It's a good thing this is a "Noire game" and not a "Nep game", otherwise this might damage the good reputation of the Neptunia franchise! Ha, haha, haaaaaaaaaa...

I know someone who enjoyed this game because "it's a strategy game, you can't make them bad".

Are you sure about that?

I'd have to say this game's biggest flaw is the fact that it's built like a typical Neptunia RPG. Health and attack values are way larger than necessary, maps and enemy types are constantly reused. The game's big gimmick is lowering the exorbitant SP costs on your skills by keeping other units adjacent to you, represented by a yuri kiss on the cheek. This is counter-intuitive because grouping everyone together makes it absurdly easy for an enemy to stroll over and use an attack that targets your entire cluster of chibis. Sometimes you don't even need to be grouped together, some enemies just have attacks that hit like a truck and cover half the damn map. On top of that, your units can be afflicted with status effects, of which there are WAY too many to keep track of. I don't even know what half of them do!

The game is also just constantly wasting your time (and not just because I'm spending mine playing a Neptunia game, har har). Even once you cave in and turn off all attack animations and whatnot in the settings menu, it still feels like it's dragging its feet. Stop showing me that enemies aren't taking any actions, it adds up when eight or so of them aren't necessarily doing anything as I slowly approach them. So many of this game's maps revolve around shitty gimmicks, like tediously lifting and tossing wooden boxes to gradually create staircases, or avoiding floor panels that damage you and instantly end your turn, or waiting a turn for a moving platform to come back, just so you can board it and wait another turn to have it take you to your destination, and THEN you can depart it on the turn after that. Maps are reused ad nauseam, so you'll grow accustomed to groaning at the mere sight of certain locales.

The writing just rubs me the wrong way, moreso than usual for a game of this pedigree. Most of Noire's friendships just result in her getting sexually harassed in extra scenes, with the accompanying CGs having the Bad kind of voyeuristic feeling. And then there's the self-insert, with probably one of the worst examples of this trope I've ever experienced. A true self-insert comes with a certain amount of agency from the player, but you don't get any choices here. Secretary-san is effectively his own character, one you're expected to project yourself onto. Sorry Noire, our relationship fell through years ago. I've personally been sizing up Vert quite a bit lately...

The true ending of this game is locked behind Noire having a lily rank of at least 70 with every other unit by the end of the game. This mandates an endgame grind that's a total snog-I mean slogfest. I unironically think this game is on the same level of enjoyment I had with the original HDN on PS3, and that is a very low bar to cross. You are missing nothing by ignoring this, even if you're a Nep freak like me.

In all honesty, this installment of the Neptunia series didn't live up to my expectations set by its predecessors. My gameplay experience was marred by recurrent crashes, particularly during crucial moments like cutscenes before or after battles. This forced me to replay certain segments multiple times, which significantly disrupted the flow of the game.

The frustration peaked when I found myself redoing battles due to unexpected crashes. To circumvent these issues, I resorted to saving my progress whenever possible, particularly when nearing the end of a fight. While the core elements of the game showed promise, these technical setbacks significantly detracted from my overall enjoyment.

Despite these challenges, the game still retained some of the charm and features characteristic of the Neptunia series. However, the persistent crashes and subsequent replays tainted what could have been a more immersive and enjoyable gaming experience.

For those considering this title, it's essential to be aware of these technical hiccups, which might affect the overall enjoyment and fluidity of gameplay.

More neptunia shlock but I eat that shit up like its breakfast. This one is a tactical RPG and I certainly don't have enough experience with the genre to say how it stacks up in the greater scheme of things, I'm willing to go on an educated guess and say it's probably mid. The most interesting part of this game was its characters, as they all represent different games or series and they make some pretty interesting deep cuts. Never heard of Opoona before playing this but now I wanna play it. You probably can already tell if something like this would even be your jam just by looking at it, you don't need me for that.