While they were all the rage for a few years after CD drives became commonly available on PCs and home consoles, FMV games crashed pretty hard and disappeared for a few decades. In this generation they’ve begun to make a modest comeback though, and given the move mostly to digital storage, the old problems with gaps from disk access and other issues have been minimized. That has somewhat opened the door to games that are more akin to interactive movies than ever before, and while they’ve generally had limitations they can still make for novel experiences.

Love Too Easily takes things a few steps further than that, not just using video to tell its story, but also including some cultural elements that are novel, as well as including what feel like mini games at times to further spice things up. The story centers around a young woman who spent the night drinking with some friends, and apparently got a little amorous with one of them at one point. She wakes with a vague memory of what happened, but embarrassingly can’t remember who of her 3 male friends she was smooching with. This leads to her needing to carefully ask each of them questions to work out who it was, while hopefully not giving away the fact that she doesn’t remember.

The bulk of the experience tends to revolve around these conversations, and her interactions with her friends. There’s absolutely a major element of young awkwardness for everyone, but that also tends to make it relatable. There are some aspects that feel more culturally grounded in their activities and how they interact at times, but if anything I tend to find that window into how people can be different elsewhere in the world interesting. To further help keep the gameplay from feeling stale, there’s quite a wide variety of mini games and even some old-school throwback Quicktime-style events included as well. How effectively they’re implemented and ultimately tie into how your story may turn out is a fair question, but I do want to acknowledge the obvious effort to try to deliver more than is expected.

While it’s very obviously going to be a little too unusual of an experience, whether you’re talking about teen love, a hodgepodge of mini games, or the retro full-motion video baseline of play, I have no doubt that it will have an audience for those same reasons. Yes, it’s strange, the interactions can be incredibly odd and awkward at times, and not all mini games are going to be a hit with the average player. Nevertheless, all of those same features could very well appeal to gamers who don’t feel like the typical title on the eShop speaks to them and what they’re looking to play. If you enjoy other cultures, a little uncomfortable teen romance, and a pinch of deductive reasoning, this at least stands out from the crowd.