Game Review: Nail Salon 3D (Mobile – Free to Play)

From Lion Studios (yes, them) and Tintash comes Nail Salon 3D. A ‘game’ to remind you of just how lazy, dishonest and greedy the mobile free to play market is. We put ‘game’ in inverted commas because it just feels wrong to give the impression that what we have here is anything but that exact thing.

Sticking to the ‘run your own’ style of games that have been flooding the market with more and more diminishing results. Here, your job is to manicure hands by clipping nails, filling nails, painting nails and so on. Yes, it really is as thrilling as it sounds and most importantly, not quite like the ads you might have seen online.

So, should you find yourself bothering to put some time into this, what is your reward for giving perfect manicures? Coins that can be spent on upgrading the look of your salon. Changing out lights, furniture, wall decorations and more to make the game at least have a modicum of replay value.

Beyond that, there’s nothing else to the game aside from the constant battle with ads. Yes, of course, this game is packed with them. However, it also cheekily puts items that you need to make a customer happy behind ads too. Does a customer want a particular shade of nail polish? You might have to watch an ad to actually unlock. Which would be less of a problem if the game wasn’t trying to make you watch as many as possible elsewhere.

Pop-ups before, after and during a particular job. Celebrities coming into the salon but to treat them you have to watch an ad first, tip jars that can only be accessed by watching an ad and so on. It’s maddening and made all the worse by the indisputable fact that this is just not a good or fun game to play.

Lion Studios rarely put out quality, they’re more the quantity type but even this is low bar stuff from them.