Arcadia Fallen is a compelling and queer tale
My first impression of Arcadia Fallen was one of cosy familiarity. While I’m not an expert in the genre by any means, I’ve played enough visual novels to recognise the tropes and staples. With the promise of queer romance, a few recognisable names in the excellent voice cast, and a crisp, clean art style, I was expecting a comfortable, unremarkable jaunt – the video game equivalent of a favourite hoodie.
What I actually got was more akin to putting on the hoodie, rummaging through the pockets, and discovering twenty quid, a half-eaten Mars bar, and a knife. Y’know, for your heart.
Arcadia Fallen is an LGBTQ+ friendly visual novel that was released on Steam and Itch.io late last year, and has recently popped up on Switch. It’s the latter version I played and it’s absolutely the sort of game I’d rather play curled up on the sofa than sitting at my desk, so keep that in mind when making a purchasing decision.
The player is cast as an apprentice alchemist living a humble existence in the sort of medieval fantasy setting that appears, on first glance, to be almost eye-rollingly generic. Incidents occur, the protagonist is thrust into the middle of events that grow exponentially in scope and stakes, accumulating an entourage of misfits and weirdos along the way. I hope this brief overview goes some way to explaining my initial slightly dismissive attitude.
Where the aforementioned surprise cash and confectionary appears is in the sheer quality of construction. It can be hard to gauge the quality of a VN until you’ve spent some time with it (don’t judge a visual novel by its visual cover, or something), and the more I played Arcadia Fallen, the more it ticked all the right boxes. Straight out of the gate you’re presented with a pleasingly concise character creator. There aren’t a tonne of options but, crucially, they’re all the right ones for a game aimed at a queer audience. Face type, body type, pronouns, and voice are all selected separately. Outfits are fixed, there are only a couple of hair options for each face and you’ll be skinny and conventionally attractive no matter what you choose, but it’s still a lot better than I’ve come to expect. You may not be able to replicate yourself, but you should be able to create an avatar that you feel comfortable with.
Venturing into the game proper and I continued to be impressed with how well-executed everything was. The tone, as well as content, of dialogue options is highlighted, allowing you to roleplay effortlessly and avoid those annoying moments where you think you’re engaging in cheeky banter, but the actual dialogue comes off as cold or cruel. Vital, game-altering choices are clearly presented as such, and the game always lets you know if a given conversation is going to move the story on, allowing you to mop up all the optional encounters first.
It’s with these big decisions that the knife comes into play, with some genuinely tough choices appearing, especially towards the end of the game. More than once I was jabbed right in the feels, and the game does a fantastic job of putting the player’s ideals to the test.
Arcadia Fallen also features a touch of puzzles revolving around the protagonist’s profession of alchemy. It’s a symbol matching game featuring rotating disks on an alchemy table. It’s a simple process, with no fail states on any of the essential puzzles, but you are presented with an optional challenge in the form of completing recipes under tight restrictions. I became quite engrossed in it, although I can see some folks finding it an unwelcome distraction and it’s a shame that there isn’t an option, as far as I could see, to skip the puzzles entirely.
The unskippable puzzles are one of a handful of small issues with the game. The map screen is a flaw in the otherwise impeccable UI, with your selected location not being highlighted clearly enough. I also felt a little railroaded by the romance options. There are four on offer, two male, two female and they’re all such strong personalities that my decision of which to pursue was a process of elimination, rather than an active choice on my part. I personally would have liked to smooch non-binary nature mage Quinn instead of the available options.
These are minor issues and do little to marr an otherwise lovely game, one which I hope gains a wide audience. It sits at the more interactive, RPG-like end of the visual novel spectrum, and provides a compelling and robust tale hiding beneath a veneer of comforting familiarity. While I did get the heartwarming experience I’d expected, perfect for a dreary January, I got a lot more than I bargained for along the way.
Score: 4/5
A copy of Arcadia Fallen for Nintendo Switch was provided to Gayming Magazine by the publisher.
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