I did say I was going to be coming back to this one. I’m quite a bit late (two months, given that I’d intended to get to this on launch weekend), but real life does have a way of interfering with those sorts of plans, so I’m not too disappointed about that.
That and it’s hard to feel unhappy about anything when this game has done an incredible job of living up to the high expectations I had for it. Arcade Spirits has been memorable in a way that all too few of my visual novels have managed - going all the way back to the old Key/Visual Arts games that brought me into this medium. At its best, this medium allows for some very powerful, moving stories with the sort of player interaction that’s difficult in other mediums but without the distraction that more involved gameplay can be. This game lives up to that ideal and then some; even some of the clichés the story uses merely add to the charm.
I’ll put more details below for anyone that wants to read in detail what I did and didn’t like about the story, but since that will involve some serious spoilers, I’ll put my summary here so that everyone can read it: Whether or not you like visual novels, I highly recommend you try this one. I can’t promise it will resonate with you the same way it did for me, but it's still good enough to be worth a shot.
So for the detailed talk about the story: Pretty much everything I have to say is positive, and even the one exception is less a serious problem and more a choice I might have made differently.
I will start with that exception and get it out of the way: I almost feel like the story was wrapped up too neatly. Maybe I'm just too used to my Key visual novels and their tragic endings, but it felt a bit too quick and easy (a bit clichéd) for the main characters to simply discover that Deco was working behind the scenes to interfere with them and then go convince his minions to turn against him. I don't quite think that's a problem, though, mostly because there's not much I can see to change that without turning the story into a tragedy (which was definitely not what the authors wanted to do). I suppose I might have spent more time going over what the characters tried to do to repair their arcade's reputation with more standard PR, but that could have added more to the story than was really necessary. (Also I had my chance to offer that feedback when it would have been more useful, and didn't, so I'm not inclined to complain too much.)
With that said, most everything else just felt right and very realistic. The main character's personality and conflicts were very easy to understand, didn't rely on them making obvious mistakes to move the story forward, and still allows the player to make plenty of decisions about how they want it to be done. Even with the alignment/personality indicators left on, it was easy to focus on what I wanted to say rather than worrying about the alignment points, and the choices were written quite well to match their alignment without being too exaggerated. I liked the pacing of the story, as well; it spent enough time (but not too much) on the basic, initial problems to get me invested in the characters and enjoying their initial success before dropping the real hammer on them... and while I mentioned some concerns above about that part, I still enjoyed their victory quite a bit.
I also liked the way the romance was handled. Some visual novels don't allow one to reach the good endings without romancing someone, and while it's not something I'd criticize them for too strongly, I do enjoy having the choice to romance no one if I want. I also like how the game treats it as utterly natural and unremarkable that the main character might want to romance any of the guys or girls in the main cast; most visual novels don't give one that option.
I still haven't gone for 100% completion (which I will do eventually), but I can fairly easily see how the core of the story is probably going to remain the same regardless of who I romance and what decisions I make about the direction I want to take the arcade in.
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