Roommates

Its always good to try something new once and awhile. When I noticed that I had a code for a game called Roommates, I looked into it. A visual novel? A dating sim? Hmm. I don’t know. I skeptical. Still. You should try something every once and awhile. And so I tried out Roommates for the Nintendo Switch.

Roommates is a visual novel with dating sim elements. What’s a visual novel you ask? Basically a visual novel is a game thats all about its story: words and pictures with very little movement. There are some dialogue choices to direct the story but otherwise you’ll be doing a lot of reading.

What’s a dating sim? Its basically what it sounds like: you are trying to date one of the charaters of the game.

Roommates puts the visual novel and the dating sim genres together. The story is that you are a college student. You can play as a boy or a girl. Its your choice. After that you go into a lot of reading and make choices at certain points.

You are basically making the choice of who you want to try and romance/date.

If you have no interest in dating sims or visual novels, you won’t like Roommates. I’m a bit on the fence about the game myself.
The dialogue in Roommates is okay. Its not horrible but its not great either. The story is alright. And the dating sim elements, well, they could be better.

All of the dating/romance depends on who you make happy. You have to suck up to your potential romantic interest. Sometimes a choice that you think might work, doesn’t. It depends a lot of the personality of the interest.

Yes Roommates is a big soap opera. If you like soap operas, you’ll probably like this game.

Honestly Roommates is tough game to review. It doesn’t have any real gameplay, its visuals are very static, and there is not much in the way of sound. A little voice acting might have helped this game.

The static artwork is probably the nicest thing about the game. All of the characters are well drawn.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad I checked the game out. As I said earlier, its good to try something new once and awhile. Roommates is in a genre I’m not too familiar with. I think if given the right subject, say a sci-fi or fantasy visual novel, I might be into that. Roommates was just not my personal cup of tea. I think there might be an audience out there for it.

If you like soap operas, dating sims, and/or visual novels, then Roommates might be something you want to check out. Otherwise, there are plenty of other types of games on the eshop.

Thank you to Ratalaika Games for providing a digital code. Roommates is currently available on the Nintendo Switch eshop.