ValiDate - an upcoming (and unsurprisingly racist) visual novel made by SJW's, for SJW's. Currently MIA.

Ashlie. I can save her.

You think so? Here I go with my deep dive into the Ash route just to prove you wrong.

So while everyone else gets to date Malik, Ash has the choice between chicken hat and Abuella chick. Dating Malik would be too straight you see. I'll go with Isabelle for this route, since it sounds like the other person did chicken hat. Once again the opening is about pulling out their phone and texting someone they know...but the story has nothing to do with the opening at all.

She starts by comlaining about how hard it is to be a Bwitch streamer and how she needs to get more sleep. Then she shops for food (you can get energy drinks instead, but as the other guy showed it leads to a bad end and I'm here to insure the characters get laid).

She sees the new love of her life singing about Paprika coming into her basket. She talks to the weirdo who tells her she is a theater teacher and points to where the spices are. Then the LI asks if she was on Bwitch and we get a reaction face...

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Isa introduces herself and says she just knows her from the videos the kids she teaches watch. Like I said, the opening is a lie and everyone seems to be strangers. Isa immediately explains that she sings to throw off stress and starts complementing you on kindness for no reason. We get a dialogue choice to thank her or dismiss her. I dismissed her, and we get another one-letter-change in Beddit. She complains that she doesn't have any friends in a way that was apparently harsh, then immediately apologizes. Isa asks you on a date for coffee. You apparently don't get that it is a date.

All the protagonist's expressions are terrible. At least she gets a mini-outfit change for her Bwitch streaming:

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They have a generic text conversation where they agree to have coffee on Monday. Uber is Oober. She shows up late and orders a coffee, immediately assuming that Isa is just using her for clout. She then orders a coffee and deliberately ignores them when they call her name so they have to bring it to her (lol). You get a dialogue choice where you can either explain that or lie and say she was distracted talking. I pick the first option and Isa calls you out on saying that is dumb. She then asks if you are hitting on her for some reason.

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They continue the boring conversation and it goes to Theater. I space out a little. She mentions how she has a sociology degree but does professional gaming because it is her life man. Isa declares that she is jealous that protag can follow her dream when Isa dropped her own (to be a Broadway star). She apparently listens to pop and Baby Metal, which doesn't get changed to something else for some reason. Isa solely listens to show tunes. Isa sings all the time and our protag gets the chance to ask what is up with that or stay quite. I asked what is up with that and received an unsatisfying answer. Isa in turn asks why she became a progamer. Protag answers inside her head "because I'm pretty and a bitch", and they have more conversation before she adds "and also lonely". Protag then says how much she loves memes when Isa brings it up.

The end. Nobody gets laid :(. I went back and picked all the "good" options but...nope. Thats it. They have coffee and become just friends. Its a friendzone game. They still didn't have much chemistry but their relationship also was nothing so it didn't stick out as much. There where zero side characters in this route. They just have two conversations and an understanding there will never be a relationship between them. Why did they even bother writing it?

As part of seeing if there was an actual relationship ending, I picked the choice about not asking her about her signing. The protagonist still does it, Isa just takes it differently. She calls the protag a bitch and protag shinji poses.

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The end. Nobody gets laid :(. I went back and picked all the "good" options but...nope. Thats it. They have coffee and become just friends. Its a friendzone game.
Neither of the characters are troons, so it's invalidating to gay people if they have a relationship even though one of them is straight.

Of course, if any of the troons can't sleep with any of the other characters, it's transphobic.

What. A. Surprise.
 
They tried to make Malik the evil cis dude, but he ended up being the shitlord hero who doesn't give a fuck about anything and murders trannies on the daily by asking "lol wuts a pronoun" :story: also has the most meme-able faces. He is now my favourite character in this trashfire of a game.
I actually grown to like the 'here's my mixtape' thing he does because it shows how much he doesn't give a shit on all these 'quirky' characters, which makes him even funnier- even going so far to sneak a mixtape on the pocket on one of the unconscious characters.
They even tried to stereotype him to all hell, but it's surprisingly likable for how it adds to his character instead of making him the 'evil cis dude' the game tried to, he only 'complains' about those problems in media like media artists do but they can easily be seen as part of the media (Hyper Light Drifter's heart imagery throughout the game is because the dev himself has a heart problem for an example). Other than that, he's just socially awkward. I don't blame him for being as such from all the other characters we seen so far.

I wouldn't be surprised if his playable version still plays him up as either as "evil cis dude that eats shit no matter what he does" or "evil cis dude that gets 'fixed' by the cast by him realizating the 'error of his ways' and then bowing down to the cast and apologizing".
 
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Every time I see this layout it reminds me that this trainwreck would make a much better fighting game than a dating simulator.
Just imagine it cutting to ROUND 1 : FIGHT when Anoki gets insulted instead of a dialog choice.
Honestly it would make a great puzzle game background. Match the colors of the HRT pills as your character slowly morphs to the other sex with each cleared row, whoever looks the most passable at the end of the round wins.
 
jumping on the last name sperging, ashlie's last name doesn't come up anywhere when i search it. apparently she's Laotian and Ecuadorian. kolum isn't a last name related to either of those nationalities
:thinking:
You are putting a lot more thought into one of the worst Ash Ketchum name ripoffs ever devised than these "devs" ever did.
 
As long as nobody complains (too much) that I'm treading old ground or clogging up this thread with terrible summaries/reviews, I'll probably just keep doing one a day until I cover them all.

I decided on the always-singing theater teacher to see if she can actually get into Malik's pants, since she friendzoned the gentlewoman gamer the other day. This one has a different author, both the other routes I covered where by someone named Zo. This one is by Dani. Lets see if that changes anything.

Our protagonist Isa stars by walking around internally bitching that she has to deal with theater people, while having an existential crisis. She solves this by going to the Bopeyes/bar to get drunk before her dress rehearsal. You get a choice if you want to go to the bar or chicken place first, chicken place is the obvious correct answer so I chose bar. I was immediately disappointed. She just orders a drink and you get a game over.

The story starts out much thirstier when our protagonist sees the manager working the register and immediately declares him hot. Isa declares that she wants to wash down some dry biscuits with tequila, Malik makes a comment about how she must not drink much.

"Yeah, not much of a drinker. I dabble more in the cool drug scene". Emphasis original. At least she calls herself out for being lame afterwords. They talk about dry sandwitches and get to the "Eres Latina" line. Mostly they try subverting stereotypes, she can't speak Spanish and hates spicy food. For some reason she declares Spanish her native tongue anyway.

Speaking of stereotypes, the conversation turns to music and you get the second choice asking if he likes music or assuming he raps. Assuming he raps makes him call you a racist. He gives you his number anyway lol.

We formulaicly go to the texting session next. Thus far it looks like all of Malik's routes have the same storyline, people go to his restaurant for some reason, they flirt, and he gives them his number. He uses it to send her his Boundcloud link. She thinks its "pretty good" and...we get some of his lyrics.

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....This was definitely written by a white girl. Anyway, Malik gives her the N word pass but she refuses. They talk about music with Isa offering to do rap with him. Then he asks her out. So far there has been slightly more chemistry solely because their characters both revolve around similar interests, so it makes more sense than "You made me explain what nonbinary is lets sex".

He springs for Pink Lobster. She shows up late intentionally (lol). He mentions his father didn't let him go to pink lobster when he was a kid and...I kinda thought his father wasn't around in the other routes, it was kinda important there, so whatever. Isa apparently autistically memorizes the menus of every restaurant she's visited a few times. She goes off on a weird rant about how dark it is in the restaurant, how "oh shit" would be a great song lyric, then into asking about rap. Malk gives his rap backstory where he'd cut class to do weed and rap with a sketchy stranger. Isa lies about cutting class in highscool to seem cool. Malik presses her on it and she walks back saying she was talking about theater. We get the next choice: theater life was awesome or you don't know about theater life? I picked the second one and she immediately assumes Malik is judging her for being into theater and says he is at a dead end in his career (lol).

One thing to note here is that you can rollback over your past choices, it never seems to lock and they all seem to either have one lead to a bad end or both lead to the good end.

So I picked the other option and she sperged out about how much she loved highsclool theater. Malik says the woman he interacts with are his muse (does that mean he punched a woman in the jaw? I'll assume it does.) Isa says she's serious about the collab and Malik says he better be paid.

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Malik says he isn't that easy and she pretends she was joking and meant tickets to the theater. Her internal monologue confirms she's thirsty. She talks about restaurants after breaking open the crab with her bear hands and feeding it to him (what?) and realizes her life is repetitive sending her into another existential crisis. Travis Scott gets name dropped without change. They have a very small amount of connecting based on both being creative types, Isa has an anxiety attack and has to go home. No, really. You get to your house and get the option to ask if he lives alone or just go home. I pick the first one because, much like Isa, I'm here to get laid.

She pulls weed out of her purse and they smoke in the car on the way to his house. His personality is weed and rap, her personality is weed and theater, they go together like theater and rap. He somehow piggybacks the woman who is twice his size into his apartment. He says welcome, then we fade to black.

They pillow talk about their family. Apparently Malik's dad is still around, he says the reason he wants to buy his mom a house is to get her away from his dad (a tie in to the other route that would have kinda been important if he brought it up there, but whatever!). And then... Isa breaks up with him. They decided to just be friends. There isn't even an epilogue here. That is just the end.

Again. None of these dates result in a long term relationship. So far the most we've gotten is one night stands. These characters have the closest thing to common interests among the cast and their relationship still just consists of flirting at a cash register, one exchange of texts, one date at a restaurant, and one night with weed. They could all happen in the same timeline since none of them can hold on to a relationship for more than a week.
 
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