its neopets, chill.

when the characters never really make peace with it

how it feels to decline when the self-checkout kiosk asks to round up fourteen cents to support homeless veterans

hatoful boyfriend singlehandedly ruined 99% of "parody" dating sims for me because it's like. i don't know how to explain it better than saying it's the galaxy quest of dating simulators. it's a very shameless and very silly parody, yes, but at the end of the day it ultimately takes its characters and its plot very very seriously, and all of its parody elements stem from a place of deep love and respect for the genre. you walk away from hatoful boyfriend's true ending knowing the creator loves the tropes she's poking fun at, and the world she's built up surrounding said tropes. it's a deeply silly and deeply stupid game with a deeply silly and deeply stupid foundation but it is extremely sincere. and this is the element so many dating sim parody games lack. they're too afraid to fully commit to their own genre, to make a proper effort to capture what makes it great, to be more than the stock shallow nothingburgers they assume all dating sims are. they're more obsessed with The Bit than they are making a good goddamn game. like. congratulations, you've made a wacky game about dating wacky objects and creatures!!!!!!!!! now make something with heart and soul for once.