English
3.4
If you think this review will help others to quickly identify whether the game works for them, please LIKE in the end. Feel free to discuss in the Comment below.
———TL;DR Review———
1. Great graphics, wide range of selectable BGM (freedom of choices is always appreciated
); 2. No ground-breaking gameplay if you have played a game from PS Vita era, this is not something new;
3. there are holes in the plot, like average games overall, it's not all bad, just somewhere here and there not making sense personally;
4. ULTRA level of time consumption, if you have a life, DO NOT PLAY THIS GAME; the amount of time needed to MIN-MAX at the highest level can go up to 3-4 hrs; rewards to time consumption ratio is about 1:5...definitely one of the highest one for all the gacha games I have played, especially for a primarily IDLE game...
YAY//NAY: Nay...!
———Detailed Review———
Graphics:
Wonderful graphics overall. You can complain they completely wasted their potential by covering up the NIKKEs' assets...but I am not that much into their assets when I am playing a gacha game, in the end, these mean NOTHING...
The 2D designs, 3D modelings, 2.5D live animations, the chibi versions: all of them are above average, relatively, better than most average gacha games on the market. So well done in the graphics.
If you take a closer at each NIKKE, at the very least, not that many NIKKEs are completely identical! That is better than most of the bad animes with interchangable character designs XD
———
Audio:
I wouldn't say all of their BGMs are in top tier quality, however, you can select your own BGMs. That is something most gacha games lack of. Apart from that, you get to collect them all via treasure huntings. It's fun, interactive and it opens up a system of choices and rewards. It's something enjoyable, it's nice.
Cool sound effects too, though I do expect more lines from the VOs overall.
———
Gameplay:
Are you not ENTERTAINED with the booties jiggling technology? Are you not SATISFIED by the boobs wriggling mechanics? ......
Personally, those are OLD features from SRW franchise...so I am not impressed by the old tricks. The shooter gameplay looks kind of new to average players, to me, as I have repeatedly mentioned: the WHOLE GAMEPLAY is nearly a replicate of a dead gacha game back from PS Vita era. Not even the idle elements look new. The basic combat gameplay is simplified to only COVER & STRIKE. In that PS Vita game I mentioned, it had manual control of where I want my character to go. Or if you want to compare this with a AAA failure — The Bureau: XCOM Declassified, even that massive disaappointment allows players to move to different vintage points as your character slowly advances and gains strategic advantages from FLANKING. What kind of LAME AI design would be created just so your ROBOTs//NIKKEs stay in the same location, and NOT FLANK THE ENEMIES AT ALL? AIs are specifically designed to be better than average human. If I am the Commander who can make a superior order, yet, DON'T ACTIVELY correct the bad strategies applied by your sub-coordinates...I am a BAD COMMANDER...
See? Our main boy is a bad boy and that makes me a sad boy...Hence, gameplay wise, its simplicity literally kills the strategic play. Imagine you can move NIKKEs to FLANK your enemies, gaining a strategic advantage and dish out more dmg.
The design of ONE-HAND control seems to offer most of our gentlemen a FREE HAND to do whatever they want. But with less control and less vision, that also means more restrictions on gameplay...based on the videos on YouTube etc., PC players HAVE MASSIVE ADVANTAGEs over mobile players as they have a COMPLETE WIDE VISION on the battlefield...which means SUPERIOR TARGETING PRIORITY. And that is something vital in the late game. By removing that option for mobile players, it is clear, because of the restriction, that has already caused me PROGRESS DELAYs. For a game heavily relying on Ranking for rewards, THAT KILLS our motive to continue as a F2Per. Again, when your entire F2P population is against your game, like what we are seeing within weeks after the launch, THAT'S GONNA LEAVE A MARK...
Despite how much the developer EMPHASIZEs on STRATEGICAL gameplay in their survey, the balancing of the game literally proves them WRONG. Where maxed-out SR and R tier NIKKEs are NO LONGER feasible picks for Campaign in the early game or game modes in The Ark, SSR tier NIKKEs have proven to be THE ONLY VITAL PICKs for any situations. Then, you need to make sure, you have a diversified SSR roster.....no skill needed in nearly 90% of all the stages I have cleared (all up to Chapter 10 of Campaign; 65 Levels of the Tower; 4 zones of the Lost Chapter; Level D of Annihilation......); no STRATEGICAL picks can be applicable (if you can't clear it with a SR and R mixed squad manually, you can always simply AUTO MODE your way out with a full SSR tier squad......); you can't beat a stage with an UNDERPOWERED squad? Your overpowered squad shall totally clear the stage easily then.
So...I guess they did promote this clearly before the release: NIKKE is a titties-&-booties game, DO NOT PLAY this if you are expecting more...and I clearly have not read the Terms & Conditions...
I didn't know: a game without GAMEPLAY can still be fun as a GAME. I truly thought that is called a piece of art, not a game at all.
———
Plot:
At this point, I think we all have to agree to disagree that the plot for this game is absolutely PERFECT and LOGICAL. There are certain area that are seemingly less optimized and less ideal; sometimes even finding it odd when they are being told in the story. But this is a gacha game, it's not a AAA flop like God of Wok or Borderland 3, or a AAA scripted nudity movie like Bayonetta...
DON'T hold a high expectation on the plot from a game that FOCUSES your POV entirely glued to BUTTs and 80081€5. They didn't think it through...
———
Value: (PLEASE read the end to get more details)
I will simplify this to this sum-up:
"If you are ONLY min-maxing via completion of Daily & Weekly Missions, you won't be able to min-maxing to a competitive level where you can keep up with the in-game requirments; you won't be able to gain rewards from Rankings that worths HOURs of rewwards."
Basically, if you only LIMITED to playing 60mins on NIKKE per day, you won't be able to complete the 70 missions from the Launch Event...because simply, within 60mins, you can't get a lot advanced in Campaign or the other areas.
The Rewards:Time Consumption ratio is approximately hitting 1:6 at the highest point. On average, 1:5 when you compare to most of the average gacha games on the market. * (more details in the end on the ratio)
If you are a busy person who wants a simple game that gives you boobs and butts, buy an adult game, it saves you more and it will be more rewarding. If you are F2Ping this game for the same things, STOP COMPLAINING.
———
General Scores without personal opinions:
6/10 —
8 if you really love big butts and boobies...NGL...
General Scores based on my experience and preference:
2/10 —
A game with gameplay that is not fun at all? BAD.
If the only selling points in this game are boobies and butts, why don't you turn it into a hentai anime instead...
A good game requires great graphics and visual designs; a wide range of memorable BGMs that paired perfectly well to the plot or the visuals; impressive VOs; fun and unique gameplay that lasts for some time; a logical yet intriguing story that allows players to immerse themselves into the world; FINALLY, it should be rewarding for the players in every aspects mentioned.
A game that only satisfy our visual and audio needs (or sexual desires in this case)? That just sounds like a sex tape...perhaps, [Goddess of Victory: NIKKE] does sound like a title of a sex tape...instead of Victory, maybe "Sex Appeals" could be a better option.
(All of my reviews are usually made after running a week or longer of testrun thoroughly without using any guides from Internet. No loopholes is abuse for rewards:time consumption ratio. I count ALL AVAILABLE DAILY+WEEKLY+MONTHLY rewards for the rewards part; every 30 minutes of playing as the basic unit for time consumption. So Rewards:Time Consumption ratio shows approximately how much time you need to perfectly min-maxing per day)
(In the case of NIKKE and games at launch, the launch event is also taken into consideration since most launch events are newbie-based to welcome new players. Whereas the actual regular Rewards:Time Consumption ratio for NIKKE is around 1:2, during the launch period, it is at a whooping 1:6; so it's not surprising for the overall negativities from the public)
(Average time needed for min-maxing on AUTO-Mode:
Approximately ~1min-1min20secs per stage;
2mins for Annihilation;
5-10mins for Lost Chapter;
All SKIPs for every SKIPPABLE scene saves around 3-5mins per day depending on Campaign progress and everything;
5-15mins+ for Simulations depending on how many Sectors;
Gifting and Purchasing from Shop takes around 2-3mins;
Leveling up NIKKE and equipment takes 1-2mins;
Regular logins for Outpost rewards takes 2-4mins;
I only managed to complete 70/70 missions from the Launch Event on Day 13, pushing Campaign to beginning of Chapter 10, Tower to Level 65...do the math...not to mention the time where I failed and retried for using squads consist ONLY SR and R for STRATEGIC testruns...)
More Reviews of This Game More
Zen Kisaragi
2.6If I were to describe this game, it'll be akin to a very polished and beautiful jewel that unfortunately stuck on a ring wore by a morbidly obese, greedy ugly bastard. (Updated as of 17/11/2022 - After event's Hard Mode release) Positive: 1. Fabulous graphic 2. Fantastic character design and art. 3. Smooth and fun gameplay; difficulty is just right. 4. JP VAs are superb as usual 5. Great sound design. 6. Intuisive UI. 7. Many ways to get SSR; friend points roll has 2% chance of yielding an SSR. 8. Good writing and interesting plot; I've played half-way through chapter 6, and the story is just getting better. Negative: 1. They lied about the 110 pulls. Those "110 pulls" are what you can get by playing THROUGHOUT the game, not launch event. 2. Extremely dilluted SSR pool; there are over 40 SSRs in this game, compared to less than 20 SR and Rs. Most of these "SSRs" should've not been SSR at all. If you're wondering, the real SSRs are the Pilgrims. 3. Horrendous launch rewards; No SSR selector, only 20 pulls, and no free SSR (Diesel is one of those SSR who should've been SR, and no, the tutorial pull doesn't count) are just horribly underwhelming. 4. No pity; yes, you got that right. It's almost 2023 and this game has no pity. The 200 pulls for mileage is just for Body Parts, YOU WON'T GET THE UNIT BUT THE DUPES. (edit: there are two mileage currency; silver and golden mileage. Silver is for regular summon from the normal banner, while golden is from summoning from the rate-up banner. Regular summon ticket can't be used on the rate-up banner, so there's no use saving them. The rate-up banner has a seperate summon tickets which, fortunately, can be brought with free gems. Silver mileage can only be used for Body Parts, while golden is exclusive to the rate-up character. Also yes, the golden mileage carries over each banner, so there you go, we do have a pity system afterall.) 5. Downright predatory monetization; everything is expensive. I don't know, maybe I'm just poor, but I'm not spending $40 for an SSR. The $20 battlepass only gives you a "20% chance-SSR ticket", a "60% chance-SSR ticket", 20 pulls, and a skin. Oh, did I mentioned any paid packs other than the monthly pass and the usual top-up pack only gives you FREE gems? That's right, it doesn't count as a PAID gems. 6. Peanuts compensation for maintenance and bugs; It took 300 gems for a single pull, while they gives 100 gems for bugs and 300 for maintenance. 7. Breadcrumbs in-game rewards; A chapter clear gives you 50 gems, an outpost level-up gives 100, and player level-up is 30... clearing a sub quest ranges from 50 to 150, completing a character episode yields 50 gems... 8. No daily login rewards; you read that right, this game has NO permanent login rewards (daily, weekly, monthly). 9. Weekly mission is almost impossible to complete; we need 100 points to get the 300 gems (1 summon) from weekly, but the problem is the maximum point we can get from the mission is 120, of which 40 of those points are get by completing (a) 20 summon, and (b) limit break a nikke. Right now our gems income is NOWHERE near enough to warrant 20 summons a week, so we have to rely on the friend points summon, but the problem is if we get a maximum of 30 FP a day for a week, that's 210 FP which yields 21 summon.. yes, that is if all 30 of your friends are actively sending back points to you.. so you're forced to curate your friend list everyday... what kind of fked up system is this?! 10. Your team unit stats are reduced to 25% if you do not meet the required stage power; for example if a stage has power requirements of 1000 and your squad only has 999, you'll be getting your overall stats reduced by 25% up to a whooping 75% according to how much deficit your squad power has against the requirement, resulting in less outgoing damage and more incoming damage taken. Absolutely scummy and lazy "balancing". 11. The game's first ever event, "No Caller ID", is a circus designed for whales. a) First red flag: Unlike the traditional "event currencies" in other gacha games that has guaranteed drop from the event stages, you need specific characters for a CHANCE to get said currency, PLUS the currency is limited to a maximum of 50/stage (the lowest item price in the event shop is 10.000 Credits which cost 40 event currency). b) Second red flag: The entry for playing the event stage is limited to FIVE per-day. Additional entry can be bought with gems at the event shop. c) Third red flag: Even if you're playing religiously, you still can't clear the event shop WITHOUT clearing the Hard Mode, so clearing the Hard Mode is MANDATORY because the event currency's income from the event stage is just THAT low. That's why you're relying on the Mission rewards, which needs you to clear the Hard Mode. d) Fourth, and the biggest red flag: The event's Hard Mode can only be cleared by whales. Yes, the power requirement's jump is ridiculous. The last stage has a power requirement of 46.000 -which is absolutely unreachable by F2Ps with two-weeks of playing. I'm a D1 player, with some $ dropped which I absolutely regret doing so, account level 62 and a squad power of 33k. I know that the majority of D1 F2Ps right now are pushing through the 20k's, so the bell curve is clear as day where most people stand on the power curve. Yet they still made their first ever event completely unclearable by MOST of their playerbase. Event on Discord, whales are complaining that they're struggling with the event. Who tf designed this event?? You want to see how a game dies? Because this is how you kill a game! (edit: They nerfed the event's Hard Mode difficulty, now it's 27.900 for the last stage instead of 46.000. Alright, at least there's indication that they're listening to feedbacks, so there's still hope. Devs dodged a bullet right there) Conclusion: With the way they run things, this game would become irrelevant in a few months. It's not going to die, but it's not going to live either. I was prepared to spend a few hundred dollars on this game until I saw the cash shop. How disappointing.
Hermit
3.0You can feel the predatory scheme around the game. It's grindy af and the difficulty spikes up way to fast at the beginning while new players still get the feel of the Nikke and which nikke they want to invest in(trying to gacha and get the one they want). There are WAY too many SSR compared to SR and some of those SSR are not worthy of the rarity and the pick up rate. AND they had the audacity to make the rate of pilgrim Nikkes(the units worthy of being called SSR) lower compared to other units in the SSR pool knowing they are the some of the best units in the game as of now. Limit Break. The act of feeding duplicates to a Nikke. SR can limit break 2 times reaching lvl 160 while SSR can limit break 3 times reaching lvl 200. Good luck trying to limit break your SSR with that huge roster in the pool. You will probably be stuck limit breaking and leveling up SR units like me AND THEN synchronizing the SR lvl to the SSR so they can get past lvl 80(the lvl cap of SSR with no limit break), and that too is limited to 5 units to synchronize. They will give you 15 slots if you do the classroom grind. But if you want to synchronize more Nikke then tough luck! You have to pay 500 gems per slot. BATTLEPASS. expensive af and not rewarding enough. As other reviewers have mentioned, the weekly mission needs 100 points to fully complete and the max you can get is 120 points, 2 missions are worth 20 points while others 10 points. The problem is these 2 missions are not f2p/user friendly: 1 mission requires players to limit break a character(giving character a dupe) which is unrealistic since you have to pull dupes and you will eventually reach the limit. And the other mission is to do 20 PULLS worth 6000 gems while the weekly rewards are 300 gems and 1 recruit voucher which is worth 2 pulls total. Edited at Nov 11: You can use friendship points to pull instead of gems, BUT that is another can of worms that another reviewer have explained. Lastly the game is still plaqued by bugs. there are bugs at the character bonding screen where players that have unlocked the 2nd story or more have to replay the 1st one again and get error message only to be booted again on the home screen. Harmony cube screen also softlock players and the only way to fix it is to close the game. Edited at Nov 11: after a few fix here and there they managed to fix some problem while creating another problem. The devs feel unprepared or incompetent. One step forward and two steps back. Edited at Dec 8: they fixed the previous bug only to have stuttering and graphic problems. Either the devs are incompetent or this game has spaghetti code. Absolutely idiotic. Check nikke reddit and nikke.gg for reference. F**king game man.. There are also suspicion of the devs messing with the pull rates, since there is a confirmed court case with Destiny Child, another game of theirs. They fixed the shop bug instantly but still haven't fixed MANY MANY bugs littered through the whole game. Scummy af. tldr; Conclusion: feels like a overhyped and undercooked game with good graphics but simple/halfassed gameplay and predatory practices all over the game(not f2p friendly too). The devs are incompetent and the publisher is greedy af. At least the story, music, and JP voice acting are good. This game needed at least 1 more year before it released.