Notice Me Senpai Mobile Game Review!

Did you like the idea of Neko Atsume, where you lure out cute cats by using several items and different kinds of food? Do you wish there was a game just like it…but with cute guys instead of cats? Your wish has been granted by the cool folks at Skill Shot Labs, makers of the Neko Atsume-like collecting game, Notice Me Senpai! In Notice Me Senpai, you manage a cafe, where the guys come in to hang out, provided that you have the coffee and different items to pique their interests.

When you begin the game, you are prompted to enter your name and to name the new cafe you’ll be managing. Once you’re done with that, it’ll walk you through a mini-tutorial on how to get the cafe set up by guiding you to purchasing your first item: a tea set. It’ll then guide you to set the tea set in the cafe area and afterwards tells you to wait before a senpai shows up.

 

After a little bit, you get your first senpai: Nerd Senpai! If you tap on your dear senpai, it’ll display his information. Much like Neko Atsume, it’ll display their favorite item that they interacted with at the cafe. There’s also some collectible items you can earn from your senpais if they visit a large number of times, but more on that later.

 

There are plenty of different senpais that will visit the cafe depending on which items you set out on the cafe area. The kind of coffee beans you set in the coffee machines also help several other senpais to appear that wouldn’t normally show up with the regular coffee beans.

 

Once you set out your items and coffee beans, you’ll have a full house with plenty of senpais! Once the coffee runs out, tap the coffee machine to refill with the available coffee beans you have in your inventory.

 

Once a senpai has visited various times to the point of being a regular customer, you have the option of setting a nickname for that senpai. There are various humorous nicknames to choose from! I do wish there was an option where I could write my own, though.

 

Once a senpai has gotten to know you even more through repeated cafe visits, they’ll leave you an endearing note! Nerd Sempai’s poem under his note is quite something, huh?

 

A note isn’t all you’ll get, of course! When a senpai becomes interested in you, you’ll get to witness their confession of love to you. A CG of the senpai will display during the confession. These are pretty well-drawn, which I didn’t expect. Some characters have more than one CG, so make sure to collect them all!

Now let’s take a look at the main menu to see all the game has to offer.

 

There are several options to select and explore in order to set up your cafe for your adoring senpais.

 

The Senpai List displays all the senpais you’ve met thus far. It’ll also display the nickname you’ve chosen for them, if you unlocked that option. Each senpai also has a little heart that might vary in color depending how often they have visited the cafe:

• Dark Green – Senpai has just met you. Make a good impression! ✨
• Teal – Senpai has taken an interest in you.
• Light Green – Senpai thinks you’re cool.
• Light Purple – Senpai is your bud.
• Red – SENPAI HAS TRULY NOTICED YOU!!!! 🎉💖🎉

A red heart will unlock the CGs. I haven’t unlocked the CGs of the senpais that have 2 CGs each yet, so I’m unsure if there’s something else to be done to unlock the second CG.

 

The Shop is where you acquire higher-quality coffee beans to serve your senpais. You can also buy items that might lure in specific senpais depending on their tastes.

 

You can view and set your purchased items in the Inventory option. Take note that larger items, like the grand piano, take up two small spaces in your cafe, so it’s wise to rotate your displayed items regularly.

 

If you’re tired of seeing the same cafe style, you can change it up in the Cafe Theme option. However, to first unlock the option of remodeling your cafe, you have to pay up 200 gems. After the 200 gems, the charge for each theme is 80 gems.

 

In the Collection option, you can see your progress tracked by how many senpais you’ve met, how many CGs and guest notes you’ve collected. All of those combined raise your cafe rating. You can also have anoter look at the CGs and notes that you’ve collected so far.

 

The Option menu is self-explanatory: change the sounds and music to be on or off. You can also check out Skill Shot Lab’s other games if you wish.

 

The Take Photo option lets you take a picture of your current cafe display, so you can show off to your friends how many senpais have visited your cafe! You can also take pictures of the senpais individually and set those as their default profile pictures.

Let’s take another look at the main menu…because there was something hidden there.

Is that a…ninja?!

It sure is! Once you tap on the ninja, he’ll pop up along with a sign that reads “AD!”

Clicking on the ninja again will prompt a bonus coin or a bonus gem chance, where you can play a 30-second ad in exchange for coins or gems. This is a pretty neat feature, but I feel that those shouldn’t appear so often; you can easily farm coins and gems, making it easy to buy all the items rather quickly.

 

Speaking of ads, the one thing that irked me was that there would be a banner ad on display all the time as long as you had some signal on your mobile device. It’s not right in the way of the cafe display, but it’s a bit distracting.

All in all, Notice Me Senpai was an unexpected surprise I didn’t think we’d get, and I’m liking it a whole lot! I wonder if this will set the trend to have more of these collecting type games coming being released…only time will tell.

If you’ve already collected all the senpais, their notes and their CGs, worry not, there is more on the way!

Skill Shot Labs tweeted a few times that there will be an update on Valentine’s Day that adds new senpais to the game! If they want to keep people coming back to this game, having new senpais and items added to the game is certainly the way to go. I’m looking forward to the Valentine’s Day update, and hopefully any future updates!

Until next time, happy gaming!

Omake: