Wales Interactive is an odd goose in today’s gaming industry. Despite dabbling with some survival horror games every now and then, the company has carved an interesting niche by heavily focusing on FMV-based adventure titles, which are essentially interactive movies where all you really need to do is pick up an option and watch your decisions unfold. Their games have never been outright terrible, but they have never managed to stand out more than being just novelty titles released once a year. I do have to praise the fact that Late Shift, The Complex, and Night Book, the three FMV games I’ve played from them in the past, have all tried to tackle different movie genres. Their newest title, Ten Dates, for instance, is a casual, laid-back romantic adventure, with some slight humor thrown into the mix.

Ten Dates is actually a sequel to a previously released game by Wales Interactive, one I did not review back at launch, called Five Dates. The premise is as obvious as the title might suggest: while its predecessor allowed you to meet and potentially hook up with five singles ready to mingle, Ten Dates has twice as many possibilities. It does this by letting you “play” as two different characters, each with four different heterosexual outcomes, as well as a same-sex date for each.

When reviewing these games, I feel less like a game reviewer and more like a subpar movie critic. All you can do in terms of gameplay is choose between a few dialogue options to move the plot forward. You start out in a speed dating pub and you grab a few social media handles. After that, you can choose two of these singles and take them out on actual dates. Keep doing what you do until one of them becomes your special someone.

The fact the game doesn’t have a lot of actual gameplay didn’t annoy me that much. I mean, sure, it limits the hell out of its lasting appeal and enjoyment, but for one run, it wasn’t that bad. I think the fact Wales Interactive didn’t try to come up with a blockbuster on a budget was what made me enjoy Ten Dates more than expected. It’s not a sci-fi like The Complex or a thriller like Late Shift. It’s a simple rom-com, with a handful of well-written characters and another handful of annoying ones. Seriously, f*** Brandy.

By not relying on cheap special effects (The Complex) or footage entirely comprised of CCTV or webcams (Night Book), Ten Dates feels more believable and natural to the eyes. That being said, a chunk of it is still shot in phone cameras, during some dialogue sections, and the fact it’s mostly set inside pubs and bars doesn’t make its lighting look as good as some of Wales Interactive’s more ambitious movie/games. One thing that has been improved, however, was the acting itself. Although some characters were downright annoying, their actors did a pretty good job. I blamed the script, not the actors themselves. It’s hard to make a chick who’s into NFTs and crypto sound anything less than the worst human being on Earth, for instance.

What might irritate some people is the fact that, well, the game is all about dating. It’s a dating simulator disguised as a movie. Single people might feel anxious having to deal with a fake version of what they deal with in real life, while people on a relationship might actually remember how not great it was to go through the dating game with lots of different people and insecurities oozing through everyone’s pores.

Just like other FMV-based games by Wales Interactive, Ten Dates is not an easy sell. You need to be into this different kind of visual novel with limited interactivity, you need to like dating sims, and you need to like rom-coms. With all that said and done, Ten Dates might be my favorite Wales Interactive game so far. The simple fact the company did not try to punch above its weight with special effects or a ludicrous story resulted in a pleasant pastime. 

 

Graphics: 7.5 Better than Night Book, with less “phone camera footage”, but nowhere near as well-shot or lit as The Complex or Late Shift.	Gameplay: 6.0 Choose between option A or option B. That’s the entire gameplay. Every now and then there’s also an option C. If you’re lucky, D.
Sound: 8.5 Really good acting from all characters makes the entire plot feel believable and natural. A few characters are downright annoying, but I blame the script, not the actors’ performances.	Fun Factor: 6.5 It’s a dating simulator disguised as a FMV title. The sheer amount of singles at your disposal does make the game somewhat replayable, even though the flirting game gets boring quickly.
Final Verdict: 7.0

Ten Dates is available now on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X, PC, and Switch.

Reviewed on Intel i7-12700H, 16GB RAM, RTX 3060 6GB.

A copy of Ten Dates was provided by the publisher.