Blind Men Review (Nintendo Switch)

Title: Blind Men
Genre: Visual Novel, Dating Sim
System: Nintendo Switch (also on PC, PS4, PS Vita and Xbox One)
Developer|Publisher: Man-Eater Games | Ratalaika Games
Age Rating: EU 16| US M
Price: UK  £4.99| EU €4.99 | AU $7.99 |CA  $5.99  | US  $4.99
Release Date: April 17th 2020

Review code provided by Ratalaika Games

Blind Men is a visual novel with two dating options for our male protagonist. Keegan, is the nephew of a supervillain and decides to apply for the League of Evil himself. Unfortunately in this Cold War era world, two foreign agents interfere with his debut scheme.

Less then gentle men

As visual novels go it’s quite simple. Playing as Keegan you are presented with two or more choices for how to react to situations and the story plays out on the resulting paths. You can either tangle with the overly flirtatious Agent Hunter, or the serious KGB Agent Sergei. Hunter has the most inappropriate dialogue being much more wild than the game actually goes.

There are multiple endings for either character some of which are clearly a bad ending. However all of them end with “The End…?” so even among the better endings there is no true path. Because of the mix between different endings you might get stuck on how to achieve some particular ones (as most people wouldn’t expect choosing to be angry the best way). Though all ends focus on one of these two men there is little romance. The story is largely focused on either being trapped in a building or a kidnapping gone wrong. With some mildly entertaining dialogue among these paths.

Multi-lingual

There is some music but neither the tracks made for the game or the royalty free Kevin Macleod ones stand out much. The only voice acting is a Spanish dub that is sparing, in only a few scenes in the whole game. The few locations the game has are drawn well enough, and the bright style of the characters helps to distinguish them well. Like most VNs there is special art for important scenes that are more detailed and are accessible in the gallery after unlocking them.

As a short visual novel there were no performance issues, and I only came across a few typos but no grammar issues.

Overall

Those who are interested in it for the romantic entanglements between villain and spies might be disappointed. The relationships don’t have enough time to develop, with a kiss or two being as far as it goes. The game took me only two hours to complete, and I only had trouble with a couple endings. For its price point it’s fairly reasonable so long as you weren’t expecting a proper courtship. While I’m not particularly interested in romances between men, the setting and somewhat humorous dialogue made it enjoyable for me.

Final Verdict: I like it