I finally can pass way too many time in my family reunion with some classic Sarabande of Healing buffed Disco of Gold on Vicious Hunger, while jamming to some Gatti Amari (Hyper) because 6969 golden eggs on Big Trouser became way too ballsy for my seizuring phone to handle, to the point that my family is worried that Samsung has reimplemented their bomb feature on my phone when my nephew tries the NFT (Nduja Fritta Tantos) features out.
Please turn flashing VFX off and fix the numerical text values.
Last Edit : I'm dumping my review from 3 to 1 star because Tencent now owns 20% of Shift Up. And I cannot write a 2nd review here.
Disclaimer : I have a hate boner against Tencent due to their TencentPCQQManager once killed my laptop. I only realized Tencent had a part in this game 14 days after launch.
I played the game for 14 days.
Why you should play NIKKE :
1. You have a nostalgia playing Virtua Cop
2. You like to collect waifu and TCG
3. We are horny for Physics Engine
4. Alteisen Mk. VI beats drop harder than the Particle Cannon Strike.
Why you should not play NIKKE, let me tell you the story :
At 1000 power I experienced...
1. No actual pity system in standard banner
2. New player SSR Banner is a paid only banner
3. They nerfed SSR Mold rate from 100% to 60%
4. 2 hours limited packages obfuscated and disrupt your gameplay hype
5. You want Pilgrims but despite being SSR their rates are UR (0.5% total, 0.086% each)
6. You didn't know Ether and Diesel are the worst units of their respective rank and invested in them.
7. Character Episodes are bugged and not giving rewards
8. Then the game crashes and logged you out
9. The first YT video I got on playing the game is to reroll for a week straight
10. You are not told on how to upgrade Recycling Rooms and Dispatch
11. While waiting you realized Dispatch is so stingy and not refreshing while Azur Lane, Arknights, and Blue Archive drops you hundreds of free gachas.
12. You realized you can only upgrade Recycling Room with Post Gacha Coins.
13. You joined a union but they don't give you anything.
14. You looked up friends but all of them are full and the search system is broken.
At 10000 power I experienced...
15. The Event is not even doable for new players while hardcore players can't clear the 47k power req last stage.
16. The game crashed and logged you out after maintenance.
17. Most likely people invested the wrong unit at this point of the game and wasted many gems.
18. You want to fill your outpost but Lost Relic is actually painful and eye straining to search.
19. You want to upgrade Tactics Academy and you will never have enough money to afford those.
20. NIKKE Bond Levels made you struggle to get your parasocial needs fulfilled and your campaign progression gimped.
21. You need to limit break characters but they have no Universal Bulins/Tokens/Eligmas/Limit Breaker so you have to gacha 200 times.
22. You realized 2 of the Interception rewards are locked behind Tactics Academy.
23. You realized those upgrades locked behind so deep into the campaign.
24. You filled the Power Reqs for some stages but some enemy are simply unkillable within 90 seconds.
25. You tried some harder stages but realized a red Power Number made all of your characters hiddenly debuffed by the game - being significantly weaker.
26. You upgraded skills and turns out on some stages they do nothing.
27. You got 50 bonus income per level but the game doubles and doubles and doubles the level up requirements.
28. You realized one Pilgrim Tribe Tower is practically unplayable because nobody had enough Pilgrims to even enter it.
29. You want to relax in Character Stories but Rapi hits you with Racism, Financial Struggle, and Social Inequality too unsubtly at the beginning.
30. You rested for a day or two and realized you can only clear a handful of levels for the day.
31. You cleared daily and doesn't feel anything or afford any meaningful level ups nor gacha for the day.
At my current 30k power I experienced...
32. Enemies went from 27000 to 31000 power limit to clear the stages.
33. Reported on YouTube every NIKKE is bugged in a game breaking way, Soline even teamkills ourselves.
34. All Tierlist that people used weeks to reroll and whaling are now obsolete.
35. All Burst Skill Upgrades are bugged and not working.
36. I have rolled 250 times in 14 days but I still don't feel powerful without right Duplicates.
37. My friends quitted this game and not even half of my power level
38. The First Event - No Caller ID is unclearable with 47000 power requirement.
39, I have to gacha to farm the event drop, if I fail the gacha I got no bonus and 85% of the chances came from gacha characters I barely own.
40. The game conducted 2 Surveys in which has no meaningful impact so far.
41. I was informed about free gift codes which MOST OF THEM DOES NOT WORK
42. The free credit shop is ridiculously expensive, ineffective, worthless, and RANDOMIZED.
43. I went through Tactics Academy and spent 1000000 Credits on upgrading "Combat Portrait Income" THAT DOES NOT EXISTS IN THE GAME FOR NOW.
Edit : 43 about Combat Portrait is in the Simulation Room but as to what the hell is Combat Portrait rewards means I have absolutely no idea since they could have said Burst Manuals instead nor refer to it in the Outpost Defense.
Edit 2 : The events has been made easier and rewards albeit increased still feels like a mistaken generosity because free 3.6m credits daily makes all other shop options obsolete not by choice.
Edit 3 : It no longer crashes so Graphics rating is raised to its actual rating. 5th star is saved for time when they allow the emoticons from Character Story t be implemented to the Home Screen.
I have nothing against SHIFT UP. It's just... I pity the developers... I really do.
Edit : I left this game for a week and a sudden update made it stuck at 25%/50%/75% on regular. Always solvable by changing Internet from WiFi to Data, DNS, VPN if available.
TL;DR It's Bang Dream for Touhou. Please dim the background of the beatmap through settings near the play song button. Weird game progression of a unique rhythm game. Give Gacha Pity System please and don't make my Gacha Tickets expire.
I'll start with the bad parts because other than that this game is Supreme.
[Important] First thing to learn first is that your progress is locked in ハコニワ/Hakoniwa (Story Dorm) and dailies where progressing through it, you will unlock the Comissions, EXP Chip, and Heroine Fragments farm to level up Heroines and opens up Danmaku Mode to level up Mitama Cards. Only after unlocking Danmaku Mode you can start farming the game.
Update : I'm out of regular money within 24 hours (Dream Drops/Green Water) limit breaking and leveling the glorious SSR Mitama Cards. -Current primary source of Dream Drops are not Full Combo-ing the themes which is easier on harder difficulty than easy... good luck with that.- Dream Drops come mainly from missions but it's not enough and you are not always notified about it. (Post 1 Month) Exchange Event Format were really generous in terms of Money. I got 6 million Drops from one event.
Update 2 : There are confirmed FPS drops and loading stucks especially when you has just changed the Kagura (Beatmap) Settings. (Update to No. 2) The issue with Bulk Download Softlocking in the Settings has been fixed.
Value, they nerfed the gacha system but it's worth the gameplay and fanservice. However let me give a lot of issues.
- The worst part however, is that GACHA TICKETS EXPIRES AFTER 90 DAYS which is a BIG ISSUE for long term players so you cannot stock up and draw only for your favourite wife which probably releases 3 months from now like Saigyouji Yuyuko or Okina Matara or Junko.
- The rate for SSR Mitama Cards is good 4% (3,6% for regular SSR and 0,4% for Emblem SSRs), I DONT FIND ANY PITY SYSTEM FOR SSRs IN CURRENT GACHA (I hope I am wrong).
- They give starter SSR through panel mission, be mind that you have to do a survey to get this.
- The shop utilizes Sunk Cost Fallacy in which to draw the Starter Gacha 3000 Gems, you have to buy $25 pack and $1 pack (2940 and 120 gems). This will go a long way and I'm afraid for the worst. It feels like the Punishing Gray Raven incident.
- Also, 3 tiers of Monthly Cards?
*Gameplay, it's literally Bang Dream with Danmaku.* Darken the background first. Don't forget to customize the Rhythm Game Settings near the play button. If they can make the Danmaku more prominent, it'll be a masterpiece. The Rhythm Game lives to standard but the Danmaku should be special. It's more action paced to play than Touhou Lost Word but the core gameplay is locked behind timegated and story in ハコニワ.
*Gameplay Progression, it's locked behind ハコニワ as you only get EXP Chips from beating the boss, and to beat the boss you need to access the Danmaku Mode which is locked behind the story of ハコニワ which is TIME GATED by Commissions.* The Danmaku Mode should have been available for the game from the start. Also, the boss doesn't match up with the theme of other characters. You fight Aunn Kumano in Alice Margatroid's theme. The progression is also locked behind your HEROINES LEVEL, NOT MITAMA CARDS (except Damaging Skills ones). The damage dealt to Bosses in Danmaku Mode is gated behind Heroine Fragments, obtained from dailies and GACHA. Fix all of this and create the second best Danmaku game behind Bullet Hell Monday Finale in the future.
*The Stamina System. 10 Staminas every 300 minutes doesn't completely halts your progression.* You can play and farm without stamina but don't depend on it. You better Full Combo'd a theme with the unlocked Boss Danmaku Mode from ハコニワ, and use skip tickets to farm it for EXPs every 3 stamina for that sweet 7x multiplier. You can play without stamina but expect minimum rewards. Harder Difficulty doesn't always means better rewards. Auto play is available when you finished the theme accessible during the party selection screen 2nd button from bottom right (DOESN'T APPLY TO DANMAKU MODE WHICH IS THE MAIN EXP FARM EARLY GAME).
*Graphics, Top Tier judging from the Gacha Banner Emblem SSR Mitama Card design.* You get full HD SSR which became standard Quality for the level of artwork you will expect. Colorful and Spatially Aesthetic HD Quality Controlled Landscape artwork is a pleasant surprise, and you got pseudo L2D on the level of AndWobble with custom animated effects if you Limit Break their Levels Enough. However, the simplified Touhou Cannonball Quality shows up for the simplified L2D Boss Sprites for Heroines might be very contrasting to the absolute spectacle that is SSR Artwork. Also some characters get heavy Fanservice (Looking at you Murasa Minamitsu).
Sound, do I even need to meme about this?
Story, good as usual, it doesn't startle and choke ZUN by reading their story during his daily Beer session.
They have an unimplemented "Club" (Guild) tab in the shop. This means there will be a ladder/score ranking in the future and guild dailies, but I'm NOT looking forward to the Guild Wars.
Thanks for reading, and looking forward to the game in the future.
Support pet gameplay problem.
Most bosses have DPS Check which screws you good if you have a pet that does not deal double attack.
Consistent damage early game pets are far superior than all healer or debuffer pets. Even the SR one like Seraph is useless than a N Bunny Girl who effectively doubles the player's Average DPS, bursting the enemy before they can do anything.
The worst part? Their chances for using attack skill are so low, they won't deal enough reliable damage to finish the game and ruins your run midway.
Art and Sound, simply gorgeous. We're talking a summary of decades worth of fanmade art and music, putting less than stunning review and I'll have to get my eyes checked by a doctor.
Story wise... what do you expect? It's Touhou. Drink a gallon of beer before start writing using an eraser, we will still buy it.
Gameplay wise, they attempted to be complex. They had octagonal elemental system and spellcard accessories combo and effect, but that's it. When you got to the high level, you better off with memorizing the AoE Last Word element superiority and 3 attack skill characters on top of high attack stat like Youmu, Flandre, Medicine, Alice, etc. Finish Yukari and Marisa quickly before their infinite buffs gets up.
We need more youkai variety like hit number check, HP check, Evasion check enemies, a Raid Boss made of Nitori's Hisoutensoku, Suika Ibuki, or Meiling's Dream Catfish while removing the 999999 damage cap. They should add 1 character only mode and allow that character to switch up/middle/down position to emulate the bullet hell feel.
For Gacha, 5% rate is nicely above other games. There are many overpriced things on the game, but the skin and VA are worth the money. It's just kinda off that you cannot buy Character Talismans separately. If any, they should sell us more Custom BG, UI, Original BGM, Ambience effect, and character skin. Then the gacha price won't look as expensive anymore.
Notes (17)
MoreFalse F2P Progress Ads n Brags
Anyone saying you can LB3 Pilgrim F2P are kinda lying through their teeth if not insanely lucky. Looking at you Discord. Here's a day 1 player, $1 spent progress looks like.
This is how actual (almost) F2P BRAGGING is. Stop lying about F2P while LB3-ing dozens of Nikkes pls.
Stats :
216 days played
181k power.
Hard Ch. 9-11
Tower 146, E121, M130, T123, P132
Missing Nikkes : Noah, Harran, Yuni, Crow, Soda, Biscuit, Blanc, Noir, Rosanna, Miranda, Milk, Anne Xmas, Rupee Xmas, Mary, Cocoa, Viper, Makima, Power Read Note
Vampire Survivors
4.6I finally can pass way too many time in my family reunion with some classic Sarabande of Healing buffed Disco of Gold on Vicious Hunger, while jamming to some Gatti Amari (Hyper) because 6969 golden eggs on Big Trouser became way too ballsy for my seizuring phone to handle, to the point that my family is worried that Samsung has reimplemented their bomb feature on my phone when my nephew tries the NFT (Nduja Fritta Tantos) features out.
Please turn flashing VFX off and fix the numerical text values.
$269,420/10
Would double my golden eggs again.