High Times Review: An Almost Perfect Meal

High Times is the newest visual novel dating sim from developer Yangyang Mobile. This tasty treat has a lot of promise with an interesting premise right off the bat: you run a donut shop and make donuts that can change people's moods. While there are only six total romanceable characters, there are a ton of extra characters with some fun stories.

It'll probably take you between 15 and 20 hours to finish just a single playthrough, and that's if the RNG gods decide to bless you. If not, you could theoretically take much longer because of how interactions are designed. Though that's all subject to change since I'd assume it's just a numbers issue.

I actually really loved the game and its characters, but even with that, the game definitely runs into some issues that I'd consider more than frustrating. It doesn't help that there isn't much variety in the overall game beyond meeting new characters and some more traditional things you'd expect from a great dating sim.

What is High Times?

High Times is a visual novel dating sim where you work as a Mood Confectioner at The Hotbox, the hottest box in San Mazo. The reference seems to be very apt, given how a lot of the game revolves around emotions and some rather deep discussions. At The Hotbox, you don't just serve any old thing; you serve mood-enhancing donuts of all kinds.

Each flavor represents an emotion that, when served, will help customers feel that emotion and hopefully deal with whatever issues they walked in with. You have to actually make the donuts, so you'll pick the shape, glaze, drizzle, toppings, and more to best fit whatever the customer orders or whatever you think they might need.

You can buy some more flavors and some things to help decorate the place, influencing who might come in more often. The main thing you'll do is talk to people and listen to their problems. Like any good dating sim, you can be helpful and push the relationship forward, or you can be a bit mean and cause problems; the choice is yours.

You'll progress through several stories, including the six main love interest stories, to learn about the characters and your shared past. You don't seem to be the person in the past, but that just means you have an opportunity to make things better. Help customers, meet your exes, and solve everyone's problems, and just maybe your own along the way.

Fun and Emotional

I mostly play games for the story at this point, and that's what I really enjoy about games. This story surprised me by being unexpected in crazy ways while also managing to keep things mostly grounded. It isn't some incredible hero story, and you're not going to do anything more important than help a few people with their problems.

That's the real beauty of the game: the grounded stories that you can connect with as a real person. They aren't easy, and a lot of the time, you'll find yourself yelling at your character about why they had to be so terrible, but they're real. Sure, it's a ridiculous premise, and it leads to some shenanigans, but it's just an avenue to tell stories that feel believable.

I won't spoil anything about the main characters, but there are a couple of side characters I'd like to use as an example. Ainsley and Kolt, who are both modeled after famous singers, are in a sort of situationship; they used to date, but grew apart and now struggle with their relationship to one another. You can help point them in whatever direction you think is best.

They don't hate each other, but they're struggling to navigate still being around each other and maybe some lingering feelings. The way they talk about their feelings and how the story progresses just feels amazing without feeling like it's making some kind of crazy leap. With solid writing and some pretty good jokes, it felt great watching their relationship grow in the way it did.

That's pretty much how it is with everyone in the game. In some places, the writing struggles a bit, and the jokes feel a little unusual, but the game really keeps things interesting with everyone's stories for most of the game.

Makin' Bakin' Donuts

The process of making the donuts felt a little tedious as time went on, not really for any other reason than I'm just not the most artistic guy around. I don't make them pretty; I make them right, but it did feel like there was a lot of creativity that could be explored here, which was really awesome to see for players who might want that.

What I really enjoyed about making donuts was listening to what the characters were saying before ordering to know what they really wanted. It gave me a nice sense of connection to the characters without feeling forced, even though you do get more relationship points for giving them what they need versus what they might want.

You can also take it a step further and memorize what a customer likes. For instance, a certain character isn't a fan of sprinkles, but they do like having butterflies on their items, and if you do that, you'll be rewarded with some extra tips and some more points. Although it's just as easy to mess everything up and get nothing as it is to do something right.

The recipes can also be pretty hilarious and ridiculous, so messing around with those made for a good time. It did feel like the game gave you some additional choices in this aspect to make up for where the game might be lacking.

Meaningful Decisions, But Only Sometimes

This didn't stand out to me at first, but as I progressed in the game, it became more apparent, especially as I ran into more and more NPCs. The game doesn't actually have all that many choices to make, and you sort of come into the game with a predefined way of being, so if you aren't like the main character, you might not feel like you're exactly playing the story.

It's not necessarily a bad thing because it makes it a bit easier to develop meaningful stories without going overboard, but it was something that struck me as odd while I played. Even without considering the background stuff, you don't actually get all that many choices to influence the story.

Really, a lot of it just boils down to moving the needle in small amounts until you hit the next event. That being said, the game does have a good "memory" in terms of what choices you've made in the past. You can really see the results of what you've said in conversations with everyone. That was something I wasn't expecting at all, but it had an impact on me.

I do think some more choices in conversations would be nice, but I can respect the decreased amount in favor of more meaningful choices in the game. If you're okay with something like that, then it won't bother you, but if you prefer your MCs to be more of a blank slate, you may struggle a bit with how conversations go.

May The Odds Be In Your Favor

Now, I'm aware the RNG gods do not smile upon me often, but this game made me want to rip out my hair when it came to who was visiting my shop regularly. Not because I wasn't interested in their story, but I was more interested in the main characters' stories and what was going to happen with them next.

See, the thing is, you only get three customers in a day, which means you only have a one in three chance of rolling the character you want to see to progress. With every new character you meet, those odds get worse and worse. You can sort of mess with that by having different items in your store to increase the chances of appearance for certain characters.

I had MJ on a freaking 8x chance, and I was still only seeing her maybe once a week in in-game time. I wanted to scream because it was so frustrating to have it happen again and again. The other characters are nice, but since the odds are random, it felt like the more characters that I had, the less I saw the ones I wanted to see.

That's a problem unique to this visual novel, since most others allow you to go to different places or go to where a character is. Here, you have limited control over that, which made it feel like progressing the relationships took so much time. It's not necessarily the worst thing the game can do, but it did feel odd that they seemed to show up less than the random ones did.

High Times is a fantastic and well-written visual novel dating sim. It struggles in some places, but none of that felt like it mattered quite as much as where the game succeeds: the story. It provides grounded yet interesting characters to sink your teeth into, along with some added mystery. While the RNG of who shows up each day does feel inhibiting, it does give you a chance to see other characters and their experiences. With more meaningful choices, there are fewer choices overall, and that's more than okay. High Times tells an emotionally complex and intriguing story that almost everyone can enjoy.