Hooked On You Review

Behavior Interactive hit gold with Dead By Daylight a few years after its release date and has continued to grow since then. Taking pages out of classic slasher films, the game presents a players vs. player multiplayer experience about escaping and hunting. Alongside original survivors and killers, you also have the opportunity to play as recognizable villains and victims as well. However, despite all the time and effort BI puts into maintaining the game, it's clear that they want to move on to new projects as well as show people that they have a sense of humor. That's how you get Hooked On You, a dating sim set in the Dead By Daylight universe and created by Psyop.

The original Dead By Daylight has a ton of lore following all of its characters and world, but the objectives remain simple: Survive or kill the survivors. In Hooked On You, the story takes a more unusual approach to the lore.

Namely, you play as yourself washing up on a mysterious island with no memory of how you got there. You quickly realize that you're not alone when four of Dead By Daylight's killers come to greet you as the Huntress, the Wraith, the Spirit, and the Trapper. For some reason, they're all immediately interested in you being the first new person they've seen in quite some time. Since you've got nothing better to do and you're not going anywhere any time soon, you may as well try to romance one of them.

Whether it comes to skills or experiences, you want them to be off the hook. Well, Hooked On You has a lot that makes it off the hook. The first thing is the overall tone. While Dead By Daylight can be very tense and dark, this game is not. It's completely aware of what it is and brings that across with some humorous and clever writing. Being a visual novel, you'll be reading a lot, and not only are the behaviors and the dialogues of the characters funny and at times charming, but you also have ominous yet goofy presences in both the Narrator and the Ocean itself.

Then there's the pace of the game. Visual novel games have a tendency to progress quite slowly. For instance, the Ace Attorney series has some really satisfying moments but the time between them can drag on. In this game, there's always something to catch your eye, whether it's the graphic of the killer love interests or you and the Narrator having a conversation, there aren't many dull moments. The game is quite short depending on how you play it, but that's not a bad thing. Each route presents new dialogue, progression, and revelations to the fact that you're trying to romance a serial killer.

Whenever you get to a new area, it's difficult not knowing anyone or having somewhere you can go to for talking and fun. This is kind of how your character feels in Hooked On You with that difficulty coming through in the game. This shows through with the game's technical issues. Considering that visual novels focus entirely on looking closely at things, these problems are even more noticeable. You can come across a typo that takes you out of the experience and even some graphics that linger long after a character leaves a scene. There are also a few animation frames stuck in limbo that appear briefly when moving through text, which can be distracting.

Then, there's the fact that there's nothing much  to do. The main interactions you have with the game are some dialogue options here and there, points where you have to pick a killer, and then mini-games. The last are the closest the game comes to offering something challenging or engaging, but it's always the same. It's a simple timing puzzle that has the same mechanics every time but will visually change based on the context.

Hooked On You Review | Final Thoughts

Hooked On You is a visual novel dating sim about trying to romance one of four killers from Dead By Daylight. It's a very humorous and entertaining experience with some nice crisp graphics to appreciate. Unfortunately, there's very little to actually do considering how short it is to complete. Though, if you're looking for something quick, silly, and weird, then see if you can get one of these killers hooked on you.

TechRaptor reviewed Hooked On You on PC through Steam with a copy provided by those behind the game's release. It is currently available on PC.