Kaichu: The Kaiju Dating Sim Review – A sweet dating sim without much substance
It’s no secret that being a monster lover doesn’t just extend to human on monster romance; just like with any other media, people ship kaiju too. This is the core idea behind Squiddershins and Top Hat Studios‘ Kaichu: The Kaiju Dating Sim. But instead of playing as a human trying to smooch giant monsters, you take on the role of the Gigachu, who’s looking to find a kaiju mate of their own (Gigachu actually has fully customizable pronouns, including neopronouns options, like Ze/Zir).
For each save file, you’ll have Gigachu choose one of its kaiju colleagues located around the map to try and woo. There’s a rainforest plant moth (aptly named Mossra) who’s also a single mom, a multi-headed ocean creature dealing with matters of state, a sentient volcano with cougar energy, and even more. Once you choose your kaiju crush, you take them on dates to various landmarks around the world and proceed to try to destroy them.
The actual dating mechanics in Kaichu are kind of odd. Destruction is apparently a love language for these monsters, so your goal is to have the two make beautiful chaos together at each site. To do this, you have to answer your date’s questions in a way that makes them happy. There are only three options: affirmative, negative, and neutral. It’s really hard to tell how these responses will actually be taken in conversation. You can give your date a compliment, only for them to take it completely wrong. This is a neat concept in terms of giving a bit of realism to this silly concept, but ultimately becomes frustrating, as each wrong answer pushes you closer to losing your relationship.
Unfortunately, these mechanics also become boring pretty quickly. Though there are some interesting details within each dateable kaiju’s storyline, getting through each date starts to feel like a slog, even when you’re getting the questions “right”, thanks to the simplistic conversation options. Changing up which monument you and your date are destroying also doesn’t add much variety to things, and the repetitive news broadcast banter used as narration becomes trite after more than one playthrough.
Because of this monotonous gameplay loop, it’s hard to appreciate the tidbits we get about each Kaiju’s life, which isn’t great, since knowing your date is the only way to guess which answer will make them like you. These character traits also become somewhat overexaggerated as you progress further through a kaiju’s route. Past a certain point, you know the bit each date wants you to focus on. For example, it becomes obvious that Mossra wants a mate who will be nurturing and open to parenthood, so every answer becomes about embodying that so she’ll like you.
Though there are enough dates to go through multiple playthroughs, the repetitiveness of the gameplay makes it hard to justify. These monsters simply aren’t interesting enough to make up for how boring going through multiple dates ends up being. The loop also makes each relationship feel entirely game-ified, and like the monsters have less of a genuine connection than someone behind the scenes pulling strings like a pick-up artist. In-game reporters following the action like TMZ paparazzi adds to this sense as well.
Overall, Kaichu: The Kaiju Dating Sim is very cute, but there’s not a ton beneath the surface. Under charming aesthetics reminiscent of a childhood Valentine’s Day card, there’s repetitive mechanics and narrative devices that make the game a slog upon multiple playthroughs. It’s more novelty than anything else, which while fun, gets old fairly quickly.
Score: 2.5/5
Kaichu: The Kaiju Dating Sim for Nintendo Switch was provided to Gayming Magazine by PR.
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