Nikki is back in an all new game, and this time, it even has English voice acting. As you may recall, I reviewed Hello Nikki Let’s Beauty Up awhile back on my blog. Sadly, that game closed its doors a few months ago. As I mentioned in that original review, there were a ton of other Nikki dressup games available in the app store, but none of them had the gacha, rpg, and quest mechanics that I enjoyed so much in Hello Nikki – Let’s Beauty Up.
So I was left Nikkiless for a long time; until one day, I saw a Facebook ad for a new Nikki Game, Love Nikki Dress UP Queen. Love Nikki Dress Up Queen is extremely similar to the old Hello Nikki – Let’s Beauty Up. It’s also extremely similar to Romantic Diary, much more similar to Romantic Diary when compared to the similarities between Romantic Diary and the old Hello Nikki – Let’s Beauty Up, which were admittedly, already pretty similar.
Other Dressup Games you should check out include Line Play, Pokecolo (formerly Pokemini), CocoPPaplay, Miitomo, Dream Girlfriend, Animal Boyfriend, Moe Can Change, Outlander Princess, Dream Boyfriend, and Lady Popular.
Now onto the review!
Title: Love Nikki Dress UP Queen
Genre: Dressup Game
Developer: Suzhou Nikki Co.,Ltd
Publisher: ELEX Technology
Price: Free with Optional In-game Purchases
Where to Get:
Itunes: https://itunes.apple.com/…
Google: https://play.google.com/…
Release Date: May 05, 2017
Overall Score: 66/80 83% B “Very Good Game for Girls”
Geeky: 1/5 – The only real reason to play this game is because it’s so mind numbingly cute. Cute as it may be, it is full of bugs – It actually does not run well on my Iphone 6S with IOS operating system 10.3.2 – I can’t see the menus in the dressup, and can’t view tips. I can only access clothes by searching for them by name. Because of this, I play, whenever I can on my PC with a bluestacks emulator to play the android version. I could not get past the tutorial on my Iphone because I couldn’t click where it wanted me to click. And there are still times when I will click and it will be nonresponsive.
If they fix that IOS issue (and yes, I’ve already tried the built in fix utilities), then I’d probably be inclined to give the Geek score a 3/5 because it does feature online play, ranked leader boards, events and quest mechanics, and other interesting features to make it much more than “just” a dressup game.
Edit: Geeky 3/5 – They have fixed the above mentioned bugs (awhile ago, I just forgot to update this). As mentioned the game is more than “just” a dressup game, it features tons of events and online play with other players, as well as limited edition items, a story, quests, and crafting and other features.
Sweetie: 5/5 – So many cute outfits, events, and the characters are all cute. Just packed to the brim with cuteness.
Overview: 10/10 – 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.
Gameplay: 7/10 — This would be close to a perfect 10 if they could fix the game breaking bugs that exist on the IOS version right now. If you’re playing the android version, then you don’t need to worry about the negatives I’ve mentioned earlier in this review. I just can’t give “gameplay” a high score in good faith, when the game is so buggy (almost unplayable) for IOS users right now. Your Mileage May Vary depending on your device and what version of IOS you’re running. You can also switch freely between both the Android and IOS versions by linking your facebook account and have access to your same account and items in both versions of the game.
Edit: 10/10 The Above Bugs Have Been Fixed.
The actual gameplay itself is super solid. As mentioned under overview, there’s several different gameplay modes to choose from, and you can also craft, decompose, dye, and modify your clothes.
Like Hello Nikki Let’s Beauty Up, the main objective of the game is to collect different articles of clothing, and layer and combine them to create new outfits.
In the Story Mode, you will explore various maps; each point on the map presenting a brief story and new dressup challenge. You will be shown tips as to what styles or feelings your outfits should evoke, then you will face off with the NPC where your outfits will be scored on various standards such as warmth, liveliness, purity, maturity, sexiness, casualness, etc. depending on what the challenge calls for.
You’re also able to learn new skills as you level up which boost your score, or negatively impact your opponent’s scores when used in battle.
You will receive a letter grade and corresponding reward F through S rank for each challenge. Some maps may require you have a high amount of high ranked challenges to progress to the next map. Other maps may let you by with a C or higher.
In the Stylist Arena, you are paired with other real people playing from all around the world. Unlike Romantic Diary, there is no limit to how many pieces of clothing you can carry into the challenge. You (and your opponent) will have access to all of your items in every arena battle. You can rise to the top of the leader boards each Arena “Season” to get top rewards.
In Free Dress you can just put together whatever outfits you would like and have fun without worrying about meeting certain challenge requirements.
Be sure you look at the events, quests, and get your sign in bonuses every day. Click everything you can click; there’s so many rewards that it can be easy to miss some awesome freebies here.
Don’t forget to also collect your free gacha items each day. This is your chance for free rare items! Treasured items are good, but Super Treasured items are even better!
You can also earn retired / out of print outfits for linking your Facebook account or referring friends! So many ways to get free stuff – YAY.
Story: 7/10 Love Nikki Dress UP Queen has a new story to explore. Legend tells of a kingdom ruled by fashion battles. These fashion battles even have the ability to determine who will rule each kingdom as its king or queen. In the latest fashion battle, there was a tie, between a Princess, and a common girl. The Princess was very beautiful and refined with dark hair. The common girl had long pink hair, after the last fashion battle, the pink haired girl mysteriously disappeared, and the Princess became the new Queen. She ruled her kingdom harshly and brought about an age ruled by her cold blade. Nikki finds herself somehow in this strange kingdom, with her talking cat, Momo. Nikki shares an uncanny resemblance to the pink haired girl of legend who could challenge the current queen. Nikki will make her way to meet the queen while encountering strange new characters who either want fashion advice, or want to battle (in a fashion battle that is). – The story is there, and this time it’s even fully voiced, but it’s still not terribly interesting or engaging
Characters: 7/10 – all of the characters are voiced, have their own unique sense of style, and all of them are super cute, but it feels like they’re just there to keep you moving from point a to b, and of little story significance.
Graphics: 10/10 – Pastel pink is everywhere. Everything about this game is girly, feminine, charming, cute, and kawaii AF. The ability to layer items, from dozens of different “item slots” makes the dressup possibilities almost endless. The amount of different items also is mind boggling.
Music:5/10 – Meh, just average. It’s there, it exists, I just don’t pay much attention to it. It doesn’t get on my nerves, unlike many mobile games that I have to play on mute, but it’s nothing too impressive or memorable either.
Voice Acting: 8/10 – I’m torn on this — It’s the first Nikki game to have voice acting in English — or “first English Nikki Game to Have Voice Acting” period – by that, I mean that Hello Nikki Let’s Beauty Up removed ALL the voice acting from the original game before bringing it to North America – not only did it not have English Voice Acting, but it also removed the original Japanese Voice Acting as well! I was really disappointed by this.
So I’m really really happy that the new Nikki game is fully voiced – I would have liked for it to have included an option to keep the Japanese voice acting — Or if I could only choose one or the other, I would’ve preferred the Japanese voices. But I know there are royalties and licensing fees associated with doing so…
The English voice acting is actually… for the most part… not bad…. I’ve met a few questionable characters but on the whole, overall, most of the characters’ voices seem to fit well and deliver a decent performance that is not cringe worthy or over dramatic. I actually kind of really like some of the characters’ voices in fact. So yeah, we have voice acting, and it doesn’t totally suck, so yay lol.
Overall Score: 66/80 83% B “Very Good Game for Girls”
NOTE: if playing the Android version or if they ever fix the bugs in the IOS version, the score would be closer to: 66/80 or 83% “Very Good Game for Girls”
Edit: Bugs have been fixed.
I am pretty sure this the real north america/global version of the Chinese popular hit game, translated to ” Miracle Nikki” in English. I believe that the reason there was so many other Nikki game has come out in the playstore and appstore was because the English version hasn’t come out yet, so the others made fanmade Nikki games. Btw, I love your review, most of your critiques are right on point <3 but be aware that this game is actually the real Nikki game in the western Mobile App Store 😉
🙂 Thanks for stopping by my blog – and thanks for letting me know about the various different versions of the game. Hopefully this version will be successful and make enough money to stay around for a long time.