PEGBRJE: Arcade Spirits
I can’t tell you how happy I am that this game is in the bundle.
Arcade Spirits is a visual novel best described as ‘a romantic comedy’ by Fiction Factory Games, spearheaded by Stefan Gagne. Set in a world where the arcade crash of 198X didn’t happen, you play as a recently unemployed apartment-dweller named whatever you wish. Your roommate implores you to download a wellness coach app and things spiral into your employment at an arcade. Arcade Spirits sets the tone as soon as you boot it up — it screams the vaporwave arcade aesthetic in the scanlines, the neon colors, the ability to change the HUD to ‘pixel-based’ art. It oozes style. The coin operation noises at the loading screen, the simulated hum of the loading screen ‘crt screen’, the wave-inspired soundtrack. All set the tone of the game immediately as you begin your adventure.
As might be obvious, I’ve been looking to play this game for some time. It had been on my radar since my early research days for the game I helped write (Some Like It Hot!), but I never got my hands on it. I made a bunch of excuses at the time, but the long and short was just that other games held my attention at the time of discovery and I’m notoriously good at placing games on a wishlist and forgetting them. Thankfully, this is no longer the case.
Yet the most exciting aspect of Arcade Spirits comes just after you start, during the character creation screen and the moments afterward as it introduces you to the mechanics and decision making processes. Everything is done diegetically; that is to say, in world. The character creation is done via the rebooting of the system and initiating an override for ‘hope’. The personality system is an overlay done by that previously mentioned wellness App to help you achieve your dreams either in life or love by assisting your ability to talk. The bizarre interview to further explain said personality system in a hilarious yet subtly informative way.
The best part about this introduction is the flexibility that the game offers to all players. Historically speaking, visual novels come in 2 flavours: you play as 1 gender attempting to romance many of the other, or you play as whomever you desire attempting to romance everyone. These are not bad, per say, but they are quite predictable: even the title of ‘Visual Novel’ invokes imagery of cheesy dialogue options where you confess to another with a still image of them blushing slowly panning down or fading in. Arcade Spirits, on the other hand, decided that visual novel tropes are boring and decided to give players a choice before they meet most of the cast. Do players wish to be openly flirtatious from the start, casually wait and see what happens or avoid romance all together? This is, in fact, a dialogue changing moniker to allow players to decide whether or not they wish to actually romance anyone within the game. Want to get down to business early and be upfront with your hot new coworker, cutting right to the chase? Go for it. Do you wish to explore the plot and don’t feel comfortable romancing somebody in game right now? You can. Usually visual novels consider it the ‘bad ending’ when a romance is not completed, and players end up ‘sad and alone’. Arcade Spirits would rather players enjoy their game at their pace.
I have first hand experience attempting to write in this format, and let me tell you that the amount of work required for this flexibility is staggering. Requiring not only romance dialogue options but also friendship options, in combination with the already large amount of text, this easily makes Arcade Spirits a huge game to explore. I don’t recommend this becoming the norm unfortunately, since I know it is a ton of work, but I do hope that more visual novel developers take the relationship ideas laid down here to heart. The first that comes to mind following this is Boyfriend Dungeon, which we await with baited breath.
Arcade Spirits has a lot going on with very little needing to be explained or shown. It’s flexibility on approaching dialogue and relationships is staggering and beautiful, and how it explains these flexibility options are all planted directly into the world you now get to explore. The writing is masterfully done with decisions even on how you react to characters upon first meeting them, and the soundtrack is phenomenal. If you love visual novels, you owe yourself this game. If you love arcades, this game may bring some nostalgia pains on the ‘what if’ wound that was made by the crash of 198X, but it is worth the entry ticket.
What I’m saying is play Arcade Spirits if you enjoy a good story about finding yourself, alternate arcade futures and crazy AI wellness apps.
Link is below.
PS. Naomi is best and I will fight for her happiness.
