This is maybe the most I've been disappointed with a video game, and that's saying a fucking lot because I've played some dogshit in my years on this sand chunk of a planet. (ignore if you can look outside and see green; I get to point and laugh at you if you don't though, that's the rules) Anyway—just to clarify in case you're confused by the title of this one—Needy Girl Overdose is called Needy Streamer Overload in America, but I'm a fat ugly weeb so we're going to be referring to it's japanese title from here on out.

Like most people, I don't often find myself shoved head-first into a sloppy shit-filled toilet; while there's no way to prove this correlation, I believe that this is why I'm not really into the whole Windows XP worship that a lot of people seem to throw themselves toward when creating fake operating systems. The developers did seemingly scoop itself a huge serving of sloppy toilet (if my theory serves correct) which is a little strange, but they also went the extra mile and shoved all the interactable parts of the game into a 4:3 aspect ratio, which is more dedication than I see from most, even if they still shove stupid borders into the dead-zones outside of the playspace, which is just a personal pet peeve of mine.

Despite my almost-praise of the aforementioned, I can't help but wonder why they even bothered, as the game's first interactable screen is a disclaimer stating that the game takes place in modern (circa 2022) Japan. While I know Japan has sometimes been a little behind the times with technology, the fact of it is that they're not cavemen: they know how to cross the street without holding mommy's hand, they know how to cook on the stove, and they know how to use the modern world's conveniences. It just comes across as a shitty love-letter to old technology in a market completely fucking oversaturated with shitty love-letters to old technology.

There she is: 俺様のワイフだぜ

Very quick tangent: this game was reviewed on PC, but also ported to the PlayStation 4/5 and Nintendo Switch. I'll never understand Why publishers keep porting games like this to consoles, the entire hook is that you're managing a cute girl's streamer career from your real life PC. Your ability to be sucked into the world is completely fucking obliterated if you use a joystick to move around your cursor instead of a real mouse. I could talk about this for hours but this isn't the time nor the place. Let's get HORNY.

While I'm not in love with every single aspect of this game's visuals, it's very competently drawn and the artwork thankfully finds itself perfectly in that very beautiful "large enough canvas to convey a distinct style but still looks like pixelart" range that a lot of other pixelshits struggle super hard with. To address the question I'm sure everybody's holding their cocks for: the cute girl is very cute, and carries herself in a very traditionally girlish way that's appealing to most fat ugly weebs (like me) even if she's just as much rainbow eye-vomit as everything else you're forced to look at. I certainly never got bored of the visual style, but that likely has to do with the game's pretty short length.

In most instances, that'd be (debatably) a bad thing—and don't worry, if you thought I wasn't bitching and moaning enough, just wait until I come back to this point a bit later on—in this game it's one of it's stronger suits, allowing you to never feel over-exposed to it's unique style of generic girly goop. This all applies to the music as well, which I find to be very short, sweet, and catchy! None of it really stands out too much on it's own, and you likely won't find yourself humming along or wishing to listen to some of these tunes in your free-time, but they're good enough for what they need to be, maybe even BETTER than good enough on a day where I'm feeling a bit more generous.

my FUARKING WIFE

Ok it's been long enough, it's time for me to bring up the long-awaited thing I asked you to remember. This game is 4 hours at max, and asks for 16 of your hard earned dollars just to kind-of-talk to a girl that isn't even fucking real at the end of the day. I absolutely do NOT think this game's worth the price of admission, especially for how repetitive things can be after the wow-factor of playing a shiny new video game wears off. If you're down to play an incredibly watered down Princess Maker with a quarter of the interactivity, and think you just have way too much money to possibly know what to spend it on, then I guess you can knock yourself out.

There really isn't all that much to do: you pick the type of stream, moderate the twitch chat by deleting comments, and select super chats to be read off. When you aren't doing that, you're texting with Ame-tan over LINE (they call it something gay, but it's just LINE) or picking general things for her to be doing. All of these don't do all that much outside of influencing three stats, which is referred to as her "Stress", "Affection", and her "Mental Darkness". The game ends if you empty out or fill up any of these bars. That sounds like a lot, but trust me, it gets boring after maybe an hour. The big appeal once you're familiar with its mechanics is the interactions you can have with Ame-tan: these dynamically change depending on your three meters, and dialogue choices (very loosely in regards to that second one.) Your overall goal is to run a successful streaming career, and carry Ame-tan to 1,000,000 subscribers on YouTube (they call it something gay, but it's just YouTube)

I will say, after a while, you get some genuinely very fun insight into Ame-tan as a character; It is fun to take Ame-tan out to different areas of Japan though, and talking to her is always fun when the game's giving you fresh dialogue via LINE or her private twitter page. She owns a SEGA Dreamcast, and has a sweet ass Sailor Moon poster up on her wall, and promises to do ANYTHING you ask of her, making her a solid contender for to fill out one of my girlfriend applications (though I guess she's already your girlfriend in-game) However, the game falls apart once you realize you're kind of meant to treat her like shit. I get that this game's a very clear allegory for the insatiable chase for internet stardom corrupting all, but it'd hit harder if I PLAYED as the fame-chasing neet girl, rather than as her boyfriend who'd have no motivations for pushing her to suicical levels of anguish.

エル・プサイ・コングルゥ

From what I understand, there are external pieces of media that shed a bit of doubt on the existence of the player character, but I'm reviewing what was served up for me on a plate of the finest silver 16 dollars can buy (and I disagree with that interpretation of Secret.txt iykyk). The player doesn't get anything out of managing Ame-tan's career: he has to pay the bills, manage her career, and her social life. These are of course fine things to do for your girlfriend (as long as you're not being played like a chump) but to have such overwhelmingly destructive levels of determination is just fucking stupid. It leads me to believe that Needy Girl Overdose's target audience is partially comprised of sick bastards like me, who enjoy the idea of absolutely ruining a girl's life for their own pleasures, but that's a pill I'd be more willing to swallow if you were able to clear the game without effectively torturing Ame-tan at LEAST once.

Each ending consists of fulfilling one or two conditions, as you'd expect, but they're all pretty unsatisfying, which is not hyperbole on my end: they're all just underwhelming nothingburgers. One ending is that you push Ame-tan to embrace doing erotic livestreams, and that just kind of ends the game with a textbox saying that that's not feasable. Another is that she drops out of being a streamer if you remove all her mental darkness, and the game just spouts some shit about how that isn't good or something. If these are meant to be fail conditions, I have no issues with it since the overall goal is laid out at the beginning, but they really just gave up right before the finish line. At the very least, the 4 hour length of the game allows you to bang out a good few endings and playthroughs in one sitting (assuming you're as much of a fucking neet loser as Ame-tan)

Learning halfway into my first playthrough that this game was made solely by and for a Japanese audience was very startling to me, and to you it's either an equally huge revelation or you think I'm a fucking idiot right now. The lead director very clearly has a solid understanding of the modern internet, and the localizers doubly so. Every line of dialogue felt authentically sliced out of my dating life circa whenever this game came out (i said it earlier and I can't be bothered to scroll up). I can't really speak on the accuracy of it, or how many things had to be changed due to incompatibilities with the english language, but regardless, it's a very easy piece of japanimedia to consume (even if a few words are weirdly left untranslated, like "conbini" instead of convenience store)

So many memories..

Touching on the price-point again (yes, I will keep talking about it and you will keep reading about it) this game's soundtrack is 12 dollars, which is psychotic, even by video game soundtrack standards, which are admittedly, usually on the more expensive end. Even with the penny pinching, I do think this is a game that really appreciates it's fanbase (even if it enjoys stealing money a little bit more) There are multiple points where the game proudly features fanart (you also unlock a nice little gallery of art every time you complete an ending) which is something I can really appreciate.

One thing I figure most people are familiar with regarding this game is the cool edgy shit that gets a little pseudo horror game-esque. I have some good news and some bad news for you. The good news is that it's exactly as edgy as you'd want, with wrist slitting minigames and psycho ass screen effects. The really unfortunate news is that they make up basically 2% of the entire game, and you'll barely even see anything cool. Despite that, I think I enjoyed my time with Needy Girl Overdose, but I can't really say that for certain? I think a middle-of-the-road score is perfect for this game: I didn't really love love love it, but I also didn't really hate hate hate it. What this game did to trashy evil internet women is a whole different story, but I digress.

I give Needy Girl Overdose a 5/10

This is SECONDS before a game over btw LOL