Avas_14

The Hyperdimension Neptunia series is a strange one indeed. Despite the relatively constant panning it receives from most mainstream gaming sites and video game “journalists”, the series continues on and has garnered itself quite the cult following in the process. Having only played a small portion of the previous game, Hyperdimension Neptunia Mk2, I can’t say I knew too much about what to expect. Naturally, the thing that separates this series from the rank and file is its concept. Hyperdimension Neptunia is based around the concept of personifying the game industry itself into cute anime girls. The main characters are all personifications of different consoles and have personalities that reflect the companies, user bases, and of course games on each system. And for a decent part, in terms of the Japanese industry anyways, the characters do a decent job at that. The combat is interesting and fun. I actually had flashbacks to Dragon Quarter while fiddling with this game’s combat system, which is in my opinion an awesome game. It is a turn-based game where you are able to position your characters at will in a three dimensional space, using a variety of different attacks to strike at your foes. As you keep getting further in, the amount of options available just keeps on piling—starting with a few simple combination attacks to turning your characters into space shuttles that bomb your enemies from orbit. It’s honestly one of the best battle systems I’ve seen in JRPGs in this gen. Exploration and questing are somewhat lacking in this game, sadly. The quests range from pretty good to mind-numbingly boring and tedious, even if the flavor text is usually pretty funny. If I didn’t get to fiddle around with the combat system more, and if the rewards for doing so weren’t pretty decent, I probably wouldn’t have bothered questing at all, to be perfectly honest. Exploration mainly revolves around the Chirper system, too. Made to represent Facebook/Twitter in a sense, the Chirper system leads to some pretty funny quips from NPCs and ultimately is what you use to get from town to town. While it is a cool system, an actual overworld would have ultimately been better. If they were to do that the next game, it would be very cool. Dungeons in the game are decent. Some have some pretty crazy designs, as well as some decent music. I also adore this game for not having random encounters—any JRPG that doesn’t have random encounters instantly goes up in my books. You can also find more dungeons using the scout system, which you can use to find all sorts of info about the land. The game is also surprisingly challenging. Bosses and virus enemies in particular will slap you silly if you're not careful. It's a level of challenge that I haven't felt in many JRPGs as of late. The game either forces you to equip and play well or grind for many tedious hours. The dialogue and characters are rather simple and over-the-top, but can be quite entertaining. If you’re looking for Shakespeare-level character depth, look elsewhere right now because you’re not going to find it here. There are references littered throughout the game, too, which fans of many different series may come to appreciate. Dialogue can also be pretty sexual at times—one character in particular seems to be unable to go on for less than a minute without some kind of sexual innuendo, which may or may not throw off some people. There is also a LOT of dialogue in this game, and while I would never say that is a bad thing in an RPG there is enough to sour some. Thankfully, the square button can be used to skip any dialogue you wish. Also, a strange complaint, but it feels like much of the dialogue is not voiced. However, when in Japanese, pretty much everything is voiced. It kind of hurts when the game boasts it's English dub and you never HEAR the English dub. Graphics-wise, the game is "okay". It's not Crysis-on-max or anything, but it's a pretty cartoony artstyle which makes up for it somewhat. Conversations also use beautifully animated 2D portraits, with mouths that lip-synch to the text. Honestly, I wish more people would take a page from this game when making 2D visual novel-style conversations. In the end, this is a very niche title. While I did have fun with it and think it’s surprisingly a pretty decent game, I would recommend that anyone interested do some research before they jump into it, because it certainly isn’t for everyone. The game does a good job of conveying a very retro feel, which I guess is what they were looking for. In reality, this is probably more around a 7.5/10, but for the sake of rounding it will go down as an 8 from me.