Better Than a Mule's Rear End: A Review of "Shall We Date: Heian Love"
Shall We Date: Heian Love
for the Apple iPhone/iPod Touch
"Lonely at night
Thinking of my rose
Poems a sole respite
On the road I chose"
--- Mystery Poet
A few months ago, I was visiting Anubis (Mx), watching him play his new Xbox game, and realizing that I was suddenly and inexplicably in the mood to play, specifically, a dating sim. Sadly, my copies of various Harvest Moon incarnations were at home. Surely there must be some among the throngs of games in the App Store, I thought. Not in English, the App Store replied. But I played with a few keywords and I found Shall We Date: Heian Love by NTT Solmare, which had just come out this past April.
Shall We Date: Heian Love is an "otome game". Otome games are video games, targeted to girls, where one of the main aspects is for the (female) player character to develop a relationship and romance with one of several male characters. As implied by the title, Heian Love is set in the Heian era of Japan (794 CE - 1185 CE). You play a young woman from the countryside who has only recently come to Kyoto and entered the Imperial Court as an attendant. When the Emperor organizes a poetry contest, you're excited to go, but then are stricken with a sudden stomachache and must stay home. You are highly disappointed about this turn of events, until your personal attendant, Hinata, brings you a letter that was delivered. The letter turns out to be a love poem, and you are immediately smitten. Hinata, however, is a little less impressed...
But who could the mystery poet be?! The suspects are:
You can play the game in English or Japanese (though for only one story at a time), and name your player character. It's also possible to adjust the scroll speed of the text, and you can skip through most text in-game by repeatedly tapping or holding down a small fast-forward icon at the top of the screen. A downloadable extra for this game adds three more bachelors to choose from, but it's a bit expensive right now so I haven't bought it yet.
As for my opinion, I really enjoyed playing this game, and it remains one of the few impulse buys that I have absolutely no regrets about. The stories are interesting and varied. I really liked the colors and the art, for the most part (I'm a bit ambivalent to how they draw the characters' faces). The English text is well-done and easily understandable, and I find the entire thing to be quite endearing. You can only have one storyline going at a time unfortunately and you can't rewind if you hit the wrong choice, but you can look at the text history if you scrolled by too fast. If you need to exit the program, the game will save automatically and start you back wherever you left off upon returning. There is no music or sounds, so take that as you will. As I tend to mute my games or play my own music instead, it's not an issue for me.
The company has also put out 4 more games since then, turning it in to a "Shall We Date" Series, but I haven't tried them yet. Heian Love was $4.99 when I bought it. Steep, for an iPhone/iPod Touch app (and apparently also available as an Android app -- 8 A's! Whoo!), but definitely worth it, in my opinion. I enjoyed it enough that I would have no qualms about buying the new games at $5 a pop as well. In short, if you're looking for a good otome dating sim, Shall We Date: Heian Love won't disappoint. ^_^
for the Apple iPhone/iPod Touch
"Lonely at night
Thinking of my rose
Poems a sole respite
On the road I chose"
--- Mystery Poet
A few months ago, I was visiting Anubis (Mx), watching him play his new Xbox game, and realizing that I was suddenly and inexplicably in the mood to play, specifically, a dating sim. Sadly, my copies of various Harvest Moon incarnations were at home. Surely there must be some among the throngs of games in the App Store, I thought. Not in English, the App Store replied. But I played with a few keywords and I found Shall We Date: Heian Love by NTT Solmare, which had just come out this past April.
Shall We Date: Heian Love is an "otome game". Otome games are video games, targeted to girls, where one of the main aspects is for the (female) player character to develop a relationship and romance with one of several male characters. As implied by the title, Heian Love is set in the Heian era of Japan (794 CE - 1185 CE). You play a young woman from the countryside who has only recently come to Kyoto and entered the Imperial Court as an attendant. When the Emperor organizes a poetry contest, you're excited to go, but then are stricken with a sudden stomachache and must stay home. You are highly disappointed about this turn of events, until your personal attendant, Hinata, brings you a letter that was delivered. The letter turns out to be a love poem, and you are immediately smitten. Hinata, however, is a little less impressed...
But who could the mystery poet be?! The suspects are:
- Masakuni Sugawara, your uncle(-in-law) and Chief Councilor of State
- Mikage Abe, Imperial Exorcist and the Emperor's protector and adviser (he acts so much like Anubis it's scary)
- Kuze, Emperor of all Japan
- Sakuhito, the Emperor's body double
- Yui Minamoto, your best friend from childhood
You can play the game in English or Japanese (though for only one story at a time), and name your player character. It's also possible to adjust the scroll speed of the text, and you can skip through most text in-game by repeatedly tapping or holding down a small fast-forward icon at the top of the screen. A downloadable extra for this game adds three more bachelors to choose from, but it's a bit expensive right now so I haven't bought it yet.
As for my opinion, I really enjoyed playing this game, and it remains one of the few impulse buys that I have absolutely no regrets about. The stories are interesting and varied. I really liked the colors and the art, for the most part (I'm a bit ambivalent to how they draw the characters' faces). The English text is well-done and easily understandable, and I find the entire thing to be quite endearing. You can only have one storyline going at a time unfortunately and you can't rewind if you hit the wrong choice, but you can look at the text history if you scrolled by too fast. If you need to exit the program, the game will save automatically and start you back wherever you left off upon returning. There is no music or sounds, so take that as you will. As I tend to mute my games or play my own music instead, it's not an issue for me.
The company has also put out 4 more games since then, turning it in to a "Shall We Date" Series, but I haven't tried them yet. Heian Love was $4.99 when I bought it. Steep, for an iPhone/iPod Touch app (and apparently also available as an Android app -- 8 A's! Whoo!), but definitely worth it, in my opinion. I enjoyed it enough that I would have no qualms about buying the new games at $5 a pop as well. In short, if you're looking for a good otome dating sim, Shall We Date: Heian Love won't disappoint. ^_^