Hanako Games

Suggestions for Decision-based Dating Sims?

#1 by Roze35 - Mar 4 2011

Hi. I'm new here so sorry if this is in the wrong place or anything. I'm a BIG fan of Fatal Hearts and Date Warp, but Summer Session and Spirited Heart where you choose activities and have to balance stats are too complicated for me. I loved Heileen 1 and 2 as well. Do you guys have any recommendations for more similar games?

#2 by Ellume - Mar 4 2011

Fading Hearts is good commercial game http://sakurariver.ca/main/fading-hearts

Re: Alistair ++ is a good free VN http://www.sakevisual.com/realistair/

True Remembrance is free, has a good story, but is linear http://trueremembrance.insani.org/

Frozen Essense is another free VN http://unbrokenhours.com/frozenessence.html

#3 by hanako - Mar 4 2011

Both Fading Hearts and RE: Alistair are date sims with stats and activities, though, and therefore exactly wrong.

Bionic Heart is a pure visual novel with a lot of endings and I had fun playing it. Yo-Jin-Bo is also pure VN afaik. Ever 17 is recommended IF you can find a copy but they're quite hard to come by, it's out of print.

(While the terminology varies a lot, current tradition among many english speaking fans is that something is a "visual novel" if it's almost entirely reading and making choices, a "kinetic novel" if it's just reading with no choices, and a "dating sim" if it involves setting a schedule of activities and raising stats. So Date Warp is a visual novel plus puzzles, but Summer Session is a dating sim. Of course, not everyone uses the terms the same way, so it doesn't help all that much!)

#4 by Ellume - Mar 4 2011

Both Fading Hearts and RE: Alistair are date sims with stats and activities, though, and therefore exactly wrong.

Quite right

#5 by Roze35 - Mar 12 2011

Thank you so much! I did play the demo for Bionic Heart but it seemed quite risque. I will go check out these other titles now.