Date Night Bowling review for Nintendo Switch: I’m (7-10) split
Title: Date Night Bowling
Developer: Serenity Forge
Publisher: Way Down Deep
Platforms: Nintendo Switch (reviewed on)
Release Date: November 26, 2021
Date Night Bowling has been out on Steam since last Spring but it’s just now coming out for the Nintendo Switch. I had never played it but when I heard the premise of wooing a date via bowling alley themed mini-games I was weirdly sold.
Date Night Bowling allows you to play by yourself with a date controlled by the A.I. or in a two-player date mode. Sadly, there’s no online multiplayer which is an absolute shame because this would have been an adorable way for people in long-distance relationships to spend time together. The two-player mode is only local.
From there you can choose to either do “Date Night Bowling” or “Casual Bowling”. Casual Bowling is basically bowling without all the dating and mini-game stuff thrown in but why did you get this if you want that?
We’re going to focus on the Date Night Bowling part as that’s where the fun is. For your virtual date you pick one of ten bowlers. If you immediately start off on a date, you only have one male and one female available. You have to unlock the others by playing as them in the single-player mode, by yourself.
I didn’t really see the need to have to unlock them this way but, luckily, once you’ve done this you never have to do it again. Just keep this in mind, should you get this to play with someone, you’re going to want to sit down with it by yourself and unlock the characters lest you both end up taking turns playing solo to unlock the characters.
Don’t get too worried by the super CIS starting option of one male and one female. As you unlock the other characters you can have anyone date anyone. Each character has their own personality from a little guy who’s an aloof loner to a plucky girl who’s a social media starlet. There’s book nerds, athletic dunderheads, a super basic office worker and, my personal favorite, a woman who won’t stop making science puns. When you pair them off you get to see how their conversations pan out.
For the most part, I enjoyed this but I felt it was really bare bones. I played through 10 different dates of all sorts of combinations and the closest thing I found to a flirtation was one of them saying the other has a nice laugh. I’m seen better flirting in The Room. Unless of course you want to take certain things out of context…
Also, despite having 10 different characters, there’s a surprising lack of depth. Before you unlock a character it says you have to play as them to learn more. So I was excited to get into each character only to find out that each person’s unlockable story is a sentence about eight to ten words long.
The majority of the bowling dialogue is also the same. If you hit nine pins, no matter who you’re bowling against, they’ll say, “That’s a lot of pins.” If you hit eight you’ll always get, “Nice pin action!” This one bothered me the most. As someone who used to run a bowling team and spent an embarrassing amount of time in bowling alleys back in the day I can confidently say that this was NEVER said in the alleys. In fact, if I knocked down some pins and someone said “nice pin action” I’d feel uncomfortable for the rest of the day trying to sus out their words.
On the bright side, the game plays really well. Despite my woes with the story, I did enjoy the actual gameplay parts of it.
The bowling part of the game uses the classic “aim, spin, then power” mechanics that every old-school bowling game utilized. I loved it. It can be tricky at first because the meters move painfully fast but that almost made it feel like real bowling. I wasn’t going to be getting 300s here. I was bowling with more of the chaotic energy of real-life bowling for a non-pro.
The mini-games are sort of all over the place and I promise you there’s a couple where the first time you play it you’re going to botch it horribly because you won’t understand. For example, one of the conversational minigames involves you finding a picture that matches the topic the date is talking about. This seems simple but the game never tells you it has to be the same motif, not the same picture. So if they have a picture of a bowling ball, you’ll probably nice realize that selecting a baseball bat is a proper match as they both deal with sports. You’ll be looking for another bowling ball. But they’re all fun, simple, take about 5 seconds at max and always end with a cute animation of a tiny pixelated you trying or failing to impress your date.
After all is said and done and the ten frames are finished, how well you did on the mini-games determines how well your date went. The most successful I’ve seen it go is that they’ll tell you to call them some time to do this again and then it just ends.
That was how playing this felt. It felt like I was going on an awkward first date that, while fun, seemed to end suddenly, leaving me with little idea of how I actually did.
I’d love to see more content added to this game. More in-depth story, the option to slow down mini-games, etc. But as the PC version has been out since Spring with no additional comment this seems unlikely. Don’t get me wrong, the game is fun and I enjoyed my time but like most fun dates, it’s going to feel like it ended really soon and you’re going to feel regretful there wasn’t more.
Date Night Bowling (Nintendo Switch) Score: 7
Date Night Bowling is a fun arcade-style bowling game with many silly mini-games. In that it understands the assignment and makes it really fun. The pixel art also shines in many of the scenes providing a ton of charm. But the dating part is a bit of a letdown with recycled dialogue and a lack of depth to the characters’ stories. Ultimately you have a fun, lightly dating-themed bowling game that’s good for a fun co-op experience with someone but not great for a single player actually looking for a dating sim.