Arcade Spirits

[tozka]

Arcade Spirits (2019) is a LOVELY game, one I highly recommend to anyone who enjoys playing romantic visual novels. It's set in the near future, in an alternate timeline where video games are even more popular than they are in this timeline. You play as Ari Cader, a down-on-their-luck dreamer with no ambitions.

(Click images to enlarge.)

You can totally customize your character, including name/pronouns/skin/hair/eyes/etc. (not customizable: body type). I used they/them pronouns, changed Ari's hair to green and shorter, and adjusted the sweatshirt color. I appreciate how so many indie games (and it's mostly JUST indie games) give an option for gender-neutral/genderqueer pronouns, it makes identifying with the player character easier and more like I "fit in" with the game.

There are seven romanceable characters, BUT you can chose not to romance at all and just do friendships. For this first play-through, I chose to do romance, though at first I was a little iffy because the flirt options were WAY out there for me (someone who is mostly aromantic). But I ended up liking 3 characters a lot, and went with Teo (far right) because of his cute blushes in a specific scene.

And the romance was super cute! We went out on a date and it actually took up a good chunk of time. With CONVERSATION that made sense and developed our characters! Awesome!

And because romance is just an OPTION, it just adds more depth to the game if you choose to do it-- but if you don't, the main story is still just as good. You can even start out with romance, and then choose not to date anyone after all.

So there's tons of options for how to proceed in the game, e.g. how to make friends, learn more about the world/yourself, choose your future actions, etc. Part of the game's gimmick is matching you up to a particular personality type: this then helps you pick a romantic partner, specific plot choices, and defeat the final "boss." You of course get a personality type through your dialogue options-- but you can turn off the hint that lets you know which dialogue goes with which type, to make it more of a natural choice.

I did that, went with my natural inclinations and ended up kind and steady. I really appreciated how the dialogue choices were different enough that I really felt comfortable picking one-- usually I run into issues where I hate all the choices because they're "wrong" for how I want to interact with the other characters, but this game had exactly the right choices for me. I ALWAYS try to be as nice as possible (for at least the first play-through) and this game let me be SUPER NICE! And mushy!

Also, more you lock down your personality type, the game locks you into certain choices. For high-stakes scenes, it crosses out "incompatible" dialogue. For romance options, it goes over which characters most closely match your type. For the final confrontation (battle) it doesn't let you go outside of your preferred type because you'd be less convincing.

It's a really interesting system!

Other stuff: The art was really good, and the voice actors were great. I wish the music was a little more varied; I had to turn it off a few times because it was so repetitive. Some of the dialogue could use edits— occasionally read like someone was very attached to a thesaurus.

The story pushes you a few times to consider other options than the high-stakes dreamer route, which I thought was interesting. The story has a balance of dreams and reality, and it all rings very true to life.

I definitely want to go back and play a few different choices. The nice thing is that I can do that but still maintain my Kindly personality type if I want, because not all plot choices lead to personality type choices. For instance, for this first play-through I chose to build a retro arcade. Maybe the next one I'll pick a family-friendly esports center! etc. Or I wonder what would've happened if I sold out earlier on in the game, or was harsher with some trouble-makers. That's the exciting thing about this game: it has lots of replayability!

It took me about 6? hours to play through the first time and even with the speed-run options, it'll probably still take another 3 for EACH of the different romance/plot points. And now that I've done it once, I can speed through some scenes and go back and make other choices IN the game. Nice!

Price: $19.99

Content notes: Parental abuse, depression (/disassociation?), guns/knives (teenage gangs), sexism.

(Crossposted from misthold)