Date A Live: Arusu Install

Date A Live: Arusu Install is a classic visual novel adventure game. We play the role of an average high school student who, in order to save the world, must fall in love with powerful and threatening mysterious creatures taking the form of young girls. The developer and publisher of the title is the Japanese company Compile Heart. The production is based on books from the Date A Live series by Koshi Tachibana, published in Japan since 2011. It is also a sequel to the game Date A Live: Rinne Utopia, released in 2013 on PlayStation 3. It is worth mentioning that the Date A Live brand has been adapted for as many as three seasons of television anime and one cinema film, as well as a huge number of related gadgets.

Plot

Date A Live: Arusu Install like the previous game from the cycle, is a spin-off of the main book series and anime, but their knowledge is not necessary for fun. The action of the game takes place in contemporary Japan. Thirty years before the beginning of history, the world is shaken by a powerful explosion (known in the game as the spacequake), whose victim in one moment falls to more than 150 million people. Since then, such catastrophes on a smaller scale are regularly repeated in various parts of the world, and their causes are mysterious creatures/spirits (Spirits), which take the form of young girls.

The players take on the role of Shido Itsuka, like an indistinguishable high school student who one day witnessed one of the explosions. In its centre, it finds a spirit with which it makes contact. He soon learns from his sister, a member of the Ratatoskr organization fighting the threat from the Spirits, that he has a unique ability to neutralize the power of dangerous beings. What's more, if he manages to kiss and fall in love with one of them, there is a chance that he will completely erase her supernormal abilities.

Date A Live: Arusu Install takes place some time after the events presented in several initial book volumes of the series, the second anime season, and the game Date A Live: Rinne Utopia. After the end of the autumn festival of Tennou, Shido is asked to try out a new VR game prepared by Ratatoskr. During one of the testing sessions, the hero discovers that he is trapped in the virtual world and cannot leave it in any way. Shortly afterwards, Maria Arusu, an extraordinary girl, appears before his eyes, who wants her to explain the meaning of the word "love". Soon afterwards, he learns about the dark version of Arusu, which seems to know more than he understands and enjoys the situation of the protagonist.

Mechanics

Date A Live: Arusu Install is a typical Japanese visual novel adventure. The game boils down to reading dialogues of characters accompanied by two-dimensional animated silhouettes of characters and illustrations. From time to time, we ask you to select one of several dialogue lines or actions that Shido will take. The story is divided into consecutive days. It happens that we decide about their course by choosing one of several available heroines, which we want to take on a date. The title offers many different endings, encouraging multiple passages of the entire plot.

Technical aspects

Date A Live: Arusu Install offers high quality two-dimensional illustrations prepared by the artist hiding under the pseudonym Tsunako. The illustrator has been cooperating with Compile Heart for years and is responsible for the projects of the characters in the series Hyperdimension Neptune. All dialogues in the game were dubbed by professional and well-known Japanese actors working in the anime industry.