Love Nikki is an anime-styled dress up game that is so much more than just a kawaii paper dollhouse. Google tracks my weeaboo searches across my Chrome browser on the computer and on mobile and constantly flashes anime related ads at me. I ignore the majority of them, but one night when my inhibitions had been considerably lowered by that goofy ganja, I clicked the link that a Love Nikki ad flashed at me and downloaded it. I had no idea I had popped the top on a month-long addiction can. Love Nikki's protagonist is the titular Nikki, who has been transported by a mysterious Queen along with her talking cat Momo to a place called Miraland. In Miraland, people love fashion and compete using styling competitions to determine almost everything, something Momo even points out in bits of meta humor. The land was divided into several kingdoms after an epic event called The Nine Day War. There appears to have been some sort of story that starred Nikki before Love Nikki Dress-Up Queen, as some context seems to be missing based off of Momo-Nikki dialogue. However, this part isn't as important because the story mode of Love Nikki effectively spins its story without being weakened by the missing context. Nikki collects a gaggle of friends such as Bobo and Lunar, and meets and battles with reoccurring characters such as a Sports Girl and a Business Lady as she progresses through the Stylist world. The story is divided into chapters and stages, and require an "A" or an "S" to progress onto the next stage. Sometimes, chapters require the collection of every single part of a particular suit in order to unlock the next chapter. Certain parts of these suits have to be crafted using ingredients you probably will have to grind previous stages to obtain all the parts for, introducing an obnoxious but tried-and-true unexpected RPG element I wasn't anticipating in a dress-up game. As for the story quality, its intriguing but certainly not deep. Before you scoff at that, ask yourself, are you really playing a game called Love Nikki for amazing dialogue, deep character development, and innovative plot points???? No, no you are not. You're there for the outfits, of which there are literally thousands of available combinations. The library is enormous and supports a wide variety of categories to dress Nikki up in. You can change her hair, face, and skin color, all of which you can purchase or win through Nikki's game modes. The variety is amazing and several of the outfits are truly beautiful. Collecting the pieces of the outfits takes dedication, earning either money or diamonds to gain new parts. The game offers daily log in bonuses that can help make this process easier, giving you three free suits just for logging on and clicking the right buttons. You can get three free random draw from the Mystery House's two rooms, which net you an item each, or click on the daily event boxes. In Love Nikki, clothes are assigned a variety of attributes and the descriptions for battles in the modes that function that way allude to what categories you should shoot to dress Nikki in. For example, a description could ask for a simple and elegant office style and the player should dress Nikki in clothing that shares those two categories. You can also power up your score with special abilities and dish out hits with offensive abilities like Critical Eye. The above screen shot is a battle from the player-versus-player Stylist Arena that Love Nikki boasts. In this mode, players compete by trying to match a themed description in an attempt to score higher than the other by matching the in-game category system. In addition to the Arena, Love Nikki has The Competition. This player-judged competition asks players to create a look based around a given theme. The screenshot above asks for a look inspired by the phrase "Coronation at Night". The lower percentile that a player's look falls into, the bigger the reward after the competition ends. This is one of my favorite game modes because it is player-judged, allowing me to ignore the sometimes wonky in-game styling scoring that can result in ugly outfits. Another player-judged mode is the Starry Corridor, in which players can create outfits and scenes and scale the appearance of their characters. Players can put a short description on their scene, telling a miniature story with either solo or duo character-populated scenes. Other players can leave pre-determined comments on the image telling the creator their image is "Beautiful" or "Creative". This is one game mode that has a feature I haven't figured out even after several weeks of playing. You can purchase exclusive closet items using "Honor"; but how you earn honor I have yet to figure out. Oh well, I appreciate the ego boost that comes from the views and the comments on my creations regardless. (I really want one of the hairstyles in this gallery so if somebody would tell me how to grab it in the comments I'd really appreciate it.) Love Nikki even has its own version of the guild system in the form of Stylist Associations. In these groups, members collaborate through Commission quests to work towards guild-wide rewards. The higher your contribution per day, the bigger the reward you get the next day for your hard work. It's pretty cool to see your name with a crown beside it on the rankings. I'm in a small, relaxed-vibe association that hasn't made enormous strides in the Love Nikki world, but it's nice regardless. Oh, did you think it was over??? Did you think 5 game modes wasn't enough to satiate your voracious appetite for a good mobile game?? Love Nikki anticipated this reaction, and decided to give you a home-building option as well. You can win random themed furniture from your room using the Wish Court, which you get a free crack at once a day. You pay for furniture items using an entirely separate currency that you can win from Life Bits, which is the slowest to gather in the entire game.
A huge thing I appreciate about Love Nikki is that gold and diamonds do not take hundreds of hour to farm. Love Nikki offers daily gifts and frequent events to quickly gather them both. After several days of playing, you can make huge groups of purchases. Love Nikki didn't have to go so hard, but it did, and for this I will be eternally thankful. I can't put this massive, mighty little mobile game down, and I don't forsee it happening any time soon.
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AuthorI've been watching anime since I was 9 and I write about my thoughts sometimes. Archives
June 2019
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