Arcade Paradise Review: Satisfying Rinse And Repeat Nostalgia
Arcade Paradise is about 90’s nostalgia, reveling in the toil and monotony of a working teen and subtle yet serviceable family turmoil. Luckily, it’s wrapped in just the right amount of management sim systems and over thirty original arcade cabinets to play at your leisure or even when on the clock. Arcade Paradise’s facets aren’t necessarily wholly complementary to one another, but the amount in which each one takes center stage seems deliberate and successful overall. Besides a few needed tweaks and minor technical hiccups, Grindstone’s family-owned King Wash appears poised for monetarily and critical success.
Nineties Overload
Immediately upon entering King Wash on day one, you are thrashed back to the 90’s. The retro-inspired cabinets are more than enough to sell such a vibe, but with the addition of deliberate coloring, owning a PDA instead of a smartphone, web pages I haven’t seen in ages, soundtracks via the jukebox or the games themselves, and cover art for each cabinet, the nostalgic era of the 90’s lives on.
Regarding accessibility, several languages are available in the menu, toggle options are available as opposed to holding, players can zoom, sprint, invert the y-axis, and even utilize a crosshair. Subtitles are a bright spot with size, color, and background options. Beyond that, not much more is offered. While I didn’t need any more assistance, I can see some aspects of the moment-to-moment sim management becoming a little frustrating with how precise you are forced to be without any real genuine solution. Attempting to grab trash in specific spots on the floor can prove troublesome, as well as emptying hoppers due to having to look at them just right to interact with them.
Technical Difficulties, Call 1-800…
Technically, I had a few issues. Playing on Nintendo Switch, I cannot speak for how the visuals compare, but playing both docked and handheld proved more than serviceable in terms of quality. Yet, reflections appear completely bugged as they will flash and drastically alter the coloring of objects depending on the angle you are looking at them. While the reflections and coloring didn’t deter me from playing in any way, it was distracting. I experienced some hard crashes and a few freezes, but luckily the game’s autosave feature is very accurate, and I never once lost progress. Every time I progressed in upgrading my arcade to a particular milestone, the next day, a cutscene would ensue upon entering, but for me, it would glitch every single time and force me to restart.
Specifically when playing cabinets, your hand will pop up to alert you of a laundry task. Yet, this would block the screen significantly enough to alter your ability to play effectively. Additionally, the game will occasionally hitch or freeze, causing you to sensibly teleport a short distance. During typical sim activities, the hitching isn’t a genuine problem, but playing an arcade cabinet of any kind does dampen your ability to play.
Lastly, the people that enter your launderette or arcade disappear when you approach them. I took this as both a presentation choice as well as a gameplay choice. Regarding the presentation aspect, the people will essentially dissipate once you get close, but for every foot or so you are away, it appears as if how they dissipate happens in terms of bits. For example, if you are three feet away, the person’s appearance appears in 64-bit, two feet away; 32-bit, 1 foot away; 16-bit, etc. Once you get close enough, they disappear, which brings up my proposed gameplay purpose. Players will need to interact with several objects to progress; if the person is in the way of that object, you simply can’t. Therefore, they disappear so that problem doesn’t persist.
A Family Affair
You play as Ashley taking over her father’s laundromat. Your father, the only voice-acted character, is stern with you and merely focuses on your future as he sees it and how he came into his business ventures back in his day. Despite completely downplaying your ambitions and ultimately forcing you to run this laundromat, your father encounters a few revelations about you in his own way as you progress until he eventually stops checking in on you almost entirely. Still, it’s always very simplistic and vague. However, since your father is very cagey, you hide your actual investment in the cabinets from him.
Additionally, your sister messages you through direct messaging on the computer about expanding the arcade business, a few relatable encounters they share with their father, and a few mentions of an absent mother. While the character interactions here are all you get because the people or customers in the arcade cannot be approached, let alone conversed with, it feels deliberately on the back burner with playing the cabinets and the light management sim shining far brighter. While I could have used a lot more in terms of the depth of these said interactions, it feels deliberately utilized a small amount and does the job well enough.
Management With an Extra Spin Cycle
As someone who doesn’t traditionally stick with management sims as a genre, I was delighted by how lightly it was included. In terms of everything outside of the arcade cabinets in the back of King Wash, players can clean the toilet, pick up trash, throw away the trash, pick gum off of objects, wash laundry, dry laundry, buy cabinets, upgrades, or records on the computer, or deposit your money in the safe in the back. As far as the sim goes, it’s simple, doesn’t bombard you, is easy to understand with a ranked S, A, B, and C grading system, and assists with the satisfying push and pull of running the business or saying screw it and playing a fun cabinet, darts, or pool. I didn’t expect to enjoy this level of choice, but it flared my nerves just enough.
Time legitimately flies by as you play. A full day takes around ten minutes. Luckily, Ashley’s PDA stops time. So if you want to strategize or just play a little Llama, a mobile game homage to Chrome Dino, the PDA allows you to do so without wasting time. On the PDA, you can also edit cabinets’ price and difficulty to assist with its reception, as well as view leaderboards and goals or achievements for the cabinets that, upon completion, earn you some spending money for specifically upgrades or records for the jukebox. These goals are relatively simple, but some take some time. For instance, score five goals in air hockey or destroy 5000 blocks on Golddigger. Some goals are staples that remain throughout your entire playthrough to be completed, while others are daily goals for specific cabinets or laundry duties.
Once you progress far enough by spending your hard-earned coin on new cabinets, you can add more space in the back for a price. Once you do, a new cabinets catalog appears for you to buy. Every cabinet has its leaderboards for you and other players and its own progression. Cabinets can even break down, activating a sequence of you flicking cockroaches off the cabinets’ motherboard. Lastly, specific cabinets or games have multiplayer as an option. While I never played one, including the option here seems a very nice touch.
Breakdown
Game: Arcade Paradise
Developer: Nosebleed Interactive
Availability: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4/5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Microsoft Windows
Reviewed on Nintendo Switch
Pros:
+ Fun soundtrack
+ The right amount of sim management
+ Cabinets with progression
+ Fun push and pull
+ 90s nostalgia
Cons:
- Freezes and crashes
- Little person-to-person interaction
- Troublesome inputs when grabbing trash or hoppers
Final Thoughts
Arcade Paradise is fun for management sim players, arcade cabinet lovers, or even new players. Somehow, this unlikely pairing of genres works way more than I could have ever anticipated. The sim management gameplay is simple and light, the cabinets are all fun with natural progression, and the 90s nostalgia, while only effective for some, is spot on. While I wanted more from the narrative, I can’t fault them for what was there. The King Wash arcade has become comfort food for me on my Switch, and I think it could for you too.
Reviewed by Austin Ernst