Gu Yi must be the luckiest man alive. The protagonist of FMV dating sim Love Is All Around is up to his eyeballs in debt, a bit of a creep, and a personality black hole – but he still has a group of drop-dead gorgeous girls competing against each other to pay his bills and invite him to stay in their multi-million dollar homes. It’s all right for some, eh?
Chinese dev Intiny says it wants to realise the “dreams” of its players, and seeing as you’ve probably got more chance of being struck by lightning than being pursued by one of the ladies in this game, it’s clearly delivering on its ambitions.
The gameplay here is not original: you watch pre-recorded movies play, and then select options which branch the narrative. Occasionally you’re able to explore your environment to learn a little more about the characters you’re interacting with, but you’ll mostly find yourself selecting paths which alter the direction of the story.
Each decision you make will influence your relationships, and amusingly your primary goal appears to be to keep all of your options open, as you’ll only unlock new chapters if you have a strong enough bond with all of the characters involved. We found this frustrating because it feels like there’s a very specific path the game wants you to take, and you hit a brick wall if you deviate from that.
Fortunately, you can quickly rewind to previous scenes and see all of the different outcomes. In one chapter, after being hastily promoted to marketing manager by a beautiful businesswoman who we literally just met, we took a shady payoff from a rival firm and bankrupted our new sweetheart. Love is cruel!
All of the characters are assigned very specific personalities, from the intellectual art dealer to the kooky bunny boiler, and the actresses do a good job of completely exaggerating their roles – although, as is common in Chinese television, some of voices are actually dubbed (even though it’s all in Mandarin throughout).
The story’s ridiculous, but it’s not to be taken seriously, and it’s the kind of thing you can play with friends just to experience all of the silly outcomes. We were howling with laughter when we attempted to tape up one of the girl’s ripped dresses. If that sounds like something you’d also enjoy, then fill your boots.