The storytelling in NIKKE is what makes it one of the best gacha games around. I'm on chapter 34, and I can hardly put what I am feeling here into words, but I am going to try.
NIKKE has the best storybeats of any gacha I've played so far. This moment with Rapi, where she unloads all of the feelings she has supressed up to now, was so good. She wanted to inherit Red Hood's legacy, to be a hero like Red Hood, but she came up short, and instead of continuing to try, she ran away because she didn't want to deal with the pain of knowing she wasn't good enough.
Rapi up to now has been kind of flat as a character, especially compared to the colorful characters like Anis and Neon. This was by design. Rapi has been supressing her feelings because she didn't want to deal with them. Because dealing with her own feelings also meant dealing with her sense of inferiority.
After the Commander came along, Rapi found the desire to continue on, to believe that maybe she could become something by staying with him, but then they met Cinderella and Grave. I think Grave had a much bigger impact on her than Cinderella due to their similarities. Grave never gave up. She spent hundreds of years protecting Cinderella and trying to revive her. She made Rapi feel so inferior. Here was a woman in a similar position, but unlike Rapi, who ran away, Grave continued to press on despite how hopeless everything seemed.
However, what really stood out to me was how Anis, Neon, and the Commander acted after she unloaded all that. They want to support her. They believe in Rapi far more than she believes in herself right now, and it's their support that I think will carry Rapi to even greater heights. In the words of Cinderella, this moment was beautiful.
I cried during this scene, man. This was too good.
They may not be the main reason we started playing Nikke, but the male NPCs are so well written. I love how much they shine in their supporting roles in the story