izigame.me

TLDR: I do recommend if you want to focus on F4M interactions. However, M4F is a letdown to me. I found all choices poorly written and generally not interesting.



PROS:

➕Man/Woman lead option this time
➕Solid music
➕HD FMV
➕Excellent skipping features


NEUTRALS:

🔹As a man lead, I wanted the option to date the woman lead, but not possible


CONS:

➖Doesn’t display question text on screen while you make a choice (paused mode)
➖If M4F, only four choices, one less than last game
➖Less interesting engagements than last game

You can find my review for the prequel, Five Dates (5D), here: https://steamcommunity.com/id/Synikx/recommended/1353270?snr=1_5_9__402


Content (Game world/Narrative) –

Game world is FMV, so hard to really rate, it's just common studio backdrops.
I will say the narrative here in 10D is noticeably worse than 5D.


Gameplay (Mechanics/Difficulty) –

The bulk of the gameplay consists of making choices. I gave 5D a 7/10 due to how natural the choices felt. Not so much here. I struggled to really relate with any of the participants and even then the choices just felt drab, boring, and forced.


Graphics (Quality/Technical) –

FMV game, and solid quality.
No bugs or issues.
i9-13900KF | RTX 4090 | 64GB RAM | 1440p @ 240hz | Windows 11 installed on SSD


Audio –

I felt the audio is a small step up from 5D. Some of the music just sounded chill.


Replay Factor (Longevity) –

The replay value is about the same here as 5D - lots of scenes to watch and different outcomes, whether it's worth it to replay is subjective.
The one thing I do want to call out is its very nice being able to skip through dates instead of being forced to always choose three. You can instead choose one for some quick replayability.


Final Verdict –

Ten Dates (10D) is the sequel to Five Dates (5D) where instead of being in the middle of a COVID lockdown, you partake in some in-person speed dating.

To start with the negatives, my biggest gripe with 10D is the lack of interesting interactions compared to 5D, and also somehow having LESS choices than 5D.
So the interactions I praised 5D for feeling organic and endearing, I didn’t get that here at all. The male lead’s date choices feel shallow and cliche, just clearly like an actress and not a real person. I felt this was a huge step back from 5D and my primary concern. 5D was cute at times, maybe it was the COVID lockdown backdrop, but it just felt more real.
As for the less date choices, I found this one kind of funny that something called Ten Dates has less dating options than Five Dates. See, they added a woman lead choice, so you have a man and woman lead choice. Each then gets four opposite sex options, and one same sex option. So yeah, if you wanted to play as a woman lead, you now have 5 whole new options (4 opposite/1 same)! But a man lead, same as the first game, you get 1 less.

As for the positives with 10D, I would say the thing I enjoyed the most was advanced scene skipping and the FMV/audio quality.
The scene skipping can really make or break a FMV game, as an otherwise excellent game can be ruined by taking a wrong turn, getting an early ending, then having to replay the ENTIRE THING OVER AGAIN without skipping (Looking at you, Late Shift…). 10D takes this a step further by now only allowing me to skip scenes, but allowing me to skip dates entirely. Normally you always have to choose the max allotted choice, but I liked how 10D allows you to choose a single date for you to hyper focus on that ending you might have missed. Anything that allows me to skip FMV scenes I’ve already seen is a huge plus for me.
As for the FMV/Audio, this is rather simple, but I felt that the FMV looked great and the music did a good job at setting a type of “Intimate party” vibe. I enjoyed the night life shots of London, everything looked crisp and inviting.

Overall, I feel like 10D is a step back from 5D, with some caveats. If you’re wanting to play as a woman lead, then you should skip 5D entirely, as that game has no options for you. If you are wanting to play as a man lead, the choice is a bit more complex. I would still recommend 5D as a M4F, if nothing else because you have more options, but it's deeper than that. While there are easy-to-make comparisons between the character cliches between 5D and 10D, 5D feels much more organic and I enjoyed the company of the dates there much more. As such, I’m giving this a thumbs down, but would still recommend this to any F4M gamers.


Recommend?


No

You can find my curator page here: https://steamcommunity.com/groups/Synik_GR