one girl to receive most of the focus based on some factor such as baggage (ie: I don't want to focus on a girl like Lilani if her "Low Self Esteem" baggage is active, because 4+ matches that don't include Romance will give you nothing. Another example would be not focusing on Ashley when her "Commitment Issues" baggage is active, because I don't want to have to count moves). This tactic was paramount for the boss fight, for my strategy. I've read people saying you'll have to forefeit the first few matches until you get a "good" setup. I beat it on my first try with crappy baggage on both of my first 2 sets. The main reason I decided to do this is because Passion is the key. It takes moves to build passion. It takes more moves to build passion on 2 girls (unless you have the duplicating gifts, but then you're farming sentiment instead). If you only have to build passion on one girl, you'll have more moves to spend on getting the affection.
- Talk. I would talk to both girls at least once. Each time you talk with a girl you get +1 move. What I would typically do is talk with my focus girl once, and talk with my non-focus as many times as I could. The problem you might run into from time to time is that you do something stupid and exhaust your focus girl and your non-focus has no stamina because you used it all talking. It didn't happen often enough for me to change my strategy.
- Food. You can use two food items. I would spend 1 food item increasing either Passion or Sentiment (so I could give gifts immediately), and the 2nd food item on Stamina -- both going to whomever I decided I was focusing on (except in a few instances where it made sense to give gifts on my non-focused girl before doing anything on my focused girl).
Date priority:
- Once you're in the actual date and able to make matches, first priority is to get Passion as high as possible (as close to 100%) as fast as possible for whomever you're focusing on - match as many hearts as you can. This is another multiplier.
- Once you have Passion to at least 75% (don't stop there if you don't have to) you can start looking for 4+ matches. When the required affection gets up over 3,000 you will NOT win the date by matching 3s. Take your time and plan it out. Take a 10min break if you need to.
- Prioritize your matching. I used this priority:
--- Stamina if needed
-- 4+ bells
OR 3 bells and another match
OR 3 bells + used gift to make bell matches not cost a move (if you haven't used the gift, a 3 match of bells is useless unless you're making other matches in that same move)
--- Most gems matched
--- Most favored gem
--- Sentiment if you have unused gifts
OR Passion if you're still not at 100% (note: this can fluctuate in the priority based on the gifts available)
--- Anything else.
With these tips you should easily beat the game. There is also a strategy where you intentionally upset one girl so her baggage doesn't affect you while you make matches on another girl. I used this strategy once and it wasn't really even required then. Not saying it's a bad strategy; it's fine. It was just a little unnerving that with one girl out I couldn't make a mistake. I didn't see much of a need for that stress, but you might have a different experience.