Introducing Nikke: Goddess of Victory, the hottest waifu collecting mobile gacha game where you, the commander, lead a squad of Nikke to fight raptures and reclaim the surface. This was developed by Shift Up, the same company that released Destiny Child, another mobile gacha game that recently ended service which also started the Live 2D animation gacha.
I started playing the game during the first week of January out of boredom. Actually, I was reminded I should've started it soon because @enforcer48 was introducing me to the Goddess Scarlet and all her glory. Not sorry for the tag.
Plot:
Raptures, mysterious mechanical beings suddenly appeared. These things screwed humanity over and drove mankind almost to extinction. Nikkes were created in response to the threat while humans fled into the Ark, an underground sanctuary, in the hopes of reclaiming the surface.
I have a rule of thumb when it comes to waifu gacha games. The more hot and cute the promotional materials show, the more dark the game story is. Nikke's world building follows some standard sci-fi tropes mixed with tragic backstories and gut punches. This isn't the first gacha game where I initially thought it was just fighting against evil with sunshine and rainbows. It's the dark world that Nikkes live in that got me hooked into the game.
Every character/waifu has an opportunity to shine through the main and individual side story. The side stories have bits of trivia that contribute to the overall world building which makes them rewarding to pursue unlocking if you're into lore.
I've always thought about two types of gamers, the ones that play for the mechanics and the ones that play for the lore. Anyone can have both motivations but at the same time but one can prioritize gameplay over the lore and vice versa. I'll play the game because I'm interested in unraveling the story which happens to have hot waifus, and the shooting robots part just comes second.
I thought about doing a recording for the gameplay then explaining about the basics in combat but this seems too much of a hassle when the post already exceeds more than 1k words and it's far quicker to just browse on YouTube for videos about the game. It's a shooter game where your squad remains stationary and you time in when the skills are used during combat.
Is this game Free to Play?
Yes. The game has been quite generous with their premium items handed for free giving all accounts a decent start. This comes at no loss for a game that's one of the top 3 grossing mobile gacha games next to Genshin Impact. You can play without spending a dime and still do fairly well in terms of story content and PVP. You just don't get special skins and other nice aesthetic things often but these don't really affect gameplay skill wise.
Is it pay to win?
Only if you want to secure a spot within the top 5 consistently. I've been throwing a small amount of cash into it for practical items that help me progress with the game story content but nothing like throwing money to gamble for waifus. Despite gachas having a reputation of being pay to win, this one is still a numbers game that rewards players with skill decision making during critical moments.
You can still play it on autopilot for the most part but some rounds will require some manual guidance at aiming and prioritizing targets due because AI limitations in selecting priority targets. It's still a numbers game so muscling your way through story content by upgrading on your units to tank damage also works.
I go by Adam and I'm currently trying to be top 1 at all banners (missing Elysion, Pilgrim, and Hard Campaign at the moment).
The game rewards you for putting some strategy and tactics into play. When the recommended firepower to complete the run is around 10k units away from my actual squad firepower, running it with AI autopilot or manual will usually result in a losing scenario. But it's still possible to pass the stage if you pay attention to the quality of waifus you take on the mission, their skills, positing, and aiming. Putting these factors in together made me able to breeze through the initial content faster than the recommended levels.
But it's also a grinding game, so there will be instances where you get everything right except the bare minimum firepower needed so you just need wait more to level up your units. The only thing that delays my progress here is accumulating the leveling materials which take up a few hours to days. It's a fair mechanic considering making players wait leaves them to entertain ideas about using real money to overcome the inconvenience.
Daily quests
You can accomplish all of these in under 30 minutes or less. It becomes tedious to do as you progress because of repetition and you outgrowing the materials handed out. This is when autopiloting the game works magic.
Now some mobile players find this daily tasks a drag and would try to ask devs to reduce the tasks needed for the same level of reward, but in my unsolicited opinion, if you keep reducing the the tasks needed to play the mobile game to the point you spend the least amount of time possible, maybe mobile games aren't your thing and this doesn't benefit the game when they're trying to present the stats where players spend a lot of time playing the game to investors.
I was lucky enough to get rare units on my first pull with a 2% drop rate. And even luckier considering Red Hood and Modernia are the two units that are highly recommended to breeze through the campaign story. I didn't know these two were a big deal until I saw more game reviews about it. Yes, I pay attention to stats and guides to nerd out.
I'm ranked second in the overall story campaign within the SEA server and a consistent top 5 in PvP (can't beat whales and lords of luck in gacha). But the previous statement is a stretch considering SEA server is made up of smaller servers so I'm just a big fish in a small pond.
And lastly, this post wouldn't be complete without a showcase of my waifu collection, part of it anyway.
Notice me senpai~
Thanks for your time.