Mobile Game Review

Mobile Game Review: Tales from the Table: Embracing the Warmth of Bear’s Restaurant And Walking Away Hungry For More.

Welcome to another adventure in gaming, where we dive into older titles that have been patiently waiting in our backlog. Today, we’re exploring Bear’s Restaurant, a game that has garnered high praise on Steam and other platforms. After years of anticipation, I finally got around to playing this charming game. As I immersed myself in its cozy world, I found myself grappling with mixed feelings. Was it the enjoyable experience I had expected, or did it fall short of the hype?

While Bear’s Restaurant undoubtedly has its merits, I couldn’t help but feel that something was missing. Despite the high ratings and glowing reviews, the game seemed to lack the finesse in writing and development needed to truly connect with players. Join me as we delve into the delightful and sometimes disappointing world of Bear’s Restaurant, and ponder whether it lives up to its reputation or leaves us craving more. read more

Mobile Game Review: Tales from the Table: Embracing the Warmth of Bear’s Restaurant And Walking Away Hungry For More. Read More »

Flipped In Love Anime Dressup Game Review

I think Flipped In Love, Project Star, and Starry Love are all the same game – but different! The gameplay in Flipped In Love (and possibly Project Star, I haven’t gotten far enough to unlock it yet) allows you to breed rare cats that get genetic markings and stats from their parents. Obviously, that’s not the main feature in Flipped In Love. But it’s probably my favorite feature in the game.

Flipped In Love is first and foremost an anime dressup game. You unlock rare outfits and accessories and dressup your avatar to compete in fashion battles. You recruit team members, join guilds, garden, cook, and as mentioned raise cats. But the other big chunk of the game is that it’s also an anime otome dating sim game. There’s 4 guys you can date from the childhood friend to the tsundere to the childlike one to the artistic one. These 4 stereotypes are featured in multiple similar games, Flipped in Love, Project Star, and Starry Love, as well as Wannabe Challenge and Mr Love Queen’s Choice… and probably many more games. read more

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Genshin Impact Review Of Free To Play Open World Anime RPG With Gacha

Genshin Impact has been making waves and covered by almost every media outlet. It has received both good and bad press. But I hadn’t played it until last month when I got my Playstation 5. Genshin Impact is also available on mobile and PC. And there is talk about bringing a version to Nintendo Switch but that won’t happen until late 2021 at the earliest. I’ve spent a few weeks now with Genshin Impact and have really enjoyed it thus far. Here’s what I think.

Genshin Impact is a new open world anime RPG by Mihoyo. It has stunning anime graphics, English voice acting, great music, and lots of unique features. The open world lets you explore, craft, hunt for treasure, perform both story and non story based quests, and of course fight monsters, all while collecting characters from a gacha. Genshin Impact is said to have terrible Gacha rates and gets a bad rep for that aspect sometimes. read more

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Wannabe Challenge Otome Game Review

Revision: 11/19/20: In this article I compared Wannabe Challenge’s story and character to those in the Korean Drama, My Love From Another Star, however, I originally was thinking of the Korean Drama, Goblin, and got my wires crossed somewhere. I thought about just coming in and editing it to change it to say Goblin instead of My Love From The Star, but I dunno, after thinking about it, it is rather similar to My Love From The Star too. The main character in Wannabe Challenge is a Model, the main character in My Love From The Star is an Actress/Model. The Male lead in My Love From The Star is a super natural being from hundreds of years ago who can live forever. He comes to rescue her and save her from various things. But obviously, Wannabe Challenge is still very similar to the Korean Drama Goblin, because both are about a love story between a Goblin and his bride who are tied together by a sad fate. That concept is true of both Wannabe Challenge and Goblin. Taehee even looks a little bit like Kim Shin. Anyways my original post is still here below in its unedited version. read more

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Idola Phantasy Star Saga Mobile Game Review

Title: Idola Phantasy Star Saga

Price: Free

Where to get: IOS and Android

Language: English text with Japanese voices

Genre: RPG

Publisher: Boltrend Games

Release Date: 09/16/2020

Overview: Phantasy Star has long been one of my all time favorite JRPGs ever since the Sega Genesis. I rented Phantasy Star 3 so much from my local mom n pop video store that they eventually let me buy it. I also loved Phantasy Star 2 and 4 and the original Phantasy Star Online. I haven’t played Phantasy Star Online 2 yet although I know after like over a decade of waiting it finally got an English release this year but this post isn’t about Phantasy Star online or the classic console games. No, this post is about Phantasy Star Saga, a new mobile game. It is quite different from the rest. Idola Phantasy Star Saga does offer a lot of nice gameplay features along with full voice acting and an amazing soundtrack with some lovely 2D graphics. It’s worth checking out especially since it’s free to play. read more

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Gree Animal Days

Gree Animal Days Mobile Game Graveyard Review

Gree Animal Days was my all time favorite mobile game.

Be warned, before reading this review; the game was shut down several years ago.

There are lots of articles available online pointing to why the game failed. But largely, from what I read, the developers over promised and under estimated how difficult it would be to maintain their production schedules for new content and features which ultimately led to them shutting down the game as they could no longer maintain it.

There were not many games like Gree Animal Days at the time available in the android or IOS app stores.

It was kinda like animal crossing, but it also had breeding, city building, dating sim, and other aspects that made it, in my opinion, more fun than even the newly released Animal Crossing Pocket Camp game (which I also reviewed here).

It also shared lots in common with Happy Street which for quite some time filled the “need” for an animal crossing like game available on mobile devices.

But the ability to breed and recruit new animals to your town really set Gree Animal Days apart from the rest. And still to this day, I’ve not found any other games quite as fun as this.

Check out the trailer below:

Here’s a look at some of the features of Gree Animal Days:

Information taken from Game Faqs

Animal Days is recommended for anyone who:- Likes animals- Wants to raise animals- Likes games where you make your own town or village- Wants to try a game where you help raise villagers- Likes simulation games- Wants to try a game with romantic side

Make the most fantastic city in the world in a hidden forest with your animal friends!

Start romances with the animals in your friends town!

Animals fall in love, get married, and have cute animal children!

Get as many animals as you can, and make a bustling animal town!

Make a town in the forest with cute animal friends! In this game you will work together with cute animals to make a fantastic town. Find all types of animals and collect buildings to make a unique town with your cute animal friends!

Romance

Your animals and your friends’ animals will have romances and make children. Start romances with different animals to get new animals that will live in your town.

Buildings

In the middle of the forest near your town lies the Mysterious Pond. You can get free, cute Decorations and Houses from the Mysterious Pond every day! Decorate your town with your favorite buildings and develop your town into the best that it can be!

Animals

Build Houses and start romances to increase the number of animals that live in your town! There are over 100 animals, all with unique personalities! Your favorite animal is waiting for you! You will find Dogs, Cats, Rabbits, Penguins, Mice, and more!

Dilemmas

The animals experience all sorts of Dilemmas. If you help solve their Dilemmas, they will give you items and special buildings, so solve as many as you can and expand your town!

Score Card:

Title: Gree Animal Days

Publisher: Gree

Where to Get: No Longer Available

Platform: Formerly available on Android and IOS

Price: Free

Genre: Casual, City Building, Life Simulation, Dating Sim

Overall: 38/50 76% C – Good Game for Girls

Breakdown:

Geeky: 3/5 – with over 100 animals, and over 300 buildings available at launch, Gree Animal Days was a hugely ambitious project that offered hours of gameplay and innovative fun mechanics in a well polished package. However poor management eventually led to the downfall of this great game. The devs were not prepared to handle the success of this game.

Sweetie: 5/5 – The cute characters and interesting marriage and breeding aspects really set this game apart as a great game for girls.

Gameplay: 10/10 This app offered so much to do! with hundreds of buildings and animals to collect, as well as the ability to date and breed with your friends’ animals too. These features are severely missed as no other cute animal city building game has yet to replicate this unique gaming experience.

Story: 3/10 – There was a loose story about rebuilding a run down village, but it was not terribly interesting. Then again neither are the stories in Animal Crossing games, so it’s about on par with that series there.

Characters:  10/10 – The characters are so cute. Each one had unique personalities and appearances. With over 100 characters at launch and more added in updates, there were a lot of cute characters to collect!

Graphics: 5/5 – This game looked great for the time it was released. It looks similar to even newer apps such as Animal Crossing Pocket Camp and Happy Street. Each character and building was unique, which is part of the game’s downfall as they had to create so many assets in such short time.

Music: 2/5 – Like most mobile games, it’s cute/catchy at first, but lacks variation and will tend to annoy after your first few playthroughs.

Overall: 38/50 76% C – Good Game for Girls

 

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Magikarp Jump Game Review

Magikarp Jump – Free Mobile Virtual Pet Pokemon Game Review for IOS and Android

Overview: 10/10 Magikarp Jump is a cute, free, seemingly innocent Pokemon Game for Mobile IOS and Android devices. The gameplay is very simplistic and reminiscent of Monster Rancher in that you take home a pet to train and raise and enter league battles. Pretty basic stuff, right? But actually it is perhaps one of the darkest Pokemon Games of all time, because for the first time ever, your Pokemon can die! There is no going back into their Pokeballs, and no amount of healing from Nurse Joy can bring a KoiKing back after he has become lunch for a wild flying Pokemon.

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Nikki Dress UP Queen Kawaii Cute Anime Dressup Game

Love Nikki – Dress UP Queen – Anime Mobile Dressup Game Review

Love Nikki Dress UP Queen takes a lot of what made Hello Nikki Let's Beauty Up so much fun and throws in a few new surprises as well. If you login each day you get all kinds of rewards, basic login rewards, as well as ongoing event rewards, and other goodies. If you compete in the Stylist Arena you can get ranked against others and earn more rewards. The Arena is broken into seasons and the scores reset with new seasons which help new players catch up. You can enjoy the story mode by challenging various NPCs, or you can dress up freely - the choice is yours. With so many ways to play, Love Nikki Dress UP Queen is sure to keep you coming back.

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Star Girl Fashion, CocoPPaPlay, CocoPPa Play, CocoPPa, Dressup Game, Dressup Games, Review, Dressup Game Review, IOS, Android, Iphone, Ipad, Apple, App, Cute Game, Anime Game

CocoPPaPlay Dressup Game Review

geeky

EDIT: Check Out My New Updated CocoPPaPlay Review for 2018 – A lot of improvements have happened since this first review below. Click here to read the updated review of CocoPPAPlay for 2018.

Review from 2016 below:

(The following review uses screenshots that I personally took while playing CocoPPaPlay. I wish I could give credit to all of the models which appear and the players who spent time creating their models – however, I did not make a note of the players’ names while taking my screenshots. I’m sorry. I started a new character, so I didn’t have many cute items to use for my own photos. Thanks for understanding! If you happen to recognize your character and either want credit, or for some reason don’t want me using their photo for my review, just leave me a comment below.)

I post a lot of photos of this game, and other games, on my Instagram account – check it out if you want to see more! But please note, I also post other non-gaming and more personal photos as well so only subscribe if you’re okay with that kinda stuff in your feed as well ^-^. Link: https://www.instagram.com/Xenokitten/

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: 4/5 

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

Concept: 7/10 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 expresion), 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 (review coming soon). However, in my opinion, CocoPPaPlay has less robust features than these two games and operates on more of a pay-to-win model than either of the above games.

Gameplay: 7/10 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. Gacha tickets only work in a few gacha. Once a week you can use in-game currency (the free kind that you earn by playing) to play one Gacha. This resets on Sundays, so each Sunday, you could, in theory, get a free “paid” item. The problem however, is that it’s insanely expensive. You earn this free currency by “cheering” for people’s “fashion shows”. The problem is, the gacha cost 20,000 of this free currency and you only get 5 to 10 of the currency for each cheer you do. You’d have to cheer 2,000 – 4,000 times to get enough points to get a free item each week – this is insanely time consuming.

To give you an idea, I played it very heavily this past weekend, logging in about once an hour and using up all of my “energy” cheering – which took about 15-20 minutes each hour. I did this each hour from about 9am – 11pm each day Saturday and Sunday – and only earned around 8,000 “smile points” (the in-game, free currency). You’d have to keep this pace up for 4-5 days, without missing a day or hour/wasting your free energy refills, etc. – I also had some free “energy drinks” and since I started a new character (didn’t feel like digging out my ipad to transfer my data), I leveled up many, many, many times from level 1 to 24 within the 2 days, and each time you level up, your energy also refills – so I cheered lots and lots – but obviously, not even close to the amount needed to get to 20,000 smile points!!

I work (as I’m sure a lot of my readers do) so I can’t log in Monday-Friday. So realistically I can only play on weekends – which means I’ll probably take 2-3 weeks to reach the 20,000 smile points necessary. Other games, like Moe can Change and Animal Boyfriend (which I reviewed here) let you play EVERY gacha for free completely free one time – so you always have nice items! I don’t like that CocoPPaPlay forces you to feel like you HAVE to spend money – I spent money willingly one time in Moe can change to get a hairstyle I wanted – but I have thousands of cute clothes for free. Every game should let you get free stuff – Line Play’s gacha’s only cost one to three thousand gems  not 20,000!! Making it much easier to earn tickets on the Gacha. I just feel that CocoPPaPlay is greedy in this regard.

Also, let it be known, that they don’t even make their own graphics, they use some type of “free to use” avatar system called “Selphie” which is used by A TON of other games (sadly none in English). There used to be a game called Tinier Me which was in English however, it went out of business some years ago. The “Japanese Tinier Me” still exists as “AtGames” and their “free items” are MUCH nicer than those in CocoPPaPlay which only puts like the worst garbage items in their “shops” For example, in the Japanese Tinier Me (or AtGames) you can get very nice high quality eyes for free/or in game currency. While in CocoPPaPlay you only get “closed eyes” like “n_n” and “^-^” and “x_x” etc for free. I only have 2 models on my new account right now because I’m still trying to win a face for my third model in the Gachas. And that’s another thing, although at level 10 you can dressup 3 characters at once, you can only use an item in your inventory once and can’t reuse it on another model unless you “unequip” it first. Just more evidence of wanting you to pay to play – they could have a default face that you could use/start with but nope.

Okay so I’m done ranting about the pay-to-win gamestyle – let’s move on to some other things now. There are numerous events – most recently they had an Easter event – but basically every event is the same – there will be multiple “quest givers” who request items from you – these items you can earn for free by cheering – you get “lucky tickets” in exchange (and sometimes other items like exclusive limited outfits, energy drinks, etc) – The lucky tickets can be used to try to play the lucky event gacha to win outfits/energy drinks, and/or used to raise your charm level for the event – I recommend trying to max your charm (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). To illustrate, I ranked in the top 5,000 (which is pretty low but in the scheme of things, with 40 million players according to their itunes profile, not bad) within just 2 days of playing, on a brand new account, at the very end of an event. So it’s fairly easy to rank – I think maybe a lot of that “40 million” is inactive or like me, hadn’t logged in in a long time, etc. Either way, it seems most don’t go for the event items, and/or don’t make good use of the charm boost, etc.

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.

There’s a farming minigame, but it’s pretty lame, you sheer sheep. I dunno, I don’t find it that fun, you earn “wool points” and outfits when you discover a new sheep. You discover new sheep by spending wool points to improve your farm and buy new equipment to care for your sheep.

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 “weekly free gacha”.

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. There’s really not much to do – but the limited event items and limited gacha items can be enough to keep you playing (for awhile until you get so frustrated by how long it takes to get a free spin on the Gacha.)

Customization – 10/10 – going on 2 years (they’re having a 2nd anniversary event right now) – the number of items available is incredible, and many items have already retired, rising the demand (unfortunately there’s no trading system (which exists by the way in the Japanese Tinier me lol)) – you get “bragging rights” if you have a super rare/old/obscure item equipped and well, I see this game being around 2-3 years from now, so even if you start playing today, in 2-3 years you too will have those rare items everyone else wants and be admired. I like games like this where they retire items fairly quickly. Pokemini is another example of really time sensitive items. That to me really increases my drive to play these games.

Story: 2/10 – There’s really not much, if any, story – I think there was some type of story presented at the beginning, but it’s so bare bones I forgot it quickly. It’s mostly fetch quests and cheering and there’s also quite a few typos or improper grammar and awkward sentences thrown about in the game.

Characters: 6/10 – Characters get high marks for cuteness – but really have no purpose or substance, other than serving as mascots.

Graphics: 10/10 This game is super cute, the mascot girl who guides you through the story and quests is adorable, and the sheep mascot is also cute and he helps run your club. Your avatar and the items are very nicely drawn and large. a Good variety of items (though most are paid items) and different poses, and the ability to layer many items to create your avatar make this game very very appealing for anyone who loves cute things.

Music: 5/10 – Music is standard mobile type music. It’s cute and catchy, but ultimately only consists of 3 or 4 different tracks which means the more you play it, the more it starts to annoy the heck out of you lol.

Cuteness – 10/10 – to balance out all the negative things I have to say about this game, added this lil bonus in here –  the main reason to play this game is because it’s so cute.

Replay Value: 8/10 – It gets repetitive, is super time consuming, and annoyingly “expensive” – but in the end, the lure of those time sensitive items keeps you wanting to press on to replay and get new items. It’s a very item-centric game.

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

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This is how Microsoft is integrating its Android apps into Cyanogen OS read more

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Hearthstone, Heroes of Warcraft, Warcraft, World of Warcraft, WoW, Play WoW on Iphone, Play WoW on Android, Play Warcraft on Iphone, Play Warcraft on Android, Mobile Game, Collectible Card Game, Deck Building Game, CCG, DBG, Card Game, Card, Cards, Jaina Proudmore, Thrall, Magic the Gathering, Mage, Shaman, Rogue, Paladin, Warlock, Murloc, Murlocs, Spells, Mana, Hero, Heroes, Arena, Battlenet, Blizzard, Mobile Game, Mobile Gaming, Online Game, Strategy Game

Hearthstone Heroes of Warcraft Mobile Game Review Cardgame Like Magic The Gathering

I was a long-time World of Warcraft player. I quit about 4 years ago now, but still have fond memories of the game. Blizzard has a unique sense of humor and charm with their NPC’s and pop culture references sprinkled into their MMO and strong story and character development. Now, those same characters come to life again in the form of a collectible card game.

For fans of the MMORPG, Hearthstone brings back a lot of fun memories of your adventures, and gives you something to do to pass time when you can’t be playing your favorite MMO. For others, who have never played WoW before, fear not as no prior knowledge of the game world is neccessary to enjoy this deck building game.

In fact, if you like other board games and card games, such as Yugioh, Magic the Gathering, or the Pokemon trading card game, you will absolutely love Hearthstone as it lets you build your own decks and collect powerful cards. There’s a lot of strategy involved also in how you play each match against other players in real time making it one of the best trading card games for mobile devices.

Title: Hearthstone Heroes of Warcraft

Publisher: Blizzard

Platform: IOS, Android, or PC

Genre: Collectible Card Game / Deck Building Game

Go here to play it on your PC:  read more

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