The Dating Games: Episode 01 - Hatoful Boyfriend

Thanks for reminding me of my loneliness.

Are they going to play Persona?

The Oko San ending is so crazy good! I really hope people just look up the ending it's so weird and funny

Visual Novels are crazy 20-60+ hour personal journey's so I don't think there's really an effective way to produce video content that shows them off particularly well.

It's still nice showing off a glimpse of some of this stuff though, and I hope the next episode will be something the site hasn't looked at before.

I agree with some of the other comment-ers here that I think the one hour overview is a pretty poor format for looking at VNs. Perhaps a book club discussion format? Otherwise playthrough VNs front to back?

This is very exciting.

I, too, was excited that they were playing Hatoful Boyfriend and bummed that they're only playing one hour. If this points folks to Danny's playthrough (I believe this is it: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdrNnETa0pAN6SZ3lMJiusjRrAJ0BIWEr), then that's enough for me. Those later, special chapters of the game were some truly great mind-fuckery. I've never had a desire to play a dating sim, but the few bucks and 5-ish hours it took to see most endings were well worth it.

Ben saying "Let's get bird high!" made me fall out of my chair laughing

Is this what happens when I'm super ill? This is the first time I've been able to get to my computer in a week and a brand new series is made with Ben and Abby about dating games. FUCK.

@captaininvictus: It may start off OK with its early portrayal of Sayori's depression, but it devolves fairly quickly into using graphic suicidal & self-harm imagery for regressive & juvenile shock scare tactics. (The Monika stuff you mention doesn't excuse it or make it deep and not-stupid, particularly in regard to the carnival-sideshow manner of the material's presentation; there's nothing I'm "missing," as you put it.) I'm not saying games shouldn't tackle issues like suicide or depression, but they have an obligation to treat the material with respect instead of as just a springboard to easy screamers and dumb, histrionic gore.

Just no. Slow nature of these almost non-interactive "games" is very bad for the long LP format. Another TANG like feature about these would be better fit.

Disappointed they didn't use human mode. Abby missed the whole joke about San's human appearance...

lmao, meanwhile I have seen people who have gone through various aspects of these issues or known people who have say they're pretty accurate outside of the obviously absurdist parts. Yeah even Yuri's complete obsessive complex. To each his own

The rampant success of DDLC LP's says otherwise, imo. Interesting VNs could be successful LPs, especially ones like Hatoful Boyfriend.

The parts where the game treats suicide and self-harm as nothing but grist for exploitative screamer stuff (or, as you put it, "obvious absurdis[m]," suggesting you perhaps need a better grounding in philosophy) , though, are far more extensive and far outweigh the early, brief Sayori stuff. They're the rule—not, as you suggest, the exception. (In retrospect, said early, brief Sayori stuff actually makes things even worse, as it sets up expectations and writes checks re: treating the material with the gravity it deserves that the rest of the game isn't remotely interested in cashing.) The fact that the game's treatment of this material makes you "lmao" proves my point.

I understand you like this game and want others on the site to have the same enthusiasm you do for it, but sometimes even stuff we like doesn't handle certain aspects of its material very well. In DDLC's case, the stuff it chooses to mishandle is...well, some of the worst and most potentially harmful material to mishandle. Just because a piece of media has innocent characters doing Disturbing Things (which, really, is an extremely old trope and nothing remotely groundbreaking) doesn't make it mature, and just because it has a few SHOCKING TWISTS doesn't make it profound or wise or unimpeachable.

I mean, I like the thing, and the writing is good and the topics handled well, even in an absurdist shell. You don't like the thing, and think it's dumb and bad, and you're wrong, that's okay. People can try, but that's about it.

It's how the game deals with the potential harmful material it invokes that's the big problem, and it's one that deserves warnings and discussion instead of blanket dismissals. I wouldn't have gone on about the matter if it were just a "some people like this thing but I don't" issue. But, yes, our positions cannot be reconciled.