A Review of Mineko’s Night Market

Meowza Games’ Mineko’s Night Market assembles a lot of the components of a successful life simulation game, but its execution is lacking.

Although Mineko’s Night Market attempts to mimic many of the social/life simulation games that came before it, producer Meowza Games’ offering is almost entirely lacking in terms of gaming experience.

With an equally delightful music softly humming in the background and incredibly appealing visuals, the Japanese-themed Mineko’s Night Market has a promising beginning. But after that, nothing positive occurs.

In Mineko’s Night Market, the titular little girl and her father move to a small island that has, in the opinion of its few residents, seen better days. The player is instantly exposed to the local legend of Nikko, a big cat that lives in the neighbouring Mount Fugu but is unable to return home for whatever reason.

Inattentive Agents on a mystery mission, apparently to track down Nikko, have also taken over the island. These clichéd guys in black are incredibly amateurish and easily distracted by the young girl and her new companion Bobo.

The most striking aspect of Mineko’s Night Market is the unfulfilled confidence that perhaps the game is only getting started slowly and that things would pick up speed eventually. It’s possible that the player hasn’t advanced far enough yet, but the actual fun starts when a particular point is reached.

However, this never occurs. The game is largely dull, but it does drag along week after week and season after season. There’s never any thrill about playing or anticipating what will come next. There isn’t even enough motivation to finish Mineko, not even the grand goal of returning the cute Nikko home.

Mineko’s crafts from the night market

Meowza tries to set Mineko’s Night Market apart from other games in the category that are comparable. Acquiring new recipes and selling them at the Saturday Night Market is the main idea of the game. At least the recipes are fascinating. In the end, Mineko learns how to construct an Ant Farm, a Fish Pond, a Feelings Journal, and a Bug Diorama, but these amusing inventions are ultimately pointless.

A number of the things the townspeople beg for are used to decorate their homes, and some of these are even included in the game. A windsock that is presented to one character ends up hanging from a pole, while another one desires a planter that is put to the house and filled with lovely flowers. But regrettably, Mineko is unable to use the objects that are made.

She is not allowed to wear the magic cape she crafts, show the entertaining toys she gets from the vending machine in her room, or add a fishing pond to her own home. The majority of them are merely sold, making their distinctiveness almost meaningless. Making a gorgeous Sakura fan is pointless if it will only be sold or given to a peasant and then vanish.

Everything starts to get repetitious and monotonous. The majority of the player’s time is spent travelling to various locales to gather supplies; as the game progresses and Mineko acquires more equipment, these regions gradually open up. Agents have penetrated every new location, and Mineko needs to remove them.

Oddly enough, they manage to achieve their mission by releasing the cats they are watching over. This may be dressing up as a delivery outfit to divert their attention with food, or it could mean slyly skulking around as they patrol in a very basic and predictable manner.

Mineko does this same pantomime, essentially unchanged, each time she visits a new location. Like a lot of the game, it’s bland, unchallenging, and fast boring.

The night market parade in Mineko

Every Saturday, Mineko brings her goods to the Night Market, where a minigame of some kind always concludes the evening. This might be anything from racing around the track on a cat to finding hidden lanterns to marching in parade formation and obeying orders as they are screamed out. Mineko’s Night Market has a limited quantity of minigames, and the player will frequently find himself playing the same ones again.

Even on their first meeting, some of them, like the parade, hardly seem funny, yet they keep happening. After every minigame, the announcer and market patrons utter the same meaningless phrases, creating a repeating conversation. Furthermore, it appears that the only true incentive for winning is to get a trophy, which is subsequently left neglected and dusty on a shelf in Mineko’s room for the duration of the seasons.

The entire game has an odd feeling of being half asleep. In other life simulation games, the villagers could take care of their crops, go for walks, or converse with each other to receive one of several potential answers. At the conclusion of each season, there may be a festival or other celebration to give the player a sense of accomplishment. Mineko doesn’t provide any of it.

With only a minor breathing animation to set them apart from a lifeless paper doll, the villagers stand around. There are those that relocate daily, but that’s about all that happens. They provide the same canned answers while standing still. The eerie atmosphere is exacerbated by the fact that they stay outside in the rain as if there is no such thing as weather.