HuniePop (PC) Review

When first starting HuniePop, the gender of the character can be chosen, which can be changed at any point afterwards. While it is a good feature for a dating sim to have a male and female option, it has little impact on actual proceedings. The main character has no portrait as everything is seen from the point of view of those playing. The bachelorettes included barely recognise the lead's gender and it doesn't seem to make any difference whatsoever. While it's nice to have the option, it could just as easily have not been there and no one would have noticed.

The anime, bright-coloured style of the bachelorettes fits well and gives off a kind of candy-coated charm. The bachelorettes are represented by simple character portraits above a dialogue box with basic facial animations to show a few different emotions. The backgrounds are decent enough, although will sometimes clash harshly with the anime character art. The bachelorettes do have customisation options of different hair-dos and clothes, which can be unlocked by either talking with them or taking them out for dates, but has a 'dolly dress-up' quality that gives the option to change looks slightly by mixing and matching hair styles with alternate clothes. There are five options of both hair styles and clothing, which isn't a lot but will at least give the player a bit of variety.

While dating sim and puzzle game seem like an odd mix, they come together in an odd symbiotic fashion. The gameplay consists of talking with the bachelorettes, asking them on dates, and playing a Candy Crush-style puzzle that will result in either the success or failure of the date. This requires matching at least three of the same type of tokens that are categorised as talent, flirtation, romance, sexuality, passion, as well as broken hearts that will deduct points if matched. Each bachelorette has their favourite and least favourite token, which offers extra challenge to get the best matches in a limited amount of turns. Items can be obtained randomly after successful dates and are different every play-through, offering some strategic depth to an otherwise familiar puzzle concept.

HuniePop also has a light RPG element that ties the two genres together nicely. Throughout, 'hunie' is received after talking with the bachelorettes, which can be used to upgrade the tokens being matched to get more points, the likelihood of getting four-of-a-kind matches, decreasing the amount of deducted points from matching broken hearts, or increase the effectiveness of the items.

As for the interface, it is a series of menus with anything from information on the bachelorettes, displaying items, standard game settings, and so on. Unfortunately, though, the multiple menus can be difficult to navigate and would have benefited from being simplified. As for the dating sims aspect, it's played for mostly parody more than anything. The player can find out 'necessary' details, such as asking the girl 'What cup size are you rockin'?' and the girl will answer as if she was just asked what the weather was. They don't have much depth past their typical dating sim archetype of nerdy girl likes games and stay inside or mean girl who is an awful person to the point of hilarity. The gameplay is fairly repetitive until after a certain amount of dates with a bachelorette, at which point gamers gets a 'puzzle for the intimacy part of the game.' While matching tokens is still the point of the game, match tokens quickly to get the required points is required. If the tokens aren't matched continuously, then the points total will decrease until eventually reaching zero. For the most part, the gameplay provides a good challenge, with the items and the light RPG elements putting a new twist on an otherwise overused puzzle model.