{"id":110339,"date":"2020-03-14T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-14T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/reviews\/switch-eshop\/ninnindays"},"modified":"2020-03-14T16:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-03-14T16:00:00","slug":"mini-review-ninnindays-a-short-and-sweet-visual-novel-with-some-rough-edges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2020\/03\/14\/mini-review-ninnindays-a-short-and-sweet-visual-novel-with-some-rough-edges\/","title":{"rendered":"Mini Review: NinNinDays &#8211; A Short And Sweet Visual Novel With Some Rough Edges"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"media_block\"><a href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/reviews\/switch-eshop\/ninnindays\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/reviews\/switch-eshop\/ninnindays\/small.jpg\" class=\"media_thumbnail\"><\/a><\/div>\n<aside class=\"picture embed pictures\" id=\"screenshots\"><a href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/103503\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/103503\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"NinNinDays Review - Screenshot 1 of 10\"><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>There are certain things those familiar with romantic comedy, slice-of-life visual novels have doubtless come to expect by this point: a scene involving a maid costume; a heroine who can\u2019t cook; a date at an amusement park; and some sort of boob-based misunderstanding. <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/switch-eshop\/ninnindays\">NinNinDays<\/a><\/strong> from Qureate has <em>all<\/em> of these things\u2026 plus leading lady Sumire is a ninja. <em>Because why not?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The \u201cninja\u201d aspect is primarily used to explore the clash between the culture of modern, urban life and the cultures of more traditional, rural communities. Sumire, hailing from a traditional, isolated ninja village, is naive and innocent in the ways of our world, but both she and the &#8216;self-insert&#8217; protagonist find they have a lot to learn from one another after an initial, fateful encounter over a half-eaten meat bun. NinNinDays is mostly a narrative about learning to accept and even embrace your own flaws \u2013 and coming to understand that a good relationship can use this as a strong foundation. With apologies to Ru Paul, <em>\u201cif you don\u2019t love yourself, how the hell you gonna love somebody else?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>As the narrative proceeds, the ways in which the protagonist and Sumire support one another help them understand the things they need to work on \u2013 and that it\u2019s okay to ask for help sometimes. It\u2019s a rather inspiring, surprisingly relatable tale \u2013 if a tad clich\u00e9d at times \u2013 and the multiple endings all present a different way of looking at how one deals with a major turning point in one\u2019s life and outlook. It\u2019s a beautifully presented visual novel; artist <a class=\"external\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AkasaAi\">AkasaAi<\/a>, last seen designing the demure Princess Aria in NinNinDays\u2019 stablemate <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/switch-eshop\/prison_princess\"><strong>Prison Princess<\/strong><\/a>, has done a fine job on the artwork, with the event scenes, in particular, having a real sense of presence and physicality to them\u2026 particularly when Sumire\u2019s butt is visible. Which it is, quite frequently. <em>Ahem<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, the standard interactions between the protagonist and Sumire make use of the impressive E-Mote \u201cemotional motion technology\u201d for animated character sprites, best known for its use in the popular <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/switch-eshop\/nekopara_vol_1\"><strong>Nekopara<\/strong><\/a> series. E-Mote certainly breathes some life into Sumire, though it\u2019s clear that the NinNinDays team aren\u2019t masters of the tech like Nekopara\u2019s Sayori is. Sumire very obviously uses fixed, \u201cstock\u201d animations for her various emotes rather than the gorgeous, natural-looking body language unique to each line of dialogue seen in Sayori\u2019s work. It\u2019s a small nitpick, but if you\u2019ve previously enjoyed Nekopara, it\u2019s clearly noticeable.<\/p>\n<p>The localisation is also a little wonky from a technical perspective, featuring a number of typos, incorrect homophones, one instance of confusion between \u201cearlier\u201d and \u201clater\u201d and an apparent distaste for putting a space after a comma, but nothing that makes it unreadable. The actual tone of the English script is fine \u2013 and the translation is pretty true to the Japanese voice without being overly stilted.<\/p>\n<p>In summary, then, this is a perfectly serviceable visual novel which boasts gorgeous presentation but is held back by its short runtime, lack of narrative ambition and rough edges in terms of localisation. It&#8217;s not going to make you fall in love with the genre if you&#8217;re a newcomer, but longstanding fans will be more forgiving of its shortcomings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are certain things those familiar with romantic comedy, slice-of-life visual novels have doubtless come to expect by this point: a scene involving a maid costume; a heroine who can\u2019t cook; a date at an amusement park; and some sort of boob-based misunderstanding. NinNinDays from Qureate has all of these things\u2026 plus leading lady Sumire [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-110339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nintendo-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110339\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}