Game:Â Nicole
Genre:Â Adventure, RPG, Simulation
System:Â Nintendo Switch (also on PS4, Steam)
Developer|Publisher:Â WinterWolves Games | Ratalaika Games
Age Rating:Â PEGI 16 | ESRB T (Teen)
Price: UK £16.99 | EU €15.19 | US $18.99
Release Date:Â 31st July 2020
Review code used, with many thanks to Ratalaika Games
Story and Characters
Nicole Grave is just your typical freshman: a little ditzy and very laid-back, with a tendency to get into awkward and slightly cringey situations. That is until she catches the eye of a kidnapper who’s been operating on campus for the past year. Now, she has to worry about not only passing her exams, and hopefully finding a boyfriend, but also tracking down the mysterious kidnapper before he can get to her!
I absolutely loved the idea of the story of Nicole and leapt on the chance to review it. I have to say, it certainly delivered. Other than a couple of disjointed story moments in visual novel mode, which have been raised with the developer and will hopefully be fixed, I really liked how the story and characters worked together. Every character, from the roommate Chandra to the 4 bachelors with very distinct personalities, felt realistic and fun.
Don’t get me wrong, there were some seriously cringey moments, but they remained oddly charming; if you’ve seen the film 10 Things I Hate About You, you’ll know what I mean by cringey but charming.
During visual novel mode, the potential boyfriends all have a separate storyline, which is nice for the lack of repetition but does mean that sometimes references are made that don’t quite make sense – don’t get me wrong, I liked having the option (see more on the two modes below) but I have been informed that Visual Novel mode was experimental, and may not be as cohesive as standard mode.
Gameplay
Nicole comes equipped with two modes; visual novel, and standard.
Standard mode consists of a couple of core mechanics. There’s a basic time management aspect, where various activities take a certain amount of time and can only be performed at certain times e.g. cheerleading is only available on Saturdays and Sunday. This also ties in nicely to the stat-raising portion of the game. Each activity raises some form of stat, often at the cost of either money, morale, or energy.
Later on in the game, you can take on jobs to earn money, which can then be spent on activities or gifts from the catalogue. Gifts, along with raising the appropriate stat, increase the relationship level with the bachelor in question. For example, if romancing a sporty character you’d want to raise Zeal (associated with activities such as cheerleading and volleyball) and purchase the right type of gifts. You only have so many activity slots in a day, so striking the right balance between clue-hunting and working towards your intended boyfriend is essential!
If you’re after a more relaxed gameplay experience, visual novel mode effectively bypasses the stat-raising gameplay. Instead of achieving romance with one of the bachelors via raising the appropriate stat and giving him gifts, you’re given a choice of who to pursue after the initial 4 scenes. To successfully romance them, though, you have to get every single conversation correct – you can save while the answers are on screen, and if the relationship doesn’t go up within a few lines of dialogue you can reload and retry. In visual novel mode, you also get to choose whether the mystery is solved or not. There are a total of 10 different endings, 5 of which only occur if the mystery is solved, so I do recommend going through and doing every ending.
Graphics and Sound
I loved the design of Nicole. I’m normally a fan of the anime aesthetic, so I may be a little biased, but Nicole had a beautiful hand-drawn style that made it pop in the often-oversaturated visual novel genre. The colours were slightly washed out, almost like a watercolour painting, and it added a very airy and pleasant feel to the game. The characters were also uniquely designed, and all clearly placed in the foreground with the background remaining nice and unobtrusive. My only graphical gripe is that the text was too small in handheld mode, but I think I’ve said that for pretty much every game I’ve ever reviewed.
The sounds design did an excellent job of adding to the atmosphere. There were background sounds where suitable, such as the buzz of chatter in a classroom or recognisably sports-sounds at the football field. I could never tell what anyone was saying but it was a really nice little touch. I’m normally a huge advocate of a fully voiced game, but Nicole doesn’t have any voice acting and I found that it worked really well in this instance. It allowed for some personal interpretation of characters, although I would’ve appreciated a hand understanding the accents of Ted and Ron – I really don’t know what the Texan drawl is supposed to sound like!
Difficulty
I always find time and resource management games difficult, because I tend to set my mind on something and forget about everything else, and Nicole was no exception. The difficulty in this game is really just managing your various stats and time, so for someone more capable, I shouldn’t think it’d be too much of a bother.
I did, however, love the inclusion of Visual Novel Mode. Granted, it did have a couple of quirks, but I found it far more enjoyable than the stat-focused standard mode. It also made going through and getting all of the endings much easier! The only point to note difficulty-wise with Visual Novel Mode is that a single wrong answer will result in not getting the romantic ending with a character, so choose carefully and save often!
Conclusion
It was a fun game while it lasted, and the variation between the characters was lovely to experience. While I wasn’t a huge fan of Standard mode, I can appreciate a lot of people will enjoy that style of gameplay. The inclusion of visual novel mode is something that I wish I’d see more of in games like this, so that people can enjoy the story without needing to be good at the balancing act.
I’d have liked the game to be longer because it didn’t take me that long to go through every story in visual novel mode – I understand and appreciate that it was an experimental add-on, but it should’ve been carefully tested and potentially expanded before being included in the final product. That said, if there happened to be a fully-fledged visual novel version I can see myself double-dipping without much hesitation!
I had a lot of fun with Nicole, and would definitely recommend it for any visual novel fan.
Final Verdict: I Like It A Lot!
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