Text based adventures and visual novels are sometimes an under explored genre in the gaming
industry by main stream audiences, but don’t let that fool you – the dating simulators
that exist within these forms can be wildly popular and immensely enjoyable to play, mainly
due to the emphasis on good story telling.
But sometimes, dating sims can branch out into some strange territory that goes beyond
the typical dating story – and we’re not talking about the ones that subvert dating
sim expectations like Dream Daddy or Katawa Shoujo, or even the parody ones featuring
the likes of Nicolas Cage.
No, we’re talking about the really weird niche ones from Japan that allow you to court
animals, dinosaurs, orcs, and even disembodied heads.
Welcome to our list of the top 10 weirdest Japanese dating sims.
And yes, one of these really does involve dating a disembodied head.
Fun stuff.
10 Hatoful Boyfriend Starting off this list is a game we’ve talked
about a bit on this channel so far – Hatoful Boyfriend.
Aka, the pigeon dating simulator.
Hatoful Boyfriend goes beyond just being an absurdly silly concept.
Initially, the pigeon dating sim started off as an April Fools Day joke, but due to creator
Hato Mao’s writing, the game gained popularity from social media, and critics started to
note it’s emotional depth and good sense of humour.
To top it all off, it takes place in a world where humans were wiped out by the bird flu,
and are now the subordinate species.
There’s also bird puns though, so yay!
9 Eiyuu Senki Date female versions of notable historical
figures.
Da Vinci?
Now a lady.
Napolean?
Totally a chick.
Caesar?
Yeah, you get it by now.
The thing is, this game is more of a conquest strategy game, and is pitched as a game in
which you battle cute world leaders.
And then you hook up with them.
8 Meat Log Mountain In Meat Log Mountain, you play a doctor named
Thaddeus Cub who sets up camp on Meat Log Mountain, a remote lumberjacking town where
only huge males live, of many races, including orc, human, dwarf, and demon.
So of course, you’re seducing your patients, or three specific ones rather.
A human named Harry, and Orc named Durk and a demon aptly named Demonos.
Or as Thaddeus likes to call them, hot massive muscle bound daddies.
7 Tomak: Save the Earth Love Story Nothing says love quite like growing a woman’s
decapitated head in a pot and trying to woo it.
Yes, that’s correct, this dating sim is about romancing a head in a flower pot.
Tomak Save the Earth Love story is described as a raising simulation mixed with a dating
game, where you, the player, take care of the goddess of love, who just so happens to
be a head growing out of a flower pot.
6 Love Love Chau!!
Any fans of the film Pacific Rim will definitely get a kick out of this one.
You play as Hannibal Chau, the black market organ dealer, aka Ron Perlman, and your goal
is to romance one of the members of the male cast of the film.
Idris Elba anyone?
It’s nice too, considering most dating sims or visual novel games that feature celebrities
tend to hinge on a singular joke – the celebrity being in a dating sim – and tend to lack
depth, which is something Love Love Chau exceeds, despite having a short amount of gameplay.
5 Creature to Koi Shiyo!
Kokonoe Kokoro This is a dating simulator for wooing humanoid
cricket creatures.
4 Jurassic Heart From crickets to dinosaurs, Jurassic Heart
is all about courting – or getting courted by – t-rexes.
Get it?
Jurassic Heart?
The whole premise is that you accidentally break this musical T-Rex’s ukulele and you
offer to go to the music store to get it replaced with him.
And it turns into a sweet little story about bonding when you two head on over to the park
.And it’s mixed in with what are arguably sexual euphemisms.
3 PacaPlus – My Girlfriend is An Alpaca Ever wanted to know what it would be like
if your girlfriend turned into an Alpaca but still wanted to date you since she had all
of her memories and feelings and what not?
Well, fear not, because this dating simulator is exactly that.
2 Brother Falls in Love Most people hate printers.
They’re a vile technology that never quite seems to work right when you really need it.
So naturally, that aggressive dynamic translates beautifully into a dating simulator, right?
Love to hate it- ah fuck it.
It’s a printer dating sim.
Your goal is to date the new guy in school, who just so happens to be a printer named
Bra Man, whose favourite ink is magneta.
He also likes playing football.
The English version’s translations are also painfully incorrect, which makes it all the
more humourous.
1 Uma No Prince-Sama aka My Horse Prince A horse with a man’s fan who isn’t a centaur,
just a horse with a dude head?
Yep, that’s essentially what you get with Uma No Prince Sama.
Women like princes and horses right?
Just smash em together and we’ll make a ton of money!
Which is how I imagine the thought process behind this game went down.
This particular dude head belongs to an attractive Prince with following locks of hair, and you
play a young woman trying to court him by reaching out to his horse sensitivities.
You feed him carrots.
The beauty of this sim is that you get a whole lot more animation out of it than your regular
text based dating sim or visual novel.
So if you really want to date a horse with a dude guy’s prince face on it, well, at
least you get a show out of it.
Look at go with those carrots!
There we have it!
That was a thing, wasn’t it.
Fun stuff.
Which of these dating simulators have you played before?
Which ones are you now gonna go try?
Let us know in those comments below!
If hooking up with a horse prince or a pigeon ain’t really your thing, why not check out
one of our videos from our recent uploads playlist instead?
And hey, if you dug this video, do us a solid and hit those like and subscribe buttons,
and share the love!
In the meantime, thanks for watching!
This has been top 10 gaming, and I’ll catch you all in the next one.