Upcoming Dating Sims to Look Forward To

Here are 3 upcoming games with dating simulation aspects to keep your eyes peeled for!

First up, the commercial ones, both of these upcoming games are being produced by Marvelous Entertainment (and I have played the Japanese versions of both).

     Grand Bazaar: This game follows the classic Harvest Moon footsteps, but with several added twists. The boy's name in Japan is Luft (the game name translates as "Welcome to the Wind's Bazaar" in Japanese), but apparently the girl has none. In the U.S. game their supposed names are Hansel and Gretel. The art is almost Magical Melody in style, but it has several gameplay improvements: the annoying Sun/Water points, from Island of Happiness and Sunshine Islands, are gone; so it's back to good old farming without required mathematics! Each week a bazaar is held where you can go shopping and sell your crops that you didn't wish to ship. You can jump around and turn shipping crops into a miniature basketball game. U.S. Release is estimated for August 25th.

    Rune Factory 3: This latest installment follows Maisu (likely to be named Micah in the U.S. version), a young man who can transform into a woolie with the help of a magical belt. He stumbles into a town (amnesia strikes again) and takes over the required empty farm (which is under a giant, gorgeous tree). His goal is to unite the village of monsters with the human/elf town. Expect all the classical Rune Factory goodness!  Dual wielding swords is ridiculously fun, and the characters all have schedules which they go about their days with. The game is estimated to come out in the states sometime during 2010's fourth quarter.


Now onto upcoming super, epic, I-can't-wait Indie release!

    I am terribly excited about this one. Why? I'm a beta tester, that's why! I've had so much fun working on play testing and bug hunting for the game, Shira Oka: Second Chances by Okashi Studios. I'm practically bouncing up and down to tell you all of the exciting aspects of this game (it's quite long; so the demo only gives you a small feel of it), but most of it will have to wait until it's out! (Sadly, there isn't an ETA yet for it.)

    What if you could do things differently? Maybe life just dealt you the wrong hand, or perhaps you just didn't see the point in trying. Maybe you never met someone you wished you had, or learned as much as you wanted to.
    Thanks to one special angel, one man living in the small town of Shira Oka gets that chance: three years to relive his earlier life. To make friends, to learn, and to make something of himself.

    Of course, it might go a bit better if his angel wasn't just fired from her previous job... But hey, who was he to complain, right?
    But first, he must endure one thing: high school. There, he can meet new friends, pick up several skills, maybe experience a little romance, hopefully avoid making too many enemies, and maybe change a few other lives for the better as well.

Sounds like a sweet deal, right?

    Basically, Shira Oka is a partially voiced U.S. made game in its beta stages, a combination of a visual novel, a stat. raiser, and a dating simulation game. (It has a similar feel to the Princess Maker series in that aspect.) The hero has a total of eight girls and two boys he can befriend or woo within three years time! He also must study for various classes and can participate in clubs and holidays as well. There are also many, many random events, influenced by many various factors, so you can play the game several times and run into events that you hadn't on the last cycle (each cycle is all of the high school, and you choose activities for the weekdays and weekends). It has many cultural insights into life in Japan.
    One great aspect about this game is the art. For one thing, everyone moves. There isn't just the simple papery transitions: they all shift and change positions with smooth animations. It’s just a little extra realistic touch. On top of that, the art is adorable, and overall I can honestly say any other style just wouldn’t fit the game at all. The music is fitting, and very relaxing. It’s not too distracting, has many, many various parts, from instruments and sounds that create a very unique soundtrack. The singers are incredible, and the songs are adorable and catchy.
    Overall, Shira Oka is an upcoming game that has many makings to be great; it's a classic game with unique touches added into to make it interesting, and a game that I haven't gotten bored with even through many replays. I can't help but feel proud of the team, both creators and the testers, for working so hard, and being incredibly friendly and working well together. I am dearly looking forward to seeing the finished project, and seeing what they do in the future!

P.S. I like the game more than spicy tuna balls! <3