Technically better than V (although not much better), but missing the console war references that made V great from a writing standpoint.
Hyperdimension Neptunia V (on PS3) is simply the best homage to the console wars I've experienced, turning companies into cute anime girls and having them constantly fighting each other for dominance. Each of their fights are based on real-worldTechnically better than V (although not much better), but missing the console war references that made V great from a writing standpoint.
Hyperdimension Neptunia V (on PS3) is simply the best homage to the console wars I've experienced, turning companies into cute anime girls and having them constantly fighting each other for dominance. Each of their fights are based on real-world console war events (typically from a comedic standpoint).
You get only a tiny fraction of that in VIIR (and VII), with the game covering mostly the Dreamcast console. And since the Dreamcast didn't last long and didn't really compete with anything, there's not much interesting here console-wars wise.
So the game mostly relies on random (and far-in-between) video games references and character interactions. The interactions aren't bad, as long as you're okay with typical anime comedy. At least Neptune keeps things interesting. Her writing and Japanese voice actor are excellent, If you're into constant 4th-wall breaking comedy. And of course, if you like the characters from the past games or anime series, and didn't appreciate the abundance of real-world references, then you'll likely think this game is great.
The main plot is generic and full of holes, but it presents itself in a comedic fashion, which I find to be acceptable. Thankfully, It did cause me to laugh out loud about once an hour, primarily due to the rare video game reference here and there. To compare it to another IF game, Fairy Fencer F Advent Dark Force, VIIR's plot isn't nearly as interesting, and I consider Fairy Fencer F to be above average at best.
The combat has unfortunately been made more complex and easier that the previous games. For the entire game, standard battles posed no challenge to me. I simply had a character with an AOE skill attack and one-shot all enemies every time. And I could do that over and over since magic points automatically refill each turn. As for its complexity, this is mostly due to the menu system. Combos are gone and you now need to manually select each of your normal attacks as well as your defense options, every turn. So instead of pressing possibly 2-3 buttons in previous games to initiate an attack and move to your next turn, you now need to press 4-10, all while going through multiple menus. This can be somewhat mitigated by having your first character AOE attack everything with a single skill, which unfortunately also makes your normal skills completely worthless.
Another bad thing about the combat system is that all enemies in a dungeon, while being different sizes and having different attributes are essentially identical from a combat perspective. They all seem to have the same amount of hit points and the exact same strategy can be applied to them all. Gone is the time where random large enemies will be in a map that require wildly different strategies. Those have been replaced by bosses and bounties, all of which can be killed by a single strategy (at least it's different from the normal monster strategy).
Even though the combat bored me, a few things gameplay-wise kept me going. There's loads of dungeons, hidden monsters, costumes, weapons, accessories, and plans (which you use to create items) to find/unlock. This game has lots to keep people who love loot looking for more, including a post-game section where loot power/quality seems to increase forever. Costume variety is good compared to other games. You don't have to pay for DLC to get an acceptable number of costumes. There's about three primary costumes for the main characters and you also get swimsuits and special costumes (which I got randomly from the game's arena battles).
I recently played Cyberdimension Neptunia 4 Goddesses Online and the character models seem to be almost identical to that game: Strange high-poly faces (that don't look like their character portraits) and low-poly bottom-halves. IF's character models are improving, but they're not quite up to par to other games on the PS4 yet.
The VR sections are not very good. They consist almost entirely of the girls fawning over you per their pre-recorded script in a way that doesn't tie into the game's story or your actions within the game (besides calling you the "player"). If you're looking for meaningful interactivity in the same way that games like Ar No Surge did, you won't find that here. And if you're interested in motion controls, you won't get that either (at least not with the standard controller). Your viewpoint for looking at the girls is mostly fixed, and is never from low angles.
So it's not a bad game, but is far from great (unless you simply love these characters). I suspected IF would run out of things to write about after V covered the console wars almost entirely, and I was right. Here's hoping they come up with something interesting for the next in the series.… Expand
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