Image via Team 17
When Date Everything‘s first announcement trailer dropped, I knew this was a game I was going to need to dive into with both feet. As an Otome fan, it screamed “this will be the weirdest dating game you will ever play”. After tens of hours in the game, I can now confirm that it is, in fact, the weirdest dating sim I have ever touched. From hidden secrets to a desperate and failed attempt to romance my trash can, Date Everything has made me question everything about how I interact with my house, and how Otome games can work.
Date Everything doesn’t try to be your standard slice-of-life game. Taking on the role of a haggard new employee who loses their job on the first day, players are pulled into a strange mystery that lands a pair of very special sunglasses in their hands. These “Dateviators” bring the house to life, offering an inside look at what the day-to-day dealings of inanimate objects can be like.
While I was expecting cheeky humor, silly character designs, and some coy romantic scenes, I wasn’t prepared for the underlying secrets of Date Everything. This game is hard. You can’t just walk in, throw the correct answers at someone, and get a good ending. Stories overlap, characters aren’t always predictable, and you can’t just interact with any character and get a good response right off the bat. The game makes you work for it, and this has left me a shaking, sobbing heap as I paw at the wall trying to get Wallace to talk to me.
Key Details
- Developer: Sassy Chap Games
- Publisher: Team 17
- Price: $29.99
- Platforms: PC, Nintendo Switch, Xbox, PlayStation 5
- Review Code Provided: Yes
Date Everything Isn’t Just an Otome
The first thing to drive home about Date Everything is that it isn’t really an Otome. It’s more like a satirical take on the romance tropes of the Otome genre mixed into a humorous mystery/adventure game. I realized quickly that dating characters wasn’t really the purpose of the title. Uncovering the overarching mystery surrounding the Dateviators is the bigger and more important plot point.
For those who are looking for deep, emotionally intense storylines where you build rich relationships with specific characters, this game won’t be for you. Because there are so many characters involved in the story, it’s impossible to make any one a deep-dive romantic whirlwind. Players need to keep their time balanced between characters, and must meet a variety in order to get Perk Points and progress the main story. However, I don’t think dating is the real point of the story.
Date Everything is a puzzle game that makes players empathize and seriously think about the purpose and existence of the things that surround them. It made my brain heat up the way watching Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead does. The story is a masterfully woven piece of dramatic irony, where you, as the player, know none of this could be real or healthy, and the absurdity of it all keeps you moving forward.
Do not play Date Everything for the romance, play it for the story. If you do, the sheer scale of the game will blow you away and give you a deep appreciation of the time it must have taken to create such a wild escape-room-esque vibe.
Levels of Difficulty Create A Compelling System
The Otome genre is known for being a bit sparse when it comes to engagement. Typically, plot direction is decided by minimal choices, which direct a player toward a specific character. It’s more like reading a book where, at a point, you decide what ending you might like to have – A customizable romance novel.
Date Everything puts the power of the entire story into your hands. While some characters are fairly straightforward to romance, like Betty. Others are much more complicated. I’m looking at you Connie.
Then there are the “god tier” characters. Like Cam. My trash can. Throughout the story, as character storylines are completed, players earn Perk Points. These are critical for interacting with characters like Cam, who requires a shocking 80 points of empathy to even talk to. Without those points, almost every conversation ends in hurting his feelings.
Other characters, like Wallace or Mateo, require a deep and dedicated amount of time to work through. Wallace appears easy to complete. Talk to your wall, and boom, he loves you. But if you keep going back, you’ll realize there is more to this hunk of plaster than meets the eye. Meanwhile, Mateo’s storyline will take you all around the house on a special scavenger hunt.
These interactions were what hit it home that this isn’t a dating sim, it’s an experience in empathy. While the silly jokes and ironic job humor are relatable and hilarious, there were moments when I found myself thinking about the existence of some of the things in my house. Each puzzle I solved made me anxious to find another, so I could keep breaking down everything in the story.
Fantastic Art and Voice Acting Provide Delightful Engagement
This review wouldn’t be complete without mentioning the voice acting and character design that really make it sing. Every character’s visual is spot-on, mixing excellent and clean art with a cunning incorporation of their inspirational item. The star-studded cast of voice actors delivers a performance that brings each character to life, and I loved every second of it.
My biggest shock was found when interacting with my table. I was greeted by an old-western cowboy version of Steve Blum, one of my all-time favorite voice actors, and the man responsible for bringing Vincent Valentine to life in the English adaptations of Final Fantasy VII and its spin-offs during the 2000s. Hats off, my man. You are still making me cry in 2025.
That said, I didn’t love the 3D environment of the house, and not because it looked bad.
It gave big indie horror vibes. So much so that I genuinely wondered at several points if this was going to end up going Doki Doki Literature Club on me. Thankfully, it didn’t, but there is an unsettling air in the house that I never was fully able to shake. Though I suspect that was also meant to be intentional. After all, it’s not healthy to lock yourself in your house and talk to the furniture all day. That probably does tapdance on psychological horror to a degree.
Final Score – 9/10
If you are a fan of deep literary elements, a storyline that makes you think, and a level of critical empathy, Date Everything will hit with force. This isn’t a game for an idle dating experience. It’s not a good fit for casual, easy dates. This is the type of title that will make you think and contemplate interactions long after you close it down.
I think Sassy Chap Games has delivered something really special in Date Everything, and it won’t resonate with everyone, but I genuinely think it is a wonderful and artfully complex experience. When I feel like I could write a college paper about the themes and intricacies of a game, I know I’ve found a gem.
Date Everything knows exactly what it is, and frankly, it is such a fun and refreshing take on an otherwise stagnating genre.
**Bonus Action was provided with a PC Code of Date Everything for the purpose of this review**
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