4/5 ★ – elkniodaphs's review of Arcade Paradise.

In the 80s and 90s, you could always spot a few arcade games in your local laundromat. Mine had RoadBlasters and Vindicators. In Arcade Paradise, you take on a managerial role, slowly converting the laundromat into an arcade. There are several narrative moments that push this process forward, investments to be made, and familial relationships to be nurtured. One appreciates the use of gender non-specific names; so my experience was one of two sisters contacting each other via email, but it could have just as easily been two brothers. Performing various objectives within the arcade accrues sterling which can be redeemed for perks. Most of these perks automate the routine of management, while some of them simply make management easier. I took a perk early on that gave me more time on the arcade floor, but I realized that I was hindering myself by lengthening the wait for sterling objectives to be refreshed, thus making it more time consuming to earn perks. Arcade Paradise usually accounts for these logical inconsistencies, but not in this one particular case. There are almost three dozen arcade cabinets to choose from, all of them fictitious creations that more often than not, pay homage to actual titles. Arcade Paradise serves as a blueprint for something better. While it stands on its own, one can only imagine this formula being better served by integrating genuine arcade games. The recent Pac-Man Museum+ is a similar showcase, a virtual arcade with enough cabinets to line up in a tidy row. It would be nice to see a publisher run with this idea and make it authentic. Overall, Arcade Paradise is a great package. Fine-tuning all the perks so you get the most rewarding outcome is enjoyable. Moving cabinets around so the popular ones boost the unpopular ones is fine, but ultimately is a mechanic that can be ignored. I would have preferred unlocking cabinets in a way that made sense chronologically - maybe vector games first, then monochrome displays, and so on. As it happens, one of the first cabinets in your arcade is rendered in 3D, and several vector/monochrome games are unlocked later. That seems backwards. The game doesn't explicitly attempt to model the sequential history of arcade game development, but a loose correlation would have been nice. Ultimately, the best thing I got out of Arcade Paradise was a song called "Outrun the World," by Mono Memory. The whole experience was great, but Outrun the World is going to live in my head rent free for months, I just know it... and I'm totally cool with that.