School Volleyball for Adults. A Review of the Mobile Simulator Volley Girls: Volleyball SPIKE

Anime and cute girls — a sure sign of a donative game with waifu collecting? Don't rush to conclusions. In Volley Girls: Volleyball SPIKE, the girls are in sports uniforms, on the court, in front of the volleyball net. And although gacha is present in the game, it is a rare example on the mobile market of an honest, well-thought-out sports simulator where victory does not depend on your wallet.

Volley Girls is a mobile game from a small indie team that takes as its basis the not-so-popular discipline in gaming, "women's school volleyball." At first glance, the project can easily be mistaken for another gacha collection game, but with volleyball players: cute anime characters, player cards, leveling, and random drops.

However, after the first few matches, it becomes clear that this is not a typical gacha. The developers put their heart into the mechanics, creating a convincing mobile volleyball simulator with a logical system of roles, classes, and controls well-adapted for touchscreens.

The plot follows a women's school volleyball team that has not yet achieved any significant success, diligently taking up training and gradually achieving results.

The story is presented in the form of short inserts in the format of a visual novel: girls from different teams communicate with each other. Usually, such dialogues boil down to exchanging phrases like: "Today we will definitely win!" — "No, victory will be ours — we have also been preparing!" There is no real drama in these lines, so they can be safely skipped.

Nevertheless, the narrative gradually develops — in the spirit of classic sports dramas about the path "from rags to riches." Of course, even such a story could be revealed in one way or another: it could be a story of overcoming oneself in the spirit of "Million Dollar Baby," or about a positive attitude to life — in the style of Ted Lasso. But that's not the case here. The story is purely functional, providing context and introducing rival teams.

Considering that shortly after the release (or rather, after numerous complaints from Russian players), a Russian translation was added to the game, it is quite possible to read it. Or you can simply admire the cute anime girls. The volleyball players are well-drawn (albeit with the obvious use of neural networks), and almost all of them evoke sincere sympathy.

It's just a pity that the images themselves don't change. Novels are visual for a reason, so that not only the narrative but also the visuals work in them. Here, the same illustrations are used as in the player cards — except that the background is adjusted to the scene. I would like at least some emotional diversity on the faces of the heroines.

However, even without a deeply developed plot, the game leaves a very pleasant impression. The graphics, of course, do not pretend to be technological feats, but everything — from the drawings to the animation — is done with obvious care about the impression the game makes.

In general, Volley Girls is distinguished by its well-thought-out order in everything: a logical and intuitive interface, carefully filled player cards with a clear presentation of characteristics, restrained and elegant backgrounds, and a verified gameplay. Convenient controls that can be customized. It's amazing how a small team of two young developers was able to work out so many details that are important for a mobile game — and how some "professional" studios miss such moments.

The game is made neatly in almost everything. Even in the gameplay. It may seem that the word "neat," applied to the gameplay, hints at blandness — but this is not the case here. In Volley Girls, this is a sign of thoughtfulness. Everything is in its place: the heroines' movements on the court look natural, and their reactions to pressing buttons are predictable, logical, and devoid of randomness.

The rules of volleyball are adapted for mobile gaming. There are only four players on the team, and each volleyball player has their own role: libero (defender), middle blocker, outside hitter, and setter.

Accordingly, each player on the court does their own thing. The libero is responsible for receiving and passing the ball to the setter. Here you need to choose which attack to carry out — fast or normal, through the other two volleyball players.

When we attack, a slight slowdown of time is activated, providing an opportunity to choose a place to attack. Although the game provides for a certain tactical flexibility — for example, after leveling up players, new techniques become available, such as a "dump," when the setter does not pass the ball to the attack, but simply throws the ball over the net — there is no special tactical depth in the construction of players.

Basically, tactical decisions have to be made before the match — when selecting the squad. Each volleyball player belongs to one of three types: "rock," "scissors," "paper." Accordingly, "rocks" are stronger against "scissors," those are more effective against "paper," and "paper" beats "rock." The developers claim +50% to attack and defense with an attribute advantage. However, in practice, the influence of the attribute choice on the difficulty of the game is noticeably less than the level and class of the player.

In total, there are four classes: C, B, A, and S. Volleyball players of class S have approximately twice the advantage compared to the same players in class C. There are only five characteristics: attack, accuracy, health, defense, and jump.

Attack, accuracy, and jump are key characteristics for attacking players. A higher jump gives a wide choice of zones for aiming; accuracy allows you to hit exactly where you need to — for example, under the very back line; the attack indicator determines how high the probability of breaking through defenders is.

Health and defense are the main parameters of the libero. The higher the health, the longer she successfully resists power hits.

If volleyball players of different classes meet on the court — this seriously affects the complexity of the gameplay. Towards simplification. Players of class C have practically no chance against teams with volleyball players of class A and S: the libero will simply miss power serves, and the match may end even before the first attack. But a match with a team of equal level is a completely different matter. The fight turns out to be tense, sometimes truly "validol." Long rallies are not uncommon. It is possible to break through the defense only after accumulating energy for a special skill. Although it happens the other way around — if you don't score, you get scored on.

In the story campaign, the opposing teams have certain weaknesses: some do poorly with blocks, others get lost in fast attacks, and still others cannot withstand long rallies. This makes the passage of the campaign quite predictable — it is not difficult to go through the story. A completely different matter is tournaments and friendly matches, where you can earn premium currency: for boosters with cards and gold for leveling. There are no obvious weaknesses there, and everything is decided by the "bench" — the quality and class of your volleyball players.

So, although the game looks cute and simple, a quite meaningful strategic layer is hidden behind its external neatness. Perhaps, only a more flexible system for configuring the behavior of players is missing, but even without this, Volley Girls remains one of the most well-thought-out mobile sports simulators.

However, you have to play exclusively with bots. It would be great if a PvP mode was implemented — at least in asynchronous form, at least in real time. This would add excitement and make victories truly valuable. However, given the peculiarities of the project's monetization, such a step would most likely lead to a pay-to-win situation — "pay to win."

The fact is that for premium currency and recruiting points, we get volleyball player cards. This is both traditional "collecting" for mobile games and a gacha element — including the chance to knock out rare characters. At the same time, duplicates of their cards are required to level up players. And to raise a class S volleyball player, you need to collect a lot of very rare cards. Accordingly, to unlock even a small number of new techniques for your heroines, you will have to make significant efforts.

You can earn the necessary resources for free, but it will take a lot of time — you will need a serious grind of game currency. The alternative is to simply buy sets for real money.

At the same time, the gacha system itself does not spoil the impression too much: it affects progress, but not the gameplay itself. A match against bots with teams of class A or B is no different from a game with a team of class S players. Except that in the latter case, the reward will be higher, and the grind will be less protracted.

However, if you consider the game as a regular time killer with elements of entertainment and fierce struggle, then in friendly matches you can choose an opponent of equal strength — or even weaker, although this is not so interesting. Thus, Volley Girls manages to balance on the verge between a commercial format and a fair game — not perfectly, but with a respectable approach to design and players.

Diagnosis

Volley Girls is a rare example of a mobile game from independent developers in which attention is felt to almost all the details: from the interface to the gameplay. At first glance, it seems like a typical "anime time killer" with gacha elements and cute characters, but after a few minutes it becomes clear that a well-thought-out and high-quality game mechanic is hidden behind the external simplicity.

Yes, it is worth admitting that there is a lack of variety of game situations, and the plot is rather formal. But before us is a rarity for the mobile genre: a high-quality sports simulator with a not-so-popular discipline — volleyball. While the market is dominated by numerous variations of golf with "uber-clubs" or football managers, such a choice of theme stands out for its freshness.

Monetization, despite the gacha elements, remains within reasonable limits. Progress can be accelerated for money, but you cannot get a fundamentally different level of gameplay by "buying." Victories still depend on tactics, reaction, and understanding of mechanics — and not only on the amount of money invested.

Pro

• Well-thought-out and high-quality gameplay.
• Convenient and customizable controls adapted for mobile devices.
• Clear visual style.
• Balanced system of classes and player roles.
• Monetization does not destroy the balance and does not turn the game into pay-to-win.
• Support for the Russian language.

Contra

• The lack of PvP mode limits replayability.
• The plot part is template and visually monotonous.
• The gacha system requires a lot of time or money to level up S-players.
• Lack of tactical depth.