2182: The Comforting Familiarity of Nep-Nep

There’s a reason I frequently quote the Hyperdimension Neptunia series as my favourite game series of all time. And it’s not because any of the games are particularly outstanding — though, it must be said, each and every one is far better than most reviews give them credit for — or because they’re particularly impressive. In fact, technically speaking, outside of some excellent character models and animation, the Neptunia series as a whole is fairly flawed, though since making the jump to Vita, PC and PS4 rather than PS3, its average framerate has gone through the roof.

No, the reason I love Neptunia so is its comforting familiarity. Firing up one of these games is like meeting up with the sort of friends you always have a good time with. The kind of friends you might not see for months or years at a time on some occasions, but the kind of friends who allow you to pick right up where you left off when you do meet up again.

There are a number of ways the series achieves this. The first and most obvious is through its main cast: the combination of Tsunako’s gorgeous character and costume designs, the excellent voice acting (in Japanese, anyway; I haven’t spent long with the English dub) and a sharp, witty script really brings these characters to life and, over the course of all the games they’ve starred in to date, they’ve developed and become distinct. The Neptunia writers and localisers aren’t under any misconceptions that these characters are particularly deep, flawed or, for want of a better word, “literary”, but this adds to the series’ charm; it’s infused with a gentle sense of good-natured humour and an aesthetic that combines the bright, primary colours of a children’s TV show with a strong sense of self-awareness and recognition that yes, grown-ups play this and appreciate a few dirty jokes here and there. It’s unpretentious and casual; you never feel like you have to make an effort to enjoy spending time with the Neptunia characters, and, perhaps paradoxically, this makes you want to spend more time with them, to find out more about them.

The second way Neptunia brings a sense of warm familiarity to me is through its aesthetic. Developer Compile Heart frequently gets lambasted in reviews for recycling graphical, sound and music assets wholesale from game to game, but somehow this has never mattered to me; I like the fact that you know what a Neptunia game is going to look and sound like before you boot it up. I like the fact that the series has developed its own kind of non-verbal language using its soundtrack to denote what is happening on. And the fact that the same dungeon maps are used from game to game — or even, in some cases, recycled within the same game — has never mattered to me; on the contrary, these places are now familiar and comfortable to me, even if the occupants may differ from visit to visit and occasionally incorporate superbosses that splatter me up the nearest wall.

The third reason Neptunia makes me happy is because the whole thing is clearly infused with such joy and love for these characters and the setting in which they live that it’s hard not to smile all the time you’re playing. While it’s questionable as to whether or not Compile Heart knew precisely how popular the series would become when the original Hyperdimension Neptunia was released in 2010, it’s clear to see today, six years later, that the creators still adore their creations as much as the audience do. And, more to the point, the various spinoffs in the series allow fans to celebrate their favourite characters in a variety of different ways, be it through the clothes-ripping hack-and-slash action of Hyperdimension Neptunia U, the strategic battling of Hyperdevotion Noire or the purely “social” gameplay of Hyperdimension Neptunia Producing Perfection. We’ve seen these girls at work, rest and play over the course of these games, and it doesn’t take long to fall in love with them.

Me, I’m at a stage where I honestly think I might be quite happy playing nothing but Neptunia games until the end of time, assuming that Compile Heart continued to explore collaborations with other developers such as Sting (Hyperdevotion Noire) and Tamsoft (Hyperdimension Neptunia U) as well as producing strong mainline installments in the series. Of course, this is an exaggeration, but one thing is true: I never have a bad time playing a Neptunia game, and I never feel sad while I’m playing a Neptunia game; I hope we continue to see them for many years to come.