The Arcana Reviews

I am a big fan of this game. Have been for years. I've even recommended it to my friends. I watch the ads, play heart Hunter, basically do whatever I can to save up coins and keys and stuff when I wanna and it's not super hard. But, I do agree with a lot of people that the amount of coins behind a lot choices is ridiculous. I wish the 7-day daily check-in gave you something other than a free reading for those who aren't interested in that or at least make the amounts go up each day like most daily check-in systems in games. I wish lives for heart hunter refilled more quickly. I wish keys refilled more quickly. A lot of the bonus content is not worth the paywall. I do like that they don't make you pay to get the good ending tho. One new feature that just shows how much they want you to buy coins is the ability to sell trinkets. Since I've had the game for so long, I've already played through all the storeis, including the ones you get from the trinkets, making them useless to me. I like that you can sell them for coins. However, I don't like that you can only sell 10+ at a time and only get 50 coins from doing so when 50 coins is what it costs to buy one. Not to mention you can only spin the wheel once a day and it hardly ever lands on the coin slots but once it does it never will again.
As much as I love this game, I agree with everyone who says that it makes you pay an unnecessary amount.

Overall, the game is absolutely amazing! I have fallen in love with it and it’s characters, however there are multiple issues I’ve run into. The first one I want to point out is the coin system, we just don’t get enough coins and spend too many when choosing special options. It’d be very much appreciable if we could get something such as a daily free pass or enough coins daily to unlock one of these options. The system is just quite honestly frustrating, especially for someone who doesn’t have the money to pay. And this leads into my second point of my own personal issue with the game, when I discovered I didn’t have enough coins to pay for a special option I decided to be petty and just delete my account and restart, considering I’d be back at the beginning and could make a wiser use of my coins. However, upon disconnecting my account from Facebook and then deleting it, I re-opened TheArcana for it not to load. I decided to completely delete TheArcana and reinstall it, however every time I open TheArcana the “something went wrong” screen pops up and I am unsure what to do. I’ve deleted and reinstalled it twice for the same occurrence. It’s very infuriating seeing that I really would like to play this game and get further into it making my own decisions rather then watching a gameplay. If any of this can be fixed, I believe it’d be wonderful improvement and very much appreciated. Thank you!

Look, this game has a great story, gorgeous art, and all the characters are lovable, but the coin system is absolutely ridiculous. Every bold decision that gets you towards the juicy parts of the story or furthers your relationship with the character you chose cost money that is basically impossible to get without spending your ACTUAL cash unless you want to play one chapter every 3 months. And, to top it off, you’re going to need more than 2,000 coins to even get through one character’s story, which’ll cost you 40 bucks, real life money. On a romance phone game. If you want to EARN those coins through gameplay, good luck; you’ll either have to hope that you get a coin roll every day which usually gives you 5 to 20 coins, or wait more than a year to stack up on tarot card coins. If you don’t get what you want the first wheel spin, don’t worry, just spend 20 coins and risk losing the few you already have if you get a trinket instead of cash, which by the way, you ALSO have to pay for. That’s the only way to get money in this game. So, I’m sorry, taking away the coin system this game is spectacular, especially for basically a dating sim, but I’m gonna have to give it 3 stars.

And as a little kinda unimportant side note, if you’re gonna put extra characters in that AREN’T the six main but still show up every so often, why don’t you just spend a little extra time to draw them, too? It’d make the game more immersive and visual.

I really do like this game it has an amazing story I’ve read through almost all of them completely and it just amazes me, the art, the story is so good, it’s LGBTQ+ friendly but the bad part of it all is that any good choice that you want to make in the game has to be purchased by coins which when you try to earn, you don’t receive nearly enough to make even one choice throughout one chapter with the spin wheel. You have to spend a crazy amount of money on app this just to read a bolder choice. There are times that I have spent money on this game because I want to read the bold choice, I want to be able to kiss or do something with the character that I’m reading about that isn’t a lame, boring choice that leads to nothing more and makes the story quite lackluster in the fact that it’s supposed to be a romance story but you really feel like there’s no romance involved because you have to pay money to make a good choice. I’m still going to keep up with this game and I’m so going to read new chapters that come out and what-not but I just feel like it would be better if you gave people the opportunity to earn more coins, lower the price that you have to pay for coins or lower the amount of coins you have to pay to make a good choice because they get quite pricey for the little amount of coins that you do receive from the free spins. Other than the coin issue, this is an amazing game and I really do love it and I can’t wait to see what else you guys come out with.

I love this story with all my heart. The characters are beautifully fleshed out, the artwork is immaculate, and the story and world building is absolutely wonderful. It’s also super open with LGBTQ+ characters and plot lines so horray for that!!! Now for the downside: the 3 keys every 24 hours isn’t enough. If it were 4, or even 5, that would be amazing. Then the micro transactions to get more coins.. You only get the juicy scenes if you pay, and I think that’s what the majority of us are here for. The Juicy Scenes. (I’m here for Julian, and only Julian, am I right ladies??) I don’t know if it’s just me, but it also seems quite impossible to win the mini game, unless you pay for boosts. I understand the artists need to be paid and the developers need to have some money go back into their pockets. Nothing good in life is ever free, right? I have purchased gold quite a few times to get the juicy scenes, but it adds up and and can be very expensive. Especially when you have to drop 150 or 250 gold for only 1 juicy scene. If they lowered the amount of gold needed for a “juicy” scene, I wouldn’t have as many complaints. The developers are great and very responsive and listen to us peoples, which is extremely refreshing to experience. I will keep reading and supporting this series until the very end. But if you want the fullest experience, you’re going to have to pay. Otherwise, sit back and relax and enjoy the ride! It’s a great one!

i usually have a hard time putting my feelings into words but i could talk about this game forever. the plot is so so good and interesting aswell as the character interactions. i love that its not the exact same story for each character, but instead different stories catered to your choice. the interactions we have with the love interest of choice always makes me smile, it doesnt falter your relationship if you dont pay to kiss them or things like that, in fact it doesnt ruin anything. AND the game has 2 endings for each character!!!! the writing is magnificent and the characters are so unique and truly are written so so well. ive gotten attached to all of them so so quickly and im excited to see the endings of my favorite two after they are released. lucio and muriel are characters that i connected with immediately. lucio seems like a jerk in everyone elses route but you see how good of a guy he is and that hes trying to change once you play his route. you can really feel like they care about us as they speak, the nicknames, the detailed responses, its amazing. i feel like characters who dont know who i actually am care about me and thats a comfort for me. muriels route has to be my favorite though, im so excited for the next update of his. muriel is a big comfort for me because i understand how he feels. sorry for going so into detail about this, i just genuinely love this game and its writing is perfect. i 100% recommend to anyone contemplating.

Best thing by far about this game is the astonishingly beautiful artwork. I’d seen a few screenshots online and was immediately captivated—I had to find where they came from! The music too is gorgeous, I’d highly recommend playing with the sound on even if the story really is descriptive enough to set the mood on its own.

I’d also like to applaud the developers for their responsiveness and a few key changes. They’ve always insisted that the paid choices, while juicy, would not effect whether one got a good or bad ending, but nevertheless all the best romance scenes are behind a pay wall. I was happy enough to buy a few of the books and support what I thought was a worthy endeavor, but it just wasn’t feasible to spend over and over. I just didn’t have that kind of cash. I think this has long been a complaint for these kinds of apps but it’s refreshing to have someone actually listen. There are now a number of ways to collect coins for free through a daily spin, selling extras of collectible items, and a small mini game. With at least a month between chapter updates there’s time to rack up enough coins to at least purchase the options for your favorite character if not more.

Honestly for me all other visual novels have paled in comparison to this one ever since and I haven’t even mentioned the intriguing plot!

I hate this, right. I do. I hate that i can’t function when i play this game! Seriously, I cannot concentrate on the dialogue when the art is so PERFECT. Then we have the minor changes in the character’s face that makes it even harder to concentrate! Now, I am not huge on games like this one... but I can’t have enough. I want to have more content from the characters, their adventures, their interactions not only with our own character but each other because it is so addictive... listen. I’m a college student. I’m broke. I work four days a week but you know what I’ve done? Gone right ahead and bought coins. Yes, lots of them. Oh, I don’t regret. Not with goat man, or masochist plague doctor, Wolfie and even less mystics traveling master are all so fun to read! So, heed my words.
Be ready to go down an endless hole of obsession and inspiration and to crave more than just a game. Guys, ever thought of making “The Arcana” an actual series? Cuz you should. Each plot is just amazing.
Now, I’ll go and play a little more since my keys refilled and brainstorm on drawing my own OC because yes, I am a that obsessed. Congratulations, you made someone who refused to play these types of games and use their money for stories go down an endless rabbit hole. >:( now give my babies the happiness they deserve and give me coins for that juicy extra content.

I’ve been playing this game since 2018 and it’s been my absolute favorite romance game to play. I mean it’s literally perfect!! The art is flawless, the story telling is so unique bc it’s written so well and the background art is amazing!! I really feel like I’m in the game when I’m playing arcana. I grow so attached to the characters and I want to get the full experience of each route. It just gets frustrating when you have to wait each day to get a small amount of coins than you spend on one coin decision. I take breaks from the game bc the only way to grind for coins is to login everyday and watch the adds that gives you 10 coins. It’s possible if you have patience to still have interest and consistency with that but for me it gets annoying and it makes me want to stop playing. I’ll get 1000 coins from grinding for week and spend all of it in one day. Then the cycle continues and it’s just annoying. So if you can please make getting coins more easier. Maybe in that postcard game you could win a small amount of coins just for playing, or in the daily spin make the percentage higher to get coins. I understand their trying to make money but a lot of adolescents and teenagers (like myself) don’t have their own money to spend like that.

I love this game! The story and the art and the interactions are all wonderful, it’s pro-LGBTQ+, the world is so well developed, and I love every character. But the paywall is definitely real. I’m patient, so I’m always willing to trudge through a game slower if it means I don’t need to pay but the amount of time it takes to collect enough coins to pick the good option is long enough for me to start forgetting what was happening anyway. After playing some of the game I’d be happy to lay down some bucks so I could play through the rest of the storyline I’m on right now, but the prices really are quite high. The highest tier you can get, which is 2000 coins for almost $40, is maybe enough to get you through one of the characters’ bonus options (6 books at the time of this review). With that amount of money, I’d expect to be able to get through most of the game! Clearly it seems like we’re intended to wait between books, which makes sense of course, but still. Even with the wheel, the daily 5 coins, and whatever else, I still have to play the story in small fragments, making the flow much less smooth. Fortunately, each choice you pay coins for offers enough good content to make the wait worth it, but even so.
TL;DR It feels bad to have to wait so long to play, but paying for coins doesn’t seem worth it.

Ok, so I have never felt the need to revise a review before, because it never seems like the creators actually read or give a crap about what the consumer is saying. But that is surprisingly not the case with this little gem of an app. When I first found this game I was completely taken by the artwork and story telling, but was disappointed by the fact that there was no way to get the full story without having to pay an overpriced fee.

I am happy to say that that has changed! Not only have the creators continued to present us with beautifully told stories, but they have updated the way you earn coins. So now, as long as you don't mind playing the games that they provide, you can earn the coins yourself! PLUS, they have started to release new character routes and I am totally excited!

I now have only three things to say to the creators. First, THANK YOU! Your work is beautiful, and I look forward to every update that you make! Second, never change the way you write! Your stories are exciting, and magical, with breathtaking romance that doesn't feel the need to push itself too far into the adult section of the genre. Which is VERY hard to find nowadays. Third, I know it takes time to create greatness, but I'm sitting on the edge of my seat for new updates!!! I screamed into my pillow when you released Muriel, I was so excited! 😉

I Love this game. It is endlessly amazing, very fun, well made, and well directed. The story is captivating, the writing is outstanding, and despite how much reading is involved, I never find myself bored when going through routes. I absolutely adore how open the game is, since most romance-themed visual novels tend to lean more towards females and females alone. Generally heterosexual ones. It’s really nice to see the female routes, and the intwining relationships between the different characters. Along with how carefully you made it to where your Mc can be anything and anyone you want. You can pick pronouns, and decide their personality, and that’s probably one of the best parts.

However, as thousands of people have said, the coins are an issue. You get thirty per week, I’m sure nobody wants to wait for over a month to do one singular option. I wonkt ask for you to make anything cheaper, I know it costs a lot to run something like this, and that you all need to eat. My suggestion is simple. Make the daily coins go up in intervals of five.

Day one should have 5 coins. Day two should have 10. etc. Day six could end wit 30. This way, not only will you cut down on all the complaints about money and improve play, but people will feel rewarded for keeping up a streak through an entire week. It also, hopefully, won’t hinder your money-making. It doesn’t have to be five, it could be two. Just increase the amount of coins you get per day.

I was scrolling through some of the reviews and noticed that a lot of people, like myself, had an issue with the coin system. Getting coins is really hard to get, especially if you only get five a day. I agree with one of the people on here about making the daily coins go up by fives- 5, 10, 15, 20.. etc. Also, the amount of coins you have to spend is a little ridiculous. I also would recommend adding a choice to watch ads to get coins. I think you can get paid to advertise other apps and stuff. That would be a perk. Also, maybe the lowering the time your keys replenish. Instead of eight hours, it could be shortened down to three or something. It’s just, waiting that long to play just one chapter is a bit agitating. I also kind of wish that we could maybe design our own character? Just a suggestion.

Besides those few things, I love the game overall. The art is just outstanding and the colours blend well together. The characters are just amazing. I love the story lines and how everything just melts together easily. The art matches the story and it’s satisfying. The writing is also outstanding. I love how it’s detailed and easy to follow. The mini game is also really fun to play, Heart Hunter. I love how it’s enjoyable and how you get postcards at the end if you win. Kudos to the developers, authors, artists, and everyone else who pitched into creating this game.

Though I have major issues with a few things, I love the game much to much to give it anything lower than a perfect grade. I was led to believe that it would not be pay to win, or pay to love as it were, but in order to use most of the romantic options you must spend anywhere between 100 to 200 coins, and there is no free way to earn them other than daily spins of the wheel. This obviously isn't huge and probably isn't even an issue for most people, but I have no disposable income. I'm to disabled to work, but no longer disabled enough to receive a check for it. When I was receiving disability benefits I had insurance and thus could get my medicine, but that improved my condition enough to the point where I no longer qualified for the disability. After I lost the benefits my health deteriorated and now I'm usually bedridden for fear of having a cataplectic attack and concussing myself again. All I do to pass time until my disability matter is resolved is play games and read, and thus I am in need of free games such as this to quite literally stay sane and moderately healthy. If I have nothing to do and become overcome with boredom or any strong emotion or stress I will have narcoleptic and cataplectic episodes and lose consciousness and/or injure myself. I'm not sure if these are issues you can remedy, but these are issues I would like to bring to your attention nonetheless.

This game is stunning, and admittedly has become something of a guilty pleasure. The characters, even the non-romanceable ones, are fascinating and enjoyable to interact with. Having the mini games available to unlock special storylines is a nice challenge as well. To top it off, the online store has some adorable phone charms (I predict a chibi Faust in my future!) and character wall art from the game itself.

The Arcana richly deserves five stars. My only complaint, though, is that the price to unlock individual scenes to delve deeper into the story, whether that be for romance or to further the plot, is daunting once one has done the math. The only in-game options to get coins are daily spin or checking in for a tarot reading, and even those are unlikely to yield significant results. Yes, the game is still enjoyable without the added depth, but for those who wish to do more, perhaps a tiered system might be in order? Free but with in-game purchases, then a couple of price points above that unlocking a certain number of scenes per chapter? I’m certainly not wealthy by any stretch. I have to pick and choose my entertainment very carefully each month, but I would happily pay $25 for The Arcana up front to unlock all the scenes, even if I had to wait the allotted time to refill keys and mini games. After all, absence makes the heart grow fonder.

I’m not normally a fan of visual novels, particularly romance ones, but this one is amazing—the story, the visuals, the music all really make this game stand out. In addition to being LGBTQ+ friendly with an intriguing cast of characters, the game doesn’t just focus on the romance (the number one failing in a vast majority of romance stories, I feel), but brings in a number of different story elements that help weave this story together.

This is a worthy example of what a romance story should be—about the characters, first and foremost. If I don’t become invested in the cast of characters and the individual and/or overarching plights they face, what makes you think I’d believe my MC is invested? I definitely don’t have that problem here, of course—the entire cast is well-fleshed out and the character designs are on point!

As for the coin issue—I absolutely agree that that has been the only downside to this game since its launch (I’ve been playing since then, off and on, yes). But, ever since they added in an option to watch up to... I think three?? advertisements per day to earn 15 coins each ad in addition to the 5 free coins for logging in, I’ve enjoyed this game far more! I’m totally down to opting into watching an ad for some coins—I feel like I’m helping the team earn some extra cash without having to stress over not being able to afford spending my own monies! Saving up for some merch at some point, though... 👀

I love this game so much I download games like this all the time(episode, choices, Lovestruck) but this one is DEFINITELY my favorite. I have spent SO MUCH money on TheArcana it’s not even funny. I’m so hooked I can’t stop reading and will do ANYTHING to get those choices!! I could go on for hours about how much I love it and I have recommended it to soooo many of my friends that like games like this and they all love it to. I love how they give you different routes and options on who you can be with instead of choosing for you. One thing I will say is the game isn’t to good at saving your progress and if you leave in the middle you might have to go back through the whole chapter but other then that i REALLY love this game. The options they give you and the story is just great. Mysterious but not to mysterious ya know? And they still give you all the sappy fluff that you would want which I CANNOT GET ENOUGH OF. I’m sooo excited to read all of there stories and reread them again and again! I literally wake up and immediately start playing this or casually play it in class cause its just do good. AND its lgbtq+ friendly I love that you can pick pronouns because I’m non-binary and often struggle with that so it just makes the whole thing better. All in all if your looking for a good roleplay romance game GET THIS ON but be prepared to spend cause you’ll run out of coins quick it’s worth it tho!

I love this game so far!! The art and story are wonderful though there seems to be a gap in time once you chose a path to follow (character to romance). Also!! Can Muriel and Valerius (the judge with the braid and wine) be romance options?! Oh!! Lucio too!! Lucio would be an interesting option. I’ve caught up on the Asra romance and started Julians and just 😍 I love them both!! I would love to see more games like this by you guys!! I haven’t played a game like this that I’ve loved more!!

Also I think a lot of the issues people are giving with the coins could be resolved if everyday we login the coin amount is increased instead of just 5 everytime. It would also give more incentive to keep logging in while waiting for more chapters to come out. I feel like even while playing without spending coins the story progresses rather quickly; so they don’t take long to finish and collecting everything from the minigames seems a tad pointless. If you guys decide to keep making more games like this (Which I hope you do because I have loved this game soooo much) maybe try to beef up the stories a bit so they drag out longer. Like add romantic conflict maybe?? Cause I feel like if some of the other characters are interested in the hero, they wouldn’t just stand aside once the hero has chosen a specific character to pursue. Or maybe there’s other characters interested in the character that the hero chooses to pursue so there’s conflict there.

TheArcana is seriously one of the best rpg romance games that I have ever played and I have played so many, online and app wise. TheArcana lets you choose and change your name and pronouns whenever you like which is great because I am gender fluid and it upsets me sometimes that I can’t change my name or gender on others or I am stuck with this main character that I care nothing about. This game lets you choose to be you and I think that is the best part about this game. It makes you feel important when you aren’t so important in the real world and for once, I actually felt loved even though I knew it was just a game. I guess it’s the storyline that just leaves you craving more and the mini games are cute and fun! The characters are so diverse it’s wonderful!!! I hope that you will go far with this game as I have been showing it off to my friends, I convinced five of my friends to play it and they love and simp for at least one of your characters now. However, I want to ask you this, could you if not make a whole story, maybe make a little tidbit of a story for those who like Valdemar, Vladimir, Volta, Valerius and Volga? I know it seems silly but I am on an amino page and I’ve noticed that more people that you think really enjoy and love those characters! Please consider this at least. I hope I am no trouble to you when I write this, I don’t mean to sound demanding or anything.

This NEEDS a sequel I STRIVE for more. The game has they/them pronouns options which is way more than 90% of romance games have considering they cater to mostly afab (assigned female at birth) folx and just all around those with she/her pronouns. So already really great there, but you also get some amazing angst! Due to this you have to do all of their routes to really get the full story and uncover the mystery. My advice is that you should play Asra’s LAST otherwise you’ll be devastated. This is a really good game for those who want a gender, sexuality, race, and culturally diverse romance game that doesn’t prioritize the diversity over the actual storyline. It does get a little annoying when you run out of keys by they thankfully replenish fairly quickly and infinikey weekends are like the best thing ever. Getting coins can be a bit of a pain in the but especially when the options you want to choose cost more than you have but thankfully you can still get the final ending you want without paying any. All in all an amazing game I’m super addicted to all of the fluff angst and borderline steamy moments. PS. You won’t like Lucio but once you play his route you might hate him a tad bit less. (Just a tad tho) Love ya Dorian for this game! Have a wonderful day/night! <3