IOS

Life Makeover Mobile Game Is Like Shining Nikki and The Sims – But Better!

Life Makeover is an anime style dressup game that’s coming out soon for IOS and Android devices. I got tired of waiting for the Americas version, so I downloaded the SEA (Southeast Asian) version, and it might be the best game I’ve ever played on my mobile phone. And it’s already in English, both the text and the voice acting. The only downside is I’m stuck as a free to play user unless I buy some apple giftcards for the region I selected. I chose Singapore, but any SEA country will work. I haven’t decided if I will abandon the SEA version once the US version is released or play both versions. We shall see what happens. read more

Life Makeover Mobile Game Is Like Shining Nikki and The Sims – But Better! Read More »

Ensemble Stars Music Gets An Offical English Release

I’m so shocked and surprised and happy that I could cry!! I’ve been playing the Japanese version of Ensemble Stars for almost 5 or 6 years now. I never ever thought it would get an English version!! This is the best news of 2022!!

You can now Pre-Register for the Global Release of Ensemble Music Stars Here

Ensemble Stars is an anime “waifu” (except they’re husbando’s this time) music rhythm game with gorgeous artwork, fantastic music, and simulation aspects. It is most similar to Love Live All Stars or Idol M@ster (Will we ever see an English Idol M@ster game?) I say this because it blends not just tapping the music notes, but strategy and simulation elements in how you actually train your idols. I also (its been a year or two since I’ve played the Japanese version so forgive me if I’m incorrect but…) think that it has the Live 2D animated idols dancing around on your screen. I know it uses Live 2D in the story mode and cutscenes. read more

Ensemble Stars Music Gets An Offical English Release Read More »

Mr. Love Queen’s Choice Mobile Game Review

I had downloaded this game, Mr. Love Queen’s Choice, months ago, and forgot all about it, until I saw someone on instagram sharing a video stream of the game, and I was like wow that game looks fun. Then I saw it was by Elex, makers of Love Nikki Dressup Queen, and I was like, I need to play this game. Since then, I’ve sunk probably 20 hours into the game and am really enjoying it so far.

Title: Mr Love Queen’s Choice

Genre: Simulation

Publisher: Elex

Platform: IOS and Android

Where To Get: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.elex.paper.lovegp

Release Date: I think I must have used Qoo App, because I am already playing the game, and it says Pre-register on the play store. Or maybe I got into beta? I am not sure, anyways, yes I am playing the game currently. You can check Qoo App, which is probably how I got it. And yes I’m playing it in English.

Overall: 65/80 81% B- “Very Good Game For Girls”

Geeky: 3/5 – Basically just a card collecting game, but with a twist, you manage a TV studio and produce various korean tv shows and commercials. The cards have different skills such as if they’re good at drama or news or gourmet cooking shows, as well as stats for things such as affinity, decision, creativity, and other skills that you would expect an idol to need to have to be successful. Some cards are more rare than others. You can also level the cards up. But nothing too complex here, definitely a casual game.

Sweetie: 5/5 – there are otome aspects, sometimes the guys will call you, and it is partially voiced in English. The artwork is beautiful, the voice acting is pretty good, and the whole Kdrama Producer thing really speaks to anyone who loves simulation games.

Overview: 10/10 Mr Love Queen’s Choice lets you run a TV studio and recruit idols, as mentioned, with various specialties and stats. The main draw of the game is collecting idols, progressing through the story, and dating the idols. I think it is a unique concept, there’s a lot of idol producer games, but not too many that take a TV Studio theme.

Gameplay: 10/10 Gameplay is pretty simple, and if you’ve played Love Nikki you will be instantly familiar with the user interface as it seems to just be reskinned and given a new theme. No, this one is not a dressup game, but the way you progress through various levels, and the achievement system and basic interface are very similar. I give full marks to Gameplay because I’m really enjoying the simulation aspects of this game, casting idols based on their strengths as to who will perform best at various assignments. You also can experience otome game elements by choosing how to respond to various parts of the story. I am not sure how much consequence your choices carry – if any at all. But it is a nice touch.

Story: 10/10 – Actually for a mobile game, I’m really enjoying the story. First of all, yes I love korean dramas, and the thought of a game that lets you simulate your own Kdrama production studio, is a huge draw, but that’s not the only thing the story offers. You are daughter of a famous Producer who has passed away and left the studio to you, but it is struggling to stay afloat. As you struggle to step out of your Father’s shadow, and take the company to new heights, you also have recurring dreams about an accident that happened when you were a child. You narrowly escaped death and now your thoughts turn to trying to remember the face of the man who saved you all those years ago. As you’re occupied in your thoughts one day, you find yourself again in a similar situation and rescued by a mysterious man. Could it be the same man from your past? And why do these men keep appearing around you? One such man tells you that you are an Evolver, and that you do not know it yet, but you will soon awaken to your true powers. Leaving you (both as the character and the person playing the game) completely confused as to what he meant. Strange things also begin happening around town – could this be related to your supposed powers? The story offers a lot of mystery, intrigue, romance, and suspense. I have not fast forwarded or skipped a single screen.

Characters: 5/10 – I’m giving 5 out of 10 here. I do like the characters, and I appreciate they have a strong tie to the story, but there just aren’t enough characters to collect for an idol simulation game. I hope they continue to add new characters in the future!

Music: 5/10 – Kinda average, I don’t have strong feelings either way. I usually play mobile games on silent while other people are watching movies or something else anyways.

Voice Acting: 7/10 – I do like that they have voice acting in the game. It is in English, and some of the actors are really good… But some of them are not as good… I’d say overall though the acting is better than expected for a mobile game.

Graphics: 10/10 – I love the artwork of this game.

Overall: 65/80 81% B- “Very Good Game For Girls”

Mr. Love Queen’s Choice Mobile Game Review Read More »

Google Pixel 3 vs Iphone XR Camera

I just ordered a Google Pixel 3 a few days ago because it was $150 off on google’s store – sale ends today by the way. After ordering the phone, to kill time I was watching videos of the phone… I am mainly excited about the Pixel 3 camera. I am still using an Iphone 6S… I’ve had since it came out… so almost any new phone camera would put mine to shame. The last android phone I have used was Samsung Note 1 so I’ve been “Team Iphone” for a long time. But Pixel 3’s camera just looked so good. How good is it really?

I took a blind test and played along with this video:

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kadb9iHYJ60[/embedyt]

I watched this and paused it and studied each photo and came to the following conclusions which I wrote AS I was watching it – At the end he will tell you which camera belongs to which phone… I won’t spoil it – you can watch it yourself.

Here are my comments…

1 B
2 B
3 A’s color is better but I do like how B’s subject “pops” out of the background
4 – same comments as 3
5 – B
6 – about equal. A looks a little washed out, B looks a little dark
7 – B all the way, although it looks kinda warm colored. A is probably more natural color, but seems blurry and less detailed
8 – B all the way, no contest. A is blurry and pixelated/noisy. B is much more detailed and “cleaner”
9 – B is much more sharp and crisp, but A is probably more flattering for the portrait, But prefer B because it pops
10 – B is much more detailed and crisp. A looks washed out and blurry but sometimes thats nice for portraits
11 – B – but this one is pretty equal
12 – A captures more “area” you can see other houses and cars. And the things in the foreground pop more, but B has more midrange “clarity”
13 – B all the way, A looks super washed out
14 – B all the way, it really pops out. (Since dolls are my main photography subject this would be the camera I’d want the most)
15 – A shows more background detail, but B is nice for Bokeh, and the subject seems more clear in B

My totals:

B = 10
A = 0
Tie = 5

Did I make a good purchase? – Watch this video to find out for yourself.

Google Pixel 3 vs Iphone XR Camera Read More »

Food Fantasy Game Review

Food Fantasy is a brand-new cooking RPG and card collecting game from the creators of Love Nikki Dressup Queen. It combines many different styles of gameplay such as allowing you to research new recipes, gather ingreedients, explore the story, battle monsters, and collect cards known as “food souls” to add to your party or put to work in your shop. I’ve been playing since the game launched a few days ago and thought I’d share with you my initial thoughts of this cute little free mobile game.

Title: Food Fantasy

Genre: Cooking Simulation, Restaurant Management Card Collecting / Battling, RPG

Publisher: Elex

Release Date: July 2018

Price: Free

Where to Get:

IOS: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/food-fantasy/id1366072359?mt=8

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.egg.foodandroid&hl=en_US

Geeky: 1/5 – There’s not much “geeky” about this game. If you like cooking mama and can imagine a mash up of cooking mama with love live, then you can imagine something like Food Fantasy. Mostly I can’t give high marks because the combat is very basic and mostly automated and not very engaging or challenging. I don’t see this having wide appeal unless you like cute things or love games like cooking mama.

Sweetie: 4/5 – I think girls will like the simulation aspects the best. When the game starts you can select a cuisine style to specialize in, you can research new recipes, decorate your restaurant, and you can collect cute “food souls” that can work as staff in your restaurant, or be added to your battle party. I can’t give it a 5 for appealing to girls because the story is quite weak.

Overall: 49/60 82% B- “Very Good Game for Girls”

Gameplay: 4/5 – I’m on the fence about the gameplay aspects. It is a unique and fun game for sure. But I think the combat system leaves much to be desired. But combat is not really the main focus of this game. This game tries to be a jack of all trades, but is really a master of none. There are better RPGs, better card collecting games, and better cooking games out there – but none of them combine all 3 of these things…

When the game starts you select a small thumbnail image to represent you. – Other cooking games often let you customize an avatar character and add dress up options – since this game is by the creators of dressup nikki I was surprised, and a little disappointed not to see such features in Food Fantasy as well. – But there are some female “avatars” (thumbnails), and some “fantasy” type ones – for example my avatar is a black cat with little chef hat lol. It’s pretty cute.

After naming yourself and choosing your little thumbnail picture, you’re shown a tutorial and introduced to a few characters and shown some background story. Through the tutorial you will experience many things. First you will select one of three cooking styles which will determine your first recipe – and I’m not sure if they will have an effect on other recipes you can obtain or give you a boost to certain recipes.

Next you get to fight some monsters and progress through various missions. Sometimes some monsters will drop ingredients that you need for cooking. – they don’t seem to drop often enough though.

Back in the restaurant you can assign staff to cook food or wait on customers. Different characters give different bonus effects to your restaurant. Customers will come and go to your restaurant even while not playing, or while adventuring and exploring other parts of the game. You will need to periodically check in to cook new dishes and collect your tips and other aspects of restaurant management.

You can decorate your restaurant with cute items which in some cases grant bonus effects when placed in your restaurant.

You can also improve your dishes by leveling them up by making them over and over again, or by adding spices and other items to each recipe. In addition to improving existing dishes, you can also research and develop new dishes if you have enough ingredients.

The final aspect of the game is the “card collecting” in the form of summoning new “food souls” which as mentioned can be assigned as staff or assist you in the battle field. The cards range from common to ultra rare. Drop rates seem generous, I summoned an ultra rare food soul, Peking Duck, early in the game without spending real money. There are also numerous special events, such as the launch party that will award ultra rare food souls for completing specific tasks and missions.

You can then take these food souls into battle – but the battles are really rather dull and not a very fun aspect of the game. You can tap to remove status ailments from your party members or tap to interrupt the boss from using powerful special moves, but largely, it’s more automated and you sit there watching your food souls fight, and the difficulty level is quite low. I have not lost a single match yet.

Story: 3/5 The story is very weak and poor, and there are some awkward phrasings and some questionable translation issues. I feel the story has potential to be interesting, but it’s not yet. Basically, you summon a food soul who has no powers and they tell you she is an empty shell and that usually such food souls are discarded, but you feel bad for her and take her in, because you feel responsible because you were the one who summoned her. She vows to help and often tries to protect you even though doing so without any powers would mean sacrificing herself. She is frustrated and wants to grow stronger, but you’re told it is impossible. – If I have to guess, she probably does have some special power or something, that’s how these stories usually go. Right now, the story is slow and dull, but perhaps things will get more interesting – I’ve only been playing for 2 days, maybe an hour each day, so I’m still in the beginning stages of the game. But thus far, not really impressed with the story.

Characters: 5/5 – The characters are super cute, and there is a mix of male and female characters which is rare for these summoning types of games. Also every food soul has an English Voice Actor (or Actress), and if you don’t like the English voices, you do have the ability to select the Japanese ones as well. This is a really nice plus, I haven’t seen many of these summoning games that bother to add English voice acting. The artwork is adorable, and of course it’s all inspired by various food and beverages which gives it a nice theme.

Graphics: 5/5 – Graphically this game is quite nice with a unique storybook like style. The anime style food souls and npc characters are all very cute. The backgrounds are really detailed and lovely. I can’t find anything to complain about here.

Music 3/5: Some of the music and sound effects sound recycled from love nikki? Or at least very similar in style.  It’s average at best. Nothing really stands out, but thankfully nothing is annoying, although like most mobile games it can be repetitive at times.

Voice Acting: 5/5 – I love that there’s English Voice acting – and some of them are quite good. I also equally love that they’ve left the option to switch to the original Japanese voice actors at any time as well. Great touch. I know they spent a lot of money licensing the original cast, as well as hiring all new voice actors for the English release. This shows me they care about the fans, and about the game, and it was just a really nice surprise and does set the game apart a bit from other summoning games out there.

Crafting: 5/5 – I love that you can research new recipes. This game reminds me of several other much larger cooking/crafting games such as the Atelier series of games, or Mana Khemia, or Kamidori Alchemist Meister.  The crafting aspects are probably the highlight of the game. In that regard though there are probably a dozen other mobile games which do a better job – If you’re looking for similar games check out anything by Kairosoft, Nippon Cafeteria, Sushi Spinnery, or Ramen Master being 3 that focus specifically on food – while other Kairosoft titles apply the same game mechanics to other jobs/roles. Or check out other cooking and restaurant management games such as I love Pasta and I love Coffee – which I reviewed here. Or of course, I’m sure you’re familiar with the famous Cooking Mama games. Even though these other games may have more in depth crafting/management aspects, I still give food souls a 5 in this area. Out of all the different aspects of this strange little game, I think the cooking and simulation aspects are the strongest and most fun elements.

Customization: 4/5 – You can decorate your restaurant, assign staff, and choose your food specialty. But most other mobile restaurant simulation games have a dressup aspect and I miss that here.

Cuteness: 5/5 – The food souls are super cute and the graphics and voice acting take that cuteness to the next level.

Replay Value: 5/5 – With the special events and wide variety of things to do, from battling, to cooking, to decorating your restaurant, to collecting food souls, to inventing new recipes to serve in your restaurant, or progressing through story missions, this game has a lot to offer and will keep you busy.

Overall: 49/60 82% B- “Very Good Game for Girls”

Food Fantasy Game Review Read More »

Campus Life

Campus Life™: Fashion Girl IOS Mobile Game Review

Campus Life™: Fashion Girl 12+

So today, while working on another project of mine, which I’m not quite ready to announce here just yet, I came across an old app I used to love and be so addicted to. That app is Campus Life by Pocket Gems. I was looking for a way to blog about the app on my new site, but hint: since the project only covers android apps, I couldn’t blog about Campus Life.

For some unknown reason, Pocket Gems removed Campus Life from the android store about 5 years ago. Meanwhile, the Itunes version is still going strong with new features, updates, special events, and content added frequently. I wonder why they would want to alienate a large percentage of their players and thus lose revenue. I have been an IOS user for about 3 years now. So I had no idea this app was no longer available in the Google Play store.

Anyways, Campus Life is a really great game!!! It allows you to customize your first character and move her into an empty sorority house. You have to get other girls to join your sorority by hosting events around campus and of course throwing parties. You can buy more land and expand and decorate your house. You can have pets, you can compete against other real players in fashion shows, and get limited time event rewards, including clothing, girls, and furnishings. There’s even boys you can date. You can also craft your own clothes too! Campus Life is jam packed full of features and content!

I haven’t played in about 6+ months now, but it’s still one of my favorite mobile games just because of the sheer amount of things you can do!

Score Card:

Title: Campus Life: Fashion Girl

Publisher: Pocket Gems

Platform: IOS

Click here to get the game on your Iphone or Ipad

Genre: Dressup Game with City Building and Dating Sim aspects

Geeky: 5/5 – With so many different things to do, from designing your campus, to recruiting girls, dressing up, dating, making your own clothes, throwing parties, completing quests and events, collecting limited exclusive rewards, studying and improving your girls’ careers, virtual pets, and online multiplayer fashion showdowns, this game has it all. It’s far more than “just” a dressup game. Probably one of the most feature rich dressup games on the market, still to this day, and with a history of 4+ years and counting now.

Sweetie: 5/5 – The dresses and accessories in the game are very cute. There’s a huge variety of content, so you can be sexy, sweet, a bookworm, a jock, a goth, or anything in between. You can dye your hair, put on makeup, even select your skin tone. New content is added constantly. The art style is more westernized and not as anime-ish as I like, but it makes up for it in gameplay features and amount of items.

Gameplay: 7/10 Throughout this review I keep praising the vast array of activities built into this app. But we’ll list them one more time here. When the game starts you’re given your first girl for free. You select from a few options for hair/eyes/skin and clothing. You’re then thrust into a proceduraly generated game world. I know it’s proceduraly generated because I used to play on both IOS and Android back in the day and had 2 different accounts and 2 very different game worlds. Proximity to beaches, animals, forests, and other features were completely random. You could rescue the animals if you reached them, or build your house on the beach, etc.

You start with a pretty empty house and are walked through a tutorial where you buy your first clothing, furnishings, and recruit your first girl. Recruiting girls lets you meet new girls who move into your house and you can dressup these new girls as well which adds to the dressup fun.

But as I’ve said, Campus Life is much more than a dressup game. Your girls all have their own likes and dislikes, and to recruit them you have to interact with them and discover and talk about those interests. Certain furnishings can help boost the likely hood that a girl will want to join your sorority as well. Afterall, who wouldn’t want to stay in a nice place?

Later in the game you unlock even more features. Guys start coming over and you can date them, pairing them off with one of the girls in your house.

But the funnest features are the fashion contests where you play with other players, or the ability to craft and wear clothing that you make from raw materials that you gather.

I do have to subtract a few points for the game’s performance. It is very very slow to load, especially once you have a lot of rooms in your house and/or a lot of girls or furniture, etc. Everything when you first import a saved game to a new device, is an hour glass for a very very long time, sometimes more than an hour, depending on your internet connection speed. This performance issue is a huge draw back because while items are hourglasses they cannot be equipped, worn, used, nor interacted with. Things aren’t quite as slow on subsequent plays because it keeps a lot of that information probably in the cache of your Iphone or Ipad.

If these performance issues were fixed, Gameplay would easily be a 10/10. As it stands right now though, the most I can offer it is a 7.

Story: 1/10 – There really is almost no story at all in this game. Sometimes the events or characters will try to present some type of story, but, meh, it’s not very good. There’s no overaching plot to drive the story forward. The lack of a story is probably why I go periods of months on end without wanting to play the game again.

Characters: 7/10 – While the characters have no value from a story perspective, it is interesting that there are many different styles of characters to recruit, and they each have their own personalities, such as sporty or geeky or girly, etc. After awhile though, many of the girls start to look alike, there aren’t enough variations or details to make the girls really unique.

Graphics: 10/10 – although it’s not anime, it is still bright and vivid with smooth animations and a fantastic style. While the girls are not very unique, they make up for it with a ton of unique furnishings, clothing items, and accessories that differentiate and define your unique sense of fashion.

Music: 5/10 – The music was just average. I would say it’s about what you could expect from a mobile game.

Overall: 40/60 67% D+ “Average Game for Girls”

Note: if you ignore the lack of story, it becomes a 49/60 which would make it an 82% or B- “Very Good Game for Girls”. So if you don’t mind games without a central story, please do check this one out. 🙂

 

Description

Run the most fashionable sorority on campus!Recruit fashion geniuses, party superstars and student celebs to build the most stylish sorority around! Throw amazing events for your members, from fun study sessions to dazzling sorority formals. Live the campus life you’ve always dreamed of!Collect […] read more

Campus Life™: Fashion Girl IOS Mobile Game Review Read More »

Princess Closet : Otome games free dating sim

Princess Closet : Otome games free dating sim

Princess Closet : Otome games free dating sim

I’m testing a new plugin that will let me more easily share app recommendations with my readers. The first app I’m going to recommend is Princess Closet by Ciagram. It is an otome game available in both the IOS and Google app stores.

What I like about Princess Closet is that you don’t have to spend real money on cash shop items to reach the good ending. You can also read a few stories each day for free, making it possible to play the game without having to invest any money.

Read the full description and see screenshots below. This info was taken from QooApp. But this app can also be downloaded via the Google Play and IOS stores without using Qoo App.

Get Princess Closet on IOS Here: https://itunes.apple.com…

Get Princess Closet on Android Here: https://play.google.com…

Download

Description

◆Princess Closet will give you your Super Happy Ending for free

-A dating sim for girls where you can enjoy the love story without paying!

-Get the Super Happy Ending for free!

-Advance smoothly with no tedious missions!

-You can read 5 romance Stories every day for free!

-A game for girls who want to play otome games without spending any money!

Invited by a member of the popular fashion brand “Princess Closet,” you have been transformed into a “fashion model.”

Work together with the ultimate handsome boyfriend towards becoming a top model!

Your encounter with your dashing boyfriend… is the beginning of a romance that will change your life!

◆An extravagant cast of voice actors! Their voices will draw you deeper into this world

This romance game includes an extravagant cast of voices actors for the four handsome male leads.

You will be able to experience their sweet, charming voices as if they were right next to you!

With no real ambition in life, you luck out and manage to get a job at a large company.

Although not overwhelmingly dissatisfied, you are bored by the daily, unchanging routine work. And you find yourself wondering, “Am I okay with the way things are?”

Your only small relief from all of this is fashion.

That is, until the day that “Leo,” the up-and-coming fashion brand designer, suddenly appears in front of you.

At that moment, you never suspected that your encounter with him would change your life drastically…

“Fashion and romance will change my life.”

A dating sim game for girls who want to experience heart-throbbing romance, while enjoying fashion!

-If you love dating sims, otome games, games for girls, or romance games.

-If you are looking for romance novels, visual novels, online novels, light novels, romance comics, romance manga, or shoujo manga.

-If you are looking for sweet, romantic dating sims or stimulating dating sims.

-If you are looking for visual novels with sweet romance storylines.

-If you are looking for free otome games you can enjoy without paying.

-If you are looking for a game where you can experience romance with princes, aristocrats, CEOs, or celebrities.

-If you like situations that include a cute childhood friend with an adorable accent.

-If you are looking for dating sims with great art and graphics.

-If you want to experience forbidden love at the office.

-If you want to be a princess and experience your own Cinderella story.

-If you are looking for marriage games where your handsome boyfriend or lover proposes to you.

-If you are looking for adult games with keywords such as contract, secret, seduction, and fate.

-If you respond to keywords such as fated love, adult visual novel, or forbidden love.

-If you like popular dating sims for girls that are free.

-If you don’t mind dating sims that contain boys love.

-If you are looking for otome games where you are surrounded by handsome guys.

-If you want to find your perfect husband, boyfriend, or lover in the ultimate otome game.

-If you are looking for someone to marry who is handsome, a celebrity, an heir, prince, charismatic, or rich.

-If you like otome games as well as comics, manga, anime, or BL.

-If you have a husband, boyfriend, or lover, but you want to find someone who is more perfect for you.

-If you love romance dramas and are looking for romance apps.

-If it is your first time using a romance app and you want to find a romance app for girls that you can play for free.

-Free installation

-Uninstalling the app or clearing the cache will reset player data.

[…] read more

Princess Closet : Otome games free dating sim Read More »

BanG Dream Girls Band Party – English Release in Spring 2018

pastel palettes
pastel palettes

Bushiroad is bringing us yet another great anime rhythm game.

From the creators of Love Live School Idol Festival, and hot on the heels of the recent announcement of Klab’s English localization of Utapri Utano Princesama Shining Live, Bushiroads has recently announced plans to localize BanG Dream Girls Band Party.

More details can be found on the official website at https://bang-dream-gbp-en.bushiroad.com/

Not only are we getting the mobile game, but also English versions of the Weib Schwarz card decks:

[RELEASE ANNOUNCEMENT]
The girls from the upcoming mobile game “BanG Dream! Girls Band Party!” are joining the Weiß Schwarz stage! Featuring the vibrant scenes from the mobile game!

BanG Dream! Girls Band Party! TD+/BP on sale April 27th 2018!https://t.co/a9mUCYhoB1 pic.twitter.com/E0vI5P0qDQ

— Bushiroad Global (@BushiroadGlobal) January 12, 2018 read more

BanG Dream Girls Band Party – English Release in Spring 2018 Read More »

Utano Princesama Shining Live

UtaPri Utano Princesama Shining Live English Version Coming in Early 2018

Utano Princesama Shining Live
Utano Princesama Shining Live

KLab sent me yet another new game announcement to share with all of you. This time, I think the game really fits in with my audience here as it is similar in many ways to various other mobile idol games I’ve reviewed such as Ensemble Stars, Idolish, IdolM@ster Theater Days, Aikatsu Photo on Stage, and of course Love Live School Idol Festival.

The new game is yet another rhythm idol collecting card game.  The game is based on the hit visual novel and anime series, UtaPri, Utano Princesama. It will feature advanced Augmented Reality features that let you take pictures with your favorite idols, as well as story modes and rhythm game modes that you can play on various difficulties. You can interact with the idols in 2D Live, an exciting technology that brings anime games to life. No more static images. It even says their facial expressions and behaivors change as you get closer to them. I also see mention of different stage outfits, so it may also have some type of dressup element as well.

Klab is currently running several pre-launch events across Twitter and Facebook – by following either of their accounts you get an Ultra Rare card of your choice once the game starts, so it’s definitely worthwhile to check out the events before the game launches in early 2018.

This game looks so cute! I hope we see more Global releases of anime and idol games soon!

Check out the full press release from KLab below:

“Utano☆Princesama Shining Live”

Global Version Coming Soon!

Social Media Campaign Featuring Poster Giveaway Contest, In-Game Rewards and More!

KLab Inc.

(TSE1: 3656)

Tokyo, Japan – January 10, 2018 – KLab Inc., a leader in online mobile games, together with BROCCOLI Co., Ltd., announced plans for the worldwide release of smartphone rhythm game Utano☆Princesama Shining Live in early 2018. The announcement was followed by the launch of the official Facebook and Twitter accounts for the global version of the game.

 

Building on the success of the Japanese release, the global version of the game will be fully localized into English and Traditional Chinese, with a Simplified Chinese version planned for simultaneous release in Mainland China.

About Utano☆Princesama Shining Live

Utano☆Princesama Shining Live is a rhythm game for Android™ and iOS mobile devices based on BROCCOLI’s Utano☆Princesama series. With over 2 million downloads* in the domestic market, the Japanese version of the game has found success with fans across the country since launching on August 28, 2017.

 Utano☆Princesama is a visual novel series that began as a portable console game. The series now spans multiple anime seasons, manga, drama CDs, live concerts, and much more.

Utano☆Princesama Shining Live features 11 idols from the groups ST☆RISH and QUARTET NIGHT. Players can set their favorite idol to appear on their home screen and tap him to see his various reactions and watch his affection go up, as well as form personalized teams to play songs in a rhythm game. The rhythm game component allows players to train their own original unit of idols as they play a suite of songs from the Utano☆Princesama series at multiple difficulty levels. Players can also unlock stories starring the characters. The game transcends the boundaries of traditional gaming with a special Camera Mode that takes advantage of AR technology, giving players the chance to take photos with their favorite pop stars whenever, wherever.

* Total includes players who have downloaded the game more than once.

Opening Act Social Media Campaign

A series of special events leading up to the launch of the game were unveiled along with the announcement. Players are encouraged to follow either the official Twitter or Facebook account (or both!) to participate in these events, as well as receive the latest updates on the upcoming title. The Opening Act Social Media Campaign is now being held worldwide, except in Japan where the game is already available and in Mainland China, where a separate series of events will be held. All players will receive increasingly extravagant gifts when the game is released based on the number of people who follow the game’s official accounts.

Details can be found below, as well as on the official website which opened earlier today.

Event Campaign Schedule

Starts on Wednesday, January 10, 2018 and lasts until the game’s release (UTC+9)

How to Sign Up

To participate in the pre-launch festivities for Utano☆Princesama Shining Live, players are simply asked to follow the official Twitter or Facebook account.

All players will receive a special ticket that guarantees them a UR character of their choice when the game is launched. Players will be able to obtain up to 300 Prisms by clearing the following pre-launch missions.

* Prisms are a type of in-game currency used in Utano☆Princesama Shining Live to acquire new characters, unlock new content, and more.

Shining Live Pre-Launch Missions

In addition to the choose your UR ticket prize, all players have the chance to receive up to 300 extra Prisms depending on the number of people who follow the game’s official accounts before launch.

– Step 1: 100 Prisms (achieved at a total of 5,000 followers across Twitter and Facebook)

– Step 2: 100 Prisms (achieved at a total of 10,000 followers across Twitter and Facebook)

– Step 3: 100 Prisms (achieved at a total of 25,000 followers across Twitter and Facebook)

Poster Giveaway Contest

As part of the excitement leading up to the global release of the game, fans will be given the opportunity to enter a contest to win one of 11 commemorative posters from the Utano☆Princesama Shining Countdown Live 2017-2018 campaign. To enter, fans are simply asked to follow the official Twitter and retweet the contest tweet. Each of the 11 posters will feature one idol, and the 11 lucky winners will receive one of these at random.

Features of Utano☆Princesama Shining Live

  1. Multiple hits from the Utapri series! Turn your smartphone into a star-studded stage whenever you want!

Utano☆Princesama Shining Live is a rhythm game featuring simple, intuitive controls that gives players the chance to enjoy the greatest hits from the popular series. Create your own personalized idol unit and utilize their unique skills to rack up points and rewards

  • Watch stories and scenes starring your idols and their daily routines unfold before your eyes in vivid detail!
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    UtaPri Utano Princesama Shining Live English Version Coming in Early 2018 Read More »

    cocoppaplay

    CocoPPa Play Star Girl Fashion Revised Review Updated for 2018

    geeky

    I had previously reviewed CocoPPa Play Star Girl Fashion here. It is a cute anime dressup game for IOS and Android Devices. Many of my complaints were about lack of free gacha and how long it took to earn free gacha plays. – That has since changed. Now almost every gacha gives you one free play, just like in Dream Girlfriend, Fairy Doll, Animal Boyfriend, Moe Can Change, and Dream Boyfriend. The first time I reviewed CocoPPa Play, that was not the case, and while nearly every other dressup game I have played let you take at least 1 free spin on each gacha, it turned me off a great deal to CocoPPa Play in my first review.

    CocoPPa Play deserves a new review, because now, with the frequent free gacha plays (new gachas are added almost daily) and there’s always constantly an event going on, so it’s honestly the game I spend the most time playing on my mobile phone, and I love it lol. Also I may have not understood how the events work, and new events have also been added since my old review, and it’s not as difficult as I thought to earn even further free gacha spins. In my old review I say the gacha tickets cost 20,000 points. They now cost 10,000. I don’t know if it was an error on my part before, or if the price has been lowered, but it is nice much easier to get free gacha tickets.

    My show in #cocoppaplay #kawaii #anime #dressupgame #cute #mobilegame

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    I have a ton of pics of CocoPPa Play on my instagram. I will sprinkle a few throughout this review. Unlike my previous review, I now have a lot of pics of my own models (as well as using some screenshots from the official app store pages).

    So let’s take a 2nd look at CocoPPa Play below (Please note parts of this review have been repurposed from my previous review, while other info has been added, edited, or in same cases removed):

    Title: CocoPPaPlay (the Android version is called Star Girl Fashion but it is the same game).

    Genre: Dressup Game

    Platform: Mobile (IOS / Android)

    Grab it on IOS: https://itunes.apple.com…

    Or Here for Android: (For some reason, it’s called “Star Girl Fashion” here, but same game, even same icon that the Itunes version uses) You can pick it up here: https://play.google.com/…

    Geeky: 1/5 

    Sweetie: 5/5 

    Overall: 70 / 100 70% C- Good Game for Girls

    Concept: 10/10 The concept of CocoPPaPlay is simple – play “gacha” machines or enter monthly events to win new outfits. Outfits consist of different layers, such as eyes(facial expression), hair, clothes, shoes, hand accessories (purses, stuffed toys, swords, etc), hats, glasses, pets, backgrounds, and other items – This allows you to really fine-tune and make unique avatars. Similar to games like Pokemini (which I reviewed here) or Line Play.

    Gameplay: 9/10 I covered the basics above: There are a number of “lottery” style games (gacha machines) where you’re awarded an item for your outfit by paying or using a gacha ticket.

    There are also numerous events to win exclusive outfits. It seems the events change every week or two and that never a day goes by without some type of event going on. Events fall into one of a few different catagories:

    In all events you can earn “Lucky Tickets”: These items you can earn for free by cheering for other players shows or completing quest objectives. The lucky tickets can be used to try to play the lucky event gacha to win items/energy drinks, and/or used to raise your charm level for the event – I recommend trying to max your charm first. (similar to the events in Dream Girlfriend (which I reviewed here) Having high charm lets you get event points and rewards much quicker! Therefore its best to max it out asap. If you rank high based on your total event points at the end of the events, you get rare limited items.

    Catch Requests: In a catch event, after cheering for other players’ shows, a creature will appear on your screen with a few different catching options above it’s head and showing a percentage of how likely you are to capture them. You can “chain” successful catches to get bonus points, but once you miss a catch, that bonus is reset. If you chain enough catches you’ll go to a special bonus round after your 11th catch, where you see three creatures. In this bonus round, catching at least 2 out of the 3 will take you to yet another bonus round with a super rare creature to catch for massive amounts of points. I like to save my double point and guaranteed accuracy catching glove items for these two rounds.

    Fetch Requests: In a Fetch Event (as I have called it), there will be multiple “quest givers” who request items from you in exchange for event points. Go cheer for other players shows and complete quests to earn the requested items, then return to the events page to turn in your items for event points.

    Beam Requests: In a beam quest you find characters again by cheering for other shows. Some characters are more rare than others. Once you find a character, you use a beam to “zap” them to transform them somehow. After transforming, they award you points, more points for more rare characters. You can request help, or help your friends take down difficult characters and get lots of points. This event is fun because it goes very fast with large groups of friends.

    My entry for #CocoPPaPlay #snapcontest #fashion #dressupgame #anime #kawaii #cute #freegame #mobilegame

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    Fashion Snap: Dress up your avatar to suit a theme, and vote on “who wore it better”. You can earn a lot of gacha tickets in these events. They’re also the most fun in my opinion. New themes come very quickly – every day I believe. Fashion Snap often times requires you to use at least 1 item from the associated event gacha.

    Fashion Labo: Fashion Labo (which I’m guessing stands for Fashion Laboratory) is very much like the Fashion Snap events – also Fashion Labo will be going on along side any one of the other events above. Fashion Labo is different from Fashion Snap in 2 ways: The frequency of the theme changing is much slower, and length of the entry periods for each theme are much, much, much longer in Fashion Labo (spanning several days or even a week or so per each theme). Like Fashion Snap, you dress up to match the theme, and judge other people’s entries. The other big difference is you earn blue and gold hearts that can be exchanged in a special shop for more rare items in addition to those available via the rank and leader boards and as quest rewards etc. Be sure to spend your hearts, because they do not roll over to future Fashion Labo events.

    My #fashionlabo #fashionlaboratory #anime #kawaii #cute #dressupgame #character in #CocoPPaPlay #pleasevoteforme

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    Overall, it cycles through these event styles, in a scheduled and precise way, so that you can anticipate what the next event type will be and plan when you want to play the game. I don’t know the schedule off hand (I don’t really pay that much attention to it) But let’s say it goes something like (this is not correct, just made up to illustrate my point:) If the cycle went like:

    • Fetch
    • Fashion Snap
    • Beam
    • Catch
    • then it would start again with Fetch and work in the same order again down that list.
    • And it would coincide at times with Fashion Labo.

    NOTE: Fashion Labo is easy to miss. I missed a few of the themes this month. Because the icon for Fashion Labo is pretty much ALWAYS on your screen – Even when Fashion Labo ends, it lets players check their scores, view the contest winners, and etc by clicking the icon. So if you aren’t paying SUPER CLOSE attention, and notice that the icon has new artwork – thus indicating a new round of Fashion Labo, it’s easy to miss. I’m just going to get in the habit of checking that page daily. I recommend you do the same.

    That’s about it for events. One of my favorite things about this game is that there is ALWAYS an event of some type, and thus ALWAYS rare time limited release items. So many items. Between these events and limited time gachas.

    There’s also a club feature. You can at any level, any time, and for free, create (or join) a club. You can get bonuses in the events above by having club members where certain items or do certain tasks so clubs are really useful, you can also use them to chat and make friends which gives the game a nice social touch.

    You also can take on quests from NPCs within the game, which when you complete, will add new items to their shops, and unlock new cities to explore, and grant you some free outfits. When a city “levels up” they have a sale with half priced items – but I never buy them – because I’m hoarding all my Smile Points to use in the gachas.

    As a “bonus”, there’s another app by the makers of CocoPPaPlay, where you can customize your cellphone, with new icons, background images, wallpapers, lock screens, etc. This other app works best on android – because sadly, apple has a lot of bloatware that you cannot delete or modify – for example, the camera, you can’t change the icon for it on apple, the only work around is to download a 3rd party camera app, and hide your other icon in a folder somewhere. Email is another example, for example, you have to download Gmail, and hide the default mail app. You also can’t change the phone or text icons at all on the apple iphone. But it still makes your phone about 90% cuter – though it also makes your phone a little slower, as it adds an extra step whenever you click on one of the new icons it is only a shortcut to the actual program so you get prompted if you want to open the “page” with the following application. (At least on Iphone.) This other app also acts as a social media site, and if you link up your CocoPPa account to your CocoPPa Play account your avatar is carried over to both apps and appears on your social media wall – you earn some free items in both apps for linking, and can more easily login/retrieve your account by having both apps active.

    That about covers it for gameplay.

    #mobile #games games pictured include: #pokemon #pokemongo #lovenikki #nikki #dressupqueen #cocoppaplay #lineplay #shallwedate #wizardessheart #wethegirls #pokemonduel #zookeeperbattle #romancediary #romanticdiary read more

    CocoPPa Play Star Girl Fashion Revised Review Updated for 2018 Read More »

    Animal Crossing Pocket Camp

    Animal Crossing Pocket Camp Nintendo Mobile Game Review for IOS and Android

    Title: Animal Crossing Pocket Camp

    Developer: Nintendo

    Genre: Simulation

    Release Date:

    Price: Free with optional in-game purchases

    Where to Get:

    IOS: https://itunes.apple.com/…

    Android: https://play.google.com/…

    Overall: 56/70 80% “B-” Very Good Game for Girls!

    Geeky: 5/5 – Animal Crossing has a huge cult following because of its unique and strange gameplay and quirky cute characters. There is so much to do and see and it all takes place in an ever evolving changing persistent world that keeps you playing for hundreds or thousands of gaming hours.

    Sweetie: 5/5 – Very few games come close to being as cute as animal crossing with its chibi anthropomorphic citizens and bright colors. This game is full of charm and wonder.

    Gameplay: 8/10 – Animal Crossing is finally on mobile, which quite frankly is where this franchise has always belonged. It just makes sense as a mobile game given the style of gameplay which it innovated back in 2005. Now almost 12 years later, technology has evolved to where mobile makes the most sense for these types of games, having it with us in our pockets and purses, playing it on commutes, or while waiting in line at a busy store, or while at an appointment, or those few moments before sleeping or getting out of bed.

    Animal Crossing is best enjoyed in these little breaks and little moments. It’s also best enjoyed when played often as things change and happen in a living breathing world inside of your game. There are holidays and special events and animals come and go in and out of your areas. Having it on your phone puts it always at your finger tips.

    If you’ve never heard of Animal Crossing before (which is highly unlikely but just in case lol), Animal Crossing’s gameplay consists of quiet, calming activities, and cute, and quirky characters, who are, as you have probably guessed by now, animals.

    These animals may ask you to complete quests for them and in exchange give you random furniture and clothing. You can also craft your own furniture and clothing as well. Certain games in the series even score you and award you more items and points for decorating your home such as Animal Crossing Happy Home Designer.

    In fact, collecting these things and dressing up and designing has always been a big draw to the series. But it’s not the only thing that players love. Many players love to spend hours fishing, gardening, or catching bugs in the game. You can use them as items to trade with NPCs to complete quests or give them to other players or display them in your home or the museum, or sell them for bells (the game’s currency) to buy new items.

    Buying new items is addictive too, every day you turn on your game, you will see new items to purchase. Only available for that one day, and completely unique to just you. Not that the same items won’t appear again for you, or for other players, but this particular “collection” of items is unique to you. You may have on one day, a boom box, kitchen sink, and pink sofa, while your friend may have a dining room table, expensive rug, and statue of Link from Zelda. – Of course some items are more rare than others, and since friends can visit your home, you can show off all your rare items and score bragging rights.

    Nearly everything about these games are customizeable, from your character’s gender, name, appearance (initially determined by answers to questions presented when first starting the game), to your home, to your world around you. This also is another big draw to these types of games.

    New animals will appear and disappear from time to time in your world. This also increases incentive to stay active and stay in touch with your favorite NPCs. After an NPC leaves (in the traditional versions of this game, not sure about mobile), they will send letters to you and sometimes give you gifts.

    The games also feature night and day and weather cycles which add more variety to each play through. What you do on any given day is up to you! There is no objective, no goal, no ending, no progression it’s just a sandbox, a living breathing world for you to explore and interact with each day.

    This sounds like a huge plus – and in many ways it is, but it can also be a drawback as there is very little urgency or pressure or nothing really compelling you to keep pushing forward. Many times my love for these games starts strong, but 3 or 4 months in and I find I’m barely logging in, but without fail always 6 months later I’m back to being addicted and wanting to play daily. My interest in these types of games goes through spurts like that. I think I burn out from the casual nature, but then find myself wanting to relax and enjoy a cute game and gravitating right back to it, for the same reason that I left it in the first place. It’s almost a double edged sword.

    Anyways now that I’ve given you the basics of the franchise, let’s talk about what Animal Crossing Pocket Camp does differently than the other games in the series. For starters, as the name suggests, the entire game takes place in the great outdoors. You’re given a campsite you can decorate. And you have a camper trailer that you can decorate both inside and out. You travel and visit other animals (or visit your friends) and you can take quests, craft, shop, and do all the good basic animal crossing stuff.

    Some areas will be blocked from exploring initially. You need to either pay leaf tickets (special in game currency obtainable with real money (but quite often also given for free as quest rewards), or get the help of friends to enter these new areas.

    New areas open sometimes for special events like right now there’s a Christmas area where you can get more candy canes to help craft the time limited Christmas themed items which you need 5 friends to help you unlock.

    You can link the account to your nintendo account or link your facebook and twitter to find more friends! 🙂 Playing animal crossing with your friends is now easier than ever.

    So those are a few of the positive features.

    On the downside, they’ve removed the actual houses, so that’s a bit disappointing for those of us who liked modeling our homes.

    Also my biggest gripe is too much is just “handed” to us. In previous games, we each had a random fruit. In this game, when I get to the tutorial, I’m given tons of different fruits I can hoarde to plant back at my own campsite. Making the need to work with friends less important in this game.

    I also don’t know / haven’t tested how inviting a friend over to your campsite works and how or if you can communicate with them and what activities you can do together. I feel like it may be more limited than in the other games, but maybe I’m wrong.

    Other than that, the game offers a feeling of playing the console and handheld Animal Crossing games right on your mobile phone.

    Story: 4/10 – Story has never ever been Animal Crossing’s strong suit, and I think for me personally, that’s why I get bored of the games so fast and have an on/off love/hate relationships with them. I play games primarily for story above anything else. So lack of really much to offer here makes it a bit dull to me.

    Characters: 10/10 – The characters are charming and cute and have always been the best part of the animal crossing games.

    Graphics: 10/10 These graphics look just as good as any Animal Crossing game I have ever played, and it’s a free mobile game, now that’s impressive!

    Music: 5/10 Music is just sort of average. Nothing to write home about. Sometimes it can be cute and catchy, other times repetitive and annoying. Depends on my mood and the song in question.

    Replay Value: 9/10 – The very nature of Animal Crossing as a franchise is a slow and steady journey meant to be enjoyed through several (often times daily) small playing sessions. Animal Crossing offers much to do, from fishing, bug catching, gardening, to crafting, to shopping, to collecting, to decorating your home and dressing up your avatar. However, it does get repetitive because of the slow and lackadaisical gameplay style. – Which don’t get me wrong, that gameplay style has also always been the game’s strong suit and its unique charm, and what makes it so much fun. There also are time limited goals, time limited items, and time limited quests to complete which will keep you logging back in. However, it’s also the type of game you can play for 10 hours a day for 6 months straight and then feel bored of. It’s much better to enjoy it about an hour a day, as if you immerse yourself too long, you will burn out quickly. But kept in small doses, you will be playing this, or any other animal crossing title for years to come. Now that animal crossing is on our mobile phones we are all doomed to be playing it religiously for the foreseeable future. And future updates will make this even more enticing.

    Overall: 56/70 80% “B-” Very Good Game for Girls!

    Other Games You May Like:

    Castaway Paradise – pretty much an animal crossing clone. It was fun, but ain’t no animal crossing. Now that animal crossing is on mobile, I see no reason to play this.

    Animal Days by Gree  Sadly this is no longer around, but probably one of my all time favorite mobile games, you should check it out since there’s still a wealth of images and info available online with a quick Google search; it’s interesting to read about just because of how unique and fun it was. It had the cute animals, moving in and out of your village, and most excitingly, you could BREED your animal villagers to create new villagers. There were time limited release villagers, and all kinds of really cute things to decorate your home, and a cute story too. I was sad when it closed. I heard they underestimated how popular it was going to become and couldn’t manage well with the production schedule for new releases and updates. I wish someone would buy the code from them and revive this project, but it’s been dead for 5 years now, so it’s not likely to happen. I would rather play Animal Days by Gree over even the best Animal Crossing game, because the breeding and randomized aspects make me so excited.

    Happy Street – “sort of” a clone of animal crossing, but completely different gameplay, still, animals at random move into your village, and you fish and mine and craft and so on. but yeah, just it’s different, it’s more like mobile clicker type gameplay, but it has the same charm and theme as animal crossing and is a fun and different enough game that you should play both! 🙂 — There’s also a version of this put out by Line Play, and the name is escaping me right now. Same game / user interface, but different graphic assets and run by different companies. It still has cute animals moving in and out of your village and same gameplay mechanics. I think Happy Street was marketed more and took off more rapidly, and thus the Line Play “clone version” is a lot less widely known – might be worth checking out for you if you love Animal Crossing or Happy Street though!

    Seabeard – This has a huge massive open sandbox world and captures some of the unique gameplay aspects of animal crossing.

    Line Play – for the fishing and dressing up and decorating and kawaii style.

    Animal Crossing Pocket Camp Nintendo Mobile Game Review for IOS and Android Read More »

    idolmaster million live theater days

    Idol Master Million Live Theater Days Japanese Rhythm Game Review

    Title: Idol Master Million Live Theater Days

    Genre: Rhythm Game with Visual Novel elements

    Publisher: Bandai Namco

    Release Date: June 28, 2017

    Where to Get: See Below:

    Itunes (Japan Only): https://itunes.apple.com/jp/app/…

    Google Play Store (May also be Japan Only – not Sure) https://play.google.com/…

    How to Get: You can check out my review of Aikatsu Photo on Stage to learn how to get free Japanese Itune items by creating a free Japanese Itunes account. In Aikatsu Photo on Stage, I was unable to help android users locate the game as it does not run on Bluestacks (or any rooted devices). I do not know if the same holds true for Idolmaster Theater Days as well. If so Android users may need a VPN Tunneling Service, which I know nothing about. Sorry.

    Also in the case of this game when registering for a new account, be sure you select Japan as your country. This cannot be changed later. You can leave “English” as the language, but this only affects emails Bandai will send to you, and does not affect the language actually in the game – which is sadly only available in Japanese. Later, if Bandai ever releases the game in North America and in English you will have to make a new Bandai account to play the English versions of the game. But we’ve never received a single IdolM@ster game, despite success of their Love Live series which is very similar, so I don’t think the chances of English localization are very high! 🙁

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    Overall: 66/80 83% B “Very Good Game for Girls”

    Overview: 10/10 – I have a new obsession, as anyone who follows me on Instagram may have noticed this past weekend. Idol Master Million Live Theater Days may just be my new favorite mobile game of all time. It takes what I enjoy about Love Live, Aikatsu Photo on Stage, and Idol Master Cinderella Girls and smooshes them all together.

    Graphics: 10/10 – The best part about Theater Days is that the girls are rendered in Live 2D just like Ensemble Stars, Dream Girlfriend, and countless other anime games. This technology allows for very lifelike anime renders. While 3D would feel stiff and 2D would feel flat, Live 2D finds a balance between these two. I can’t get enough of these Live 2D games!! In fact I wish to see the technology used even more, not just on mobile games, but PC and Console Games as well. I don’t know if this technology was used on Nekopara, but the result is VERY similar. The models look more clean than the cel shading technologies used in Catherine and School Days. Live 2D is the best thing to ever happen to anime games. More companies need to take notice.

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    Not only do they look great, the girls appear on stage as full bodies, not just a tiny face in a circle like in Love Live School Idol Festival. Aikatsu Photo on Stage also has full bodied — but static — images (which kinda “bounced” up and down at times on the screen). But here, in Theater Days, thanks to Live 2D, the girls dance and sing on stage with unique dance routines choreographed for each song and each singer; and it’s just so incredibly cuuuute!!! I can’t stop playing, watching, and taking like a bazillion screen shots, seriously! Just check out my instagram account lol.

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    Music 10/10 – Aikatsu Photo on Stage seemed lacking in the quality of the music compared to Love Live, but Idol Master Million Live Theater Days is at least as good, if not even better, in music when compared to Love Live. The songs are seriously addictive. I really like some of the earliest tracks like “Brand New Theater” and “Sentimental Venus”, but all of the songs I’ve heard have been good. I’ve played and watched the music videos (in game after beating the song at least once), over and over, all weekend. The music is so good, and the girls’ dancing is so well timed with the music. It feels so real, like you really are at a concert. The lights on the stage, the audience, the movement, the emotions, omg. It’s indescribable. There’s also excellent voice acting in the story scenes as well.

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    Gameplay 8/10 – And like Aikatsu Photo on Stage and Idol Master Cinderella Girls you can dressup your girls in different outfits. I haven’t figured out how to do this yet. I’ve won, what looks like white, wedding dress, looking rewards from several songs, but can’t figure out how to use them or equip them. But I do see that we can change the uniforms for each member of our party, I just don’t have anything showing up when I go to this menu to change their outfits, except the starting red/white/blue outfits they are given at the beginning of the game. Perhaps the white dresses are materials or tokens to draw new outfits or something else useful and related to outfits. I just know there are costume changes, and the costume changes will be represented on stage when playing or watching / listening to the songs.

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    There are also visual novel like elements to the game. I can’t read Japanese, but luckily there is only 1 response / option to select. I’ve only found 2 instances where I’ve had to make a “choice”. The first time was when choosing which starter card I wanted. I picked the girl in the pink sweater with side pony tail. The other time that the game asked me to make a choice was shortly after that, when a new girl is introduced, she has very short hair, sometimes in short pigtails with red ribbons and a green dress. — I think the main girl I had drawn already was jealous of the new girl, I think based on their facial expressions / interactions. My “main girl” and 2 other “starter girls” were in another room talking about something/one when the “new girl” overheard them, and they apologized and got embarrassed. I was presented an option, probably something encouraging the girls to get along. Whatever I picked seemed to surprise the girls. Story went on for a bit, then they all sang together, after the performance, my “main girl” came to me and asked something of me. There were 2 options, and the one I picked seemed to make her happy / satisfy her a bit.

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    There will be other chances to interact with your girls, any time you are logged in, you can move around different rooms, and find your girls randomly going about their day. Sometimes they will have an “!” or a “…” bubble above their heads, when tapping on a girl, you can listen to what they have to say, which usually doesn’t even require any feedback from you – and rewards you with XP and the rare/summoning currency.

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    You rank up as a producer by completing these “quests” and of course by putting on live performances which is where the majority of the gameplay comes from. You assemble a team of 6 girls. They have different attributes such as Princess, Fairy, and Angel. The song attributes change every day. For example, yesterday the songs wanted Princess, and Today they want Fairy. On my first day of play they wanted “All” which I guess would require a balanced approach. You can have several different teams built and saved up and switch freely between them. It also seems you can have it build the teams for you by hitting the pink “recycle” looking icon, and then choosing the attribute you want. For example, Princess would autofill your highest scoring Princess cards into the team. This doesn’t mean that only Princess members would appear, because you might have a fairy or angel who has high Princess points too. This probably all sounds familiar if you’ve played other titles such as Love Live School Idol Festival.

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    Idol Master Million Live Theater Days Japanese Rhythm Game Review Read More »

    Where is Mobile Gaming Headed and What Can we Expect In the Future?

    Where is Mobile Gaming Headed and What Can we Expect In the Future?

    The figures are in and they tell us that mobile gaming is going to stick around for the long haul after all. Gamers the world over are making the move from traditional PC and console gaming to mobile gaming, and it’s not hard to understand why. Mobile games are portable, dynamic, and just as exciting as tradition games. 

    Today we’ll be looking at mobile gaming; where it is headed, and what we can expect from it. 

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