Ten Dates – Review

There’s quite a few Interactive FMV’s available on the Xbox and a fair few of them are from Wales Interactive who have built up a great reputation for bringing “Choose your own adventure” to gamers for over a decade.

Ten Dates is a romantic comedy which is a sequel to Five Dates released back in 2020.
From the start you’re introduced to Ryan and Misha, two single friends living in London looking for love. Misha is heading to a speed-dating meet and has unknowingly signed up Ryan, so after selecting your social media profile picture, a few interests and your star-sign, you end up at the meet, ready to mingle.

Depending on whether you choose to control Ryan or Misha will influence on the five dates you’re going to encounter, Ryan starts off with the beauty therapist Brandi, followed by the alternative styled Azalea, before moving on to professional Footballer Toni and then Kathleen who’s a very smart psychology student, the 5th date had to go early so you instead sit down with the meetings host Derek, who offers a same-sex relationship storyline.

Heading to the meet as Misha, and you’ll have the typical “lad” called Bash, the shy tech enthusiast called Lucas, a teacher called Jake and finally TY, who’s a bad boy with an open persona but a closed personality. Misha’s final encounter again offers a same-sex storyline with chance meeting with Hazel while waiting at the bar.

During your first playthrough, it becomes pretty clear how heavily stereotypes are used, and if you take a guess at how each character feels to talk to, you’re not going to be far off the mark, and while you’ll only get a handful of opportunities to make a decision (which ultimately effects the story) it’s exploring these options when Ten Dates really starts to open up.
There’s a hidden depth to each and every character, and while Interactive FMV’s usually offer multiple endings, I’d usually tire after the first few.
With Ten Dates, there’s multiple routes for each of your five encounters, and while you can ultimately choose a second date with up to two people, you can only pursue an all-important third date with one.

Most people aren’t going to play through multiple times concentrating on each person, but there’s more than enough character depth to warrant pursuing a relationship with at least 2 or 3 people for both Misha and Ryan.

There’s also quite a mix on how to get to that eventual end-goal, you might be challenging a persons opinions in one conversation, but that ultimately draws you together because they don’t want someone who’s going to back down, otherwise you might find yourself heading home alone because of saying one wrong word.
It’s just one of the many instances on how accurate Ten Dates feels.

There’s a real sense of achievement when you do have a successful 3rd date, and even then you still don’t feel like you know everything about these people, there’s still the pull to head back and see how they’d react to other options.

The most impressive thing for me is the character depth, as well as representation of LGBTQ+ storylines, below those superficial stereotypes, each character is really well fleshed out reminding you that there’s always more to a person than that sometimes rough exterior, and while one pathway might not be your personal choice, they’re all incredibly well delivered, and I don’t feel the LGBTQ+ or disability issues are forced in anyway, everything feels incredibly well presented.

Overall there’s certainly plenty of game to get through, I found myself much more invested in the characters than many interactive FMV’s I’ve played, and the achievements (mostly centralising around that happy ending with each of the tend dates) gives you further incentive to delve below the outer shell of the characters who you don’t initially bond with.

Repeated playthroughs can be quicker as you can hit RB to bypass a scene you’ve already encountered, and the relationship stats at the end, show you a helpful summary on how each person viewed you, as well as total number of scenes you’ve unlocked.

Back to presentation and as with all interactive FMV’s you can expect a high amount of movie like presentation and high quality audio, one area that this genre often falls flat is combining that authentic performances, but Ten Dates has done a fantastic job, as a stand-a-lone “Movie” it would definitely be watchable, whereas many feel a little “B” in quality.
You get a few repeated images of London and bottles of wine, but it all combines to be an enjoyable and above all believable experience.
Production value is high, audio quality is high, the actors performances are mostly fantastic and the storylines are smooth and believable.

The Gameplay element is always going to be light in an interactive film, but I found there’s more than enough to keep you constantly engaged, without feeling overawed with options, and the graphics, sound and overall presentation combine to make this a game I can still happily recommend even if it’s not your usual genre.

Ten Dates isn’t going to be to everyone’s liking, I heard the flurry of footsteps heading for the exit as soon as I mentioned “Interactive movie”, but if you’re a fan of the genre, even though I’m far from a Rom-Com fan, Ten Dates is quite possibly the best I’ve played, offering a near perfect example of the genre.

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