Simple Days

“You have to play this” was a text I got from a friend of mine about Simple Days. This is a lewd sandbox visual novel style game and it is the kind of game that reading a review about really does not do justice. I am not hating on the game at all, I was very entertained by what I was playing and I was laughing my ass off most of the time. However, I still even after playing through the game cannot decide if it is supposed to be funny or if it is all unintentional.

A Young Dude That Loves Pregnant Woman!

That is probably the best way I can think to describe what is going on here with Simple Days. The story is about this young guy who is just starting out on his own and trying to live his best life. I get the impression it is supposed to be a kind of slice of life story and that is fine. However, the English translation of this is hilarious, the story pretty much makes zero sense as a result. However, rather than this being really bad, it made it funny and me and my buddy had a good chuckle over some of the stuff that was said in this game.

For All The Pregnant Ladies

There are more chicks than just pregnant ones in Simple Days, but banging pregnant chicks and getting chicks pregnant seems to be a major fetish of this game, and if that is your thing then more power to you. I found the whole thing kind of funny to be honest with you. The MC can be played in different ways, but no matter what he seems to have a real kink for ladies that are pregnant.

What Can I Actually Do!

Another part of the game that is unintentionally pretty good is the gameplay. Simple Days is a sandbox game and I am not sure if it is because of the game design or because of the poor translation, but I had no idea what the hell I was doing or what I was supposed to do most of the time. The game is very loose with what the rules are and the sense of progression did feel very random at times. There is grinding here as you would expect, but sometimes it felt like I had to grind to improve stats, other times I just had to deal with visual novel type stuff. The thing is, I was still progressing through the game no matter what I did so I kind of just went along for the ride the whole time I was playing.

My Kind Of Girl

I know I went on and on about pregnancy being a real major fetish in Simple Days, but I do have to say that this game has some great female character renders. There are many attractive, cute, and just downright sexy girls in this game and there is a very decent amount of them too. I found myself wanting to get it on with as many of them as I could as the XXX content in the game is done very well and has a nice amount of animation to it as well.

Pros:

• The game is so crazy that it kind of works
• If you like pregnancy in your lewd games, you will like this
• I always felt like I was progressing no matter what I did
• I think that the developer is very ambitious for what they are trying to do here

Cons:

• The translation issues meant that I had no clue what was going on
• It can be very hard to know what you can and what you are supposed to do

Simple Days is a game that promises to hand you the digital reins of a 19-year-old bloke's uneventful existence, teetering at the precipice of adulthood. Your journey will navigate life's most underwhelming milestones: first job, first car, and a potential descent into the wholesome joys of suburbia or the murky allure of mild degeneracy. The narrative begins deceptively quaint but promises escalating complexity the deeper you slog through its questionable life choices.

Don't get me wrong - I'm all for interactive storytelling, especially when given the tantalizing option to steer a character towards total corruption. Yet, there's a lingering suspicion here that Simple Days oversold its cleverness. Think "Choose Your Adventure," but the only outcomes are slight boredom or existential dread, all wrapped up in digital graininess that makes a CCTV footage look like an IMAX production.

Less Than the Sum of its Pixels

The premise, admittedly, is endearing - your own questionable moral compass directly influences your character's life decisions. Choosing between wholesome heroics and delinquent mischief has a certain charm. For some, this alone may justify an exploratory click or two.

However, the game is severely undermined by its visuals or painful lack thereof. Simple Days' rendering is grainier than a bowl of quinoa, with textures so fuzzy you'd swear your monitor suffers a cataract attack. This isn't the nostalgia-inducing pixelation of retro gaming - it's just aggressively low-quality art direction or possibly compression sabotage from an overly enthusiastic intern.

The writing certainly will if the visual fuzziness doesn't ward you off. Simple Days features what can only charitably be described as "Engrish," with grammatical faux pas and syntax errors leaping out more aggressively than unsolicited pop-up ads. The storyline, already teetering on banality, collapses further under the weight of these linguistic misfires.

Technical issues add another layer of frustration, notably highlighted by scenarios like getting trapped in an infinite loop after mundane tasks like taking poor Ann home. The game is self-aware and actively trying to prevent your progress, perhaps mercifully shielding you from further suffering.

Simple Pleasures, Frustrating Execution

Simple Days is reminiscent of those awkward, adolescent dating simulators of yore yet manages to evoke none of their nostalgic charm. It borrows heavily from more successful franchises like The Sims or Persona yet entirely misses their mark by presenting a hollow facsimile of life simulation. For players craving the authentic charm and depth of life-driven gameplay, you'd fare better diving back into Persona 5, a game bursting with style, substance, and coherence - traits painfully absent in Simple Days.

Round-Up - Pros & Cons

Pros:

• Interesting concept with branching life choices
• Some appealing character design ideas
• Decent potential for a narrative variety

Cons:

• Horrendous visual quality
• Writing riddled with errors and poor grammar
• Frustrating technical glitches and bugs