Weird Game of the Day: Duel Love

I have seen some strange things in my life, heck haven’t we all? If you happen to be a gamer, for something to be called “strange” really has to be beyond what even non-gamers consider different. Thanks to the highly diverse culture that encompasses gaming, we have all become used to the wild, weird, and wonderful – but sometimes a game comes along that makes us take a double turn. Today, that happened to me.While I do not fully understand the culture over in Japan, I find it a very interesting and intelligent country full of people who seem to be very friendly and undeniably liberal when it comes to, ummmm, products that cater to certain “tastes” to put it mildly. However, with some of the products coming out of Japan that I do not really comprehend, the DS game Duel Love really blew my mind this morning and caused a bit of hilarity within my household.

From what I have come to understand, Duel Love is basically a game where you have a choice of different boys who will be in a sauna, and the gameplay consists literally of using your stylus to wipe the sweat off of their body. Granted, so far it is his chest only (I hope) and the backgrounds will change according to how happy you are making him. If you look at the two screens I have posted, you will see the mood color-chart, and a very disturbing screen where you have to “blow on your DS” to remove the steam which is covering his manly areas. I am sure – and I say this with the largest amount of naivety that exists in my body, that the anime gentleman is wearing some sort of minuscule coverlet over his man bits. But, it is Japan so it would not surprise me in the least if I was wrong.

The game had a very short demo at TGS back in September, and while it was indeed very short it gave you an idea of what to expect. In Duel Love, you play a female transfer student in a private high school who finds out about a secret fight club for boys – although the fight club was not shown in the demo, you supposedly get to cheer one of your five guys on as he fights. You develop a crush on these guys and to win their affections you do favors for them like wiping sweat and giving massages. After each fight, the boys will be covered with sweat and mention to you that they are “tired and sweaty”. The scene then changes to the aforementioned chest wiping extravaganza with music.

I am assuming that this game is geared towards women of certain tastes, who are either perverted, boy-crazed adolescent girls or bored and sexually frustrated housewives. Either way, it is one strange little game, and when I tried to use Babel Fish and one other online translator to be able to read the websites, I got a mix of weird sentences or no translation at all. Here are just some of the wonderful sentences you will see when you translate the pages:

• My Game Newsflash:”For the decaying woman who next week comes out of the DS game does too much case”(I assume decaying means “older” and it just got lost in translation).
• DUEL LOVE as for the maiden who is loved goddess of victory.

Wow. Just wow. Namco have really outdone themselves on this one. While I am personally a bit confused over the appeal of the game – to each his own. That is the wonderful thing about gaming culture – there is something for every taste known to man or woman and we should not condemn or make fun of each other for what we like. However, if you know of anyone who enjoys a game where you wipe the sweat off of boys (I’m talking to you Ron), feel free to make fun of them at will. The game is expected to hit Japanese shelves on March 13th.

Thanks for the Laugh: Kotaku and Flynn De Marco