Arcade Spirits

Genre: Visual Novel

Players: 1

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Review:

Arcade Spirits is a Visual Novel released in 2019 on PC ported to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch in 2020. Set in an alternate timeline where the Atari Crash never happened and arcades are still popular, Arcade Spirits puts you in the role of an aimless young adult who finds themselves without a job, only to be convinced to try out a new app that has them taking an open position in a small videogame arcade.

This game uses 2D artwork for its characters and backgrounds, tinged with aesthetics harkening back to 80s neon and classic pixel art styles, but mostly featuring simple cartoony-style characters. I’m not especially thrilled with this art style, but at the same time I don’t think it’s outright terrible.

These visuals are backed by a synthesized soundtrack that varies in style from faux-techno beats to a simplified take on the classical theme Night on Bald Mountain. This is fairly forgettable, and making things worse, this music often cuts out completely when characters are speaking, which sounds very awkward. As for that voice work, this is one of those games that has an odd mix of some lines being fully-voiced, some featuring a voice that sorta’ summarizes what characters are saying, and some lines that are completely silent. And the voice acting is… well, it’s not horrible, but it ain’t great.

I suppose that just leaves the story, which is also not horrible, but not great. To be fair, there are a few things I like about this game’s story and game mechanics. I like that this is a Visual Novel with dating game elements where not only are players given the option to pursue either gender, but they can also opt to pursue absolutely no one, focusing solely on platonic relationships. This is a refreshing choice we don’t see much in dating games. In addition, I like this game’s system of keeping track of multiple personality traits that you can look at in menus to see how the game judges how sensitive, humorous, bold, etc. you are, based on conversation choices you’ve made.

However, while these elements work in the game’s favor, and the game’s setting is certainly unique, overall I found both the story and characters weren’t especially deep or compelling to me. These just didn’t parse as “real people” to me, and it was hard to feel particularly invested in the story and relationships when I don’t really care all that much about the characters.

Simply put, while there’s nothing about Arcade Spirits that I found to be particularly bad, there was very little here that compelled me to keep playing this game. I find some of the game mechanics and player choices here to be really good, but that hardly matters when the story, characters, and presentation don’t do anything to captivate me. And in a Visual Novel, these are the elements that are of utmost importance.

tl;dr – Arcade Spirits is a Visual Novel set in a world where the Atari Crash never happened and arcades are still popular, with players taking the role of a new employee at a videogame arcade. Some of the game mechanics here are nice, such as the way your conversation responses affect different measured personality meters. Unfortunately, I didn’t find the characters or story very compelling here, and the presentation doesn’t appeal to me either. Some Visual Novel fans may enjoy this, but I expect most will find this to be a middling entry in the genre.

Grade: C

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