Matchmaker Agency Review

Developed by Soft Source Games, Matchmaker Agency is a visual novel work simulator game released on the 14th of February. In it, you run a matchmaking agency, and your goal is to become the best matchmaker in town. Combining genres I really like — working simulators and visual novels — I was excited to try it out.

Matchmaker Agency begins with a cutscene in which the events before the game are shown and explained: your grandparents ran the best matchmaking agency in the town of Amoraville but have since died, and your parents didn’t want to work in it. Then, one day, you found a letter written by your grandparents addressed to you in which they entrusted the agency to you. It says you have a year to pay the landlord back all of what they owed him, and if you manage to do so, you will hold exclusive rights to the building and its land. Once ready to start working in the office, you find out your grandparents had a familiar — a talking cat that helped them run the agency. It helps you get settled in and guides you through how the game works. From there, it’s a regular working simulator, and the story takes a little bit of a backseat.

To successfully match a couple you have to make sure their sexualities align, that they like each other or similar things, and that the location you choose for them is relevant to their interests. During their dates, there are quick-time events in which you get a situation and need to tell them how to solve it — the way it works is explained by the player having genetic psychic powers allowing you to influence the way the date goes. While the gameplay is varied, it does get repetitive as there aren’t a lot of different situations; also, sometimes, you can go a very long time without having people who are a good match, which can be a little frustrating as there is a mechanic that causes people who you don’t match quickly to get angry with you and maybe even leave. 

The art style used in Matchmaker Agency is the usual anime one seen in most visual novels, but the designs don’t look very good. People are very long, especially their necks, and everyone’s hair looks terrible. It’s not that it’s unpleasant to casually look at, but if you notice it, it’s a bother. The sound design in the game is not bad, though; the effects are decent, and the music fits the theme of what’s currently going on. Unfortunately, there’s no voice acting, which can make reading everything the characters say a little tedious. Nonetheless, the sound department is one of the positive aspects of this game and something I genuinely enjoyed while playing.

So, while there are some things the game did well, it’s overall very underwhelming and a bit annoying at times. Having to rely on luck to get compatible people feels very unfair, the gameplay gets repetitive and stale really fast, and it looks pretty bad. This, combined with an uncommon but not very engaging story, makes the experience pretty boring and not something I could see myself actually having fun with after more than a few hours. The only true positives in the game I could find are in the sound department, and even they are pretty minor. There are some nice things that the game did, such as containing a pretty large amount of LGBT representation, but these don’t affect the gameplay or the enjoyment.

Overall, then, Matchmaker Agency isn’t a game I can recommend, especially for the £16.75 it costs. All of the issues and unenjoyable aspects of the game far outweigh the fun you could have from the first few hours of playing it. It has an interesting idea that I really was interested in, but the execution was pretty bad.