I have just spent about an hour playing with the Nendoroid Planet app on my iPhone 3GS. Generally, the app is pretty solid, although I did get a few crashes sometimes – I guess the app is intended to work optimally on iPhone 4. Anyway, here are the requirements:

Store: iTunes App Store Japan
Hardware: iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPod Touch (3rd Gen), iPod Touch (4th Gen)
Operating system: iOS 4.1 or newer
File size: 145 MB

So … how did it go? Read on. ^^

Basically, the app has five main sections: Planet, Tower, Vendor, Museum, and GSC News. Let’s take a look at each of them … starting with the Title Screen. ^^

Title Screen

There are 3 menus there:

1. Left: Go to Planet
2. Right: View Settings
3. Bottom: View Quick Guide

This app has a Twitter integration feature, which you can configure in the Settings. You might want to take a glimpse at the Quick Guide to understand how the app works.

The Planet

You can consider this section as your “home page”. Tap on one of the icons at the bottom of the screen to access the following sections: (from left to right)

1. The Tower: Play Nendoroid Defence game
2. The Vendor: Trade coins to get random catalog items or 3D models
3. The Museum: View Nendoroid catalog or 3D models that you have obtained
4. GSC News: View latest news from GSC
5. Settings: Configure Twitter account and a few other settings

You can tap the icon on the upper left corner of the screen to go back to the Title Screen.

The Tower – Nendoroid Defence

Have you ever played a tower-defense game previously? Yes, that is what Nendoroid Defence is all about. Put a Nendoroid and some chickens in a good position beside the paths, then start the wave and don’t let any monsters escape.

After you survived a number of waves (displayed on the top-right corner of the screen), you would clear the stage and receives some coins as a prize. These coins (available in bronze, silver, and gold) would be used to get goodies from The Vendor.

The Vendor

Inside The Vendor, there are three type of capsule-toys vending machine: bronze (normal), silver (good), and gold (best). Here is how it works:

1. Choose the machine according to what coins you want to insert, e.g: bronze coins for bronze vending machine.
2. Drag the coin from top-left of the screen to the center.
3. Rotate the switch as instructed on the screen.
4. A capsule will drop and you will get the item.

There are two type of items you could get: (1) catalog items and (2) 3D models. As you can guess, the 3D models are more difficult to get, and they usually come from the gold vending machine. ^^

The Museum

There are two sections available here: Catalog and 3D Models. The catalog contains official data of announced Nendoroid, sorted by their ID number. Tap on which Nendoroid you want to see, and then their data would be displayed – as simple as that. ^^

This is where you could see the Nendoroid in their 3D rendered model. You can rotate the model in 360 degrees horizontally (rotate) and zoom in/out of it as well. Tap SET (top-right) to put the Nendoroid to The Planet. Tap the bottom-center icon to capture the current view as photo. Tap the bottom-right icon to reset the view.

Tap on the lower-left icon to set the CAMERA to ON. This way, you can capture a pic of the 3D Nendoroid model with your current environment as the background. Pretty nice, huh? ^^

Unfortunately, not all Nendoroid have 3D models. Well, hopefully the app get updated to add more 3D Nendoroid models in the future. ^^

GSC News

This section displays some latest news streams from GSC. Yep, that’s all I found in this section. ^^

Final Words

Despite crashing and getting blank screens several times, Nendoroid Planet is still a nice app to get for Nendoroid fans. Nendoroid Defence does not offer a new gaming experience, but it is fun to watch the Nendoroid bashing monsters in tower-defence fashion. ^^

Obtaining the goodies by inserting coins to the capsule-toys vending machine is a unique experience too. Besides, the catalog and 3D models of the Nendoroid are a great fan service for us, Nendoroid lovers. And the best of all, you get all of these features without paying a penny. Yep, the app is completely free to download in Japanese iTunes App Store. ^^

Well, have you played with the app, Nendonesian? How is your impression? ^^