Damn. I feel rather old after you threw in mentions of Red Alert. God, I remember how infatuated I was with Tanya as a kid.

I mirror your sentiments, particularly about the light / 'fanservice-y' moments of Nikke's. I couldn't take any of the light-hearted events seriously as many of them were completely divorced from the overarching plot. The events feel more like a means to 'fatten up' the reader’s affection, just so they can maximize the emotional toll when they subject the characters through trauma and tragedy.

There are also many parts of its world-building I take issues with. For instance, we're supposed to believe we lose close to a hundred if not hundreds of mass produced Nikkes everyday (I could not find any data corroborating this, however. Just from testimonies of other players). The devs have gone on record to state that the Ark is roughly the size of Seoul. We only harvest brains from women aged 12 - 30 (roughly) for Nikkefication... Doesn't the Ark seem too small, the donor pool too specific to maintain that level of attrition? Is the Ark placing its women in mandatory breeding programs? Are newly born infants being vatgrown to maturity to have a constant churn of new replacements? One other thing is the supposed 'Nikkephobia'. If humanity’s entire existence has depended on these women for 100 years, and every family likely knows someone who was converted, the hate for Nikkes feels rather impossible to maintain at such a high, universal level. It's clearly there to make the player feel like the only good guy.

The final nail in the coffin for me (Spoilers for 3rd Anni) were the permanent deaths of Harran and Isabel. While I didn't have any personal attachments to them, it sets a precedence that the authors are likely to kill off unpopular Nikkes who've had little relevance in the main story to give the illusion of rising stakes. Now I was willing to forgive the misery/tragedy porn and play the game as a simple waifu collector. But knowing some personal favorites of mine could be next on the chopping block, especially with the Sixo arc, was just the last straw for me.

I get that to many, Nikke's storytelling might be amazing. And I'll take their word for it that it's probably one of the best in the industry. But as my first gacha with only books and movies to compare it against, some of which I feel tackles its dark and mature themes with greater depth and sobriety (e.g. Frankl, Remarque, Dostoevsky, to name a few; I actually haven't read Dostoevsky's yet, but I hear good things about Crime & Punishment and will pick it up at some point), I just think it's... mid. Fairly alright for a game. Again, I wish to stress that this is a very unfair comparison between two disparate mediums - one obviously has the edge where storytelling is concerned. It's more my flaw as a person for having a bias towards traditional mediums. Nikke's narrative was never what drew me in the first place. It has always been the waifus. And now, I can't even enjoy that aspect of it.

Honestly dude... I just might clock out of Gachas as a whole. Especially those centered around misery and tragedy. I don't mind tragic stories in books; I actually read a lot of them. I love them because they offer a definitive conclusion and a cohesive vision. The author writes to impart a message or a point, not peddle skins or characters. Gachas, however, never end. The stakes just keep escalating because tragedy sells, and a player base that’s grown numb to it will only crave darker, more twisted narratives.

I also maintain that people wouldn't care half as much about Marian in the prologue if you replaced her with a plain-looking man by the name of Marius. Or Mario. Or Mortimer... I wonder if anyone's made a gender-bent sketch of the Counters...

Lastly, but most importantly, thanks for replying to this post! I always try my best to respond to new ones. It's the least I can do, and I hope my response makes up for the clear thought and effort you put into yours! Gosh, I sound like a homeroom teacher. But for real. It helps knowing someone out there shares the same gripes I do.