Date Everything!

When Date Everything was announced, it was hard to know what to expect exactly. In conclusion, Sassy Chap has created a wild, but sincere dating sim that manages to be both funny and moving at the same time. Behind its unusual concept lies a gallery of carefully crafted characters, all of whom deserve to be known. A few concessions to aesthetics and even narrative are to be regretted, with the initial plot ultimately unfinished. Similarly, while the roster shines in terms of variety and inclusiveness, the sheer number of characters makes it hard to keep up. Despite this, fans of visual novels should appreciate this fresh approach served up by a well-known cast. It's just a pity it hasn't been translated into French.

I wish the writing was a bit less shallow, which feels like a side effect of trying to cram so much in a small space and doing so with a sandbox-style structure. Visual novels benefit from guardrails preventing them from catering too much to the player, and Date Everything abstains to its own detriment. But it’s still cute and fun, and there’s no denying the dopamine hits and humor from each new character reveal. Sassy Chap’s debut game is a commendable effort, and more like this can only benefit visual novels as a whole.

I appreciate the gimmick and the talent Sassy Chap pulled together for Date Everything. The character designs are inventive and look fantastic. It’s entertaining, especially when it discusses not-Amazon and AI. My issue is I really didn’t want to talk to all of these characters. At most, I wanted to see the full storylines for like 1/10th of them. But because it doesn’t feature typical visual novel quality of life features and basically forces you into conversations with cast members, you’ll be stuck getting to know folks even if you don’t want to. Especially when it gets into the evening in-game and things get to be difficult to see.