OMFG You're Making Me Review: Shall We Date?： Heian Love

The iTunes App Store is, in many ways, one of the Information Age's many ghettos -- a rickety wooden flophouse looming over the street corner where "YouTube Comments Section Boulevard" and "Abandoned Social Network Avenue" meet. Despite its diverse variety of mixed media and time-eating apps, there's still a disparate divide in the quality and the promotion of its many, many titles. A good chunk of its releases are rarely given even a passing glance because of this, and they end up doomed to an unknown existence alongside the umpteenth Angry Birds rip-off and its microtransaction-based brethren.

For me, Shall We Date?: Heian Love was one of those apps -- a feudal Japanese dating sim that surreptitiously snuck under my radar, because, quite frankly, I never would've looked for it otherwise. The apps that pepper my iPhone's home screen are generally of the one-touch variety, and easy to pick up and play while trapped on public transit. The Shall We Date? series, which is a very real thing from Japanese iOS and e-book developer NTT Solmare, consistently follows a nameless, faceless heroine as she swoons over a series of wispy pretty-boys, and blah blah blah romance. It's not the kind of thing you usually see on my iTunes receipt, but hey, it was assigned to me as my OMFG review, and I'm all about venturing outside of my comfort zone. Hell, I was even thinking of wearing flip-flops next week, but one adventure at a time.
OMFG You're Making Me Review: Shall We Date?： Heian Love

OR DO I?

Shall We Date?: Heian Love is a very traditional visual novel game, meaning that it's primarily text-based with the occasional dialogue option thrown in for good measure. Cast as a meek maiden of some imperial Japanese court in the country's feudal era, you're asked to pursue one of five kimono-clad dudes to make kimono-clad babies with, including the court's emperor, your childhood friend, and, naturally, your uncle, because incest. As the app costs $4.99 -- already an admittedly high price-point for the App Store -- you're essentially paying a dollar per love interest, with an additional three introduced to you in the game's prologue, but then dangled over you as in-app purchases at the surprisingly nonsensical cost of another $6.99. You're essentially paying $12 to unlock every arguably interesting arc in this period piece, but can you really put a price-tag on love?

(Answer: Yes, especially if it's fake love that you're buying with an iTunes gift card that you could've spent on twelve other, better apps. S'matter with you?)

Because the option's just sitting there like an incestuous samurai elephant in the room (didn't think I'd type that this week), my first playthrough chronicled the romantic conquering of my uncle. Now, the game makes an interesting decision from the get-go in that it makes you select your potential love interest in its prologue, meaning you're stuck with your preferred bachelor until the story's completion, leaving no room for genre staples like love triangles and, god forbid, harems. That, matched with a maximum of two dialogue options per chapter, makes for a game with very little actual interactivity, even for a dating sim. After you choose your mate you're more or less waiting it out until the story's conclusion, and hoping you make the right decision when the next choice menu appears, which is always a 50/50 split. After choosing my uncle, it was more or less a waiting game of "Oh my, how far will this go?" proportions.
OMFG You're Making Me Review: Shall We Date?： Heian Love

Your love interest send you an e-mail after every chapter. You know, via fuedal Japanese wi-fi.

Spoiler alert: All the way, but -- shock, awe, etc. -- they're not blood related, so it's all A-okay. But, you know, still pretty darn creepy.

Honestly, Heian Love isn't a bad game -- it's just an overpriced and boring one. You know where the story's headed the moment you choose your partner in its preliminary chapter, and the characters, bless their melodramatic little hearts, are hardly interesting enough to warrant more than one or two total playthroughs. There's no music, voice acting, or sound effects to speak of, and the text is littered with tiny, but annoying, translation errors that lower the game's overall production values.

It's tough to recommend Heian Love, even as a Shall We Date? game (hell, a cursory glance at the developer's other games reveals Ninja Love, which sounds infinitely more interesting), but hey, if it's your cup of tea, I'm not one to stand in the way of romance. In fact, I prefer to stand pretty far out of romance's line of sight, where I can play Jetpack Joyride in peace, and not have to worry about that cute girl on the bus wondering what the hell I'm doing romancing some Heian era emperor on my goddamn iPhone.