Videogame Reviews: Angelic Waves

A heavenly experience embedded in a slice of life Dating Sim.

Game’s details:

Genre: Slice of Life, Romance, Drama
Classification: Dating Sim
Supported System: Windows 7 or higher
Developer: Bus Arrows Studios
Platform: Steam, Itch.io
Price: €8.99
Gameplay: ~5h

CW: alcohol addiction, depression

A curious encounter:

On his way home from a close friend’s place, Maxwell Cross stumbles upon a trio of female friends happening to be in the middle of moving into the most luxurious apartment of the same building our main character is residing at.

After helping them out with carrying in boxes and making small talk, they come to a mutual will to getting acquainted – both as neighbours and friends.

This is how Maxwell receives an invitation party hosted by the newly arrived residents – Geline, Roya and Anabelle. A great opportunity to become closer to the three, and an eventual challenge for our main character suffering from social anxiety willing to grow more as a person.

After spending more time around Geline, Roya and Anabelle, Maxwell becomes closer to the girls. However, the situation cannot stay the same as the affection is growing stronger.

Maxwell has now to decide whom to ask out on a date.

A rigid pace of events:

The game does have a solid premise, however after a while the interactive turning point does get repetitive and forced coming to any path you choose.

For example the part where all of the girls are asking you to help them look for single things at the supermarket giving you a chance to interact with each one of them.

I find neat the classic idea of meeting up at a grocery store – it is casual and happens in a natural environment, but the approach used and the chosen dialogues did result quite forced.

As well as, we will have the party scene offering the possibility to interact with each one of the heroines; all dialogue choices will present repetitive comments towards the girls while being deep in thought.

It also does get odd to see how you encounter the girls at each step you take, wherever you go.
There will be a point when you begin meeting all of the girls at their workplaces while being outside, seems like our MC cannot even take a five minute walk without having to greet one of the heroines.

Being a Dating Sim it sure is understandable there would be less details to the story and no real routes to take, if not choosing the girl you want to get closer to, however, I personally would have preferred if the choices would not have resulted as stiff and direct as in the scenes I mentioned above.
In my opinion adding some tiny details such as more dialogue before the abrupt choices take place and differentiating the dialogues while approaching the girls would make a huge difference.

The taken paths:

This story may be presented as simple, yet sure is enjoyable. What I also find important to mention is that the game follows the same pattern no matter whom you may choose. You will witness more or less identical dialogues at the beginning no matter whom you date, and the overall direction of the story may be pretty much the same. At some point you will have different activities with each of them, different places to visit and CGs, but the ups and downs you will face with your date will present a shared arrangement of other heroines.

This feature in particular, did not make me interested in reading carefully through all three of the offered stories after completing one. A skip option during shared dialogues may be an useful perk, given at some points the dialogues are the same and what is different is whom you address at the given time.

Featurings:

This is a light-hearted Dating Sim where you can choose which girl to get closer to. At hand, we do have three different girls with distinct personalities of their own, and two endings per each.
The story will also offer a pinch of realistic drama and supernatural elements.

The game will be accompanied by partial voice acting during dialogues that will result quite expressive bringing a highly positive impact to the public.

The character sprite art style is personally not up to my taste, but portrays well the aura of displayed personages.

In the long run, many CGs will be offered, and while I had mixed feelings about having CG art realized by different artists with noticeably different art-styles (mainly when presented subsequently), a big flaw in all this is that many of the CGs appear stretched – not looking good at all nonetheless the art is well done, nor does this error bring justice to the portrayed in-game scenes.

There will also be quality landscape art and pleasant BGM offering typical slice of life sounds.

The game does present grammatical errors and occasionally the characters’ name will be misplaced during dialogues.

Overall:

Personally did notice numerous weak spots in this title, still considering they can be improved and the solid ideas put in this game, I do recommend it. However keep in mind you won’t get a variety of routes unlike in Visual Novels with branching paths as the story will result into an analogous experience coming to any heroine you decide to choose.