Free Visual Novel for Windows
NEET Girl Date Night by Hitsuji is a free visual novel for Windows. This is the story of meeting a girl and asking her out. However, unlike other titles such as Fated or Katawa Shoujo, your love interest here is a reclusive girl, who looks far from one of the sex goddesses that you see in many anime-like visual novel/dating sims out there.
She’s not the most beautiful girl ever, her room’s a mess, and she’s awkward. In case you didn’t know, NEET is defined in Japan as “people who aren’t employed, not in school, not a homemaker, not seeking a job”.
Nice story but little gameplay
NEET Girl Date Night does a fine job in representing the stereotype NEET in a different light. As such, the story isn’t about dating or sex. The focus is on getting this person to live life again, and get back on track. It’s actually your job to convince her to do those things.
While the story is original, it’s a shame that there’s only one ending. Even though the choices you make via a multiple-choice dialogue system do affect some situations, you know it’s going to end the same way. This doesn’t give the title a lot of replayability.
Beautiful graphics
Art-wise, this is an excellent title. The scenes are beautifully drawn, and the main character perfectly contrasts the stereotypical anime girl, some of which are also portrayed in the game. However, there are some parts with pixelated graphics.
Sound-wise it’s pretty basic, with functional music but no noteworthy sound effects or dialogue, which brings the whole experience down a bit, making it feel more generic.
A different take on a dating sim
At first, you might think NEET Girl Date Night is a dating sim because of its theme. But this visual novel is far from it. The effort in showing a NEET person is clear here, and the dating aspect is secondary to make the whole thing more interesting. As such, there aren’t really any similar experiences out there.
The story lasts less than an hour and never feels tiresome, except for some long stretches of the same ambient music. Unfortunately, the lack of different endings makes it a likely one-time experience, which is recommendable for fans of the genre and people curious about NEET.
