2437: Ultimate Fencer

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I finished up Fairy Fencer F: Advent Dark Force this evening, including getting the Platinum trophy, and I’ve come away thoroughly satisfied with what is possibly Compile Heart’s best game to date, although it’s a close-run thing between this and MegaDimension Neptunia V-II.

I was particularly impressed by how much the two new narrative paths diverged from the original Fairy Fencer F’s storyline — while they involve many of the same dungeons, locales and characters, the important stuff about the story is very different indeed, right from the characters’ personalities in some cases all the way to their motivations and eventual goals.

I found the fact that the game wasn’t afraid to be a bit dark to be very much in its favour. Its colourful Tsunako character designs would suggest an adventure similar in tone to the Neptunia series, but in actual fact Fairy Fencer F is lighter on the comedy, heavier on the drama and even tragedy at times. That’s not to say there isn’t any comedy at all — what comedy there is tends to be well-timed in order to lighten the mood after some particularly heavy exposition — but it’s not the main point of it all.

This seems to be a direction that Compile Heart is moving in with its recent releases, and one that it seems to feel comfortable with. The Neptunia series has been expressing greater confidence with storytelling as it has proceeded, too — while the first game felt a bit like a string of amusing events loosely tied together with the semblance of an overarching plot, mk2/Re;Birth2 took a much darker tone with some truly odious villains (and one of the series’ most notoriously unpleasant optional endings) and Victory/Re;Birth3 had a much stronger sense that it had been composed as a complete story rather than a series of episodes. As for MegaDimension Neptunia V-II, that had its darker elements — particularly towards the end — and consequently, narratively speaking, was the most “structurally sound” of the series.

I didn’t play the original Fairy Fencer F when it came out, but I’ve now experienced that game’s story thanks to Advent Dark Force’s Goddess arc. It’s clear that Compile Heart wants to experiment with more ambitious narratives, but thought, quite rightly so, that Neptunia probably wasn’t the best place to do it (although that said, mk2’s Conquest ending is effective precisely because it is so tonally dissonant with what you’ve been conditioned to expect from the rest of the series). Fairy Fencer F jumps in headfirst with a likeable cast of rogues, many of whom are a bit morally ambiguous, and which Advent Dark Force does a good job in exploring over the course of its three distinct narrative paths.

Perhaps most striking about Advent Dark Force is that it isn’t afraid to let main characters die — something that would be unthinkable in a Neptunia game, regardless of how dark the overall plot got — and it demonstrates this early on. In most of the narrative paths, which take place after a “time loop” at the end of the common route, then diverge in three very different directions, protagonist Fang seeks to atone for the deaths he directly or indirectly caused in the common route, with varying degrees of success. Each path features a different combination of characters from the complete playable cast, with some of these characters dying or even being on the “other side” in different routes.

Of particular note is the character Sherman, who — mild spoiler, sorry — is the villain in the original Fairy Fencer F story, but in the Vile God arc he spends a significant amount of time being the protagonist in Fang’s absence. In the Evil Goddess arc, meanwhile, he has a more complex role that I’ll leave for you to discover.

One of the other great things about the additional routes in Advent Dark Force is that it gives some of the “filler” characters from the original something to do. Fairy-loving scientist Harley, for example, doesn’t have a whole lot to do in the original game’s narrative, but in the Evil Goddess arc in particular she plays a leading role. Likewise, in both the Vile God and Evil Goddess arcs we see a lot more of the taciturn child assassin Ethel, including how she became the person she was and how it came to be that she could only communicate through the word “kill” with varying intonation.

After having finished all three routes, I’m left with the feeling that I have when I finish a good visual novel: I have a good, solid understanding of all the characters, the situations in which they found themselves and the world which they inhabited. And, if the post-credits sequence in the Evil Goddess arc — clearly intended to be the “true” path — is anything to go by, then I have little doubt that we’re going to see more of these characters in the future. I certainly wouldn’t complain about more Fairy Fencer F games if it gives Compile Heart a chance to spread their wings and explore more ambitious narrative themes — particularly if the game itself is as good as Advent Dark Force ended up being.

I’ll say one more time for now: if you’re still ignoring (or worse, deriding) Compile Heart games and call yourself a fan of JRPGs, you’re missing out on some great experiences. Fairy Fencer F: Advent Dark Force is a good entry point to start exploring their work for yourself if you feel a little overwhelmed by the amount of Neptunia out there already; if you enjoy good, traditional JRPG stories, solid combat, wonderfully loathsome villains (one of them even does the ol’ “ohohohohohoho!” beloved of ’90s anime) and a colourful, immensely memorable cast of characters you can’t go wrong with this one.

2428: Seal the Vile God… For Good!

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I finished my first playthrough of Fairy Fencer F: Advent Dark Force tonight. I completed my first playthrough, as I’m sure most people do, on the Goddess route, which is (mostly) the same as the PlayStation 3 original. Having never quite gotten around to the PS3 original, it was all new to me, so it was an exciting journey to take.

I found Fairy Fencer F — the Goddess route, anyway — to be an interesting experience because it’s by far the most “traditional” RPG that Compile Heart has put out, in that it has a spiky-haired male protagonist who goes on an Oprah-worthy journey of personal growth over the course of the entire story, a band of plucky companions that he attracts to his cause through his own charisma and personal magnetism, a plot that involves aspects of faith and religion, and a suitably climactic battle against a supernatural being at the end.

This is in stark contrast to, say, the Neptunia series, where the overall plot is often the least important aspect of the game (though MegaDimension Neptunia V-II placed greater emphasis on the overall plot and was one of the best Neptunia games I’ve played as a result) and instead the main attraction is the developing relationship between the recurring cast members.

Fairy Fencer F is ample proof that Compile Heart has what it takes to butt heads with the masters of the genre, though, at least in terms of characterisation and storytelling. Their method of interacting with the game world affords it fewer opportunities for demonstrating the sheer level of detail Falcom puts into works such as the Legend of Heroes series — Compile Heart RPGs typically flow like visual novels punctuated by dungeon crawling rather than the more free-flowing experience that is a Falcom RPG — but the game nonetheless manages to paint a convincing picture of the world in which the story takes place, and the people who make the story happen. It achieves this by taking an approach Compile Heart also adopts in many of its other games: keeping the scale of things relatively small. Fairy Fencer F features only one town and a few dungeons in its immediate (rather geographically diverse) vicinity, and consequently you get to know the area and the people in it pretty well, both through the main story and the optional interactions with incidental characters around the town and its various locations.

Of particular note in the story as a whole is the protagonist Fang and his relationship with the two leading ladies of the piece: his fairy Eryn, with whom he constantly bickers but obviously trusts absolutely, and Tiara, whose first encounter with Fang and Eryn comes when she tricks them into drinking paralytic tea so she can steal the Fury the duo were in pursuit of. Tiara in particular demonstrates herself to be a complex character over the course of the complete narrative, and while the big “revelation” about her identity may not be a big surprise to those who have played a lot of RPGs, the story takes some very surprising twists and turns, particularly immediately leading up to the “split point” where the new version diverges into three different narrative paths.

Also noteworthy is the game’s tendency to demonstrate that people aren’t necessarily always as “good” or “evil” as they might immediately appear. Indeed, one of the most squeaky-clean characters in the game turns out to be a bit of a bastard, while overtly playing for Team Evil is a noble swordsman whom Fang can eventually recruit to his cause (fail to do so and he kills himself, a shot of darkness I’m not entirely used to seeing in Compile Heart games!), a young woman who spends her free time caring for orphans using the Obligatory Big Bad Corporation’s funds, and a salaryman who is only perpetrating less-than-noble deeds to care for his wife and child, whom it is clear he genuinely loves a great deal.

This “people aren’t exactly what they seem” theme is also seen to a lesser extent through Tiara, who acts like a “proper lady” — her Japanese speech is riddled with watakushi and desu wa, both of which are verbal signals that we’re dealing with someone who either is “noble” or at least wants to put across the impression that they are — but is actually, as Fang puts it, “nasty” underneath. And the trope is explicitly lampshaded in the form of the character Pippin, who appears to be a strange green cat-like creature, and who constantly extols the virtues of not judging a book by its cover. Indeed, Pippin remains something of an oddball enigma right up until the very end of the game, but after a while you just start thinking of him as an odd person, not an odd green cat-like creature.

All in all, my 50-hour first playthrough of Advent Dark Force leaves me feeling like it’s Compile Heart’s strongest game to date — yes, even better than the already excellent MegaDimension Neptunia V-II — and hungry for more. Fortunately, there is more — I have two more narrative routes to play through, plus a Platinum trophy to chase. I’m particularly interested to see how the two other narrative routes differ from the Goddess route — whether it’s a few changed events or a complete restructuring of the story. I’m kind of expecting the latter based on what I’ve seen people discussing, but either way, I’m looking forward to spending more time with this great cast of characters.

Serious talk: if you’re still rejecting Compile Heart games just because they’re Compile Heart games, you’re missing out on some truly great RPGs. Including this one.

2383: Fencing with Fairies

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Doubtless I’ll be writing about this in more detail at some point in the near future over on MoeGamer, but while it’s still new and fresh I thought I’d give some initial impressions on Fairy Fencer F: Advent Dark Force, Compile Heart’s latest PS4 release.

FFF:ADF, as I will refer to it hereafter, is a Neptunia Re;Birth-style reimagining of the PlayStation 3 game Fairy Fencer F. It includes the whole story of the original game, updated and expanded with all-new mechanics, plus a whole bunch of brand new content as well, making for what looks to be an absolutely sprawling mammoth of a JRPG that I’m very much looking forward to sinking my teeth into.

For the uninitiated, FFF:ADF casts you in the role of Fang, a lazy asshole who we’re introduced to as he’s been locked in prison for stealing bread. Three days earlier, it transpires, Fang pulled a legendary sword known as a Fury out of the ground, and thus found his fate inextricably intertwined with the adorably cute but rather headstrong fairy Eryn. Fang, wanting nothing more than a good meal and a warm bed, finds himself rather hastily recruited into a quest to find all 100 other Furies scattered around the world and use the power of the Fairies within to wake up the Goddess and prevent some sort of horrible catastrophe from occurring.

FFF:ADF follows Compile Heart’s usual RPG formula fairly closely. Town scenes are menu-based and allow you to visit a number of different locations to purchase and sell items or just chat with NPCs. As you progress through the game, more facilities become available in town.

When you leave town, you’ll likely be entering one of the game’s dungeons, which are filled with enemies you can see wandering around the map, and perhaps an event and/or a boss fight to complete.

Striking an enemy with your weapon while you’re in the field — a challenge made significantly easier than in the Neptunia series by the simple addition of a visual and auditory cue when you’re in range to connect a hit — allows you to get the jump on an enemy; mistiming it or letting an enemy run into your back, conversely, lets them ambush you.

Combat initially appears similar to the Neptunia series but there’s a few twists on the basic formula. For starters, characters only begin with a basic attack rather than a multi-hit combo. Multi-hit combos can be unlocked later — and they include fighting game-style techniques such as launching and juggling enemies — but initially the bulk of your damage will probably come from your special skills, which are further subdivided into weapon skills and magic spells.

The thing that’s looking most interesting about FFF:ADF at this early stage is its progression system. Whereas Neptunia’s character progression was completely linear — though once you unlocked abilities you could customise your characters to a minor degree, and Megadimension Neptunia made more of this by making different weapons capable of different combos — in FFF:ADF you earn WP (“Weapon Points”) through combat, which can then be spent on unlocking abilities, buffing stats and activating passive skills. In practice, there’s probably a “right” order to unlock things in — and if previous Compile Heart RPGs are anything to go by, you’ll probably unlock everything by the time you’re through — but it’s nice to at least feel like you have some options.

Other cool features include a battle system that allows up to six party members at a time, which will hopefully make for some interesting encounters later in the game — I only have two characters at present! Neptunia’s Challenge system is back, too, providing you with useful stat boosts in exchange for completing various tasks.

It’s early days yet, but FFF:ADF looks like Compile Heart’s most polished title to date; there’s none of the weird screen tearing from Omega Quintet and, so far, none of the frame drops of Megadimension Neptunia, and the 2D art (courtesy of Neptunia artist Tsunako) is as gorgeous as ever.

I’m looking forward to seeing what this game has to offer; everything I’ve heard from people who have already played it makes me feel like it’s going to be a really solid JRPG, and I’m excited to see what other gameplay features I’ll be fiddling around with as I progress further.

2233: MegaNep’s True Ending: A Love Letter to the Dreamcast, and to the Player

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I cleared Megadimension Neptunia VII’s True Ending path this evening, after a horrible moment where I thought I hadn’t triggered it and would have to do the whole thing through again (which is actually not quite as monumental an undertaking as you might think) — and I was very impressed with one of the most satisfying finales I’ve seen in a story-based game for quite some time.

Mild spoilers ahead.

At the core of MegaNep’s overarching narrative is the story of Uzume Tennouboshi, a new character to the series who, like the series regulars, embodies a games console — in this case, Sega’s ahead-of-its-time Dreamcast. For those unfamiliar with their gaming hardware history, the Dreamcast was a 128-bit console that came out towards the tail end of the console generation that was primarily 32- and 64-bit: that of the original PlayStation and the Nintendo 64. It was astronomically powerful in comparison to its contemporaries and was home to some wonderful games, many of which are still fondly remembered today. But for one reason or another, it was regarded as a commercial failure, and both it and its games dropped out of mainstream distribution after just a couple of years, with the 128-bit era only starting in earnest once the PlayStation 2 shattered all expectations of what console gaming was all about following its launch in 2000.

Uzume’s identity and background is initially a mystery to Neptune and company, but over the source of MegaNep’s complete story, her past comes to light. Having once been a goddess to what is now Neptune’s domain of Planeptune, she was voluntarily sealed away due to the fact that she was unable to control her “illusion” power and largely forgotten about; an allegory for the Dreamcast being released onto the market too early and developers and publishers alike arguably not being sure how to make best use of this new power on offer.

The main villain of the piece is revealed very late in the story to be the darker side of Uzume, representing her irrational hatred and bitterness at feeling abandoned by her people. Through a complicated series of happenings too twisty-turny to describe in detail here, Neptune and her friends eventually manage to help Uzume come to terms with her past and realise that her memories have become tainted by hatred and regret; her people, in fact, loved her and cherished her, and it was with a heavy heart that they saw her sealed away for the protection of everyone.

There are two endings to MegaNep: one in which Uzume sacrifices herself to ensure her dark counterpart is not able to send a horde of monsters from her delusional “Heart Dimension” into Neptune’s Hyper Dimension, and another in which Neptune and her friends refuse to leave her to die, and ultimately help her to overcome her darkness. This latter one is the True ending, and it demonstrates beyond a shadow of a doubt that the team at Idea Factory and Compile Heart hold the Dreamcast in considerable esteem; the truth about Uzume’s past is described with such a wonderfully warm feeling of fondness that it’s hard not to feel extremely nostalgic if you happened to be there when it all happened in our world, and the Neptunia series’ biggest strength — characterisation and the feeling of bonds between these characters — really shines through as everyone expresses their love for Uzume and she, likewise, expresses her love for them.

What also made the ending satisfying, aside from this wonderfully genuine-feeling appreciation for the Dreamcast and its games, was the Neptunia series trademark “Thank You Corner”, where the cast completely break the fourth wall and address the player directly, thanking them for playing and showering them with praise for beating the game. This is always a lovely moment in every Neptunia game, but in the case of MegaNep it feels particularly heartfelt; it’s obvious that the words coming out of the mouths of the characters are actually those of the series’ creators, expressing their gratitude for the series having gone from strength to strength over the years, overcoming the adversity of its early installments’ poor reviews, widespread ignorance from the press and self-professed RPG “experts” that persists to this day, and ultimately becoming a genuinely rather wonderful franchise that I really don’t want to see the back of any time soon.

In many ways, it was like a “curtain call” for the game, and while previous Neptunia games have handled this in much the same way, there was something about this moment in MegaNep that made it more satisfying and touching than it’s ever been before. It’s a rare and wonderful feeling for a creative work to seem like it’s talking directly to you, but the Neptunia series has always felt that way, and never more so than with Megadimension Neptunia VII.

Onwards to the post-game, then; I have trophies to clean up and Colosseum battles to fight! (And in the meantime, I promise I’ll find something new to write about soon.)

2228: MegaNep: Thoughts After a First Playthrough

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Well, I finally finished Megadimension Neptunia VII for the first time. Took about 62 hours or so in the end; that was taking it fairly leisurely through the game and taking the time to unlock stuff here and there that I perhaps didn’t need to do on a first playthrough. Next up for me is a New Game Plus run in which I go for the “true” ending, which leads on to a post-game segment during which you can clean up any bits and pieces you didn’t finish off first time around. Or trophy hunt.

For now, though, I want to talk about my experiences with the game after a complete playthrough.

The first thing to say about the game is that, as I’ve mentioned before, this is Compile Heart’s finest work to date. There are no significant technical issues beyond a couple of very minor frame drops in a few places; the script and translation is excellent (although there are a few more typos than there should be); and the gameplay is satisfying, enjoyable and well-balanced.

The first and last points there address two of the biggest criticisms the Neptunia series has had since its inception. From the original PS3 game onwards, the series — and Compile Heart’s work in general — had been plagued with technical issues, most notably atrocious framerates that weren’t really justifiable given the relative simplicity of the graphics compared to bigger-budget titles that ran a whole lot better. And, again, from the original game onwards, game balance has been an off-and-on problem: the original game (and the total overhaul Re;Birth1) was inconsistent in its difficulty, erring on the side of “suddenly way too hard” without warning; sequel mk2 and its Re;Birth counterpart was much too easy (and rather short, although it does still have the widest variety of endings in the series); Victory and Re;Birth3, meanwhile, got the closest to nailing the formula, but still had a few elements that could be a bit of a pain, most notably the heavily RNG-based Scout system.

So how does MegaNep counter these original problems? Well, in the case of the technical issues, it seems that Compile Heart is significantly more comfortable developing for PS4 than PS3. MegaNep runs at a pretty consistent 60fps pretty much all of the time; the only time it drops is in particularly busy scenes such as the “sakura”-style dungeons with cherry blossoms everywhere. MegaNep is even an improvement over the company’s last game Omega Quintet, which ran very nicely in battle scenes, but which juddered a little bit in the (admirably large and sprawling) field areas. It’s not going to win any awards for looking amazing, of course, but the graphics are perfectly acceptable and, as is the norm for the series, the character models and animations are very nice indeed.

As for the gameplay balancing, Compile Heart really feel like they’ve nailed it this time around. At no point did I feel like the game was too easy or too difficult, and progression was paced well. It’s not a game that you need to grind to level 99 to be able to beat the last boss, either; my clear party consisted of characters between levels 40-60 (Nepgear being the highest at 60, not that I show her any favouritism, nosirree) and they dispatched the last boss without any difficulty. In other words, it’s a game that you can stumble your way through from start to finish without running into too much trouble, but if you go a little off the beaten track from the linear storyline, there are plenty of ways to challenge yourself — and plenty of things to do in New Game Plus, too.

The game systems, having been significantly revamped from the Victory/Re;Birth formula, work extremely well. Skills don’t feel over- or under-powered, and the basic combo attacks each character can perform are actually useful for things other than building up the EXE Drive meter now, too. Each character feels unique, too, with a variety of different skills, weapon types, combo arrangements and multi-person formation attacks to play with; there are a clearly number of “optimal” party setups that provide you with the most flexibility in terms of formation and partner moves in particular, but the systems are balanced well enough that you can take pretty much any combination you like into battle and have a good time. Oh, and while there are a few recycled dungeons from past games — it’s series tradition by this point — there’s also a ton of brand new, original content, including the wonderfully inventive (and infuriating) Neplunker dungeons as well as the mapless Senmuu Labyrinth.

Now, narrative and characterisation has never really been an issue for the Neptunia series, though my one criticism has been that it tends to have slightly weedy finales, particularly the final boss fights, which have previously been quite underwhelming at times. Pleasingly, MegaNep’s finale (at least in the ending I got) is spectacular, dramatic and even emotional; it really tugs on the heartstrings as you see what these characters — characters who many players have spent many hours with — are going through to resolve the latest crisis.

The story in general is very good; split into three distinct acts, each with their own focus and expanding scale, it’s interesting, enjoyable, varied and clever. It’s not a rehash of the previous games’ stories at all and it has worthwhile things to say, but it’s never forgotten the series’ roots in satire and parody. It’s laugh-out-loud funny in places, tearjerkingly emotional in others. It’s the best script the Neptunia characters have ever had to work with, and, like so much else about this game, feels like such a magnificent step up from the previous games that it’s a delight to see. I’ll talk more about this after I’ve seen the “true” ending and how it resolves things in an alternative manner.

In other words, it’s not just a great Neptunia game, it’s a great RPG, period. The only thing that saddens me is the fact that so many people will write it off without even giving it a shot for themselves; still, I guess that makes it all the more special for those of us in the know who can enjoy and appreciate it, both on its own merits and as, to date, the absolute pinnacle of the series.

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2224: Megadimension Neptunia: 50 Hour Report

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50 hours deep in Megadimension Neptunia VII and I’m just starting the third and final “episode”, Heart Dimension Neptunia H. So far I haven’t set foot in the titular Heart Dimension, but the plot has been set up; in the meantime I’ve been doing a little bit of questing and grinding with the CPU Candidates, who are the focus of the initial part of the H arc.

The game continues to be the most enjoyable Neptunia game yet. Everything about it is honed and refined to round off the scrappy edges of the previous installments; while the Re;Birth remakes provided small, incremental improvements on the format set in place by Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory, MegaNep is, as I’ve previously noted, a complete overhaul of pretty much every system in the game, from the battle mechanics to the way “shares” work.

Perhaps one of the best changes is how unique each character now feels to play in battle. Rather than all essentially working in the same way outside of the SP-powered special skills and super-powerful EXE Drive attacks, now each character very much has their own distinctive feel and circumstances in which they are useful. This is achieved in several ways, largely to do with the weapons and combo attacks they are able to use.

Each weapon in MegaNep not only has the usual stats, but it also has a specific arrangement of combo slots, split into three categories: Rush, Power and Standard. (Break attacks have gone the way of the Guard Points bar that they were used to damage; I can’t say I miss the system, since it became largely irrelevant after a certain power level in the old games.) As in previous games, Rush attacks focus on a high hit count, with less power per individual hit, and also have a more significant impact on the EXE Drive meter, which now, incidentally, resets between every battle rather than carrying over as in the previous games. Power attacks, meanwhile, have fewer hits, hit harder and in many cases carry an elemental affinity, allowing you to exploit weaknesses. And Standard attacks are somewhere in between the two.

Where things get interesting is in trying to arrange these combos optimally. Characters learn new combo moves as they level up, but each can only be put in a single slot. Moreover, the first attack a weapon performs is fixed and not tied to the character’s unlocked skills; this comes into play when considering the individual combo moves’ Combo Traits, which, if fulfilled when you use them in battle, means that the combo move that triggered it will 1) be guaranteed to hit and 2) be guaranteed to crit with every hit, increasing overall damage considerably. Combo Traits vary from “All previous attacks did not use a Combo Trait” to “Haven’t used Power attacks” and numerous others besides. The challenge when customising a character is to give them as many workable combos with Traits as possible, enabling them to respond to different situations in an optimal manner. It seems to be impossible to build the “perfect” combo — every move triggering a Combo Trait — at my current level, but I wonder if it will be an option with later weapons and/or combo moves.

Anyway. Given that each character has their own set of combo skills and their own set of weapons (each of which has its own arrangement of combo slots as well as its own area of effect) there’s a considerable degree of flexibility in how you set up your party, particularly with the sheer number of playable characters on offer in the game. And you’ll want to rotate them around, too; back-line characters no longer gain experience points (with a couple of exceptions) and there are certain circumstances where you’re obliged to use one or more specific characters in a fight, so they better be suitably set up when that time comes! The series’ Lily Rank system is back, too, only this time Lily Ranks are gained by characters fighting together in the front row, making them somewhat easier to gain — at least it feels that way so far — and in order to max these out you’ll need to tweak your party arrangement every so often, particularly if you’re Trophy hunting.

Elsewhere in the combat, while there are a lot of disposable popcorn enemies — particularly on the world map, where after a certain point random battles become more of an inconvenience than an actual hazard in getting to your destination — the highlights of the game are the boss fights. The game knows this, too, presenting you with unique interface elements, including one thing that I oddly like very much and can’t quite explain why: the boss HP meter with multiple bars. Yes, rather than depleting one bar very slowly while battering down a boss-level enemy, MegaNep takes a Final Fantasy XII-esque approach of having a number of “lights” beneath the main HP bar for a boss, with a light dimming each time you empty the bar. Dim all the lights and you’ve won. It’s essentially a variation on the system that was used in titles like Shining Force and Senran Kagura, where different coloured HP bars represented how many “extra” bars a character or enemy had over the maximum possible to display on screen proportionally.

Outside of my rather specific, peculiar tastes in HP meters, though, back to the boss fights themselves: a lot of them are pretty good, and this is largely thanks to a couple of new mechanics introduced in MegaNep. One is the “Parts Break” system, whereby certain enemies have breakable sections with their own durability counts. In order to damage the part, your character needs to be standing in an appropriate place when they either unleash their combo or a special move. Break the part and you get extra XP, credits and a chance at some extra drops. In many cases, breaking the part also has an effect on the boss, either reducing an aspect of its defences or removing the capability for a particular attack. In one particularly memorable confrontation, a boss is completely immune to all damage except Parts damage until you break the cape on his back — to make matters more challenging, the cape can only be damaged by attacks with an elemental affinity. The fight quickly turns into an entertaining dance as you decide whether to try and break his gauntlets and the horn on his head to cripple his special attacks, or whether to focus on trying to get behind him to destroy his cape and be able to deal some real damage.

The new EXE Drive system works well, too; rather than encouraging you to get into a bunch of random fights in a dungeon just to charge it up before a boss fight, the fact it 1) resets at the start of combat and 2) fills much more quickly than in past games means that you’re much more likely to be using the spectacular, entertaining EXE Drive moves, which is good, because there are a lot more of them, including several multi-character ones that necessitate surrounding an enemy in appropriate formations. Transforming the CPUs and their sisters into their HDD (and, later, their Next Form) incarnations also costs a bar of EXE Drive rather than SP, meaning you can pretty much guarantee the ability to transform in every fight if you need it — to discourage spamming this, however, transforming now costs Shares, though getting KO’d costs significantly more Shares, so you’ll want to weigh up the pros and cons before doing anything rash. Shares work like their original intention in the first Hyperdimension Neptunia game: the more shares one of the nations has, the stronger their CPU (and her sister) is. They’re no longer a zero-sum game, however; increasing one nation’s shares no longer means taking them from someone else; it’s possible to have all four nations with maxed-out share bars, all enjoying the benefits of being Top Nep.

Anyway. I’ve waffled on for over 1,300 words on the systems in this game and not even mentioned the story and characters, which are still my favourite bit of the series. I’ll save that for another day, though, perhaps when I’ve finished my first playthrough: there’s a lot to talk about, with this being by far the most interesting Neptunia game story-wise as well as in terms of mechanics.

It’s pretty good, in other words. Very good, in fact. Buy it. Support it. I want to see more Neps. (At this point, I don’t think we have a lot to worry about there.)

2218: Megadimension Neptunia: Report from 21 Hours In

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Good Lord, this game is good.

As I mentioned the other day, Megadimension Neptunia V-II marks something of a watershed moment for the series in that it’s no longer “good, but [insert caveat of your choice here]” and is just plain good. Great, even.

I’m about 21 hours in so far. I’ve finished the first of the three main stories that make up the complete experience — Zerodimension Neptunia Z — and am now in the second, Hyperdimension Neptunia G. This part — at least the first bit of it; I don’t know how long it is in total — is split into four distinct scenarios, each of which focuses on one of the four main goddess characters (and one of the four new “Gold Third” characters, who personify various Japanese game companies from Capcom to Square Enix), and so far I’ve played through Blanc’s route from start to finish.

Like Compile Heart’s previous game Omega Quintet, MegaNep spreads out its mechanics over the course of quite a few hours. 20 hours in, I’m still getting tutorial messages when I’m afflicted with a status effect I haven’t suffered before, though I think that most of the main core mechanics of the game have now been introduced by this point. Unlike Final Fantasy XIII, which often draws the ire of commentators for taking a similar approach to spreading out its new mechanics, MegaNep never feels like it’s artificially constraining you, though; the new systems I’ve seen so far were all introduced at the changeover between Zerodimension Neptunia Z and Hyperdimension Neptunia G, which was an eminently sensible way to do things, since it allows Z to stand by itself as a complete-feeling experience, then G to move on and feel distinctive in its own right thanks to the additional things you have to juggle.

What of those additional things, though? Well, aside from the things that Z already shook up — the world map is now node-based a la Final Fantasy Tactics, and you can have random encounters while moving from place to place; the battle system has been completely revamped from previous installments — G introduces (and, in some cases, reintroduces) a number of new systems.

First is the Scout system originally seen in Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory. Essentially, this is a small army of chibi characters (series veterans will recognise them as the “Chirper” characters who fulfil the role of incidental NPCs) that you can send out to dungeons, and they will then report back with what they find. Whereas Victory’s Scout system simply required you to enter and leave locations a certain number of times before the Scouts would return, MegaNep’s Scouts head out in real time and then report back with items, money, new dungeon features (boss monsters or clues to hidden treasure) or whole new dungeons. There’s still a heavy degree of RNG involved, but it’s a fairly painless process, and the real-time element means you can easily leave it running while you’re doing other errands in-game. Scouts also provide passive bonuses to you if you’re exploring the same dungeon they’re deployed to, so they’re helpful in ways other than just finding stuff, too.

Next is the Investment system, which allows you to develop towns by spending your hard-earned Credits in three areas: Commercial, Industrial and Public Relations. Upgrading Commercial increases the stock in the shops; upgrading Industrial gives you access to new crafting recipes; upgrading Public Relations triggers events that can reward you with items, new Scouts or simply an entertaining scene. That’s pretty straightforward.

Then you have the Route Building system, which is also reasonably straightforward. Discover a new dungeon and you can’t just click on it on the map like in the older games; you have to build a node-based pathway to it first, which costs money.

Then you have the Hidden Treasure system for each dungeon, which replaces the old games’ spamming the “sonar”-type ability to find invisible items. Here, to find a hidden treasure, first of all you have to have a Scout discover a clue to its location, then fulfil the conditions in the clue, then collect the treasure. Sometimes dungeons have more than one treasure, which means you have to do the process twice, though the conditions are usually different. The conditions make the dungeon-crawling a bit more interesting, because they have a decent amount of variety in them: some require you to collect all the regular treasures in a dungeon (some of which may be in awkward places or behind barriers that require the “Breaker” ability to smash) while others require you to execute 8 “Symbol Attacks” in a row without getting spotted by any enemies, which challenges your stealth and pattern-spotting skills. Others still require you to defeat each and every enemy symbol in the whole dungeon at least once — they don’t all have to be dead at the same time, but you do have to keep track of what you’ve already killed and what you haven’t.

In Blanc’s route, we get a number of different characters to play with, each of whom handles rather differently, fixing the issue from the older games where most of the characters felt rather interchangeable with the exception of their special skills. Blanc herself has a marked disparity between her physical and magic defense, for example, while her sisters Rom and Ram have half of Blanc’s HP but much stronger magic resistance and the ability to attack both at range and over a wider area. The brief time you get to play with Capcom personification C-Sha is a ton of fun, too; her combo skills are all named after fighting game terminology, and it’s more fun than it should be triggering Rush attacks called simply “PPPK” then seeing her doing a punch-punch-punch-kick combo on the enemy.

The story is proving to be surprisingly compelling so far, too. The Zerodimension episode had a mixture of lightheartedness and post-apocalyptic bleakness and worked well. Blanc’s route of the Hyperdimension story deals with a plausible view of a dystopian society where everything and everyone is controlled by the state, and how revolutionaries fighting against this sort of regime aren’t always in it for the right reasons. Neptunia’s stories have always been far more clever than most reviewers give them credit for, being heavily allegorical for the most part, but so far MegaNep seems to have taken things to a new level. The writing and localisation is good (aside from a few easily ignored typos here and there) and, crucially, the new characters — of whom there are quite a few — fit right in to the world without breaking a sweat.

It does feel very different to previous Neptunia games, but after the three Re;Births that all had the same basic mechanics, it’s refreshing to have a game that feels both comfortingly familiar and fresh at the same time. I’m delighted with the experience so far, and am looking forward to playing it to death over the course of the next few weeks. Expect further reports to follow.

2194: Second Re;Birth

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Having beaten Hyperdimension Neptunia U Action Unleashed to my satisfaction by successfully attaining the Platinum trophy, I immediately started on Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth2, the Vita-based remake of Hyperdimension Neptunia mk2, previously my favourite game in the series, if not mechanically then certainly in terms of story and characters.

Re;Birth2 is less of a drastic difference from its predecessor because mk2 was already using the initial, slightly unrefined version of the systems seen in Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory and beyond. Re;Birth2 is still worth playing if you’re already familiar with the original, however — not only has the battle system been updated to be in line with the solid, enjoyable mechanics of the later installments of the series, the game has also been updated with new scenes and new characters, including the welcome reappearance of RED, one of the best characters from the very first Hyperdimension Neptunia game, and one who was sadly absent from Re;Birth1. Not only that, but the presentation has been brought in line with the rest of the series, too — rather than mk2‘s somewhat muddy character models used in dialogue sequences, Re;Birth2 makes use of the beautiful Live2D incarnations of Tsunako’s art like the other games.

Also added to the base game is the Remake system previously seen in Re;Birth1. This is essentially a crafting component, but as well as crafting items — which you do to make them available in shops rather than adding them to your inventory — you can also craft new game mechanics and visual options. Re;Birth1 had a few interesting options in this regard, but Re;Birth2 takes the idea and really runs with it, going so far as to add everything from a whole real-time passive minigame called Stella’s Dungeon that you set running in the background while you play the rest of the game to the ability to make the girls’ eyebrows stand out more on their 3D models so they look more like the 2D artwork.

As is tradition for most of the Neptunia series, Re;Birth2 is a gradual evolution rather than a dramatic reinvention, but some of the new additions and changes are very welcome. One of the craftable Plans in the Remake system, for example, allows you to obtain items and experience points from enemies you “symbol attack” on the field screen. In the original mk2, if you attacked an enemy that was significantly lower level than you on the map, they’d simply die and you wouldn’t get anything. It was for clearing your way through a dungeon rather than grinding, but it actually wasn’t all that useful, since you often wanted to fight enemies in order to collect their drops for various purposes. Re;Birth1 added the option to turn this off via its Remake system, which was a start, but the ability to get rewards from this is new for Re;Birth2, and extremely welcome in the late game, where you’re likely to completely destroy most enemies as you grind out Lily Ranks and rare drops.

Coming to this game straight off the extremely light-hearted and silly Hyperdimension Neptunia U Action Unleashed was quite surprising: the overall tone of the whole experience is very different. It’s significantly darker, particularly in the opening sequence, and it features some of the best villains the series has seen, each of whom are complex and interesting characters. The use of the extremely girly Nepgear as protagonist was inspired in this instance, since the juxtaposition of her innate sweetness and naive nature with some of the nasty shit that goes on — particularly in the Conquest ending path — is very effective indeed.

I’m only in Chapter 2 of Re;Birth2 so far, but I’m already having a blast with it and reminding myself how and why I love this series — particularly its mainline games. It’s going to be a Nep-Nep-filled few months, I’m afraid, since there’s Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth3 to go after this, by which point a lovely shiny copy of the actually-brand-new-and-not-a-remake Megadimension Neptunia V-II for PlayStation 4 will finally be in my grasp. Can’t wait.

2188: Neptunia Games I’d Like to See

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With Megadimension Neptunia V-II and Megatagmension Blanc and Neptune vs. Zombies on the way to the West, hopefully with Neptunia vs. Sega Hard Girls to follow in the near future, a Neptunia fan such as myself has to ponder what might be next for the series, particularly now it’s made the jump to PlayStation 4 and PC as well as Vita.

With that in mind, I had a think about some Neptunia games I’d like to see, particularly in the vein of “spin-offs” such as Hyperdimension Neptunia U Action Unleashed and Hyperdevotion Noire. Here are said thoughts, expressed in the style of a overly excitable PR blast, overuse of exclamation marks and all.

Hyperdimension Neptunia Infinity Dungeon

Gamindustri is in peril once again… and the CPUs are nowhere to be seen?!

Top Guild agent IF is assigned to the mystery and quickly discovers that the monsters pouring out into Gamindustri appear to be coming from a new dungeon that opened in the vicinity of Planeptune. Not knowing what to expect, she begins her quest to uncover the fates of her friends, the CPUs and the CPU Candidates. Just how deep does this mysterious dungeon, whose walls seem to shift and twist before her very eyes, really go?

FEATURES

The first Neptunia roguelike! Explore an infinite array of procedurally generated levels as IF and your favourite Neptunia characters as you attempt to discover the source of the Infinity Dungeon’s power!
An all-new twist on Neptunia’s crazy combat! Tactical turn-based movement allows for seamless transitions between exploration and combat; meanwhile, for the first time in the series, make use of the environment in creative ways to defend yourself and inflict massive damage on your foes!
Looking for a more direct route? Make your own! All of Hyperdimension Neptunia Infinity Dungeon’s levels are fully destructible, with IF and friends’ special moves just as likely to bash holes in the walls of the dungeon as they are to smash their enemies into oblivion!
Mix it up with Irregular Quest conditions! The Infinity Dungeon works in strange and mysterious ways; some floors will challenge you to clear them against the clock, while others will task you with defeating the enemies as stylishly as possible. Uncover and fulfil the Irregular Quest conditions to maximise your rewards!
A wide cast of playable characters! Explore the dungeon as IF, Compa, Neptune and the rest of the gang — plus a few special guests!

Coming soon to PlayStation Vita and PlayStation 4, featuring Cross-Save support. Pre-order your Limited Edition now, featuring a 2CD soundtrack, artbook and fully poseable IF figurine.

Hyperdimension Neptunia U2 Action Unchained

Peace reigns once again in Gamindustri, but the world — and its CPUs — are restless.

Enter, once again, intrepid journalists Dengekiko and Famitsu, who once again have an offer for the CPUs and their Candidates: a means of entertaining both themselves and their people, plus a way to keep their fighting skills in shape.

FEATURES

Hack, slash… and think?! Hyperdimension Neptunia U2 Action Unchained’s dungeons are like nothing you’ve ever seen in the Neptunia series, combining challenging combat encounters with head-scratching puzzles that will require you to use your smarts, dexterity and a bevy of interactive items to progress. Nep-Nep might need some help with that last bit!
Custom combos GET! Edit your favourite fighter’s moves and abilities as you see fit from a wide palette of options that expands as you progress. Develop your own personal fighting style for each character and display your skills with a selection of different weapons, each with their own movesets!
Fight one-on-one or go toe-to-toe against the horde! Hyperdimension Neptunia U2 Action Unchained’s combat encounters range from challenging one-on-one battles against both monsters and incarnations of Gamindustri’s great heroes to large-scale battles against overwhelming odds. Can you stem a seemingly never-ending tide of monsters?!
Fight smart, and fight cool! It’s not just about beating your opponents; it’s about making yourself look great! Mix up your combos, SP Moves and EXE Drives to impress the audience and earn more Shares to maximise your favourite character’s abilities!

Coming soon to PlayStation Vita and PlayStation 4, featuring Cross-Save support and Cross-Play online co-op for 1-4 players. Pre-order your limited edition now, featuring a 2CD soundtrack, huge wallscroll and collection of chibi Neptunia figurines.

Hyperdimension Neptunia Gamindustri Idol Project

“Is anyone else getting a distinct sense of deja vu?!”

A new foe threatens Gamindustri — and this time it’s not the fault of the monsters. No, the CPUs’ very power is threatened by the rise in popularity of idols — and this time there’s no Producer to help them out! Fortunately, old friend 5pb. is on hand to give the CPUs and their Candidates a bit of advice on winning the love of the people back…

FEATURES

Rhythm action gameplay developed in collaboration with SEGA and Crypton Future Media, developers of the Hatsune Miku Project DIVA series! Enjoy 35 songs, including classics from the Neptunia series and originals composed specifically for this game, as you challenge taxing note charts at four levels of difficulty!
Customise the CPUs as they aim for idol glory! A huge variety of costumes, accessories and stage props are on offer for both the CPUs and the Candidates; some even have special effects, but you’ll have to experiment to find out what works best for you!
Two ways to play! Take on a new story of the CPUs and the Candidates attempting to win back the support of the people of Gamindustri, or play for fun in Arcade mode as you try to top your best scores!
Take the battle for best idol online! Join the Guild online to track your progress and best performances against players from all over the world! Share your customised CPU Idols and stage setups as you attempt to dominate not just Gamindustri, but our world too!

Coming soon to PlayStation Vita and PlayStation 4, featuring Cross-Save support and Cross-Play online functionality including social features, sharing and leaderboards. Pre-order your limited edition now, featuring a 2CD soundtrack, commemorative concert programme and collection of pendants, allowing you to proudly show the world who your favourite CPU Idol is!

Note: I know these games are not real. I also know that Hyperdimension Neptunia: Producing Perfection is a thing. Thank you in advance for your time and your desire to point these things out to me, though.

2186: Hyperdimension Action

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I’m well into the post-game of Hyperdimension Neptunia U Action Unleashed (or, as certain parts of the Vita interface refer to it, Hyperdimension Action Unleashed Neptunia U, and I’m pretty sure there are a few other combinations too) and enjoying the game a great deal.

It’s not the deepest game in the world, I’ll be the first to admit: while there are a few levels that take place in “dungeons” — in true Neptunia fashion, these are, of course, recycled from the mainline games — on the whole, it’s mostly an arena-based brawler in which you hack and slash your way through hordes of enemies using a few different moves with each character.

It is a game where you can win most of the levels by hammering the Square button repeatedly, but experimenting with the combos and special moves somewhat produces a much more satisfying experience. In many ways, I kind of wish there was more reward for doing so — some sort of style bonus, or a bonus for completing a level particularly quickly, or even a time limit — but seeing the combo meter rise into ridiculously high numbers is, to be honest, reward enough for me.

What I like about the post-game is that there’s several different things to do. Firstly, there are some extra quests in the game’s story mode that, in a twist on the game up until that point, only allow you to use a single character instead of the usual duo. This means you don’t have the safety net of a partner if you get knocked down, and make these missions actually quite challenging for the characters you haven’t levelled quite as much as the others. I had a bit of difficulty with Famitsu’s mission, for one, but actually rather enjoyed this, as it forced me to figure out how her moves actually worked and use them effectively rather than just, as previously mentioned, hammering Square.

Once you’re done with those, there’s the Gamindustri Gauntlet, which is a tournament of one-on-one fights between a character you choose — in this mode, the characters’ HDD/goddess forms are treated as separate characters — and a random (or player-chosen) selection of others. There are three difficulty modes, with the first being ridiculously easy (like, one-hit-kill easy if you’ve levelled your characters even a little bit) and the middle offering a decent but not insurmountable challenge. I haven’t tried the top one yet. This mode reminds me a little of Neptunia U’s stablemate Senran Kagura Estival Versus, which was a similar kind of game with a strong focus on one-on-one battles rather than hordes. It works quite well, though I do find myself wishing for a lock-on system at times. This mode does nicely highlight the fact the characters do all play rather differently from one another, though, with the contrast between ranged characters such as Rom, Ram and Uni and the rest of the cast being most apparent.

After you clear Gamindustri Gauntlet once, you unlock Neptral Tower, which is a string of 50 arena battles that, if you want the Platinum trophy, you’re going to have to do with every character. Thankfully, a pair of characters reaching the top does count as them both having cleared it, regardless of which one you were playing as when you won, and Neptral Tower as a whole acts as a solid means of grinding out both levels for characters and Lily Ranks for bonuses — the latter, of course, being essential for the Platinum trophy, too, because what would a Neptunia game be without an epic Lily Rank grind?

Neptral Tower is quite interesting to play through because progress is recorded on a per-character basis, meaning you can’t just take your strongest character all the way up and change partners as you max out Lily Ranks. Instead, you can voluntarily reset progress at any point and start bringing another character up as you so desire. While you could get that Platinum trophy by clearing all 50 floors with each character one at a time, it’s much more efficient — and interesting — to make strategic use of this reset function to grind out the Lily Ranks you need and level your characters before making a break for the top floors when you’re good and ready.

Neptunia U is a good game, then, and it makes me rather curious for the upcoming Megatagmension Blanc and Neptune vs Zombies, which is coming later this year. It’s also been reminding me quite how much I love Neptunia, and it’s got me very much in the mood to finally get around to playing Re;Birth 2 and 3 when I’m done — just in time for Megadimension Neptunia V-II, which looks quite likely to release next month.

Nepu!