I haven't been talking about it much but I'm still playing Nivalis Nights just about every day. I'm coming up on twenty hours played and it feels as though I'm still in the discovery phase. I'm enjoying it a lot and I'd recommend it highly... only who, exactly, would I recommend it to?
Just what sort of game is Nivalis Nights supposed to be? The more I play, the more I think labeling might be the game's biggest problem, at least in terms of getting the reviews it deserves and putting it in front of the audience best suited to appreciate it.
Currently, the game is sitting on a middling 76 at Metacritic and an even less satisfactory 71 at OpenCritic. Those aren't terrible scores. Just mediocre. But it's not a mediocre game.
My impression, which is now well past first, is of a very strong RPG with a fascinating and well-conceived setting and a picaresque but wholly compelling plot. It also looks great but that's one thing on which the critics and I mostly agree.
From the few reviews I've read and from some news items, too, my feeling is that a lot of people thought they'd bought a cyberpunk business sim. Which is how the game was frequently promoted before it launched, so fair enough, I guess. Others seemed to think they were getting some sort of cyberpunk Second Life. (Wasn't that the actual Second Life, though?) Only a small minority seemed to be expecting a sequel to the excellent Cloudpunk, described on Steam as "A neon-noir story in a rain-drenched cyberpunk metropolis."
Is it an RPG, then? A life sim? A business sim? All of them? More importantly, what do people think it is? And when I say "people" I mean reviewers, obviously.
To find out, I could have taken a couple of hours out of my Sunday to read a couple of dozen reviews, then another hour or two to precis it all for an introduction to the post... but this isn't the 1990s any more, much though many people seem to wish it could be. Rather than do all the leg-work myself, I thought I'd get Gemini to do it for me. Give me a summary of the gist of the issues reviewers are having with this game that maybe I'm not seeing.
Here's what I asked:
"Hi Gemini, Can you please give me an aggregate summary of the kind of reviews the video game "Nivalis Nights" has been getting, with a short list of the most common complaints (Other than optimization and performance) and a general impression of what sort (And genre) of game reviewers seem to believe it is?"
And here's what Gemini said:
Genre and General Impression
Reviewers generally categorize "Nivalis Nights" (developed by ION LANDS) as a cyberpunk life simulation and business management game (with heavy narrative/side-quest elements often likened to a "Visual Novel Lite").
The Core Premise: Players inherit a failing noodle stand (along with a pile of debt and a strict curfew) in a sprawling, multi-tiered voxel-aesthetic cyberpunk metropolis, balancing running food/drink businesses with navigating hundreds of character-driven side stories.
The General Impression: Reviewers are deeply split. On one hand, the game is praised for its stunning, atmospheric world-building, brilliant sound design, and the genuine charm of exploring a living, vertical cyberpunk city. On the other hand, many feel the game suffers from a lack of depth in its core mechanics—turning what was expected to be a rich sandbox life-sim into an overwhelming, chore-heavy checklist of errands.
Most Common Complaints (Excluding Optimization & Performance)
Aside from technical and performance gripes, reviewers and players frequently point out these major pain points:
Aggressive Time Constraints: The in-game clock moves very fast (e.g., 1 second equals 1 minute), creating a constant sense of frantic panic. Players feel rushed to sprint everywhere, conflicting directly with the game’s atmospheric tone that encourages you to slow down and soak in the environment.
Shallow Management and Interaction Depth: While advertised as a business management and life-sim, these systems are often described as thin. Restaurant appliances function mostly as static objects with minimal interactive animation, staff and managers can behave erratically (e.g., over-ordering stock), and overall creative freedom in running businesses feels restricted.
Quantity Over Quality in Quests & NPCs: The game throws an overwhelming number of side quests at the player. However, many NPCs feel disposable—once their specific quest chain concludes, they offer little to no ongoing dialogue or meaningful relationship-building, making the world feel surprisingly lifeless over time.
Clunky UI and Navigation Issues: Navigating the sprawling, vertical multi-level districts can be confusing due to a lack of proper mapping or mini-maps. Furthermore, the user interface (such as the oversized, non-resizable quest log) and the lack of grid-snapping for furniture placement make basic base-building and organization frustrating.
I've left the links in because god knows what would happen if I
took them out. You should see the HTML... I checked they all went where they said and not to
some other game entirely but I haven't read them in detail. That
would kind of undermine the whole point of using an AI to get a
summary in the first place, now wouldn't it?
I found Gemini's conclusions very revealing, although to what
extent it has actually looked at more than just the handful of
sources it quotes is very uncertain. I get the feeling that, as a
research assistant, Gemini likes to operate at the "Do the minimum to keep the boss happy" end of the scale. Still, it gives me what I need to work with,
namely some bullet points I can expand on, agree with or
refute.
Which I shall now do. You'll have to refer back to Gemini's summary to see what I'm refuting or agreeing with, though. Or get an AI assistant to summarize both sides of the debate. In fact, why not let's your AI and my AI just talk it out together? We don't really need to be here...
Genre and General Impression - It'd be nice if Nivalis Nights was a "cyberpunk life simulation" but if it was that, you wouldn't be rail-roaded into
running a noodle bar in the very first quest, would you? The
simulation of the environment is excellent but the life you
can live in it is limited to a) running a restaurant and maybe expanding that to running more restaurants and b)
living the exact same life as every adventurer in every
quest-driven game ever.
If it's not a life sim, it's also not, in my now quite significant experience, a
"business management game", either. I have no interest
in running a chain of restaurants, so I don't. And the game
doesn't seem to care. It took me three or four sessions, maybe
the first three or four hours, to get enough staff and a
manager installed to run the one noodle bar I started with and now, a month and fifteen more hours play later, that's where I
still am.
And it's fine. The game really doesn't seem to care. The
noodle bar is solvent. It makes a small profit, in fact.
Reviews are good, the staff seem happy and it all required
very little effort from me. Occasionally I have to put in an
appearance to solve some problem or other but that's really questing,
not business management. The place pretty much runs itself
now and I hardly even think about it most sessions.
My Verdict: NN is neither a life sim, nor a
business sim. It's not any kind of sim. It's an RPG. So yes,
it could easily be described as having a narrative and side
quests or as being a "Visual Novel Lite." Although,
with the sheer number of quests, I'm not sure I'd bother
adding "Lite."
Core Premise
- As I've said, I think where you pivot to reach that
balance is pretty much up to you. You could concentrate on
building up your noodle empire or you could play Littlest
Cyberhobo like you've been doing in every RPG since
whatever
your first RPG might have been. Talk to everyone, do whatever they
want, repeat. That's my game.
My Verdict: Pretty accurate. No real complaints with that summary.
General Impression
- I agree with the first part
and disagree fundementally with the rest. It's one hell of a
city for an explorer or an aesthete. It's huge, sprawling and
superbly designed. It richly rewards exploration for
exploration's sake.
As for "lack of depth" in the "core mechanics",
sure, if you bought into the marketing hype. Nivalis Nights
has great depth as an RPG, which is not what how it was mostly advertised, unfortunately. As any kind
of sim, be it life or business, then yes, it probably does lack depth,
although even there it's deep enough to suit me. But then I don't much like sim games. The shallower the better, really.
My Verdict: NN has been badly mis-marketed. I'm
not surprised people are pissed off that they've been sold a different
game to the one they thought they were buying. It should have
been marketed to the
Disco Elysium/Esoteric Ebb crowd, not the people who
want to play The Sims 2077: Masterchef Edition.
On to the complaints.
Aggressive Time Constraints - This is a slightly odd one. It's objectively true that the
in-game clock runs at a rate of "1 second equals 1 minute" but whether this creates "a constant sense of frantic panic" is entirely
subjective. I literally didn't notice until
last night that that was the ratio. What's more, I never even thought the time was going
particularly quickly, not compared to other games. It seemed pretty standard to me.
As for feeling "rushed to sprint everywhere", er...what? I think I
might have sprinted two or three times, maybe? For a few
seconds. Just to see how it worked, mostly. The default
movement speed seems wholly adequate. Why would you want to
run?
Here's the thing. The really important thing. After
almost twenty hours, I have yet to run into any timer in the
game that actually means anything. Quest-wise, that is. NPC
after NPC tells you something has to be done now or
immediately or right away but it never, ever
does. Every quest just sits there in your journal until you
get round to it, even if it takes days or weeks. I can't say
there are no quests in the game that have hidden timers that induce fail conditions but if
there are, I haven't run into one yet.
What I do, instead of rushing around frantically, is just wander around the city, gawping like a tourist, taking photos and following quest markers. If I see any NPCs with "!" or "..." over their heads, I talk to them as I spot
them. I frequently get side-tracked. I jump the tracks from
one quest to another all the time. It never matters. The first one is always still there, waiting for
me, whenever I remember it.
As for the noodle bar, once I got the manager in place, I
forgot all about any supposed timers there. I pay her to sort
that for me and she does. Occasionally some official or criminal tries to threaten me with closure if I don't do something immediately but they always go away after a while. I was a bit worried at the start but now I just treat them like all the other quests. Which is what they are.
My Verdict: Any sense of panic (Or indeed lack
thereof...) induced by the in-game clock says a lot more about
the personality of the player than the game. It's as chill or as stressful as you choose to make it.
Shallow Management and Interaction Depth - I think I've covered this quite extensively already. I'm one
hundred per cent certain the business part is several orders
of magnitude deeper than I'm seeing, but I'm happy to accept
that, even then, as a business sim, Nivalis Nights is still shallow by
the standards of those who like that sort of
thing.
That said, you can micromanage the whole damn noodle bar yourself if you want to. You can set the menu, grow the food, go shopping... even do the cleaning and wait
tables if you want. Why you would want beats me
but it's there. As for the erratic nature of the staff,
that was true at launch, or so I read, but it got patched up
before I even had any staff to worry about. It's all good now.
My Verdict: These elements are indeed shallow for
a simulation game but they're more than deep enough for an
RPG. Which is what this game is.
Quantity Over Quality in Quests & NPCs - Hmm. Well, it's true there are a lot of "side quests", although I'd only call them that if if I considered the business sim part to be the "main quest". Which I do not. So I'd just call them quests.
Are there too many? Hell, no. The more there are , the more I like it. Is the sheer number overwhelming? Not if, like me, you're the kind of player who routinely picks up every quest you find until the game tells you you can't take any more. I still have room in my journal for more so I'm fine.
Is it quantity over quality, then? God, no! The quality is excellent. The quests are engaging, amusing, intriguing and informative. If Nivalis Nights is in any way a "life sim" it's in the way talking to so many of the people who in the city lets you build up a picture of what life might be like there. And it really does.
What about the "no ongoing dialogue or meaningful relationship" part, then? Well, what kind of ongoing dialogue do you expect, ffs? Do quest NPCs in other games have anything to say to you after you've sorted out their problems? Do they hell. Okay, sometimes they'll still acknowledge you and remember who you are, and I'm not saying that wouldn't be a nice touch, but it's hardly worth complaining about, when they don't. I guess when I've done all the quests in the game, it will feel kinda quiet, but then that'll mean the game is over.
As for a meaningful relationship, I think that's the "sim" part coming up again, isn't it? That, I guess, would be the part in games like My Time At Portia/Sandrock, where you take NPCs out to dinner and give them flowers and basically pretend you're "in a relationship" with them. Which creeps me out, if I'm honest. I'm very glad that doesn't happen in Nivalis. And I sure wouldn't want any of these people moving into my apartment like they do in Neverness To Everness, either. It's barely big enough for one!
My Verdict: This is where I think the reviews have it completely wrong, except the one or two that, rightly, reference the likes of Disco Elysium. Nivalis Nights is a telling a story but you have to listen. It's a pretty good story, too. And the characters who get to tell it are wild!
Clunky UI and Navigation Issues - And finally, another complaint that seems to be rooted in a misunderstanding of what the game is trying to do and be. The city is supposed to be confusing! That's a big part of the fun. Well, for me, anyway.
Last night I got to Mountain Town for the first time. Mountain Town is just insanely confusing. As Ava pointed out, when we arrived, most of the buildings probably aren't up to code. That'll be because it's a giant shanty-town built out of spare parts culled from other buildings, all connected by an ad hoc agglomeration of boardwalks and ramps. It's like a hundred Kelethins all piled on top of one another. And unlike Elftown, I loved it!
All the zones are at least a little like that - chaotic, organic, unplanned. Nivalis is an old city that just grew. As for mapping it... there's a whole quest featuring a guy whose job for the last two decades has been to walk around the city with a shoulder cam, like some human version of a Google Maps car, transmitting data about the street layout to a central mapping company. That's the only way they can keep the maps up-to-date and even that real-time cartography isn't enough.
Why should we, the players, get better maps than the citizens? To expect it is missing the point. But that said, the in-game map we do get is perfectly fine. The quest markers on the HUD work extremely well, there are plenty of signs and directions in the gameworld if you can be bothered to look and everything is very well-documented. There's both excellent instant travel by map and good public transport by rail and HOVA. And I have a boat! I have no problems getting to where I want to go.
As for walking around the city, movement by foot is possibly the best I've ever seen in a game of this kind. Nothing ever gets in your way, collision is handled superbly, even the most awkward-looking spiral staircases are simple to climb... absolutely can't fault it in any way.
My Verdict: I'll concede the quest log is a bit big but once you figure out how to hide it it's fine. Other than that, I have no complaints about either the aesthetics or the functionality of the UI. It may be funky but it ain't clunky!
And that concludes my rebuttal of the case for the prosecution, your honor. In summation, I'd like to say that I believe Nivalis Nights to be a truly excellent RPG. It's just a shame that's not how it was sold.
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