Arcade Spirits

For full disclosure, I received a copy of this game for free to review it.

And now to the review.

Arcade Spirits is a Visual Novel developed by Fiction Factory Games and published by PQube. It's about an arcade, the Funplex, in the year 20XX where the Video Game Crash of 1983 never happened, so gaming's ubiquitous as all hell and arcades are pretty common-place. You're a poor bastard who has, quite possibly the worst luck in human history, and has just about given up. Juniper, your best friend, talks you into downloading a Life Coach app named IRIS, who decides you need major help. What follows may in fact be one of my favorite games of this year.

I'm going to be honest with you. I love VNs. Like, a lot. A story based entirely on narrative that I've got to put in effort to screw it up? Thank god. I usually just kinda pound through them and coo(in an incredibly manly way) over the characters and then that's it, I'm done.

This did not happen with Arcade Spirits. I was genuinely emotionally invested for most of the game. The writing in this game is deeply enjoyable, and the voice actors do an incredible job. Also, the most brutally delivered dad-joke in history is a conversation option and I took the hell out of that.

I got hooked by the first act. The owner of the arcade's a wonderfully amusing old lady, and the game does an amazing job of keeping track with how you're responding to situations and who you've been interacting the most, which is the most useful thing I've seen in a VN. 

The background audio and set designs are clearly created with love. There's not a single part of this game that feels neglected, if I'm being honest. The story kept me hooked and I kept having to tell myself I needed sleep, but the path I took, considering I read rather quickly, only took about 4-5ish hours. There's 6 "options," so to speak, so if you're a speed-reader, it'll grant you about 30 hours. Add in changing gender/who you're into each route, and that'll escalate. Which is pretty solid for a visual novel. And hey, it's longer than fucking Fable. 

The downsides of Arcade Spirits are really only in it's character creator, which VNs rarely have so I'm not quite sure why I'm bitching, but I held out hope I could be fat and bearded. Alas. There are a few slow parts where I wasn't completely drawn in, but I cleared those quickly enough and got back to enjoying it.

All in all, I'm giving Arcade Spirits a 9.5/10. I might actually start my second playthrough now, to be honest. 

By the by, if anyone was wondering? Naomi is best girl. END OF DISCUSSION.