In Later Daters, players are thrown in the shoes of the newest resident at Ye OLDE retirement community where you, unfortunately, have to spend your remaining days after an accident in your old house. Throughout your stay, you’ll meet a group of unique seniors with whom you’ll interact on a daily basis. You’ll have to make the best of this new venture!

Later Daters is a visual novel game meaning that the only “gameplay” to experience is selecting answers when presented with a handful of answers in order to dictate the direction of the events and story. More of the time, there’s a positive, neutral and negative which allows you to down the path of your choice, however, do not expect Mass Effect depth of conversational choices and consequences.

When you first start the game up, you’re able to slightly customize your character; you can choose their sex, pet and backstory. Oddly enough, the game won’t let you change the name; you can move the cursor over to it, as it’s a step to follow while setting up your character, but no matter which button to press, it won’t allow you to change it. So basically I was a male character named Laurie.

As you make conversational choices, it can also lead to your character getting into a romance with some of the residents of the Ye OLDE retirement residence. It’s a nice touch as you can explore multiple paths and encourage multiple playthroughs. The game also offers LGBTQ romance and a polyamorous lifestyle.

The game’s biggest problem lies within its only gameplay mechanic: conversational choices. A lot of them have no consequence per see. You can act like a dick to someone by only selecting negative answers and won’t be scolded for acting poorly or even reflected later down the line. For example, during a therapy session, I was choosing every negative answer, but 5 minutes later, my character said to an NPC that therapy felt therapeutic despite selecting the answer that basically said it was useless.

Later Daters has a vibrant style thanks to a very bright and colorful color palette. Each character is uniquely different. Players will spend most of their time “roaming” the halls of the residence, with the occasional trip on the outside to spend time with your new pals. The soundtrack is fine; it fits the setting down to a tee; it’s basically what you’d hear in a typical rom-com. The game, unfortunately, lacks voiceovers; aside from one resident who’s a former rockstar and sings (quite poorly) a few times.

Later Daters is one of the most unique and interesting visual novel games I’ve ever had the chance to play and I’ve played quite a few of them. The premise, setting and characters make up for a funny and quirky romp through a virtual retirement home. Despite the lack of continuity and over-usage of sexual inuendos, Later Daters is definitely worth your time.

Overall
  • 80%
    CX Score - 80%
80%

Summary

Pros

  • Unique premise
  • LGBTQ romance options

Cons

  • Lack of continuity
  • Too much usage of sexual inuendos

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