Dating 4 Girls Review

Dating 4 Girls is from the experienced team that filmed Heartbeat in Thailand and Hello Love: 18 Again. While not as good as either, it still has nice extras, one great love interest, and some touching moments.

The premise behind Dating 4 Girls is interesting and quite appropriately meta. You get sucked into a love simulator and need to find a way out before the server closes. Three women in this virtual world were created by you. And an AI policewoman offers to help you return to the real world, if you can find love.

Finding love sounds easy, since you created those three NPCs, but their preferences have altered following a data rollback. When interacting with each, it is clear they are free-thinking beings. After the player-character acknowledges this to himself, they fall for you anyway.

While the four love interests have distinct personalities and depth, being with them is a chore because of obnoxious side characters. The manager of the bubbly idol, Mengna, is insufferable. The family of the gentle teacher, Jiayi, is awful but must be endured to free her from an arranged marriage. And finally, the Hospital Director in charge of the cute nurse, FeiFei, is a clichéd sleazebag.

This is also partly why the policewoman, Andy, is so great. Fewer annoying side characters hang around her. One outing is just you and her in an arcade, and her finale packs more punch than the others. Actually, the other three NPCs have near identical endings, which is boring on replay.

Conflict is a part of any plot, but these side characters are not fun to hate. They are cringe and cannibalize screen time, becoming a wet blanket. There is not enough interaction between the love interests either, with only Andy momentarily crossing paths with others. The game tries hard to be funny, but fumbles regularly. Only near the end, when the player-character becomes absurdly hostile, did it earn some dry chuckles.

Fortunately there are touching moments, aided by good songs. When the game dabbles in existentialism, it finds authenticity that might have you wondering where it was before. The actresses are great in such moments, especially Andy’s, even if they are limited by mediocre ADR and subtitle mistakes.

Like Heartbeat in Thailand, the game has many unlockable extras. Outfits are mostly a gimmick, as the characters just stand on a rotating pedestal. Home intros are cool but repeat too quickly. Memories are the real gems, with 20 full-screen videos per character that last minutes and can have choices.

Despite some good parts, Dating 4 Girls is not an essential buy unless you gel with its brand of humor. And the funny thing about that is you won’t know until you try it.