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A dating sim with combat? Love and Deepspace is a sci-fi otome game with an action twist

4K View2023-12-20

Love and Deepspace

8.5

SimulationStory Rich

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SHOULD YOU PLAY LOVE AND DEEPSPACE?

Play it if you like dating sims and don’t mind a little bit of combat. Love and Deepspace is a 3D sci-fi epic that mixes dating sim mechanics with real-time action-RPG battles, but based on my experiences, the game definitely emphasizes love over action. I ran into some minor issues during my playthrough, but my experience was really positive overall. The game looks fantastic and the love interests are all extremely charming. This is developed by Papermoon, who has also made titles like Shining Nikki and Mr. Love: Queen's Choice, so my expectations for the finished game are really high!

TIME PLAYED

So far, I’ve spent around six hours playing the Love and Deepspace closed beta, which has given me the chance to get to know all of its romantic leads. I’ve gone on dates, posed for pictures at a photo booth, got a new job, decorated my desk, and used my superpowers to battle monstrous entities called Wanderers. The combination of slice-of-life romance and science fiction is a lot of fun, and I’m definitely curious to see where the story goes.

WHAT’S AWESOME ABOUT LOVE AND DEEPSPACE?

• Terrific characters. Love and Deepspace has a fantastic cast, and those characters really bring the game’s world to life. You play as a superpowered fighter that survived a brutal alien attack in her childhood. Battling by your side are three romanceable characters: Xavier, a mysterious fighter, Rafayel, a playful and passionate artist, and my personal favorite, Zayne, a prickly cardiac surgeon who also happens to be your childhood friend.

Your love interests are at the center of the story, but there’s also a large and varied supporting cast that includes Tara, a coworker who’s obsessed with the occult, and Josephine, an elderly woman who took you in as a child. I really appreciated these side characters; having relationships that weren’t romantic made the game feel more real.

• Solid action sequences. If you go in expecting Genshin Impact, you’re going to be disappointed, but for an otome game, Love and Deepspace has a surprisingly good battle system. The controls are simple and intuitive, and the ability to fight with companions gives battles some strategic depth. I wish the combat sequences were a little more frequent, but I enjoyed them whenever they cropped up.

• All kinds of content. There’s a ton to do in Love and Deepspace, and that variety really keeps things interesting. This is an otome game with action sequences, after all! While the main storyline mostly focused on my work as a space hunter, I could always take a break from the action and go on dates, send text messages, or scroll through my fictional social media feed. There’s also a gacha system that revolves around the romantic leads and even a little bit of dress-up thanks to the in-game photo booth.

• Genuinely romantic dates. Some otome games treat dates like an afterthought, but Love and Deepspace puts real effort into these encounters. There was a meet-cute when the restaurant I was eating at ran out of tables, an adorable scene where a potential boyfriend won me a plushie, and even late-night chat sessions where my guy and I sent each other emojis. The male leads are cute and all, but I liked that the game actually put some effort into making them crush-worthy.

WHAT SUCKS ABOUT LOVE AND DEEPSPACE?

• Occasional issues with voiced dialogue. Love and Deepspace is fully voiced, and most of the acting is solid, but I did encounter a few problems. Sometimes, characters would talk over each other, which made it hard to understand what people were saying. The leads have fantastic voices, but some minor characters sound awkward and stilted. The volume of voiced lines is also inconsistent, so I constantly found myself turning the sound up and down. These problems are a little annoying, but I’m optimistic that they can be addressed before the full game is out.

• Upgrading memories can be time-consuming. Love and Deepspace’s gacha system allows you to unlock various memories of the male leads. During combat sequences, I could select memories that would battle alongside me. It’s a fun enough system, but powering up these memories requires a few too many steps. I had to level up memories, collect gems to ascend memories, rank up memories, and collect bonuses over and over again. The beta test gave me extra gacha pulls, so I had more memories than the average player would, but upgrading everything still took way too long. Hopefully, the devs will streamline this process later on!