Days With Ollie Hololive Visual Novel Shambles on
Visual novel Date With Ollie is one of the newest Hololive games and revolves around Indonesian Vtuber Kureiji Ollie. But while Ollie himself is a natural entertainer, Date With Ollie unfortunately no match for her infectious energy. Instead, it ends up as an unfortunate and frustrating mess with dead ends and recurring errors.
Developed by Artha digital PT, a game directed by Ollie himself with art by Hievasp and ClozyOzy. It serves as a choice-based yet fairly linear visual novel, telling the story of an unnamed protagonist trying to become Ollie’s personal reporter, while avoiding many people. , much troubles along the way. There are four chapters in Date With Ollieand success will earn you some special art screens, but you’ll be well acquainted with the fast loading system long before you get to them.
My first dead end was also where I encountered my first bug, which was that the game would revert to the Indonesian language on certain screens even when set to English. Luckily, it was on a screen where the only two options were “skip title” and “try again,” so I quickly figured out which way to go, but after that, every option and even some Story segments also began appearing in Bahasa Indonesia.
Previous games encountered brief delays to fix the errors, but there were many errors that seemed to stubbornly persist, including one that completely stopped me from progressing. At a certain point at the end of the first chapter, answering a question will freeze the game and reload. Choosing different answers and even reinstalling didn’t help. I was finally able to progress after finding a solution online, which involved switching back and forth between languages.
The game has some other issues with typos and the like, but while annoying, these are all easier to fix. I think the bigger problem comes from the script itself. With the core of the game essentially finding all the bad endings before moving on to the real solution, keeping those bad endings entertaining is paramount. Unfortunately, Date With Ollie oscillates many times with only a few ending in hits. Some jokes involve meeting other Hololive members or repeating jokes, while others are ridiculous and follow a kind of logic. My favorite is the initial encounter with a rich kid, who you can try to scare away by pretending to be possessed, leading to him calling an exorcist on you. But the others are simple “Rocks Fall, You Died” screens that offer a bit of a precious experience.
The choices also rarely make sense or are even entertaining, which is a shame. Sometimes in games like this, there’s a kind of logic that the developers expect you to figure out somehow. Say, if the logical answers fail you, then perhaps the game’s lunar logic is the answer and you should choose the crazier options. But in Date With Ollie, there doesn’t seem to be any such logic, except in some specific quiz questions. Sometimes the answer is to be a kind human being, and other times the right answer is to panic. But not also Of course it’s too much because that will get you arrested.
I know I’ve been very negative towards Days spent with Ollie, but I hope it doesn’t seem mean. Which is to say, it feels like a missed opportunity to explore some parts of the relationship between fans and entertainers, bridging the gap between societies. Of course, it’s not like the game is completely devoid of appeal. When you actually meet Ollie, the pace picks up a bit. Some of the music is quite good, especially the intro theme.
If you’re going to play Date With Ollie, I recommend doing so as a group, rather than alone. Having friends or even chatting with the streamer can make the experience more enjoyable. I wonder if that particular line of absurd answers was intended to cater to that kind of context. But on my own, Date With Ollie can’t be as engaging as a visual novel.
Date With Ollie is now available on PC via Steamand it is also compatible with Steam Deck.
