Written by Mistress Valentine, edited by Otaku Apologist
Dating Life: Miley x Emily, a yuri hentai visual novel game developed and published by Dharker Studio. Released August 16, 2019. Download on Nutaku.net for €5.99. For PC Windows. No voice acting. No genitals shown.
Miley is a guidance councilor at her school who hasn’t tasted cock in a long time. She creates a profile for an online dating service and strikes gold with a rich party girl named Emily. Follow Miley as she tries to win Emily’s heart.
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STORY
Miley is hopeless when it comes to dating. No matter how hard she tries she just can’t find a guy to objectify her sexually. Lost and desperate she creates a profile on an online dating app but accidentally misspells her name as ‘Miles’, making it look like she’s a man. Miley receives an invitation from Emily, a rich young woman who is willing to try anything, even a threesome with Miles and his little sister ‘Miley’. Miley shows up and explains the mistake, but Emily is unbothered. She insists they go on the date and see where things go.
The writing for Dating Life is average. The plot is uncomplicated, and paper thin. Throughout the date you learn a lot about both Miley and Emily. The game does a fantastic job of portraying real world pit falls in the dating world and even has fun with some of them. It is very hard to get a satisfying ending from the five endings available.
With less than two hours worth of content, there is not a lot to explore. The game relies heavily on Miley and Emily just talking. The game is heavy on dialogue, and light on sex, which makes it feel like it’s dragging its feet.
There are no grammatical errors that I could find. The plot explores themes of lesbianism, dating life, hook-up culture, entitlement, privilege, truthfulness and personal growth.
The characters in Dating Life are wonderful. It doesn’t take much to make you want to root for Miley and a happy ending. She is a wonderfully complicated character that undergoes a wide spectrum of character growth. Emily is just as well crafted, coming across as the alpha in the relationship, but also sympathetic to Miley’s fish out of water predicament. Her patience, subversion of typical ‘rich person’ tropes and overall fun-lovingness make her the perfect deuteragonist. Both characters have unique, appealing designs.
SOUND EFFECTS AND VOICE ACTING (SFX)
Dating Life has no voice acting and very limited sound effects.
MUSIC
The theme for Dating Life ‘Harmonic Dreamers’ is excellent quality. The songstress mixes English and Japanese lyrics that make for a very beautiful and entertaining song. The track is inspirational and fits the themes explored in Dating Life.
The rest of the sound track is of great quality as well. The musical score is comprised of 11 songs. Guitars, drums and keyboards are some of the real instruments used in the compositions. Every song featured feels warm and upbeat. There is a good balance between intimate tracks and fun songs. Musical changeovers are not distracting. Songs fit the scenes they are used in. ‘Nighttime’ is the exceptional one. It’s a synthetic composition. It is a very noticeable departure from the track list, and sticks out whenever it plays.
GAMEPLAY
Dating Life is a visual novel. Clicking the textbox advances the story. Functionality features are normal to other visual novel games with a ‘skip’ and ‘auto’ button for smooth game play.
At several moments during dialog, you make choices that make the story branch off in multiple different directions that determines how well your date with Emily will progress. There are five endings available. There are more than enough save slots available.
GRAPHICS
Dating Life has a wonderfully rich world with 17 settings. These background artworks use rich details to make the game come alive. Outdoor art features a vivid city-scape with loads of lights illuminating the night sky. The restaurant where Emily and Miley eat, and even the bar they travel to, look warm and inviting.
There are only 9 CGs available. All artwork is safe, with only yuri kissing and a cleverly crafted shower scene. The artwork feels warm and cute, but generic. Character body proportions stay consistent. The camera angles selected highlight Emily and Miley’s facial expressions instead of their breasts, bush, or butt. The overall artwork is beautifully hand drawn with strong use of shadows and thin edge lines. Character sprites have limited facial expressions. Lewd faces lack sex appeal and do not feel arousing.
Both Emily and Miley have unique character designs that stand out. Facial designs feel too similar, but this is well-disguised by lipstick and eye colour. Both characters spend most of the game clothed. There is no cleavage shown despite Emily being portrayed as a party girl with a lot of sexual appetite.
HENTAI
Dating Life is very light on hentai content. The game shows Emily and Miley make out in disabled bathroom stalls, and scissoring each other fully clothed. Emily doesn’t even have a nude CG sprite. Dating Life teases the audience and leaves it at that. Miley is shown naked near the start of the game, but her boobs and her pussy are cleverly hidden.
Since Dharker Studio keeps doing this same thing over and over again, they must have some kind of winning formula we lovers of hardcore porn can’t understand. If there’s a massive market for this kind of shit, we don’t even want to know about it.
CONCLUDING WORDS
Dating Life is a passable visual novel if you prefer your women to be fucking each other rather than you. The story is short and sweet and explores its characters well, but the limited sex makes Dating Life a letdown as masturbation material goes.
Recommended for fans of ecchi yuri. Download Dating Life.
Overall
- Story
- Gameplay
- Graphics
- Music
- Hentai
