NTE Neverness to Everness 1.2 - 999 Nights, Shinku and Iroi are here!

Today, patch 1.2 of NTE: Neverness to Everness was released, and we get the usual bundle of new events and a brand-new character named Shinku. She is a demon-dragon lookalike, with a huge tail and horns. I was expecting her to be just a dragon at first, but her transformation feels more demonic than anything, so...

She's not the only character we're getting this patch; after Shinku, they'll release Iroi, a returning character from previous episodes whose personality and look I quite like. Hopefully, I can manage to get her, too. Shinku came with only 30 rolls, but who knows if fate will bless me again.

I really like Shinku's face design, but I'm a bit confused about her clothing design. Is that just a big shirt with short underpants?

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Honestly, though, more than the two characters, the focus of the patch seems to be a new main story episode centered on an online game called 999 Nights. According to our adorable Mint, this online game completely changes the gameplay based on the players' wishes.

It could be a racing game for one group or a standard, old-school RPG for another. This dream-like system is accessible to everyone and seems to be popular in the city. Is it just me, or does it feel extremely suspicious? I mean, it's literally a dream gaming system; there has to be some catch.

Boring swordsman for the protagonist of the story. She looks good, but honestly disappointing design wise.

Iroi fits as a mage, she has that frail body look and refined appearances. Plus it connects well to the animations of the game.

For our heroes, the gameplay seems to play like a traditional Action RPG with an old-school story. This is reflected as an actual separate game within NTE that has a completely separate leveling system, classes, monsters, and so on. It's basically an RPG inside an RPG, which is kind of hilarious every time I see it.

I say this because it's not even the first time a company has done this kind of "RPG-ception." Another Eden has a similar mode where Aldo entered an MMORPG in the future, and there was an entire game within it to be played, with different skills, classes, weapons, monsters, etc.

Shinku being a commoner I'm sure will have relevance in the story later on, she is the main heroine after all.

Mint as a berserker is just perfection. I mean come on, just look at her, so aggressive! So adorable! So huggable!

I have a difficult relationship with NTE; the game feels and plays well, but sometimes it has a few rough edges that make it look amateurish compared to other games in the gacha space. It's the small things, UI design, some props. Nothing that should really impact your enjoyment much, and yet it ticks you off.

I still enjoy it, though, so hopefully they can improve as it goes. I heard there has been some drama recently on the Chinese server about this patch, but I usually try to stay away from that. Something about them not expecting a car and skin to be added as gacha or something?