Is it because you have to tell your own story to feel involved in a story that isn’t that interactive ? Can people without much imagination like me enjoy the genre ? In your Let’s Play you roleplay with a sort of ironic distance, you try to give character to the protagonist, and of course you give them wonderful names like Balls Mahoney. So I guess my answer is an incredibly unhelpful "yes." I don’t think I could fully enjoy something if I couldn’t make fun of it, but I also think that my joking about something would fall flat if some part of me didn’t love it. It also makes it more shocking when a storyline turns sour, like with Saeki constantly hitting Balls Mahoney over the course of Tokimeki Girls Side 2. I think that helps me enjoy it even more when a character says something that is incredibly sweet, or I find myself really invested in helping a character out. I do find a lot of it to just be silly, goofy fun. « I certainly didn’t expect to start caring about the childhood friend pigeon » I certainly didn’t expect to start caring about the childhood friend pigeon in Hatoful Boyfriend, but I didn’t try to hide it when it happened. Yes, I make fun of the games, but I am also very honest when something is actually emotionally affecting me. I’ve been a huge fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000 for most of my life and their kind of philosophy of ribbing something with love has become part of the way I take in media. I don’t really have a hard line between enjoying something in earnest and making fun of it. But as long as you don’t take it or yourself too seriously, I think anyone can find something to enjoy about these games.ĭo you enjoy the dating games in earnest, or do you take them with a large dose of irony ? Your Let’s Play are always making fun of the games, and I guess a lot of people enjoy them while they would never touch the games themselves. Most of the otome games, girl’s dating games, that I play are targetted at teen-to-early-twenties women. Who plays dating games ? Anyone who likes romance and isn’t afraid of being judged for it ? I find that once people find out that it’s not all adult games that devolve into the worst of what the Internet has to offer, a lot of people are interested. The genre basically started targeting men, and the genre remains popular with men in Japan, but I think we’ve seen more embrace of it by women in the West. It’s hard to pinpoint the actual audience they have. Are they « girly » games, though ? They seem to be pretty popular with a vast array of internet dwellers, as the massive reactions to RPS’s coverage of Katawa Shoujo show. Who’s into dating games ? From an outsider’s point of view, they look like chick lit for otakus. I find them to be a pretty decent way to relax after a long day, but they aren’t the kind of game that really lights a fire in me and gets me playing for 10 hours without stop. However, if your definition of ’game’ requires more than reading/listening for 30 minutes and making a choice, visual novels probably won’t be for you. You certainly have an element of choice, and pretty much all of them have failure states even if they don’t have gloriously over-the-top Bad Ends. I think it’s difficult to say if the visual novel-style dating sims are games or not. « If your definition of ’game’ requires more than reading/listening for 30 minutes and making a choice, visual novels probably won’t be for you » A lot of RPGs these days have some sort of relationship mechanic, even if the relationships aren’t necessarily romantic, but you can them find turn-based strategy games as well. You can also find dating-sim mechanics married to other style of game. That’s definitely a difficult question ! My taste in dating games leans towards the lifesim side of things, and the more difficult it is to maintain your life/romance balance, the more I like them. Are dating sims really games ? They don’t seem that interactive, especially when it comes to visual novels.
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