Date Night Bowling
The arcade bowling is solid - I can consistently get strikes, but curving/spin isn’t particularly intuitive. Unfortunately, each character has a single phrase you have to confirm through every single time they come up to bowl. You have to play as everyone in single player before they’re available in vs. mode (whether AI or human). The minigames are fun and themed to the bowling alley. Achievements, at least at launch, appear to be not be functioning. If you’re looking for some casual arcade-style bowling, you’ll find it here - everything else feels a little thin.
– Real player with 2.4 hrs in game
Read More: Best Dating Sim Bowling Games.
Arcade Spirits
First things first: I really, truly enjoyed this game. That maybe sounds like an understatement, but I think it’s worth stressing: Arcade Spirits is just. so. enjoyable. It’s good-natured, goofy game about pursuing your dreams and the power of friendship as much as it is a dating sim, and I was completely charmed by the total sincerity of its story and characters. My literal only complaint is that I couldn’t spend more time with all of them (more on that below).
Arcade Spirits’s core cast is obviously the main draw, and in terms of characterization, the game really delivers. I was really impressed by how the game avoided obvious dating sim archetypes and introduced a lot of depth to characters I wasn’t certain I would connect with (particularly Ashley and Teo). I also appreciate how the game doesn’t shy away from more serious issues, particularly in Percy and QueenBee’s routes – it’s not a coincidence that these are the two routes that I think are the game’s strongest, and it has a lot to do with how Percy and QueenBee’s problems (and dating hang-ups) are rooted in real-world issues. The overarching plot is goofy (in a good way!), but the characters feel grounded and real, and you’re encouraged to take them seriously in ways that I think really, really work.
– Real player with 37.7 hrs in game
Read More: Best Dating Sim Romance Games.
I’ve only had the time to sit down and play through this great game once, but I feel like it’s given me a pretty good grasp of the game as a whole. And I love it. I’m a huge fan of visual novels and throwing in a dash of romance is…just another nail in my coffin. I’ve been following this game for a while now, exactly how long I can’t say, but I’ve been waiting. And it was worth the wait. I’ve never played a visual novel that has allowed me the customization this game has. I found I was playing me rather than playing the who can I romance game VERY early on. Sure, the game has it’s issues, and I’ll detail the good and the bad shortly, but I highly rec the game no matter what I say below. If you’ve got a hankering for a good story, high amounts of customization, and arcade game references abound this game is for you. And never fear, I’m leaving spoilers out of my lists. (As of writing this review there were still some wrinkles in the game but the dev team seems very on top of it when it’s reported. Don’t let the fact they are there dissuade you from buying the game.) I will update this review pending further play time and any additional content that might get released.
– Real player with 31.4 hrs in game
Paper Shakespeare: Loves Labor(s) Lost
Bad
– Real player with 0.8 hrs in game
Read More: Best Dating Sim Hand-drawn Games.
I must have got this in a bundle. Dream Quest taught me that a great game can have terrible art, so I gave it a try. It’s bad. Stick figures spout boring dialogue based on one of Shakespeare’s plays. There’s no clever twist. It’s just awful.
– Real player with 0.5 hrs in game
Arcade Spirits: The New Challengers
In the distant future year 20XX, an alternate timeline where arcades never went away… you’re an aspiring gamer searching for esports glory on the Fist of Discomfort 2 Pro Tour. Seeking a partner to play with, you join a team of players who hang out at Good Clean Fun, a combination pizzeria / laundromat / arcade. It’s up to you to rally the team, learning more about who they are and how best to support their dreams along the way. Defeat rivals, conquer tournaments, build relationships, and uncover a strange arcade conspiracy as your team walks the road to victory!
With these features you know and love from Arcade Spirits:
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Six new characters to befriend and romance, as well as a few return appearances by series favorites.
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Character art by Molly Nemecek and pulsating synthwave tunes by Greg Mirles!
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Measure your personality using Iris, your handy virtual assistant. You can be Kindly, Steady, Quirky, Gutsy, or Flexibly!
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Date anyone you like regardless of your pronouns, or focus entirely on building friendships.
And NEW features to the series:
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Import your decisions from Arcade Spirits, and reshape the world of 20XX based on the choices you’ve made! If you haven’t played the original game, that’s fine – this works just as well as a standalone experience and will adapt itself to be a great fresh start.
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A massively expanded character creator – choose body type, hairstyles, accessories, clothing, and more. Your custom character now appears on screen during the whole game!
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Design your own rival! Using the full power of the character creator, craft the one who will stand in your way. Or will perhaps love bloom between these two enemies…?
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Take on the world in Fist of Discomfort 2, a strategy minigame. Your victory or defeat changes the path of your story without ending it! (Minigame is skippable.)
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Rebalanced personality choices, with more variety and more opportunities to talk to every character.
Prodigal
–- Review Update after 500+ hours below —
—Previous Edits have been made more succinct —
PreReview:
It has some minor influence in Zelda. I’d say there is a greater amalgam of original ideas at play that you don’t get to see when presuming its just a Zelda clone.
Great writing, evident character diversity, and heart-tugging dialogue that was never quite there with classic Zelda games. Can’t compare them at the moment, except for being a classic style adventure game.
Oh, and the OST absolutely smacks.
– Real player with 610.9 hrs in game
Easy recommendation.
While looking like a simple Gameboy game, Prodigal displays a very competent understanding of level design, narrative structure, and character development. Many games on the market emulate older, retro-style games with varying degrees of success. Prodigal not only nails it completely, but also builds upon it with modern techniques and inventive ideas.
The dungeons you explore in the first half of the game are paced well, following a classic formula established by the Legend of Zelda series where you gain new items. The second half of the game takes all your abilities into consideration and bases the dungeons around using all your abilities along with any dungeon gimmicks. In addition, there are optional dungeons with unique bosses you can find based on your town progression.
– Real player with 46.4 hrs in game
Mokoko X
About
Mokoko X was inspired from the arcade games like Volfied, Qix and Gals Panic. A popular gaming style in the late 1980’s, Mokoko X looks to resurrect the soul of the arcade genre while adding a modern touch. There are 32 levels in Mokoko X; each level has its own unique boss and minions. The main goal is assisting the girls that need help from the weird bosses. This is sometimes passing a mobile game level, sometimes helping out with the insects in the kitchen.
Gameplay
You need to conquer a big portion of the initial area that you start the level. While you are in your own area, you are safe from the enemies until your shield empties. You conquer new areas by drawing out of your area. Drawing, however, deactivates your shield and exposes you to danger. Your shield decreases constantly. If you do not conquer at a certain frequency, your shield will burn out and you will not be safe on your own areas as well.
There are 3 difficulties in the game. The difficulty affects enemies, your shield, and required conquered area percentage for the victory.
What happens when you pass a level?
You see the related girl’s photo and can continue with her story or unlock the next girl.
How many girls and bosses?
8 girls, 24 bosses, 24 minions, 24 levels, 8 mega levels, 4 traps, 4 power-ups, and 2 towers! Evil towers of course. Each boss and his minions were uniquely designed. They all have different attack types and behaviors, which consist of rich content.
Key Features
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8 girls to help
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32 levels with 24 unique bosses with their minions
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24 absurd stories that will reveal details about the bosses and the girls
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Fully animated, Japanese and English voice overs for all the characters!
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Lovely graphics!
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Traps, towers, crates and bonus effects
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Arcade Mode
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Live high scores displayed for hardcore players
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Nostalgia remastered!
Stories
Have you ever asked these questions to yourself:
How do you stop a heartless but not soulless emperor?
Can someone be a gyroscope and a guard dog at the same time?
Why do those ducks attack us?
Are there really demonic headphones in the world?
Why do lizardmen need a plastic toy for summoning their god?
How do you become a villain after revolting against the ant queen?
What do scientists want from Albert the wonderful sea creature?
Well, Mokoko X answers all these questions and more!
Here are some missions!
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Help out Iren with her arachnophobia and fight with the imaginary spider Mr.Fyodorov.
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Protect Tiffany’s house from getting pillaged by the ghost pirates stuck inside the anchors. They were not the bane of Seven Seas - the crew was killed in their first naval battle.
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Toru wished to be a mosquito to annoy people. A local witch heard him, and transformed him into a mosquito. Now he causes trouble to people every night.
Fight against the weird enemies…
… and learn about their absurd stories!
Monster Garden
Monster Garden is garish and creepy. When I first started playing, I wanted to stop because it made me feel uncomfortable, not in a bad way though. But because I heard that the playthroughs were so short, I decided to keep playing. The more I played, the more I wanted to see, I wanted to figure out more about what this game was and what it was saying. I still felt uncomfortable playing it, but I started to really like it as well. It became almost calming to play. I won’t say the game was perfect, it had some bugs and in some places it was a bit overwritten. It can be a little tedious to get all the endings, but it was able to stay fresh through all the playthroughs I did, probably because it was a hard game to acclimatise to. When finishing the whole game, there are still a lot of questions that go unanswered and a lot of loose strings left hanging, but this feels like it’s intended to keep you still a little bit interested in the world. The music was good, the story was interesting and each playthrough gave you something new. Even with its flaws I found charm. The best way to describe this game is found in the game itself, ‘…both beautiful and deeply unsettling.’ I really liked it, but you may want to avoid it if you don’t like weird, short indie games.
– Real player with 10.5 hrs in game
Monster Garden is an adventure game that involves finding monster friends to bring to your garden. The more friends you have the better your garden turns out. My first playthrough took about 30 mins to complete. There are also achievements and different ending so it will take you longer if you want to experience everything. Though you will be doing a lot of the same things over and over again so it can feel repetitive after the first time.
The art style is simple and cute which led me to believe the game would be more silly and funny but the story is actually a lot darker then it’s look would suggest. All monsters have very different personalities, some even seem to have some kind of psychosis problem but all are likeable in there own way.
– Real player with 4.2 hrs in game
Emily is Away
SPOILERS
If you’re expecting more than one ending, this isn’t the game for you.
To be honest, I wish we had a more complex review system, like stars or something. Although my experience was negative, I don’t completely dislike it.
The biggest upside for me was seeing how people’s status pages change over time, as their lives go on.
What frustrated me is that, in the end, your choices don’t matter. And it’s not just that you don’t get to be with Emily. For instance, you have the possibility of making her date Travis instead of Brad. When I entered this ‘route’ I thought something would change, but it turns out that even though Brad and Travis have different stories, they are exactly the same. The dialogues about them don’t change, except for the name.
– Real player with 5.0 hrs in game
I want to preface by saying I really enjoyed the game interface, graphics and sound effects. They were quite nostalgic. However, having to press keys to type the sentences became a hassle after the first playthrough.
My sole reason for not recommending this game is Emily, or rather the dead end that Emily consistently pushes you into. In the beginning she is probably a good representation of a moody, angsty teen that we all once were on MSN with deep lyrics in our messages. Ultimately though, it doesn’t matter whether you’re indifferent or a supportive friend - she will claim to have once had feelings for you but not any longer. If you hook up then she accuses you of ‘planning’ it and says she was ‘vulnerable’. Please forgive me for trying to plan a nice weekend for you to help you get over your break up! As for the vulernable comment, I don’t get the feeling that the protagnoist (i.e. the player) did anything bad (e.g. purposely plied Emily with alochol or pressured her to get physical). Therefore, despite saying she might fancy you, she decides after hooking up that it’s your fault you hooked up and she doesn’t really like you after all. If you don’t hook up with her, she says she wishes you made a move because she did like you, but doesn’t now. Throughout the game, Emily seems to make everything someone else’s fault and I really disliked her after the first playthrough, but came to hate her after the second and third. Honestly, I wouldn’t have continued talking to her after the first year.
– Real player with 2.6 hrs in game
Emily is Away Too
Spoiler free review! Both for this game and the first!
Now to start off this review is that I got this game for like 2 dollars on the steam market, off sale right now it is 5 dollars. This may seem like a lot for a simple click and typing game yet that is not the case, here is how I view it. People will pay millions to own pieces of art, millions more to have custom pieces of art, and normal people will pay like 20 dollars to go into an art museum. This game is only 5 dollars and many, including myself, would consider this game a work of art. Not that it’s visually appealing to the eyes or anything, but that it tells a simple story, one of love, in a masterful style. So please before you read further into this review don’t let the price of the product in mention deter you from purchasing it, there are plenty of Triple A games at 60 dollars that tell little to no story and have mediocre gameplay at best.
– Real player with 11.7 hrs in game
I’ve bought this game a while ago, and just recently that I decided to give it a try. I really enjoyed Emily is Away , and this second title was very good. It’s not exactly a sequel, though, maybe more like an “extended version”? If I recall correctly, the first game had a few significant differences regarding the timeline of certain scenes. Also, you don’t have to play the first part to understand this one.
The plot is simple: you can choose a name and username and you get to chat with your friends through an old school looking instant messenger. You have your good friend Emily, and this time, a new friend shows up: Evelyn. Emily and Evelyn believe in different things, and it’s up to you to figure those differences. Depending on what you choose to say to them, you can remain as friends or even start dating. And there are bad endings too.
! (Like if you choose to lie to one of them about your personality) Emily’s personality is a bit better than in the first game, but she can still be annoying sometimes. Evelyn was more chill, and I happened to like her better.
– Real player with 9.0 hrs in game
Unlucky Seven
(Early Access Review. As an early access release, you may experience bugs, content, interface and optimization changes. If you are not excited to play the title in its current state to help support the title to full release, by reporting bugs and requesting additional content, you may want to wait for further development.)
In a far off universe, a crew of drunken oddballs is headed to an alcoholics anonymous meeting. They decide to abandon the meeting to go to one of the crew member’s father’s luxurious motel to celebrate her birthday. Their ship is in major need of repairs, by some miracle (or their alcoholic stupor) they manage to make it to the motel. They get settled in and prepare for the celebration. What they don’t know is that a dark secret hangs over the motel owner, as the special ingredient to the most popular liquor in this universe is meat bags and brains. The servants are all robots that are chained and held prisoner; can they aid you? Or will they turn on you in this bizarre world you’re in. This adventure will have hard choices for you to make, and every action will change how your story plays out. The lives of your crew are at stake; who lives and who dies depends upon your choices.
– Real player with 8.1 hrs in game
The premise seemed cool and I was following it for quite a while. The anthropomorphic characters and retro sci-fi feel looked really promising and unique. The story was… a bit taxing, but in the end it turned out to be somewhat interesting! But after suffering through bugs, awful mechanics, and constant progression blockers, I just can’t get into it. The plot is very confusing and alien right off the bat, which is fine in itself, but you have to figure out most things via context clues as you’re flung into this world without anyone holding your hand, and are just expected to learn as you go.
– Real player with 6.4 hrs in game