July 16th, 2025: Arcade Spirits Review

I'm veeeery slowly trying to work through my backlog of charity bundle games before spending another penny on buying newer games, this means I get to play older indie games that are considered more niche. That and I'm also working on my epic games free games backlog but!!!! there are fewer games that interest me on epic than on itchio. Among the charity bundles, there are a lot of visual novels. It's straightforwardly a simple concept and smaller indie devs like to test the waters by doing something like a VN. And a smaller subsection of VNs are dating sims! Which is our focus for this blog post.

Arcade spirits was released in early 2019, which doesn't make it old by any means but puts it in a context that this game is 6 years old, and heck it's even got a sequel out now. What I'm saying is that I expect slightly out-dated mechanics from it -and I'll get to that in a moment.

You could choose which gender you play as who to romance in a cast of 6 characters (or romance none at all!). Your character has dialogue options that are labeled as "kind/gutsy/logical/funny/neutral" that affect the plot and character interactions. It's set in an arcade workplace setting as you navigate workplace politics and nerding out about video games, ahem, arcade games. Very straightforward branching paths visual novel and story.

I find the personality dialogue options to be very rigid and hand-holdy. The icons next to the dialogue options indicating what "personality" a choice is can be turned off, but during important scenes you're hand-held again by the game crossing out unsuccessful options (choices that dont allign with your "personality," basically). If you're new to the whole visual novel dating sim genre, this might be helpful as best but condecending at worst. To contrast this, think of Monster Prom, it gives you "personality" points and lets you build up your "skills", but during character interactions you have to figure out, through the dialogue alone, which is likely to be more successful by comparing it to your in-game stats. That or you're like me a use a guide, whoops! To be frank I find it difficult to parse monster prom answers because they feel so similar to eachother! But this isn't about monster prom, back to arcade spirits.

My first choice of love interest is Naomi! I find her to be a straightforward, likeable nerdy character. She's quirky, she's kind, and she's strongly intertwined with the whole concept of an arcade based visual novel game. My second pick was Ashley. She's much more complex and has a bit more depth than Naomi, her arc is more compelling emotionally, although I do feel like the LI's arcs are very short and secondary to the main plot.

The plot. Ah yes, how could I have forgotten that. Spoilers from here on out. You, MC, are a down-on-your-luck type guy and is persuaded by your BFF roommate to use an AI that can find you a job. It lands you a job at a small arcade as a floor attendant. Through a series of tomfoolery you get to know your coworkers, your boss (a grandma who owns the place), the arcade regulars and other side characters. To bolster the arcade's reputation you, MC, hold an arcade event. It goes well, and it attracts the attention of an arcade competitor who wants to buy you out. If you say no to the buyout, he swears to become your enemy. The very next day, grandma dies, and her next of kin sell out the arcade anyway to the aformentioned rival. After a week of depression, your coworkers and BFF stage an intervention. Inspired by this, you, MC, think of creating a newer arcade to beat your competitor's ass. With the help of some side characters' money and your coworkers' know-how, you manage to make a new arcade+. Opening day was catastrophic, and you later learn that it was a sabotage effort instead of a series of bad luck. Through sleuthing you manage to find out that your rival sent his daughter's teen gang to sabotage your opening day. You manage to make his daughter turn on him, rat his sketchy ass to the authorities, and save your arcade+'s reputation. Oh, and you live forever after with your LI of choice.

Plot-wise, fine. I don't have any issues with the story. It has neatly defined story beats and that's not a bad thing. Romance-wise? You can choose to either start your first impressions flirty or save it for the second half of the story. I tried both routes and I recommend you go with a flirty introduction to get more bang for your buck if you're after the LIs. If you choose to start platonic and work your way to romantic, you get fewer romantic scenes. Who you romance does not alter the main plot. Unlike in, say, mystic messenger, where your LI of choice brings you down drastically different stories, Arcade Spirits stays true to its original plot and instead treats you with character interactions and slightly different approaches based on your "personality" choices.

Character-wise, you, MC, are not a blank slate. You have a family history and a backstory. I think it gives MC more depth this way. As for the LIs, there's Strict Manager, Techie Gamer, Cosplaying Blonde, Hotheaded Gamer, Jock Dancer, and Rich British Gamer. These are massive oversimplifcations but I just needed to get this point across- the characters are heavily entwined with gaming but each have their own personalities and ways or relating to the arcade. I think it's a nice mix and maybe I'll get around to playing every one of their romantic routes.

One more thing to note! There are very few, if any, traditional "CGs," there are character assets and MC does get shown in some of them (you get to customize MC!), but apart from the ending CG and midway romance scene, there's very few images to "collect" of the LIs compared to, say, mystic messenger.

Okay, this has been long, so lastly let's talk about mechanics. I mentioned earlier that there is a "personality" metric, and your high-tech AI will give you a recap of not only your personality "points," but your bond with each of the characters. It's a very explicit gamification of romancing LIs. Which can be some people's preference, but I do know some people like a more subtle and complex way of romancing LIs that obscures the math done behind the scenes.

Let's wrap this up. I would give this game a 3.8 out of 5. Not great enough to be a 4-star in my dating sim experience, but good enough plot-wise as a solid VN (good length as well). The mechanics are very straightforward and I would not recommend this if you like subtle, obscured, complex dating sims that hide the math of attraction. The game is very easy to "read" and "master" as the game does not ask you for many skills in parsing a VN/Dating sim. It's good for players trying to sus out the dating sim genre but may have some trouble in choosing the "right" options. This game will consistently direct you towards the correct options, so chances of failure is very low. Great for people trying to gamify dating sims, not so great if you want to think they're real, complex people.