Come for the hot pile of dirty laundry, stay for the hot embodiment of all literature
Who’s got two thumbs, a fully voice acted cast of over 100 characters and undertones of corporate espionage? Team17’s DATE EVERYTHING!
That’s right, this game has something for every preference: fantasy, ‘I wonder…’, even those ones that you didn’t think anyone else was wondering about. Like, have you ever wondered if your laundry hamper and your dirty laundry are in a toxic relationship? Is your bed secretly judging you for how few people you bring home? Is every door in your house secretly a really buff bouncer-type guy? You know, normal things to ask yourself.
You are a new employee to a company that, at the end of your first day, lets you go to be replaced by AI. Pretty relevant I’d say…
You receive a mystery package from an even more mysterious sender - a suspicious pair of glasses manufactured by your old company, which he tells you are called ‘date-viators’, and that looking at inanimate objects while wearing them will bring those objects to life. The obvious next step? Try and date your fridge.
As with most dating simulators, the basic relationship mechanics are reasonably straightforward - seek out the character you’re interested in, interact with them, and either get a friend ending, enemy ending, or a romance ending. However, throw in the debilitating choice of WAY more options than you know what to do with, with some well-known and recognizable voices mashed in there, and you have Date Everything!
You have five chances a day to bring an item to life before your date-viators run out of charge, and you spend that time partaking in mini quests and story arcs that each of the characters carry. Throughout the day and into the night, you receive messages from your secret romance-providing benefactor, your friend from work, and the bosses of the company who are trying to track down the missing prototype. Have I gotten sidetracked from the origins of the date-viators all because I am finally living my fantasy of loving and being loved by every book in my house? Maybe. I don’t want to talk about it.
My only gripe with the game is that, yes, it is a visual novel and as such text is a major part of its gameplay - but if you’re not vibing with a character, you should be able to quit their conversation! There are so many characters. and it’s hard enough to get to all of them and find which ones are your style, so I don’t want to be trapped in a conversation with a weirdly standoffish rubber duck or listening to a rapping French toilet when I could be having a boogie at the most exclusive club in my cupboard or getting to know the cardboard-clad adventurer that goes questing through my storage! The balance of actual plot to romance plots feels well balanced, but with 100+ characters to get to, I felt a nagging thought in the back of my mind that this may not be my one true mirror love, and just a quick visit before the next saucy encounter with the pile of breakfast cereals that makes me feel like my time as a bartender was worth it all, just so I can hear him compliment me on wine pairings one more time.
With vibrant colours and frankly genius character design, this game honestly makes my real life look a little bland and hot-electricity-man-less. Featuring a good mix of adult, mature and family-friendly storylines (you can literally date a sex toy), Date Everything! feels like the perfect library of any relationship you could possibly want. Including if that relationship is just belittling the tiny pirate that lives inside the ship in a jar on your mantle (which holds a sexy-magma-demon guy).
a copy of DATE EVERYTHING! was provided to SIFTER for the purpose of this review.
