Mineko's Night Market

A perfect cozy style indie game for gamers who like a mix of story, folklore, Japanese culture, crafting items to sell, and lots of cats. I enjoy the ease of getting into the flow of things in this game, you unlock new recipies by fishing or gifting requested items you can craft or buy for villagers. You also have a booth at the weekly night market that you can sell all your crafted items for money in a marketplace style game and play mini-games. You do all this while unlocking the mystery of Nikko, a mythical cat that is worshiped by the locals of Mount Fugu who agents seem to be trying to hunt down.

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• beautiful, hand-drawn art style with lots of charming details
• cute story about friendship, culture, and rediscovering community
• tons of charming mini-games & creative crafting elements
• Cats. Everywhere. In all shapes and sizes. :3 Meow.
• very accessible and easy to get into
• adorable characters and quirky, heartwarming dialogue
• Soundtrack perfectly matches the dreamy, cozy vibe

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• Gameplay can feel a bit repetitive over time
• some mini-games tend to repeat a little too often

Conclusion

If you love cozy games with lovable characters, quirky villagers, and—most importantly—if you worship cats, Mineko’s Night Market is absolutely your thing. Sure, it has a few small flaws, but it makes up for them with tons of heart. Perfect for unwinding and soaking in some peaceful island vibes, grab some origami, pet a cat, and let the magic of the night market whisk you away~ :3

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• wunderschöner, handgezeichneter Grafikstil mit liebevollem Detailgrad
• niedliche Story über Freundschaft, Kultur und das Wiederentdecken von Gemeinschaft
• viele charmante Mini-Games & kreative Handwerks-Elemente
• Katzen. Überall. In allen Formen und Größen. :3 Meow.
• leicht zugänglich
• niedliche Charaktere und charmante Dialoge
• Soundtrack passt perfekt zur verträumten Atmosphäre

-
• Gameplay kann auf Dauer etwas repetitiv wirken
• einige Minispiele wiederholen sich recht häufig

Fazit

Wenn du auf gemütliche Spiele mit liebevollen Charakteren, eigenartigen Dorfbewohnern und vorallem Katzen anbetest, dann ist Mineko’s Night Market genau dein Ding. Das Spiel hat zwar kleine Macken, aber dafür umso mehr Herz. Perfekt zum Abschalten und einfach das entschleunigte Inselleben genießen, schnapp dir ein Origami, streichle eine Katze und lass den Zauber des Nachtmarkts auf dich wirken~ :3

I wanted this to be one of my top games, but I just couldn’t put it in my top 10. The game is beautiful and full of charm, but mechanical bugs and repetitive quests made it feel more like a chore than an adventure. Quality-of-life improvements: like skipping night market days or crafting multiple items at once could have made a big difference. I’d recommend it for a short, 5-10 hour experience, but beyond that, it loses its appeal :/

This game showed a lot of promise on the charming art style, beautiful music and fun writing. Unfortunately mechanically and with some weird road blocks it ended up being a pretty frustrating experience. Also some weird bugs at the storyline.

It's the perfect mix between animal crossing and stardew valley! And with the added bonus of cats everywhere, you can't really go wrong. This is officially one of my favorite games.

Adorable and addicting.

I can only soft-recommend this game. It was super cute and cozy, with a really cute story line !!! However, it gets extremely frustrating at the end :(

If you are trying to complete the game, it takes so long to get certain items from Ruby. Not only that, but the Dad's ramen achievement is buggy. I wish I knew the achievements from the beginning, because I would have tried to attain then from the start. Instead, I had to sleep through entire seasons just to catch certain fish or get certain foods/items from the Night Market. By the end of the game, I was just annoyed, and everything became a chore to me.

As cute as the game is, I also just wish that the game had a more linear path. In order to reach 5 hearts with certain villagers, you still need to finish other parts of the story; it all just turns into one big mess. At the night market, I end up just buying several of the same item. I also just buy every item from Ruby.

The game definitely just feels like a grind after some point.

Overall, the game is cute and I CAN recommend it, but don't expect too much.

Don't be fooled by my playtime. I realize I only have a few hours here on steam, but I have multiple on my switch which is where I originally bought this game.

Despite the common belief that loading and switch gameplay is bad, that isn't why I bought Mineko's Night Market on Steam. I actually don't have a problem with my switch gameplay at all and that's where I originally fell in love with this game. Actually, I bought it here because I do just REALLY enjoy the game itself. I realize it can get repetitive after you beat it, but for my ADHD riddled brain sometimes that repetitiveness is great. The game is cozy, relaxing, enjoyable and overall has amazing art and aesthetics.

I know some people complain about the loading times and bugs, but I haven't had issues with bugs and the loading times hardly seem that bad to me (maybe because I'm used to the switch? I don't know.)

It's a good game though and it's been one of my favorites since I got it, honestly. If you like cozy games, this is def a must have imo.

I was drawn in by the visuals. It's such a cute game with a good soundtrack and fun story, but I will say I was frustrated by the end of it. Not because of the story and thankfully I didn't run into many crashes except one, but trying to finish the achievements. One bug that I would run into is when at the Night Market with low hearts, I would try the fishing game and Mineko would say she was too tired so when I would go to eat something if I was standing too close to Koji I would get stuck and so I would need to restart the day.
If you are a completionist, you'll find the food museum frustrating. I finished the game before the end of year 1 and every other achievement by the end of year 2. I finally got all food in the beginning of year 4. One tip would be to just buy two of every food at the Night Market, one for the museum and the other for the villager.
I do wish some resource collecting was more abundant, but it is a game of mining. Overall, I did enjoy the game but I'm glad I got it on sale

whoever wrote the dialogue for this game deserves a fat kiss on the forehead 10/10

I'd recommend this game. It's very cute, the soundtrack is nice, and the balance is mostly okay. The last 25% of the game is pretty painful (it devolves into just sleeping away the days to try and get a few rare foods that are nearly impossible to get early game that you need for final achievements), and there are some game-breaking bugs towards the end (too much food in the inventory breaks the ability to donate it to the museum, the achievement for dad's ramen breaks the game a few times and idk why, why are the agents still at the markets after defeating them, where did Hank go, why doesn't the flavour text change when you're at the final evolution of the night market, why does Nikko suddenly return to do chores with zero dialogue after getting his 'you can't see him again' ending etc.) The fishing mechanic is simultaneously easy but feels incredibly time-consuming considering how much you need to do it. Some of the crafting mini-games require levels of timing that feel quite cruel at times (the wood game and the paper game in particular) and would definitely be inaccessible to quite a lot of folks. Thankfully you're usually allowed one mistake to make a non-perfect item, and you don't need to make any perfect items to get through the game. (Later you also gain the ability to recycle your fails).

Overall this game had some heartfelt moments, I wish we knew more about Mineko and her Dad, but I found Mineko and Nikko's relationship very touching and sweet. The artwork is also very beautiful.

Loved the art style, music, characters, but dang this game is a slow, buggy mess that has absolutely no respect for your time. There are no mouse controls, which would help a bit. It is so frustrating to finally get an item you need only to get softlocked and need to restart the day, which means you've lost your rare item(s) and all the progress you made. I want to finish this game so badly, but I've hit my limit of bugs and crashes.

I played for 8 hours straight because I just couldn't pull away from the game. this game isn't talked about enough which is sad. the graphics are so good and the story too so far! there are many different things you can do in the game, explore, craft items and sell them and also pet the cats :) anyways, I loved the game and I think it is worth the price!!!

A precious game with it's own personality! I think the pacing could have been executed better, but I still had a great time with it.

I love this game. I’ve only experience one annoying bug during my playtime, but other than that I have no complaints. I’m pretty close to beating it I believe, but there’s a lot to experience and I plan to keep playing past the main story,

I adore this game! The story is wholesome and heart warming. I 100% the game twice and I loved every single second of it. There is crafting, collecting, and exploring which are huge elements for me in any game. I also enjoyed the night market very much. You get to sell your crafts earn money and help with the weekly night market performance or game. Such a wonderful game. I will be keeping an eye out on the developers next projects.

Linux performance for this game is great. It's not solid, but it's great.

The game is awesome. It's cozy and it has a heartwarming story. More importantly, unlike most life sim cozy game of its nature, it has an official ending. The gameplay can be repetitive at times, but when it gets going, it really gets going. This game feels nostalgic somehow, it does feel like an old DS game. The art style is very cute as well.

The game's not perfect, of course. There are several bugs to watch out, some minor, some possibly game breaking. The agent's hitbox could be refined more as there were times when the agents should've totally noticed me and times when they shouldn't have noticed me.

please i love this game sm

This game is utterly adorable. Beautifully designed, really cosy, relaxing fun! I love that there's so much to do, it's wholesome and genuinely well designed. The only thing I disliked is how expensive the tools are, but it's very easy to make in-game money. Would recommend to anyone needing a soft-girl moment or two to just unwind.

Cute, fun, enjoyable :)

I recommend Mineko's Night Market for all the cats, cats in everything, everywhere. It was fun, cozy and very satisfying, without spoiling anything :)

is noice
k byeee

This game is so cute and so fun and you can't enjoy it at all. Played it on the steam deck because I was warned it doesn't work on the switch. This game you literally wake up with a long loading screen, walk out your front door long loading screen, walk to the store long loading screen, walk to bus stop long loading screen, I can play another game during the loading time my play time is 75% loading screen what is wrong with this game

this is the kind of game you can get absolutely trapped in for hours and hours before you realize it (i have so many times omg). the story is so heartfelt, and the characters are so silly! it's easy to play and full of fun little minigames. i'm having a blast!

fun cozy game kinda like animal crossing vibes but with cats.

Very cozy game with cats and crafting and engaging gameplay that changes as you progress!

Oh boy... Where to even start with this one... First of all I'm gonna be nice and say everything i liked before i go on a titanic rant about the millions of small and big things in this game that bothered me to no end, and also just left me with a sour feeling when i was done. It is an incredible game in some ways and a failure in others so let's get down to it.

First the gameplay is functional and you can easily get into a fun rhythm of resource grinding, crafting and then selling your things while progressing the story along slowly. It's quite easy but i don't think that's an issue, it feels like it wants to be a casual experience for everyone.
Second it looks gorgeous, it's a really cute style that i personally like a lot, and i also loved the focus on more rural japanese culture and cats in particular. Love me some cats.
Also i liked some of the characters quite a bit, like Miyako and Mineko's blossoming friendship, the Lulu girl and the Tomori? Scientist daughter girl. Quite cute characters.

Gonna preface everything i'm about to say with i did enjoy myself most of my time with the game and i am gonna recommend it in the end but i think a lot of these things i'm gonna mention are inexcusable for a game that has been out for almost a year. This is gonna be a long list of me ranting and some are small mistakes while others are giant and in no particular order cause i can't be bothered. I hope these things gets fixed with time, but this was how the game was when i played it.

1: There was so much clipping in this game of my character just getting covered by background objects and random parts of the map where the walls would just overlap my character.
2: Half the time when you shovel the animation just doesn't start. This also happened several times with picking stuff up, petting cats, building so on
3: Sounds would bug out and just not play at all randomly.
4: I have no idea why the game doesn't have a "select amount" option so you can only sell ALL of your stuff or 1, there is no inbetween, Same with buying items in bulk i can only scroll through the numbers one at a time... So frustrated. Also you can only squeeze one fish at a time? Why not just have a squish all option when you have a discard all one? I don't get why these systems are so selective in being good and having lots of options and some are just crap. Fix this please make it universal that all have all options...
5. It is actually inexcusable that this game doesn't have a hard save in the menu and you can only save by going to bed and rolling forward to the next day. Especially since the game randomly froze for me on 3 separate occasions, during the evening so i lost my entire days work because it rolls me back to the morning. Please add a manual save option or fix your shit so it doesn'y crash or freeze in the middle of the gameplay without the game autosaving... It's so frustrating i almost refunded this game twice.
6. I don't get the end so spoilers ahead
Why does the town and Nico just go back to before we fly there with the balloon after you finish the game but it's clearly after it since the balloon is there and you have the mask. Why is villagers so dumb and just repeating the same dialogue over and over again? Bobo keeps telling me he swear he saw him even right before the end game, please make your npcs more immersive...
7: The dialogue was WAY to verbose, there is just way to much flavor text and unimportant random crap thrown into the dialogue, that makes it unbearable to sit through and honestly i just skipped through most of it cause it was so badly written and there was soo much of it.
8: Give me the kimono and black cat outfit to wear in gameplay and not just the plays at the night market >_>
9: The post endgame grind is so annoying and i wish i hadn't bothered honestly. You can't skip the night market so you have to sit through 4 separate night market's to go forward a season if you need a specific fish or snack for the museums. Please just allow me to skip a season or the night market after i complete the game.
10: On that note the night market forces you to participate in the main event every single time, and you can't skip it. Also you have to do the 2 laps in the race or the game just stops and everyone is frozen until you do it. Also you can just run the opposite direction and still win which i find funny. Also also you can still win and get the trophies even if you lose all the events and suck at them on purpose which is a bit lame. Why even bother trying when i just get pity points.
11: the crafting for wood and sewing in particular was so finnicky at times and just made me not wanna bother doing them, also i don't get why the npcs just don't want certain items. I had like 7 different items at the end that i crafted 2 seasons ago and no one would buy them at the market???
12: Lastly while the agent sequences had their moments most of them were lame and repetetive. Please just make some more variety with them. Also they could have made more mini games for harvesting,

If you can live with these yeah sure i recommend, but if you find any of this annoying skip this until it's fixed or get it on sale, or something.

this is such a cute game! it has adorable graphics, charming characters and fun dialogue, but just know that it's a very "errandy" kind of game so it might not suit your tastes if you're not into that kind of thing! me personally i like carrying out tasks so it's enjoyable for me. the game does glitch occasionally but it's not unbearable, and also the story moves quite slowly as you're basically just doing the same menial tasks each week. one thing that really irks me is the fishing mechanic T_T it's incredibly uninspired and tedious and really just takes me out of the game, i wish it was more interactive. other than that i rly liked it :) 8/10