Alright, I've been playing for a couple days since launch. Here are my initial thoughts:

tldr; pretty standard gacha game with pretty graphics and standard predatory monetization.

Nikke is developed by Shift Up, who made Destiny Child, a flashy lottery machine of a gacha game with a Persona 5-esque aesthetic. They are also currently developing Stellar Blade, formerly known as Project Eve, which if you don't remember is the game whose trailer everyone made fun of for having an absurdly sexualized main character in a serious dystopian setting. This game has a very similar setting to that game, by which I mean it's basically their own take on NieR:Automata, in which the earth is ruined and taken over by robots and humans send sexy android women to fight them. I like to imagine the developers played Nier and was like, "what if this game had more 2B booty and less philosophy?"

The art and character designs, which is what most people care about, are admittedly cool looking. The sexy military outfits remind me of Azur Lane, but instead of the nautical theme, they're going for a tacticool aesthetic, kind of like Girls' Frontline. However, compared to Girls' Frontline, the characters here are thiccer (by which I mean more voluptuous) and more overtly sexualized. There's also (currently) not nearly as many lolis as Azur lane, so that's a plus. Ideally we would have no lolis, but you know how the audience for these types of games are. The Live2d art is honestly amazing, it has the same high level of quality as Destiny Child. Unlike Destiny Child though, they actually bothered to put some gameplay in here, so props to the dev team for making something like an actual video game this time around.

The gameplay itself pretty simple: you just tap and hold to aim and shoot, and release to reload and take cover. It's very similar to an arcade shooter and very simple to operate. Apparently it was designed to be playable with one hand. Not gonna make the obvious joke here, but I really do like the idea of one-handed gameplay ever since I encountered it in Earthbound. However, it's not nearly as handy here since, like most gacha games, you can just full auto most levels if your team's strong enough, though manually playing's admittedly fairly fun due to the flashy effects. Also, I like that they use full-sized character illustrations for the combat instead of chibis. A lot of other gacha games use deformed chibi sprites for combat which I always thought was dumb, so good for them for not following that trend.

The story is ok. They're going for some darker emotional beats, and balancing with dumb anime humor. There's some ideas I'd say they ripped straight from Nier, such as virus corruption and memory erasure, and I'm fully expecting a similar turn in which you find out the machines are actually more intelligent than you thought. The writers managed to put a little bit of interesting intrigue in here though, so I'll see how it turns out. The full voice acting also definitely helps. There are a couple of fun side characters, like the S&M couple - always like to see positive portrayals of BDSM. Not really sure how I feel about the flamboyantly gay comic relief character though. I'm not familiar enough with Korean media to know how homosexuality is usually portrayed but I assume it's not great.

Alright, so now for the gacha bullshit. Rates are ok, it's 4% for an SSR. Hilariously enough, there's currently 9 Rs, 9 SRs, and a whopping 44 SSRs, so they really want you to roll for that waifu. The gems you can earn in game feel a little tight currently, similar to the Fire Emblem Heroes launch in my experience, where you're constantly scrounging around for gems so you can pull that sweet, sweet gacha. But maybe that's just how all these games feel on launch, idk.

Speaking of money, the whale fishing is absolutely hilarious in this game. So if you didn't know, "whales" are players with highly disposable income who spend an absurd amount of money on gacha games. I'm exaggerating but the idea is they basically make up like 1% of the playerbase but 90% of the revenue, so developers are always looking to milk them for all they're worth. If you're a normal person, you should probably only buy the $5 30-day daily gem supply. It's the same as the $5 monthly blessing in Genshin Impact, in that it's by far the most bang for your buck microtransaction in the whole game, nothing else even comes close.

If you're a whale though, your options include: a $20 seasonal battle pass, a $20 campaign pass that gives gems for completing story levels, limited time packages (available for 2 weeks after first playing) that range from $1 to $100 dollars, various daily, weekly, and monthly packages that range from $1 to $100, gem packages (with first time double bonuses of course) that range from $5 to $80, and various level up specials of increasing cost that last 2 hours after reaching certain commander levels. I know this level of predatory monetization is basically standard for these types of games at this point, but it still surprises me when a game like this is so brazen with it. I know people always say this but please, for god's sake, if you have a gambling problem, do NOT play gacha games, because holy shit this is awful.

Anyway, I'm a sick freak, so I'll keep playing for a bit. In general, the production values are certainly high, but people might be put off by the aggressive monetization, so we'll see how long the game lasts.

___

Update: Alright, as of the first Christmas update (Dec 2022), I've stopped playing this game. The microtransaction bullshit was just getting way too much, man. This might actually be the worst I've seen it in a gacha game (besides Destiny Child lol). Also, the game kept crashing for me, even on Bluestacks which was weird. I thought for sure they'd fix it eventually but the crashes still kept happening even a month after launch, which was very annoying. It's kind of a shame, though. Like I said before, the story isn't actually complete trash, there's some stuff there, I think. The Christmas story, for instance, was actually pretty sad, I quite liked it. But I figure the time I would have spent on this game will now be spent on better games that aren't hounding my wallet. So for anyone still playing I would honestly say you're better off uninstalling and just staying away from gacha in general. It's just not good for you, man.

As of right now, I think this is the best gacha in terms of characters and story. Yes, it is a horny game. It's very clear in their intentions and honestly I respect that. They don't censor themselves and thats something I support because I hate censorship. Let's start with gameplay: imo it's not the greatest or anything, you mainly just point and shoot while occasionally triggering skills. Not really boring but not neccesarily all that fun. I do enjoy how they make the combat more engaging with the bossfights, having to hit certain weak points to survive and it can get hard. As for story; it's surprisingly great. It has a pretty iconic prologue and for good reason. It's a gut wrencher. I haven't caught up yet (I'm in chapter 12) but from what I'm experiencing so far I really enjoy it. The world building is great. The Events: honestly they are about as good and sometimes even better than the main story at times, at that's saying something. Overture, Red Ash, Snow Fairy are some events that are fucking incredible, my jaw was wide open by the end of them. I legitimately couldn't believe how good those events were. Music: the music is awesome. It's a general mix of dubstep and a sliver of metal, which are genres I really like. Characters: the writing in both story/events and character bond stories are all great. They take the time to humanize each NIKKE, showing you their goals, aspirations, hobbies, backstories, relationships and their overall growth as a character. Despite being machines, they feel more human than the humans themselves. I'm not sure what it Is about this game, but I really do feel like I have a bond with some of these NIKKEs, which every gacha I've played so far (like 15) failed to do (apart from some characters in HI3). Whatever it is though, I love it. The devs are also super generous. I mean, in the span of like 2 month they gave us like 100 pulls free. Speaking of which, the gacha: the gacha is fine. When you play this game for a while you'll find your inventory of NIKKEs to be full of SSRs. They aren't particularly hard to get but the gacha itself is still a little questionable. Finally, the character designs. I feel like this game has the best designs in gacha ever. I dont think ive disliked a single one.
Overall great game despite the fanservice. (Which I'm a fan of)

I need more bullets. I need more bullets.
Bigger weapons. Hasta La Vista baby. Hasta La Vista baby.
Come on sir. Thanks for the protein sir.
Let's go to the gym buddy.
I'm ready for my next mission sir.
Ratatatata doom.

god giggly goo god damn. god fucking jiggle goo ga goo god. you got all the bitches, you got small bitches, you got big bitches, you got shy bitches, you got angry bitches, sometimes you even got not absurdly sexualized bitches so if the pastor finds you playing nikke in church he won't get mad at you.
gameplay is fine. it's simple and satisfying but of course it's being held back by the usual gacha bullshit like 20 different currencies and power levels and management shit outside of the actual game. got some quite nice quality of life tho like being able to raise other characters to the level of your highest characters automatically.
the main problem with the game is that you need at least two people at all times to get the most out of it. it's real hard to focus on the ass while still aiming at enemies so optimally you'd grab your favorite bozo and rotate every 5 seconds or so, have one aim and the other stare and repeat that process until one of you cums

I know people are gonna write this game off simply because it's a gacha game, and I understand. But if you're willing to look past the gacha aspect of the game, you'll find gameplay that is incredibly fun, a diverse lovable cast of characters, a banging soundtrack, and some insanely good stories. I picked this game up in February of '23 because of their collab with Chainsaw Man. After not pulling any of the units, I dropped it. But after about a week, I realized I was actually very invested in the main campaign and that I was still genuinely curious to see how the story played out. So shortly thereafter, I picked it back up again and have been a daily player since. And not only the main campaign, but the stories in their bi-weekly/monthly have been super enjoyable as well. and do a great job of fleshing out a lot of the characters on the roster. And good lord, that soundtrack? Even if you have no intention of checking this game out, you should absolutely listen to the NIKKE soundtrack because it is fucking STELLAR. Now, have I spent money on this game? Yes, and honestly, I have had so much damn fun with this game, I'll never regret the money I've spent on it. But I legitimately believe this game is friendly for F2P players. I played this game for 3 months before ever spending a penny on it because I didn't want a repeat of what has happened to me with other gacha games (spend money only to drop it within a couple months). And even then, I was still having a blast playing this. I'll take 1 point off for it being a gacha game, but in all other aspects, this game deserves a 9/10.

You know what? I'm sad. As a lot of people, I play it for the collaboration with Chainsaw man and that infamous ad. So I tough "Haha funny horny game, let's see what's the fuss about" and in the process I discovered that has more to offer than that.

A combat system very complex and fun, a narrative that surprised me at moments (even if I think that only half of the team is really trying and the other is just horny) and a support system which in the few I had read shows not only great characters, but also a great world-building, but in the end of the day is a gacha, and a VERY predatory one.

The great combat ended relegated to auto, because, or you play as expected or is impossible to win (Check the stage penalty for instance). The narrative, that outside of the traditional gacha never ending cycle of conflicts, is block behind a level system that started fair, but quickly escalated to absurd levels that make it really slow to progress as a F2P player. Even the support system has it catch with the tickets. The only thing I could praise without problem is the music, which, to be fair, has some fantastic songs. That's why I'm sad, here lays a lot of potential, but wasted under layers of micropayment bullshit. At lest, makes me curious for that Shift Up can offer, let's see how Stellar Blade turns out...

Downloaded this game cause I heard Himeno is getting in it soon. Will update and rate the game accordingly solely based on whether I got her or not.

-EDIT- I got her :)

Alright. I think I've played like five hours of this game. I remember a friend of mine talking about it months ago, and I took a look and thought about how it has rather unique gameplay for a gacha, and proceeded to not think about it again. Then I hear about the Chainsaw Man collaboration and how I can have the chance of owning a animated jpeg of Himeno. I'm sold. I download the game a few days before the collab begins to grab some extra summoning stuff for when she's available.

I'm not gonna lie. I like a bit of fanservice in character designs, whether it be women or men, but holy fuck. This game goes way overboard for a game that's readily available on the app store and not considered a straight up hentai game (How did Volume's violently shaking ass get a Teen rating on the app store). Other than that the game is... eh. The story is mildly engaging, Anis is cute and honestly kinda carries the game, and the gameplay has a fun loop. To be honest, I don't really know what else to say about the game. It's a gacha. I got Himeno for free though so I'm happy.