 |
Hey everybody, Tomha here. Awhile back I reviewed this game and continued playing it, let's just say I spoke too soon when I gave the review and you might not like what you hear as the Flaws of the game is expanded. Also in the spirit of it's Sequel Hyperdimension Neptunia MK2 is coming out very soon let's take a second crack.
To Sum up the review very quickly, just scroll down to the bottom of the first post.
The Plot: Okay if you ever watched the movie Tron, imagine a entire computer world and replace it with video games. 4 Goddesses have been made to rule and raged war to see who would rule. This war is called The Console Wars, each goddess is pretty much based on a Game Console. You have Green Heart ( X-Box 360 ), White Heart ( Wii ), Black Heart ( Playstation3 ) and you: Purple Heart ( Sega 32X, for those who don't know, a game console that didn't really make it big ) raging war to rule. The goddesses have been fighting for countless years and decided the change they need is to gang up and get rid of one, namely you.
After your beaten and lose your memories you revert to your default form named Neptune who meets a woman named Histoire in her dream who tells Neptune she needs her help and that Neptune needs to save the world. Neptune is a ditzy girl who teams up with a nurse named Compa and a girl named IF ( they like calling her Iffy ) as they travel the 4 domains of the world searching for the key fragment and try to reclaim Neptunes lost memories.
Characters: I don't even know where to start with the characters. It's basically a ALL female cast with the goddesses portraying a game console and your human friends represent a real life Game Publisher/Developer. ( Example: NISA is actually Nippon Ichi Software America. IF is Idea Factory, your getting the idea. ) Neptune is really difficult to explain, imagine Goku from Dragonball Z combined with Sailor Moon who spews out cultural references. She doesn't seem like a very intelligent girl but she's kind and loyal to her pals.
Compa is the first friend you make in the game who's a Nurse in Training, she's friendly but tends to hurt you with bandages in the beginning. The Goddesses themselves have extreme personalities compared to the other characters. Green heart is a female gamer who dedicates 150 hours a week in video games and loves every type of game, even crane games, to her, the 3 sacred treasures is Anime, Manga, and Video Games. Black Heart who represents the PS3 likes to Cosplay and is a Tsundere at heart. White Heart, ironically representing Wii is a foul mouthed violent little girl.
Features: Ok this one is easier to explain xD. The RPG lets you control a party of 3-6 characters who you can arm with different equipment and change their appearance. You enter a combination of button pressing for attacks and the party makes attacks based on your combo. ( Like Kick + Kick + Sword + Gun, there's no wrong combo, just what you customize in the menu. ) The Story line is pretty long and filled with alot of laughs and in this game, there is no such thing as a Fourth Wall.
There's also quite a few jokes revolving around breasts and Video game references. When you enter battle the enemy has a HP bar and Armor bar, your attacks wear down both these bars and if you empty the guard bar, the enemy becomes enraged and gives you about 20-30 seconds to bombard him with attacks, they hit harder, but he hits harder while enraged, you can wait before dealing your last combo attack before he goes to make sure he doesn't do any extra damage though so this is ripe for abuse.
Neptune enters a battle in her default form but if you customize a attack combo to include Hard Drive Divinity, she can enter her HDD form and become alot stronger, there's no real penalties for doing this, you just need to make a combo attack to make it happen. The game also features the Game + mode which is always good.
Now for the downsides. This game is fairly good but I should note these as they can be extreme.
*The DLC is of course large, it's about 100 or so different things to purchase for Download. The Level cap is 99 but you can pay to raise that to 999, purchase clothing to help further customize the characters and probably the worst offense, you get certain characters to 'join your group. They don't level up or anything, they just exist and offer a benefit but by paying 2.99$ you can make these already existing characters usable for combat. It feels like a insult, to say the least. There are free DLC but their extra quests that doesn't offer much other then a strong weapon or equipment piece.
*This is probably not a big issue but the customization is pretty limited, without DLC your characters are limited to a choice of either 2 dresses, (There might be more but I doubt it.) accessories are in a good amount but not clothes. Instead you need to pour even more money into the DLC funds for customization and you don't even get to see what they look like before purchasing.
*Another annoyance is how the game is simplified without giving us more features. The Characters have a very limited range of emotions to display and instead of having Cutscenes we have those Text Scenes with images of them talking. This isn't a bad thing but if you go this route this gives you more time that can be spent offering more. This game is great and it can easily offer us more then it does, it can give us Good images like the Bondages ( not a typo by the way. ) where Compa has Neptune in tight bandages which was nice fan service right there, it can give us more music to enjoy, it can give us alternate endings, in general, it took the route that could have given them more time to offer us goodies and they didn't take it, which is a shame.
*The Soundtrack tends to be pretty repetitive and not that great to be honest. Personally I don't mind it too much, sometimes the music is just lame but it's something I find tolerable.
*Ok this is the MAJOR FLAW of the game, Shares. This is a mind numbingly wretched feature. To simply put it there's a special system that's never mentioned or explained. You see it but you have no idea what it's for, is raising the bar for Leanbox good!? Is it bad!? It doesn't tell you what it's about and unless you look it up on the internet or the strategy guide your never really going to figure this thing out. I can tell you what it's purpose is but it's a spoiler, all I will say is it's a extremely unnecessary feature and is easily the worst part of the game and I can barely figure out how to make it work. Hopefully it's sequel will not have this feature, I'm really hoping!
This isn't a real issue but the Graphic in the game is rather plain compared to today's games and if you play it in English it tends to get awkward when you have someone within earshot hearing a insult like "Thunder Tits!". There's also alot of perverted jokes revolving around young girls. ( I would probably say like around 18 years old. )
*With all this new information in mind I need to change my vote on ranking for the game. Originally I gave it a 8/10 because I thought it was a great game but the Shares feature alone is SO BAD that I really need to rank this game a 6/10. I seriously cannot stress how irritating the Share system is and how it easily becomes a horribly boring chore to figure out and deal with. The Shares system makes the game more of a Grind Game then a RPG and for that the game is weaker for it.
With a Rank of 6 out of 10 it's above average. It's not a bad game but some of the flaws I mentioned are pretty bad. I honestly enjoyed the game and still play it despite it's flaws, and I'll be getting it's sequel and be reporting to you a month later.
If your a regular fan of Nippon Ichi games I would definitely say give it a shot despite it's rank I gave it.
Basic Summary...
Good: Fun RPG, decent fanservice, great plot and lovable characters.
Bad: The Share System, could have had more features, not very good music (Except the intro), limited clothing options for the characters.
Rank: 6 out of 10
|
 |
Reply
