Kaichu - The Kaiju Dating Sim Review
Kaichu - The Kaiju Dating Sim is exactly what you would imagine. It’s a cutely designed dating sim where you play as a pink dinosaur like kaiju called Gigachu, that has the choice of 6 kaijus to romance and 24 famous landmarks to take them out on a date to, where your compatibility will be tested through a variety of questions. *Spoiler warning*- Not that there is too much to spoil about this game, but if you don’t want to know how the story goes, probably skip this one out. All you really need to know is if you like dating sims and kaiju’s, you’ll probably like this game.
The game starts with 2 reporters, Brevity and Lucky talking in a newsroom when reports come in that Gigachu has emerged from the sea and is ready to find some love. It then cuts to a map of the world, which is where you can choose which Kaiju you want to date. Your options are Mossra (butterfly kaiju) Tephra (volcanic kaiju), Turpio (turtle kaiju), Queen Seadora (3 headed hydra), Garadan (Bird Kaiju) and Megaricus (Alien kaiju).
Once you have chosen which kaiju you want to date, you then decide which landmark you wish to take them on a date to with some of your options being The Great Wall of China, The Taj Mahal and The Golden Gate bridge. Once you have chosen a landmark, it will cut back to Brevity and Lucky who will be talking about how the date is going and will also drop hints about questions you might get asked during the date. The date then starts, where you will be asked a series of questions which will determine how well the date goes, as well as how much of the landmark you destroy. If the date goes well, the landmark is destroyed and the love meter will go up, if the date goes badly, the landmark will still be standing, causing the heartbreak meter will go up. Once the date is finished, you will unlock information about the Kaiju you are dating, which will help you answer more questions on later dates. You will then choose another landmark to go on a date to and repeat the same process again, till either the love meter is filled and you can progress through the game, or the heartbreak meter is filled, which causes a breakup and 2 sad kaijus.
You go on a total of 8 dates, with 3 being in the 1 st act and 5 being in the 2 nd act. During the 2 nd act, we are introduced to Major Panjandrum who will try his best to break Gigachu and their partner up, which if you play successfully, he will fail in doing. Progressing to the 3 rd act, Major Panjandrum not willing to let your relationship continue, unleashes Mechachu (a giant robot) who unfortunately succeeds in breaking you and your kaiju partner up, no matter what you do. Gigachu not willing to give up the relationship yet, must then ask for advice off the other kaijus about how to win their partner back and armed with this information, the final battle occurs where you fight Mechachu again by answering more questions about your partner and if done successfully, you win back the love of your partner and you will defeat Mechachu together.
I love the premise of this game, as I love dating sims and Kaijus with my personal favourite being Mossra, as the shipped name is Mossychu, which is adorable AF and it is an obvious nod to Mothra, who is one of my favourite Kaiju’s. I love the art style as it includes a lot of bright simple colours with all the kaiju’s being among the same/similar colour palette which is very pleasing to see. The gameplay is easy and the game can be played through either on keyboard (mouse isn’t used) or through controller if you are playing on PC, where I choose to use keyboard, as I was too lazy to plug my controller in. The story itself is very feel-good as you will be able to get through to the good ending with most kaiju’s the first time round; the only kaiju I struggled with is Megaricus and that’s just because their personality was difficult for me to understand. The story is also LGBTQIA+ positive, as when you start the game, you get a choice of 13 genders to choose from and each kaiju has their own gender such as Tephra is She/Her whereas Turpio is Ze/Zir.
While I enjoyed winning over my first partner despite the short play time (around 30 minutes), I found the replayability with the other kaiju’s to be a bit boring, as I played through the rest of them one after another, where I got to see the same dialogue and story repeatedly, so I would defo recommend playing the game over the course of a few days, when you have a little bit of spare time, or as a little palette cleanser in between games.
My final opinion is I would recommend this game but not playing it all in one go. Spread it out and play it when you’re short on time or when you need to calm down from raging at another game. It’s a nice, short, feel-good game that anyone would enjoy.
