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Moe! Ninja Girls (predatory mobile VN review)


Plk_Lesiak

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mng_1_by_szafalesiaka-dbx0gto.jpg

Note: While I didn't plan on tackling Japanese-produced OELVNs on this blog, this title is a perfect representation of mobile game market's business practices implemented in a VN and for this reason was worth a closer look. More than by itself, it's interesting as a negative example of scammy policies that aren't in any way endemic to JP developers and are sadly used by many different companies with various backgrounds.

I don’t think many people have any doubts about how horrible the mobile game market is nowadays, both when it goes to quality and dominating business models. Generic, borderline plagiaristic games, ridden with pay-to-win mechanics and exploitative microtransaction systems are a sad standard in most genres popular on smartphones and tablets, swarming the AppStore and Google Play in a way that makes it nearly impossible to find actual quality products just by browsing these storefronts.

            Considering the absurdly-high revenue that many mobile games bring their developers, often through relatively small investments, it shouldn’t be surprising that the plague of exploitative business models dominating the Android and iOS market would find its way into the world of visual novels. Still, how can you make an ultimately single-player, story-driven formula “pay-to-win”? Moe! Ninja Girls, a mobile OELVN produced for the western markets by a Japanese company NTT Solmare inc. shows that it’s absolutely possible to turn a text adventure with anime drawings into one of the most predatory, scammy games available on mobile.

Read the full article at evnchronicles.blogspot.com

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My friend was actually playing this, he was going for the tsundere character route from what I was told... But he dropped it 'cause he was starting to get bored and sick of the micro transactions xoD

Just from the pics at the Play Store I could see somefin' was off.

Also the name is just pure Otaku Bait.

 

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2 hours ago, SeniorBlitz said:

My friend was actually playing this, he was going for the tsundere character route from what I was told... But he dropped it 'cause he was starting to get bored and sick of the micro transactions xoD

Just from the pics at the Play Store I could see somefin' was off.

Also the name is just pure Otaku Bait.

That tsundere character is probably the only redeeming quality of the game. Maybe it's simply hard to get tsundere so wrong that she'll be unappealing, especially if you have a decent artist on character design front. ;)

I've only stopped playing today and I think I've only managed to go this far (3 seasons) because of the addictive nature of these mobile game mechanics, rewarding regular playing and getting you emotionally involved in the stats and events rather than in the story. Because the writing is slightly above Winged Cloud level maybe, in better moments. It should get boring as f... after the first few chapters, but it just makes you used to logging in every day and using your tokens, it's a bit hard to just drop it in the middle of the event/chapter/etc. At least for someone with an addictive personality like mine.

What really makes me curious is that legion of pay-to-win mobile otomege, they wouldn't produce those of there wasn't a major market for them. I mean, these games are probably super-cheap to develop, when compared to possible income from microtransactions, but teenage girls must be somewhat easy to extort money from...

Edited by Plk_Lesiak
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1 minute ago, Plk_Lesiak said:

That tsundere character is probably the only redeeming quality of the game. Maybe it's simply that hard to get tsundere so wrong that she'll be unappealing, especially if you have a decent artist on character design front. ;)

I've only stopped playing today and I think I've only managed to go this far because of the addictive nature of these mobile game mechanics, rewarding regular playing and getting you emotionally involved in the stats and events rather than in the story. Because the writing is slightly above Winged Cloud level maybe, in better moments. It should get boring as f... after the first few chapters, but it just makes you used to logging in every day and using your tokens, it's a bit hard to just drop it in the middle of the event/chapter/etc. At least for someone with an addictive personality like mine.

What really makes me curious is that legion of pay-to-win mobile otomege, they wouldn't produce those of there wasn't a major market for them. I mean, these games are probably super-cheap to develop, when compared to possible income from microtransactions, but teenage girls must be somewhat must be somewhat easy to extort money from...

This is probably one of the reasons I dropped this kind of mobile games, it is addictive but when you stop playing you feel like you wasted a lot of time...

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Wondering how this steam game will turn out https://vndb.org/v20526, it is a free to play game with in game purcheses that features CGs of monstergirls. Sayori the artist behind nekopara is one of the artist behind it. Love her art, but will not play it if it ends up being exploitative.

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1 hour ago, bakauchuujin said:

Wondering how this steam game will turn out https://vndb.org/v20526, it is a free to play game with in game purcheses that features CGs of monstergirls. Sayori the artist behind nekopara is one of the artist behind it. Love her art, but will not play it if it ends up being exploitative.

Well, can't say I'm that much into clicker games (they're, like, by definition just time-wasters, I've only played Crush Crush because I've heard so much about it) but they're usually not the worst when it goes to business model. I mean, you can spend unlimited amounts of money on some of them and they obviously play on your impatience to make you buy microtransactions, but they rather don't shove the ads in your face at every other minute or block the content in unreasonable ways like MNG. They're somewhere in the middle between pure mobile scams and actual games. :P

Edited by Plk_Lesiak
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