Later Daters is a decision-based visual novel that has unique and creative characters. The game offers players a great variety of choice after you have created your character with dialogue and how you choose to spend your time. The main issues of the game lie with the length and with the lack of choices when creating your character’s appearance. Even though the game has these issues, it is still worth playing.
The game is set in Ye OLDE Retirement Community, where you play as an octogenarian looking for love. The game is LGBTQ inclusive and offers poly relationship options. You can choose your favorite companion creature: a cat, a dog, or even a robot! The residents of Ye OLDE are interesting and varied, including an ageing rockstar, an artistic family, and a hairstylist.
The writing in Later Daters is solid throughout. While it may not be award-winning prose, there are some really poignant moments that deal with the concepts of mortality and love. It really tries to put you into the mind of your chosen protagonist and makes you ponder what kind of actions they might take rather than what you, the player, want them to do.
One downside to Later Daters is its length. With only 3 episodes coming out at around 2 or 3 hours of total gameplay max, it can feel like the ending sneaks up on you just when you’re starting to get to know the characters. However, this also encourages multiple runs to fully appreciate the varied storylines.
Aside from watching events play out and roughly moulding the story to suit your goals, there’s little else to do in Later Daters. The experience might have been greatly enhanced with some mini-games to flesh out the overall length. Nevertheless, it’s a cute little tale with likeable characters, pleasant visuals, and an excellent, catchy title theme song.
Overall, Later Daters is a wonderful tale of retirement, love, friendship, and fears. It has a gentle pace that allows you to relax while enjoying this fun story. The game has plenty of replay value and is definitely worth checking out.
REVIEW : Contraband Police (PC)
