Ten Dates Review

Ten Dates is the sequel to 2021’s interactive rom-com, Five Dates. This time around, the game follows Misha, who tricked her best friend, Ryan, to attend a speed-dating event with her in hopes they both find that elusive in-person connection. After choosing your character of choice, you’ll have to set up a “profile” by choosing a profile picture, job, interests, and astrological sign (why? I don’t know why?). Some choices will impact conversations; especially when people ask about your work.

As with other Wales Interactive games, Ten Dates is more of an interactive movie than a game. The way this works is that at specific times throughout this experience, you’ll be prompted to make a choice between two or more options in order to keep the conversation going… or cut it short if you aren’t enjoying the other person’s conversational skills. Most of the games the characters play to keep the conversation going are actually really interesting (truth or dare, 2 truths and 1 lie).

The big benefit of these types of experiences is definitely the replay value. Both Ryan and Misha have four suitors from the speed dating experience and an extra same-sex suitor which isn’t “planned” in the whole event. Once you’ve gone through the event, both characters meet up and this is where as the one you play decides who is gonna get a second date with the person you met.

Once the second date is done, you’ll be able to narrow it done to two choices and decide which one you’ll take on a final third date and maybe (or maybe not) have a happy ending. Thankfully, once you’ve finished this interactive movie and go for another round of speed dating, you can select the ones you want to explore possible outcomes with. You can fast-forward through all previously seen scenes. And completionists will have a ball here with the number of scenes to explore.

Unfortunately, the experience has a few quirks. The first is the supposed friendship between Ryan and Misha. They have no chemistry; when they talk to each other it sounds more like two casual people catching up after haven’t seen each other for a few weeks. And before diving in, you can set Streamer mode which gives you unlimited time to make a choice.

Another issue is a common one amongst Wales Interactive’s interactive movies: scene editing. Understandably it is highly complex to fluidly edit something of this magnitude with a natural flow, but there are inconsistencies where you might say something awkward based on the conversational choices where your interlocutor will have a cringe reaction to what was just said but the next frame, the same interlocutor will continue the conversation normally as if the awkward comment never occurred.

Or on the flip side, you’ll think that everything is going well by having a positive reaction from the other person, but in the next scene or when the host calls time, you’re getting rejected. Speaking of which, the host, who ends up being a possible suitor for Ryan, looks and sounds bored as hell hosting the event as if he’d rather do anything else.

Something that occurred a few times in later playthroughs is the game would glitch/loop going back a few minutes before I made a decision and having to re-do the same decision. The worst occurrence was when I made a positive choice, the game looped back a few scenes before and made me do the decision again (I made the same choice) and resulting in guiding me towards the “bad” conversation path. Hopefully, this will be fixed as the game releases.

Another inconsistency as I tried to be as unfriendly as possible as Misha, Bash, one of her suitors, just left without saying bye or giving her his contact information, yet during the scene where Misha catches up with Ryan, Bash was still available for a second date with Misha. Or during a replay, if you select a single date, and purposefully do everything wrong to the point the person is disgusted, you’re still able to go on a second date. Like how could it be possible?

Most actors do a decent performance where they can either be likable. Brandy is a stuck-up NFT-loving beautician bitch and even if I wanted to unlock all scenes, she comes across as so unlikeable that I can’t help but purposefully sabotage any options with her. As far as Misha’s side of things, she gets the worst of the bunch with the typical “perfect” guy, the nerd, the douchebag, and the jock. While they mostly play their roles within certain limits without going overboard, the nerd guy feels fake. Not to say he’s doing a bad performance, far from it, but after seeing people play nerds in the Big Bang Theory, they put the bar quite high. And the game does have a few tracks for menu-ing; a bit generic sounding tunes.

All in all, Ten Dates is another enjoyable, addictive interactive movie from Wales Interactive. If you don’t let the editing hiccups and logical inconsistencies bother you too much, and enjoy this as an interactive rom-com, you’ll definitely have a good time with Ten Dates. And let’s not forget the high replay value if you’re looking to unlock all scenes and achievements. Another solid outing from Wales Interactive.