DAL Date A Live Spirit Pledge Global Mobile Game Review

Today I am reviewing DAL Date A Live Spirit Pledge, a mobile game on android and IOS. Date A Live Spirit Pledge combines visual novel choice and consequence style dating simulation aspects with real-time action-rpg combat. It includes a skill-tree to customize your characters combat abilities and offers a little something for all audiences to enjoy.

Title: DAL Date A Live Sprit Pledge Global

Release Date: July 2020

Where to Get: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/date-a-live-spirit-pledge/id1501496525 or https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.en.datealive.gp&hl=en_US read more

Beasts Of Maravilla Island is a Pokemon Snap inspired Forest Exploration Game Coming To Nintendo Switch and PC
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/825082683/beasts-of-maravilla-island-a-magic-wildlife-photography-game?fbclid=IwAR1Wj04dBDKbKYIn_HQ3d2LlKfDc_6TVQ6gPaGqhrPK2u8WlnVCdItR9rSc

Back the project within the next 7 days to get a digital copy of Maravilla Island for your platform of choice for just $5.

There’s also a free demo of the game available here: https://duplighosts.itch.io/beasts-of-maravilla-island-demo

Of course, as you can see in the comments section, the game has a lot of bugs and issues with bad controls right now so it is not a good indicator of how the final game may play out.

Beasts of Maravilla Island is an adventure game through nature where you research and photograph wildlife as you explore the island. Very similar to Pokemon Snap which is also coming soon to Nintendo Switch. It looks like Pokemon Snap won’t be the only animal photography game on the Nintendo Switch. And for fans who don’t have a Nintendo Switch, but do have a PC, they can get a similar gaming experience with Beasts of Maravilla. read more

My Horse Stories – Horse Sim Game Review

So yesterday I reviewed 2 horse racing games, Horse Haven, and Rival Stars Racing.

Today I am sharing yet another Horse Simulation game – this time it is a mobile game called My Horse Stories. I am not very far yet into this one. I just started playing it late last night. I haven’t even bred my own horse yet, just still using the first horse I purchased at the market.

I might not have all the right information to give a super accurate review, but I just want to give like an early impression review. read more

Dragon Raja – Free Anime MMORPG Mobile Game

I recently started playing Dragon Raja, a full featured MMORPG on smart mobile devices.

Overall Score: 75/90 83% B “Very Good Game For Girls”

Overview: 10/10 Dragon Raja is a beautiful game with amazing character customization and open world environment. Play as one of four starting classes and three “races” (male human, female human, or a kawaii lolita race (all of my characters are loli because they’re sooo cute!!) The character customization is the highlight of this game to me. Story, Gameplay, and Music are all pretty great though really. read more

Love Live All Stars Anime Rhythm Game

The sequel to KLab’s smash hit Love Live School Idol Festival, Love Live All Stars takes it to the next level with fully animated Live2D characters that dance around on the screen.

Like its predecessor, Love Live School Idol Festival, Love Live All Stars is a card collecting rhythm game with cute anime girls to collect.

The new installment in Love Live has a few key differences from the original, most notably is the animation. There’s also costumes you can unlock for your girls to wear and a new voltage gameplay system that allows you to score more points. read more

Sweet Dance Online Anime Dressup Mobile Music Dancing Game

I just started playing Sweet Dance, a pretty cute mobile game with a variety of music hits from around the world. Songs include English hits from the US and Europe as well as Chinese, Korean, and Japanese tracks.

The game has several different dance modes. In the first dance mode, bubble mode, you must simply tap the bubbles on the screen. In Trail mode you must tap left, right, or both sides of your screen depending on the colors of the bubbles. Pink is Right. Blue is left. Yellow is both. The beginning mandatory tutorial only makes you play Bubble mode so I was confused when I played Trail mode but eventually figured it out. There’s also a beat mode which is like DDR for your fingers. In beat mode you must quickly punch in a sequence of arrow movements and then lock in your sequence at the right time with the beat button (The right time is when the red dot is near the white line).
read more

CocoPPa Dolls New Anime Mobile Dressup Game From The Creators of CocoPPa Play That’s A Lot Like Love Nikki Dressup Queen.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/cocoppa-dolls/id1489434676

I’ve been playing a new mobile Dressup game called CocoPPa Dolls. As its name suggests it is by the creator of CocoPPa Play although this new title plays a lot more like Love Nikki or Romantic Diary than CocoPPa Play.

The gameplay is simple. You play Gacha to get new items for your avatar to wear. Some Gacha are time limited and some have rare items and others are always available with less rare items.

Ok so I know what you’re thinking. That sounds just like CocoPPa Play but that’s about when the similarities end.

From here you have a few different unique features… Let’s look at them briefly. Pictures may not be related to the text here I’m just sharing cute screenshots I took while playing. read more

A3! Actor Training Game Review

I had previously played the Japanese version briefly of A3! Act, Actor, Addict, an otome simulation game that puts you in the role of a young woman looking for her father who went missing 8 years ago.

Cybrid has now released an English version of the game, which is good, because this one has almost no gameplay, and tons of reading (as most Otome and Visual novels). Which is why I only played the JP version very briefly, because I can’t read Japanese, and with little gameplay, and no story (since I couldn’t understand it) it became boring quickly. But now that it is in English, I’m enjoying it quite a bit. read more

BTS World Game Review

BTS now has an official visual novel style game that puts you in the role of managing your favorite boy band. Unfortunately, it is a great concept but has poor execution. There are lots of features which sound fun, but somehow still miss the mark. Even if you love BTS, which I do, this game still feels dull and boring. But somehow it’s cute, and I still find myself playing it and hoping it will get better. I’m grateful they made this game and took time to translate the text to English. Even if it is rather mediocre at best.

Check out the full review below.

Name: BTS World

Genre: Visual Novel / Otome Game / Dating Sim / Manager Sim

Publisher: Net Marble

Where To Get:

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

Iphone: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bts-world/id1435577798

Price: Free

Release Date: June 2019

My Score: 51/80 64% D “Average Game For Girls”

The game has only been out for about 2 weeks at this point, so hopefully they can keep adding new updates to make the game more exciting. The first chapter is especially dull. It needs a better introduction to the game, because no one is going to stick around to keep playing when the first dozen or more missions are so lackluster. I keep playing to see the cute boys, but you could just watch BTS youtube videos and get the same effect lol.

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klC15XDGxTY[/embedyt]

Geeky: 2/5 – Gameplay is bad, story is boring, but yet, it is definitely geeky, only geeky girls (and guys?) who love BTS will play this game.

Sweetie: 5/5 – The game is cute, with each member being featured in their own chapters and putting you in the middle of their story – even though that story really isn’t good at all. I like being able to pretend to text/chat with BTS, and watch their cute reactions. Who is your favorite BTS member? I like Jimin and Jin. They are so cute.

Gameplay: 4/10 – I want to rate this higher… but I just can’t… It has so many features, collecting cards like in Love Live, visual novel/otome story like idea factory games, dressup minigames like love nikki, chatting/phoning like Mystic Messenger…. yet… somehow… even though it draws inspiration from all of these amazing popular games that I love… it somehow… feels flat to me… The features are there… but they lack heart if that makes any sense?

Also one thing that drives me crazy is we can’t take screenshots, and can’t share our cards / brag about rares, etc on social media; that kills a lot of the fun for me.

Story: 3/10 – The story is bad… really bad… Almost can’t force myself to keep playing the game because the story is so slow, boring, dull, just blah…. You guys know I don’t like giving spoilers when I review a game, I like to let you discover the stories for yourselves… I should add I’m not very far in the game yet? Maybe about half way through? Maybe it will get better?

To give you a “highlight” of the story “concept” BTS World takes place in an alternate universe where BTS has never met. You receive a strange message on your phone telling you that you have won a free ticket to a BTS concert, but when you arrive, it’s only a single member, who is waiting to sign a contract which you somehow mysteriously have been carrying around.

Surprise, you’re BTS’ manager. Only you have any memory of who BTS is in the “Real World”. Here in this alternate universe, you work at Big Hit and have been tasked with recruiting talent for a new boy band who will eventually become what we know as BTS.

You do this by progressing through a visual novel style game, although there are few choices along the way.

The game assumes alot about you as the player. It assumes you already know who BTS is, and that you have in depth intimate knowledge about each of the members of BTS. The game doesn’t really provide you any of this information, because why would you be playing this game unless you love BTS right? (that’s their thinking not mine, I personally “like” BTS, but I’m not really knowledgeable about every single member).

I think the story could be improved by assuming less. Giving the characters more… character? I want to learn/know more about each member of BTS while I’m playing… but I feel like it doesn’t really tell me much… which leaves me feeling uninterested…

The games first several missions are literally like “OMG it’s xyz Member, what’s he doing here? Oh he signed my contract, and teased me because I’m freaking out again. I’m a really bad manager. I will do my best to help BTS”

I rather it assume that the player only has minimal knowledge – or better yet even, no knowledge, of BTS. I rather see the members introduced doing things they enjoy/love, like what’s their favorite food, what other hobbies do they have aside from kpop, like maybe playing video games, playing basketball, reading, volunteering with animals, I dunno, whatever BTS does in their spare time.

I feel like that would add some… heart… or humanity… or something to this game…. Give me a reason to care about the characters….

The target audience of this game, the millions of ARMYs are probably perfectly happy with this game, as evidenced by the 4.8 rating on Google…. I don’t consider myself an ARMY… but I do consider myself a fan of BTS – as evidenced here the last month or two that I’ve been sharing my listening habits with you readers, you can see I constantly list BTS (among also other KPop artists).

But even though I’m a fan, I couldn’t tell you too much; hell I can’t even name every member honestly – sorry, I’m not like die-hard… I’m just kinda a casual fan… but I would like to play this game too… but it just… frustrates me that I feel detached from the story and characters because the game does nothing to introduce them, tell me about them, let me “get to know them”.

Which leads us to…

Characters: 7/10 – I’m rating this highly – I am taking points away for the lack of character “development” – but the characters are actual BTS members and they have made videos and pictures etc just for this game, which is really cute, where they speak right to you as a manager. And you can see cute clips and introductions and it’s very cute. I love the cute boys. That’s the only thing saving this game. lol.

Graphics: 8/10 – Sometimes… the graphics look very cheesy in the novel (main gameplay parts), because they are so stiff. I’m used to Live2D where the characters move fluidly… But… in other sections, even some high level cards, there is real video clips, and BTS is so cute, who couldn’t love the Graphics, really?

Voice: 10/10 – BTS provides voice clips for the game too. You can hear BTS talking to you :).

Music: 10/10 – What BTS game wouldn’t have good music? duh lol.

Replay Value: 2/10 – I’m not sure… it’s only been out for 2 weeks – will they have time-limited cards, special events, etc? I hope so, otherwise once you complete the story (which isn’t even that good in the first place) I see no reason to keep playing the game.

My Score: 51/80 64% D “Average Game For Girls” – Yeah, I’d say this game is really just Average. Much better games out there… but if you love BTS – and know a lot about BTS – like I know Millions of ARMYs do – then you will probably super love this game. For me, it’s just kinda cute/amusing but ultimately not a very good game at all, despite that I like BTS quite a bit, but my lack of intimate knowledge of the band and its members ultimately hurts my enjoyment of this game. Your mileage may vary, especially if you’re a BTS super fan. lol.

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”

Idol M@ster Shiny Colors – Japanese Mobile Game Review and Kinda Brief English Walkthrough

I am really into Idol M@ster Shiny Colors. Unlike other Idol M@ster Mobile Games or Love Live or Bang Dream, Idol M@ster Shiny Colors is not a rhythm game. Idol M@ster Shiny Colors is a simulation game. You are a producer and “hire” idols to work in your studio. You draw the idols from gacha.

Please note – I did not realize this when I played, but on your first 10 play gacha, you get UNLIMITED REROLLS by pushing the YELLOW BUTTON on the left. Once you are happy with your cards press the PINK button on the right. I didn’t know, I pushed the pink button and I only had one SSR. I have been thinking about starting over (and still might) but I think I had some pre-registration bonuses and other things I don’t want to lose by restarting the game. So definitely do not push the Pink button until you have the cards you want.

Collecting and dressing girls is the main appeal of the game. But what do you do once you have a team of idol girls? You can plan their schedule – like a true sim game. You can have them practice, give interviews, or other activities to promote their stats.

The stats also can be increased in a final-fantasy-style skill tree system where you spend skill points to unlock stat-bonuses like +20 vocals, +30 dance, +20 vitality, etc. Depending what “path” you take in the skill tree your girls will develop in different ways.

You have one main girl, and several other backup idols. The main girl is the one to gain from this skill tree system.

Performing a live show is quite different from other mobile idol games. It’s more almost like an RPG battle. You tap a girl’s face below the stage and then tap a “skill” along the left such as vocal, dance, etc. Then a colored bar will appear on the screen, try to time it right and tap the screen when the needle on the bar is in the white color. White will give you the highest bonus. Purple the least, and yellow a medium boost. You can also “link” your girls’ actions to perform together in one attack. On the right hand side of the screen are some other bubbles. i think, but could be wrong since I do not read Japanese, but think that you are competing against other idols, and as you perform these skills you can defeat the idols to the right hand side. But if you miss, you will notice your own idols on the left dropping off the screen. Once all the idols either on left or right are gone, the performance ends.

The artwork in the game is very kawaii, and SSR and higher cards have movie animations, both when retrieving from the Gacha and also when performing a live show. All of the idols are animated with Live 2D which brings the characters to life on your screen. Many of the cards have “multiple characters” on one card, and when performing a live show, or meeting the idols out in town, you may see special scenes featuring the characters all together.

The voice acting and music is also top notch as you would expect from an idol game.

Replay value is high due to limited time events that offer rewards such as gacha tickets and gems.

My only complaint is a lot of the gacha are for paid gems only. However, the gems are fairly cheap, you can get a few hundred gems for under $10 – I haven’t bought any yet.

Will we see Idol M@ster Shiny Colors get an English release? Probably not. They tried years ago to release some Idol M@ster games in English and it flopped – however, they wanted $65 for a mobile game – And worst of all, after it flopped, they pulled it down and even if you had paid for it you could no longer play it!!! I wish they would try again but with some of their “FREE” mobile games, either Shiny Colors, Theater Days, or Cinderella Girls. — But my hope is slim… However there are 2 things that give me a little bit of hope. 1.) They seem to understand that there may be English speaking players playing Shiny Colors, when the visual novel aspects come up and the choices appear, they show in English an emoji and English words that say “Perfect” “Good” “Normal” so even if you can’t read the choices you can pick the best response still. And when purchasing diamonds, the currency is shown in US Dollars, not in Yen, which is odd. I’ve literally never seen that ever before in any Japanese games. Which is a nice touch so I don’t have to try to convert it, if I ever decide to buy diamonds. And 2.) I have hope because we are getting more and more and more English idol games, with the upcoming Revue Starlight Re LIVE, or last year’s Bang Dream Girl’s Band Party and Utapri, or the ever popular Love Live School Idol Festival, we continue to receive more and more games in this genre, but we have yet to receive any of the free Idol M@ster games… Shiny Colors is only a few weeks old in Japan, maybe in a year or two we could hope to see an English release? But it is still fairly easy to play even in Japanese. But it would be nice to be able to enjoy the story! I’d be more likely to buy paid gems if the game was in English.

Scorecard:

Overall Score 70/80 88% B+ “Very Good Game For Girls”

Geeky: 5/5 – collect virtual waifus. very geeky. And simulation aspects set this game apart from other idol games.

Sweetie: 5/5 – the girls are adorable

Gameplay: 10/10 – finally a true simulation game, similar to Princess Maker or Tokimeki Memorial, you schedule your idol’s activities and watch their stats grow. I enjoy this much more than just a tappy tap rhythm game. Your girls develop in different ways based on your choices and I love that.

Story: 0/10 – I can’t read Japanese so this may not be a “fair score” but until an English version exists I can’t judge the storyline.

Characters: 10/10 – cute, gorgeous artwork, huge diversity of girls.

Artwork: 10/10 – cute, live 2D, SSR and higher cards have full movie animation sequences.

Voice Acting: 10/10 – all of the girls sound so cute.

Music: 10/10 – of course a game about idols is going to have catchy and cute music.

Replay Value: 10/10 – Lots of events, they give a lot of SR tickets and free Gems and the fact that this is a simulation game also adds replay value because the girls change based on decisions you make.

Overall Score 70/80 88% B+ “Very Good Game For Girls”

English Edition Of Revue Starlight Re LIVE Idol Simulation Game Comes To North America

Revue Starlight Re LIVE is an idol simulation game based on the popular anime Revue Starlight. The game uses Live 2D technology to bring the anime characters to life. You can pre-register now for the English release at the Pre-Registration website at https://www.en.revuestarlight-relive.com/preregistration/

They are running an event for Pre-Registration where they will give out rare girls based on the number of users who pre-register. So get all of your friends to join so we can all benefit from more Waifus.

The game and anime story follows a group of 9 girls all competing for the center stage, the shining star, lead performer role. The girls who were once friends now find themselves as rivals.

Not many details are available on the pre-registration site, but I expect an experience similar to Love Live School Idol, Bang! Dream Girl’s Band Party, or Idol M@ster.

A game where you collect cute girls, level them up, add them to your team, and play a rhythm game in solo or multiplayer game modes while enjoying a simple slice of life story.

Although the gameplay may be simple, the allure of collecting rare and time-limited girls will keep players coming back.

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”