Video Game Review: Super Neptunia RPG

Super Neptunia RPG

Idea Factory

JRPG

Playstation 4

Hyperdimension Neptunia is one of those series that I’ve been peripherally aware of for quite a while but never really played until now. It’s not that I had anything against the series; I’ve bought several of them while they were on sale at some point or another, and even gotten a little ways into Re;Birth 1 a couple times, but for the most part it’s been one of those franchises where I’ve thought “Eh, I’ll give it a shot later,” and then decided to play something else in my considerable backlog. When I was asked to review Super Neptunia RPG, I thought “what the heck,” and said yes.

I tell you this, dear reader, so that you’ll know I approach this game not from the perspective of a series fan but from that of an almost complete newcomer. Speaking as a newcomer, it’s not a bad place to dive into these games.

When I first started playing, I was somewhat skeptical. The premise of the Neptunia franchise is that there is a world known as “Gamindustri” wherein four major nations are ruled by four Goddesses – each representing a different real-world video game console – who make up the main cast and have various outlandish adventures. As such, the style of humor Super Neptunia RPG has is heavily based around referencing various aspects of nerd culture, from other games to anime to classic films, and initially that seemed like it could induce a lot of groans and eye-rolling. On top of that, some of the character designs are… fanservice-y, to put it delicately. In the case of the latter I’ve learned to grit my teeth and put up with overly-sexual and highly impractical outfits (to an extent – sometimes it just goes too far) in games like these and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t know what I was getting into there.

When it comes to the humor, though, I was pleasantly surprised to find that it grew on me as I got further into the game. There are some pretty good gags that really won me over, including a few jabs at the game development industry that struck me as surprisingly pointed in a good way. The characters have a genuine charm to them that’s hard to ignore despite that I can see how a lot of them are built from fairly generic pieces. Thinking about it now, I’m actually very impressed by how good of a job the localization team did with the humor, because even when a gag didn’t land I could at least understand what it was going for. Nothing felt like it had just gotten lost in translation, which is important when you’re crossing a cultural divide in a comedic localization.

As far as actual gameplay goes, Super Neptunia RPG isn’t complicated. There are a handful of dungeons and towns that are explored like a simplistic side-scrolling platformer without the risks of dying to pits or spikes. Combat involves both sides building up Action Points in real time which are then spent in varying amounts to activate any and all skills in the game, as opposed to a more traditional skill resource like mana. Most enemies have elemental weaknesses and/or resistances, and exploiting an enemy’s weakness grants the player a bonus to AP that allows more skills to be used in quick succession. This allows for some frankly absurd combos to be racked up (in the final boss fight I managed to chain 210 hits that dealt a whopping 32,919 points of damage) and at times makes the game almost trivially easy. I almost never had to use any recovery items and I think I could probably count on two hands the number of times I got hit with a status affliction. What’s amazing about this is I never really got bored with the battle system, because it’s put together in such a way that the one-sided fights don’t feel like a grind so much as they’re strangely satisfying and fun.

Though nothing in Super Neptunia RPG is flawless, the technical aspects are where there are the most cracks. Artistically it looks fine. The world and level design are colorful and a bit generic but these days that still looks good enough that it’s not really an issue. However, the character models are fairly stiff by design and are prone to glitching out. In addition to this, the audio design could use quite a bit of improvement, because I often heard music tracks attempting to start twice before settling into their loop when entering an area and would frequently hear either the same level-up dialogue twice or two different level-up lines from the same character each level. Not game-breaking bugs, but still obnoxious.

As a final note I’d like to acknowledge two design choices I didn’t like. One: During fights initiating skills prompts characters to spout a cheesy line about it which isn’t a problem in and of itself but does become one when they say the same line over and over again whenever you activate the same skill. Add to that how the player can and often will have their entire team whaling on the enemy at once and the battles tend to get a bit overwhelmingly noisy. Two: there were a couple of quest-giving NPCs whose dialogue boxes got blocked out by the quest tracker in the upper-right hand corner of the screen. This is a lesser gripe because I could still mostly tell what the NPCs were saying and because the quest tracker could be collapsed (if you remembered to do so before speaking to someone) but it still bothered me.

I want to stress that despite thinking Super Neptunia RPG could have been put together better I did enjoy my time with it. I think it’s a decent game that’s entertaining and charming but isn’t necessarily for everyone, and that’s something it leans into. There’s definitely a particular audience in mind here, but it doesn’t seem to just be “people who already like the series,” which is good. If you’re tired of slaughtering greyscale zombies in the gritty space future and want something more colorful and light-hearted to occupy yourself for a while, this isn’t a bad choice.

Just… make sure you’re aware of the character designs. Seriously. That part’s really not for everyone.