Mainline Neptunia is back, but at what cost?
This game is most likely my biggest disappointment of 2023 and I was already expecting a very mediocre game but not complete dogshit. This is the perfect example of a game that doesn't try and just expects people to buy it because it's "The Neptunia franchise" and fuck that's what everyone did, even me I bought the goddamn collectors edition for this game I hate myself. Actually what I hate the most about this game is that it hides under the "it's just a spinoff!" umbrella to hide the fact that it's utter dogshit. The Neptunia franchise has only been receiving spinoffs every year ever since the last numbered entry in 2015, I really wish Compile Heart would actually take the time to put work into their game because releasing one or two games every year is not a good sign.
So what's so bad about this game? Mainly the frustrating gameplay and the overall lack of polish and the enormous amount of reused stuff in this game.
The main gameplay of the game tried to be a bit like the original Neptunia games but without the turn-based gameplay. Instead, they just turned the game into an action RPG in the style of Final Fantasy 7 Remake, that doesn't sound bad right? Well, it would be good if they didn't lock the combat in a slow and clunky turn-based attack system. In this game you are supposed to make a combo that can go up to 4 moves, they all take a set amount of SP (stamina or whatever point that recovers overtime in battle) and it feels like garbage to play because most of the animations are slow and feels unresponsive. Most action games do an attack when you press the attack button but this game just puts the attacks in a turn list making the whole game more like a waiting simulator for the animations to end and then just waiting for the stamina to come back to do it again. I'd talk about how shit and boring the combat is but I don't have all day, just know that if it was a basic action game like Cyberdimension Neptunia - 4 Goddesses Online it would've been a way better game.
Also "Elements" attacks are OP in this game since they tried to make some sort of weakness system but 90% of enemies are weak to elements so just spam those and melee damage becomes shit after a while in the game due to bad balance so just use Ram the entire game and you'll be fine.
Now about the level design, there is like only 3 or 4 stages which are just the usual forest, cave, and apocalypse like usual. The only issue is that all stages type have like 4 or 5 different copies of each other and not only it's the same stage type it's also the same fucking stage like they just mixed and mashed pre-made stages as if it was a 4-piece puzzle. So yeah I hope you won't get bored of "forest", "forest with darker texture", "forest night", and "forest but with a special boss at the end".
The bosses are usually just a plain pain in the ass with a huge amount of HP and attack resistance. Most of them are really simple to beat, just massive damage sponges and of course, you have to fight each unique boss like 5 different times because they have to reuse the assets!
The story is ok, it's basic fun happy Neptunia gaming fun happy fun gaming reference wholesome happy fun till chapter 6 where it just becomes a shitty steins gate mixed with Madoka Magica so nothing to write home about, it's just ok and somewhat decent for the usual Neptunia standard I guess.
The ost have a lot of reused tracks but the new ones are pretty decent, that's one thing Neptunia games usually do right, and the same for the character art style and CGs it always looks adorable even though this game has like 5 CGs. What I didn't like about the art style on the other hand is... anything else this game looks like dogshit all of it feels and looks cheap like it's still a test build of the game, even the original Neptunia on PS3 looks better than this 2022-2023 release.
And this game runs at 30 FPS on PS5 it's fucking awful.
I do not recommend this game!
This game is most likely my biggest disappointment of 2023 and I was already expecting a very mediocre game but not complete dogshit. This is the perfect example of a game that doesn't try and just expects people to buy it because it's "The Neptunia franchise" and fuck that's what everyone did, even me I bought the goddamn collectors edition for this game I hate myself. Actually what I hate the most about this game is that it hides under the "it's just a spinoff!" umbrella to hide the fact that it's utter dogshit. The Neptunia franchise has only been receiving spinoffs every year ever since the last numbered entry in 2015, I really wish Compile Heart would actually take the time to put work into their game because releasing one or two games every year is not a good sign.
So what's so bad about this game? Mainly the frustrating gameplay and the overall lack of polish and the enormous amount of reused stuff in this game.
The main gameplay of the game tried to be a bit like the original Neptunia games but without the turn-based gameplay. Instead, they just turned the game into an action RPG in the style of Final Fantasy 7 Remake, that doesn't sound bad right? Well, it would be good if they didn't lock the combat in a slow and clunky turn-based attack system. In this game you are supposed to make a combo that can go up to 4 moves, they all take a set amount of SP (stamina or whatever point that recovers overtime in battle) and it feels like garbage to play because most of the animations are slow and feels unresponsive. Most action games do an attack when you press the attack button but this game just puts the attacks in a turn list making the whole game more like a waiting simulator for the animations to end and then just waiting for the stamina to come back to do it again. I'd talk about how shit and boring the combat is but I don't have all day, just know that if it was a basic action game like Cyberdimension Neptunia - 4 Goddesses Online it would've been a way better game.
Also "Elements" attacks are OP in this game since they tried to make some sort of weakness system but 90% of enemies are weak to elements so just spam those and melee damage becomes shit after a while in the game due to bad balance so just use Ram the entire game and you'll be fine.
Now about the level design, there is like only 3 or 4 stages which are just the usual forest, cave, and apocalypse like usual. The only issue is that all stages type have like 4 or 5 different copies of each other and not only it's the same stage type it's also the same fucking stage like they just mixed and mashed pre-made stages as if it was a 4-piece puzzle. So yeah I hope you won't get bored of "forest", "forest with darker texture", "forest night", and "forest but with a special boss at the end".
The bosses are usually just a plain pain in the ass with a huge amount of HP and attack resistance. Most of them are really simple to beat, just massive damage sponges and of course, you have to fight each unique boss like 5 different times because they have to reuse the assets!
The story is ok, it's basic fun happy Neptunia gaming fun happy fun gaming reference wholesome happy fun till chapter 6 where it just becomes a shitty steins gate mixed with Madoka Magica so nothing to write home about, it's just ok and somewhat decent for the usual Neptunia standard I guess.
The ost have a lot of reused tracks but the new ones are pretty decent, that's one thing Neptunia games usually do right, and the same for the character art style and CGs it always looks adorable even though this game has like 5 CGs. What I didn't like about the art style on the other hand is... anything else this game looks like dogshit all of it feels and looks cheap like it's still a test build of the game, even the original Neptunia on PS3 looks better than this 2022-2023 release.
And this game runs at 30 FPS on PS5 it's fucking awful.
I do not recommend this game!