NANA Is Everything Controlled By The Great Demon King

Nana: Everything is controlled by a great demon king? is a video game spin off from the NANA series. It was developed by Konami and released in July 2006. It is a trivia/board game with a dice and is the first one of its type I have played. You could visit various locations in the game like Sabrina and have Junko, one of the game’s character, serve you special drinks to try out. There is the option to play as a male but it is really limited compared to the women.

(And this is how covid happens besides just bat soup)

The main goal is to reach the end of the finishing line and to gain as much affection points from the characters as possible. There is no storyline as such, all you have to do is win before your opponent the demon king does. The game lacks drama and mundane relationship issues. The personality quirks and more of the positive traits are highlighted but Nana Komatsu is  as insufferable as ever.

(Yeah this low res image i found wasn't just coincidence clearly there's been otome games before this was released that looked better than this.)

The game plays out as a board game and you make a move with a roll of a dice. Some parts you could land and earn extra money to spend on items, and some parts you could be moved back a few steps or move a few steps forward. There are other traps where sometimes you could lose the money you earned.  You earn affection points by interacting with the character but if you choose not to, they will disappear and another character appears. At each part of the stage on the board, a vehicle will appear to take you to the next area.

(Stock imagery plus anime image like this you think it would be a parody but its an actual game)

The game is set at multiple rounds and after every 3 rounds, Trapnest or BLAST performs some lighthearted and cheesy music, but you do have the punk music for which NANA is well documented. Throughout the boardgames, characters from NANA will appear randomly after each move. You can befriend all of the characters that you enjoyed in the anime.

(Graphics like this makes you think you're playing on a n64 or ps1 and Castlevania Symphony Of The Night of all games has better graphics then this.)

The cutscene skits were pretty short. The graphics aren’t the best looking and even for a less powerful console, you can see better PSP level graphics with Square Enix titles. The 3D chibi animations are limiting to say the least. The punk aesthesis are still there and the chibi character designs were actually pretty good. The background designs of the places are accurate but were sadly lacking in details. The voice cast reprises their roles from the anime but you really shouldn’t expect the same level of quality as the anime. There isn’t that much variety in the stages with only three.  Even if you raise your affection points with a character, it would reset to zero when you play again.

You can unlock other characters to play, and get more customization options as time does go by. With the money you have from the boardgames, you play you can use it to decorate your room. You can also invite other characters from the anime to come and hang out with you. Each character you select has its original drawing to go along with its chibi format. You can even play against 4 friends in multiplayer mode.There is some replay value after clearing a stage, as each character you unlock has a different ending.

This an ok game but lacked gameplay variety to make it really good. It gets 3 out of 5 stars.

I purchased it mainly to help with Ai Yazawa’s medical treatments. You have to be a hardcore NANA fan to like this game.