Date Z Steam Charts & Stats

great

First about the base game / dlc drama. The BASE GAME only gives you 1 ending with 1 of 4 girls. To get the "full game" you have to buy the 3 seperate girls dlc or the complete romance pack for a slight discount. This game regularly goes on discount for 90% and the dlc go for 30% off so in NZD I paid $12.60 for the full game. A little much for how short the game is but I dont regret it. The only reason Im writing this review is because I normally hate visual novels, they're long, they're boring, you just sit there reading text watching jpgs sit there doing nothing. But this game was the first visual novel I actually liked?? I 100%'d the game in one 7 hour play through and while it did get tedious at the end trying to get the right score for a few achievements I was hooked into it during my first few play throughs. The artstyle is aesthetically pleasing and the characters are all fun to look at due to their cute 'bouncy' animation as you scroll through text. All the girls have a variety of poses / expressions as well so its not just "Here's the characters default pose from the cover for 3 hours because we couldn't be fucked" I cant sugarcoat it though their personalities are a bit on the basic side though. Alicia is the jock, Vivi is the nerd (with the twist that she's kind of a bitch too lol), Patty is good ol American "I want to be a housewife and shoot guns" but then theres the ABSOLUTE GOAT BAO, complete peak 10/10 cinema standing ovations are in order. The gameplay consists of spending 4 days cozying up to the girls in preparation for the imminent zombie apocalypse while also investigating its cause. There is no other meaningful gameplay though,no inventory or minigames or anything after the outbreak. There's 2 endings with each girl (and 1 secret girl ending) one for not getting their investigation meter to full and one for maxing the meter out. I thought it would be fun to at least spend a day with the girl you choose post outbreak ducking through classrooms or looking for rations etc but nah it leaves your fate up in the air For any fellow corridor Z fans the references are sadly kept to a minimum, there's only 1 scene with the corridor z characters and Jill isnt a romanceable option. I think this was one of the games biggest mistakes, when I say 1 scene I literally mean 1 single scene maybe 5 boxes of dialogue but hey at least theres like 4 mandatory events with the coach where you pick meaningless bs dialogue that doesnt affect anything else in the game right??? Conclusion: + Great art + Cute characters + Fun dialogue choices - Minimal corridor z references - You spend 5 minutes with the zombies before the game ends - No NSFW scenes - Extremely short (You might spend 30-45 minutes per ending) - No MC customisation (Skin color / gender) ~ a crossover update with corridor z would've been amazing but I sadly doubt either game is known well enough to warrant it If you've got the pocket change give it a go. And if the developers ever see this I really hope we get more of these characters / this universe. Both this game and corridor Z are CRIMINALLY underrated and they could easily get so much attention and love but I feel so stupid for liking these games so much when you treat them so poorly. You make the baffling choice to not market these games AT ALL and at the end of the day I cant blame the general public for not enjoying a mobile game the devs abandoned then threw up on steam or a visual novel where 3/4 of the game is in the scummy dlc Edit: Oh my god I think the trailer is voiced by ai too gg how do you even afford such good art if you cant get someone in the office to sit in a closet and voice the trailer themselves