1846: Akiba’s Tripped

Finished Akiba’s Trip: Undead and Undressed this evening. Planning on posting some more detailed thoughts over at MoeGamer at some point in the coming week, but I thought I’d post some immediate impressions here while it’s fresh in my mind — I literally beat it not five minutes ago. Well, one of its routes, anyway.

Akiba’s Trip is quite an unusual game, although perhaps not by Japanese standards. Combining elements of dating sims, visual novels, RPGs, brawlers and open-world action adventures, it all adds up to a curiously satisfying experience that, while relatively brief compared to some other games — my first playthrough took me about 20 hours, and that was with doing pretty much all of the available sidequests as well as a bit of fiddling around trying to level my skills up and collect some collectable things — proved to be highly enjoyable.

A highlight, as with many Japanese games, is the care and attention which has been poured into characterisation, both visually and in terms of writing. The localisation team at Xseed has to take some of the credit for the amount of personality the game has, too; as translations go, this is absolutely exemplary, remaining (so far as I can make out with my limited knowledge of Japanese) reasonably true to the original script while simultaneously incorporating plenty of cultural elements that will be familiar to Westerners.

A particular highlight is the main character, who is handled somewhat like the player’s character in the Persona series, in that he doesn’t speak out loud all that much — although he does have a couple of lines here and there, they’re mostly confined to inner monologue — but the player is frequently given the option of how to respond to a particular situation. In many cases, the options given all lead to the same outcome, but the available choices are frequently hilarious; there are some real crackers towards the end of the game in particular, with my favourites being “It’s dangerous to go alone! Take thi– I mean me!” and “I’m going to turn his dark utopia into a dark u-nope-ia!”. (You kind of have to be there.)

These dialogue options do occasionally have a purpose, however, and that’s the choice of route and subsequent ending that you get. Partway through the game, the story splits in a few different directions according to the various different heroines you encounter. I haven’t seen how different these routes are yet — and I’m disappointed that there isn’t a route for Kati Raikonnen, an incredibly endearing member of the main cast who, being “foreign”, has a tendency to speak in what is represented as “Engrish” by the translation — but I’m keen to find out. It appears that this will be a painless process, too, since after clearing the game once you can turn on the option to specifically mark the dialogue options that will change affection levels between you and the heroines. Not only that, but there’s no real need to do sidequests after your first runthrough — indeed, there’s no real need to do sidequests at all if you don’t care about trophies, though the money they get you is nice — and so you can zip through subsequent playthroughs pretty quickly, especially if you’ve taken the time to upgrade your weapons and clothing and carry them over into your New Game Plus.

I really wasn’t sure what to expect when I booted up Akiba’s Trip. I think I was expecting some sort of fairly straightforward brawler set in Akihabara, but what I actually got was far more akin to something like Yakuza. A surprising amount of depth, in other words, and an extremely well-realised setting that makes a great backdrop for the various stories within.

I hope we get the opportunity to revisit Akihabara at some point in the future; given that this version is actually the second game to bear the Akiba’s Trip title — the first never made it out of Japan — that’s not beyond the realm of possibility. I’ll be there if and when it happens!

1801: Pondering Some More Games of the Year

So I mentioned yesterday that this last year has been a pretty bumper crop for great games, and I gave a few examples of some titles that I’ve particularly enjoyed, primarily in the last couple of months or so. I thought I’d continue today with some thoughts on some other games from throughout the year that have stuck in my mind for one reason or another, and which consequently I feel are probably worth your time.

Velocity 2X

The original Velocity, a PlayStation Minis title, put Brighton-based developer FuturLab well and truly on my radar. Blending an Amiga-style aesthetic with some modern, interesting gameplay, Velocity was something I hadn’t really come across before: a puzzle-shmup. It combined elements of vertically-scrolling shoot ’em ups with the mind-frying dimensional manipulation of games like Portal to create something enormously enjoyable, very distinctive and hugely addictive. I liked it so much I played through the whole thing again when they rereleased it with enhanced visuals on Vita under the name Velocity Ultra.

So it’s fair to say that I was very much intrigued by the possibility of a sequel, particularly after I had the opportunity to get my hands on an early version at the Eurogamer Expo a while back, and test-drive the new side-scrolling platform sections. When the full game finally came out, I was delighted to discover that it very much lived up to its potential — and that even more so than its predecessor, it was a game that continually “evolved” the further through it you went, with each new level gradually introducing new mechanics to the player until the game you’re playing in the latter stages is almost unrecognisable from how it was at the beginning.

It has a lovely aesthetic, some excellent music and some supremely tight controls — utterly necessary for a game so focused on speedrunning as this. It’s a great addition to the PlayStation Vita’s library of more “quick-hit” games that are good for pick-up-and-play fun when you have a few minutes to spare — seriously, fuck 95% of mobile phone games nowadays — and it’s a supreme challenge for even the most skilled gamers out there.

Assault Android Cactus

I’m not sure this counts, given that it feels like it’s been in development forever and is still in Early Access, but I’ve certainly played it a whole bunch this year and really enjoyed it. Moreover, it’s been wonderful to see how the game has continued to grow and change as its development continues — not to mention the fact that its small development team are lovely people who are a pleasure to talk to, also.

Assault Android Cactus, even in its unfinished state, is an extremely solid take on the twin-stick shooter genre. Taking inspiration from Japanese bullet-hell shooters as much as more Western shmups such as Geometry Wars, Assault Android Cactus features an array of unique characters, each of whom have their own distinctive ways of attacking and fending off enemies. Some are conventional enough, others are… less so. For some players, it’ll be a matter of pride to master the more offbeat characters like Aubergine; for others, they’ll want to chase high scores with the more “traditional” characters like the eponymous heroine Cactus.

Assault Android Cactus benefits from a clear and easily understood scoring system — something which many of its Japanese influences cannot boast! — and there’s a strong emphasis on chasing the elusive “S+” rank for each level by attempting to chain all your kills together into a single combo while avoiding death. This is easier said than done on some levels — particularly the challenging boss encounters, which will give even the most seasoned veterans of the 8- and 16-bit era a run for their money.

I’m really looking forward to the finished version of this great game… and I’m especially looking forward to being able to take it on the go with me thanks to the upcoming Vita version!

Demon Gaze

I’m not going to pretend Demon Gaze is the best RPG I’ve ever played, but I have to give it an enormous amount of credit for getting me into a subgenre of RPGs that I’ve never really “clicked” with: the grid-based dungeon-crawler, or “gridder” to some.

Demon Gaze was enjoyable and unusual. Its Vocaloid-heavy soundtrack gave it a very distinctive audio-visual aesthetic, while its environments were varied and a lot of fun to explore. The Demon’s Souls-style online features, whereby other players could leave messages on the floor for you to discover, were a lot of fun and occasionally helpful, even amid all the distinctly… inappropriate messages that were also left adorning the dungeon floor at times. The level design was wonderful, making use of simple but effective mechanics like one-way doors, forced movement panels, floors that damaged you and other staples of the genre to create some challenging levels that taxed your brain. And the combat, although simplistic, was enjoyable and nicely streamlined.

It had a surprisingly enjoyable story, too. My past experience with dungeon-crawlers is that they’ve tended to skimp a bit on the narrative front, which is one of the things I tended to find most offputting — I’m a narrative junkie, after all. Demon Gaze, however, managed to strike a good balance between the mechanics-heavy dungeon crawling and the somewhat fantasy soap opera-esque happenings that went on back at the inn any time you accomplished something significant. The memorable cast of characters with whom you’d interact between forays into the dungeons more than made up for your custom-created party members’ relative lack of personality, though pleasingly, the game at least made an effort to incorporate said party members into “background narration” of numerous scenes just so they didn’t feel completely irrelevant to the narrative as a whole.

It was a challenging game, too, though arguably a little inconsistent with its difficulty level. It starts incredibly tough, gets much, much easier as you level — so much so that I had to whack up the difficulty level to its highest to have any sort of challenge whatsoever — and then gets monstrously difficult again right at the end, particularly if you choose to pursue the optional post-game extra ending, which you really should if you want to say you’ve had the full experience.

Demon Gaze was definitely one of my biggest surprises this year, and it makes me much more inclined to seek out other dungeon-crawlers in the future — something I wouldn’t have thought to do prior to giving it a shot.

—

More to come in the next few days.

1794: Oppai Fightin’

Alongside Senran Kagura Bon Appetit, which I talked about a bit yesterday, I’ve also been playing some Senran Kagura Shinovi Versus. I haven’t delved into it particularly deeply so far, having only played through three of the Hanzo girls’ short mini-arcs (effectively an “arcade mode” of sorts, challenging you to complete five stages of gradually increasing difficulty in succession while working through an eminently silly side story) and spent far more time than I’d care to admit gambling in-game currency on the “Lingerie Lottery”, but I’ve enjoyed what I’ve played so far.

The thing I liked about Senran Kagura Burst on 3DS is that it was a thoroughly modern take on Streets of Rage-style brawlers — you know the kind: walk from left to right punching things in the face and trying not to get punched in the face yourself. I was a little worried about Shinovi Versus, to be honest; I liked the simple but satisfying button-mashy gameplay of Burst so much that I was concerned the shift to 3D wouldn’t be quite as enjoyable to play, what with those pesky extra degrees of freedom to worry about.

Turns out I needn’t have been too worried. While the 3D gameplay does have its own idiosyncrasies — the camera can be a pain on occasion — at heart, it still feels very much like Senran Kagura. That means obscenely huge… combos (it’s not at all unusual to see combo counts numbering into the hundreds or thousands — though with the more sprawling nature of most stages now, it’s significantly more challenging to chain one long string of connecting attacks together without a break), single characters wading into swarms of enemies and punching them into orbit, special moves that range from the faintly plausible to the utterly ridiculous and, of course, ninja girls fighting until each others’ clothes fall off.

Senran Kagura Burst felt a tad button-mashy at times, with the Hanzo girls in particular suffering a little from the “hammer the light attack button” syndrome. To be fair, as the girls levelled up, new combos became available that often required you to carefully time your use of the heavy attack button as well as the light attack, but for the most part you could get through a lot of the game with a single button.

Shinovi Versus initially feels a little like this, but try a few different characters and their differences start to become apparent. Poster girl Asuka is very much of the “hammer the light attack button” mould and consequently is suggested as a beginners’ character, for example, while Hanzo’s resident adorable character Hibari serves up an array of difficult-to-use but effective close-range slap and kick attacks, plus the strange little quirk that it’s actually quite tricky to get her out of the air and back onto solid ground once she’s up there, thanks to the fact that her aerial light attack appears to cause her to trampoline up and down on whoever happens to be unfortunate enough to be underneath her.

Your opponents are more than simple damage sponges, too. They block, they parry, they counterattack and you need varying approaches to even get near them in some cases. Unlike Burst, there’s not really one simple strategy that will serve you well for the whole game; instead, you’ll have to assess the situation on the fly and determine whether you’re best off charging head-on, trying to get behind them, attacking them from above or waiting to counter them when they approach you. It makes for some enjoyable and thrilling battles that are a lot of fun to take part in.

I haven’t got far in the story yet but the early chapters of the Hanzo girls’ narrative appear to pick up nicely where Burst left off, with the group’s now well-established character traits now more evident than ever before. The rather quiet Yagyuu’s obsession with Hibari is kind of adorable to see, particularly as Hibari is a complete contrast to her in almost every way: Yagyuu is reserved and uncomfortable with expressing her emotions, even as it’s clear she genuinely loves Hibari, while Hibari is very loud, emotional and open with her affections. I can see there being some potential for interesting situations between the two of them as the story progresses, and I’m looking forward to seeing it.

So far it seems to be a worthy successor to a game I ended up enjoying a lot more than I expected — a game whose appeal goes far deeper than the fanservice and smut it’s primarily known for. It’s a fine addition to the Vita library, and a great example of how to use a recurring ensemble cast very effectively. I feel it’s going to keep me busy for a good few hours yet.

1793: Oppai Cookin’

Been playing a bit of Senran Kagura Bon Appetit! over the last couple of days as a precursor to delving properly into Senran Kagura Shinovi Versus. And I’ve been pleasantly impressed.

For those unfamiliar with the series as a whole, here’s a breakdown: Senran Kagura Burst on Nintendo 3DS was the first game in the series released in the West, encompassing what were two separate releases in Japan: Senran Kagura: Skirting Shadows, and Senran Kagura Burst, which incorporated the story of Skirting Shadows and another full story with the five “antagonist” characters from the original. The two stories run in sort-of parallel — there are a few differences in terms of the events which occur, but they end up in the same place and conclude with the same events from different perspectives. The game itself is a modern-day take on brawlers like Streets of Rage and its ilk: you run from one end of a level to the other, beating up groups of enemies in order to proceed, occasionally squaring off against bosses.

Vita installment Senran Kagura Shinovi Versus is regarded as a “spinoff” — the numbered sequel Senran Kagura 2 is a 3DS title — but it follows on from the events of Burst and introduces numerous new characters as well as following the stories of the original cast further. It’s still structured like an old-school brawler, but this time gameplay is in full 3D, lending the gameplay a feel somewhere between Streets of Rage, Dynasty Warriors and Power Stone.

Bon Appetit, meanwhile, is a “true” spinoff in the sense that it’s not intended to be “canonical” to the main storylines of the other games, which are all fairly serious affairs about what it means to be a ninja, and how difficult it can be to grow up with all manner of difficult responsibilities and expectations thrust upon you. Bon Appetit, conversely, is about cooking, boobs and arses. Pairs of girls from the previous games pair off and engage in a cooking battle against one another, represented as a rhythm action music game played over the course of three rounds, with the loser of each round suffering the indignity of damage to their clothing — the iconic feature of the series as a whole is clothing destruction — and a comprehensive drubbing resulting in being stripped completely naked, covered in tactfully-placed whipped cream and chocolate sauce in order to pose provocatively atop the world’s largest cake.

Bon Appetit has absolutely no shame whatsoever, and it’s immensely enjoyable as a result. It’s lewd and it’s rude, but it’s also a lot of fun to play, feeling very much like PS1-era rhythm games such as Parappa the Rapper and its ilk. There’s a decent selection of catchy tracks — all originals, once again calling to mind PS1-era music games, particularly those with “character songs” such as Bust-a-Groove — and these vary from the fairly straightforward to the extremely challenging, with the two-lane note charts often being composed in such a way as to deliberately confuse you, a process made significantly easier by the backdrop occasionally being filled with giant gyrating bottoms and titties, particularly if you hit the single “heart” note in the song correctly.

In many ways, Bon Appetit is absolutely indefensible. It’s pretty much fanservice in its purest form — in fact, it’s striking a double fanservice whammy by being a particularly fanservicey game in a series already notorious for its fanservice — but in being this way it’s doing exactly what it sets out to do: to provide a fun, silly and enjoyable opportunity to play with a cast of characters who are genuinely beloved by many in a context significantly far removed from their normal situations. The game states up front that it’s not intended to be taken seriously, but manages to provide the player with an addictive and strangely compelling experience in the process, even once the initial appeal of “life and hometown” wears off.

So whatever you may find yourself thinking of it after what I’ve written above, I’m having an absolute blast. And you know what? I think I’m going to go and play a bit more right now.

1790: The Second Re;Birth

I was surprised and dismayed to discover that Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth2 is out in January. Or at least, it was supposed to be: the European version has apparently been delayed by a week, with the physical release (yes! Unlike the previous installment, this one is apparently getting a retail release) now coming on February 6 and the digital version coming slightly later on February 11. So says Gematsu.

I’m dismayed not because I don’t want more Hyperdimension Neptunia goodness to feast on, but rather because I didn’t know that Re;Birth2 was coming quite so soon — although in retrospect, Re;Birth1 has actually been out for quite a while already, and I just took my sweet time over finishing it. I’m also somewhat dismayed due to the fact that Hyperdevotion Goddess Noire, a spinoff strategy-RPG take on the series starring my favourite character (the eponymous Noire) is, according to a good friend, coming in February — though with Re;Birth2 being delayed a week in Europe I wonder if this will affect Noire too.

I’m actually very curious to see how Re;Birth2 is treated. Re;Birth1 was an obvious massive jump from the original Hyperdimension Neptunia, with a completely rebuilt game system based on that seen in Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory, the third game in the series on the PlayStation 3 and, until Re;Birth1 came out, the best installment by far.

Re;Birth2, meanwhile, is a game that is a remake of a title that was much better in the first place. Hyperdimension Neptunia mk2 was a lot closer in execution to what would become Victory; its battle system is similar (though not identical) and its game structure is, again, much more like what we see in Victory and Re;Birth1.

This leaves the story as the main thing that will probably be worked over. I enjoyed mk2’s original story; it was perhaps a little heavy-handed at times with its anti-piracy message — even more so than the original game — but it featured some entertaining and adorable characters getting into a variety of scrapes, including some surprising and even quite disturbing situations. (The “Conquest” ending of mk2 is particularly notorious for not only being a “bad” ending that takes significantly more effort to get than the “true” ending, but also for taking a turn for the seriously grimdark in comparison to the rest of the game’s candy-coloured shenanigans.) I find myself wondering whether it’s going to have as significant of a rewrite as Re;Birth1 did, or if it’s simply going to be revamped in terms of presentation — unlike other installments in the series, which used gorgeous 2D character art in dialogue sequences, mk2 used 3D polygonal models that looked significantly inferior to the 2D artwork.

I also find myself wondering whether or not there will be such a strong focus on Neptune’s sister and mk2’s protagonist Nepgear this time around; subsequent installments in the series have made a joke over Nepgear being “boring” in comparison to the lively, spunky Neptune and the poor girl — actually one of my favourite characters, since she’s just so adorably earnest about everything — frequently ends up the butt of everyone’s jokes.

I realise a lot of these questions are probably already answered by people who have played the Japanese version, but I’ve been doing my best to remain unspoiled and have so far succeeded. I’ll be very interested to see the new game when it arrives, and I’ll most certainly be continuing to support the series with my hard-earned money and play time. So bad luck, reader; you’ll almost certainly be hearing more about it early in the new year!

1783: Nurse Nep-Nep

I’ve been off work ill for the last three days, and not the fun kind of ill where you can just lie in bed and have people bring you food and drink without really having to “suffer” very much. No, I’ve had a rather unpleasant stomach bug of the — if you’ll pardon the graphic detail for a moment — “I need to go to the toilet roughly every half an hour and now my arse is burning with the fury of a thousand angry suns” variety. And it doesn’t seem to have shifted itself just yet, which means I’m probably in for another rough night if the noises my stomach is currently making are anything to go by.

But I digress somewhat; taking the time off to recover has allowed me to catch up on some handheld gaming, because we all know handheld gaming is the best gaming when you’re ill, because it’s easily portable for those circumstances like, say, when you need to urgently rush to the toilet to fire off another salvo of acidic excrement that would probably make a pretty solid special move in combat were it not for the searing pain it temporarily inflicted on the origin point.

Um. Anyway. Yes. Handheld gaming. Specifically, I took the opportunity to try and beat Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth1, which I’ve been playing for a while now. Like most Neptunia games, I found myself not really wanting it to end, but I also eventually reached a point where I was running out of things that it was possible to do in a single playthrough, and so I powered on to the ending, beat the final boss, saw the credits (which, in typical Neptunia tradition, are accompanied by a glorious, lovingly rendered pixel-art, game-style synopsis of what you’ve just played) and promptly started a New Game + with a mind to cleaning up the last few Trophies I hadn’t quite finished off. Specifically, I had four characters to recruit — Nepgear, Uni, Rom and Ram, the four “CPU Candidates” who were originally introduced in Hyperdimension Neptunia mk2 — and 100 million Credits to acquire via some means, but I decided to take a momentary detour to the game’s optional “Colosseum” mode to fight some tough battles with the promise of various characters’ ultimate weapons as a reward.

And hoo boy. Ultimate is the word. Rather than the gradual creeping up of stats that most weapons provided over the course of the normal game, the various characters’ ultimate weapons boost their stats by a ridiculous degree, making even the toughest bosses melt like butter beneath your relentless onslaught. Couple this with the Celestia Bangle armour that you get for beating the game with the True ending — only one, sadly; if you want more you need to beat it multiple times — and you have a nigh-unstoppable fighting force.

Or so you’d think, anyway; pleasingly, even when geared up with this array of “best in slot” equipment, there are still plenty of stiff challenges throughout the game — challenges that were simply insurmountable when tackled with regular equipment, but which merely become quite difficult when equipped to the max in this manner. In the meantime, it becomes possible to hack and slash through the main story in a couple of hours (assuming you’re skipping dialogue sequences) rather than the 55 hours or so it took me to beat it the first time — with story bosses that once proved a roadblock to progression falling after just one or two attacks in most cases. Eminently satisfying.

This is something that developer Compile Heart is good at, in my experience; while the difficulty curve throughout the game may be more of a pit of spikes of varying height on your first playthrough, breaking through the initial barrier and coming around for a second pass gives you a glorious feeling of power and supremacy over almost everything in the world — though there’s still the odd enemy here and there that is more than willing to knock that cocky smile off your face if you’re getting a bit too confident.

So far my post-game cleanup is going well; I’ve just unlocked Nepgear and almost have enough MB left to unlock either Uni or Rom and Ram (they come as a pair) by the end of this second playthrough. Then the only thing left is a whole lot of fighting one of the toughest foes in the game in the hope of acquiring 100 million credits. After that, I’ll be happy to add Re;Birth1 to my list of “100% completed” (or at least Platinum trophied) games — a sure sign that I’ve had a blast with it.

Bring on Re;Birth2, then, I’m almost ready!

1768: Four Goddesses

Having beaten Senran Kagura Burst recently at last, I’ve been turning my attention back to Vita title Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth1, the “remake” of the original Hyperdimension Neptunia — a series that I first discovered in January of last year and promptly fell head-over-heels in love with.

I put the word “remake” in inverted commas because to call Re;Birth1 a remake is to do it something of an injustice. This is a complete and total overhaul of the game from top to bottom — graphics, gameplay, mechanics, story, characters, music, everything. In essence, it’s a completely new game that even those who played and enjoyed the original — I know there’s some of you out there, even though it was the weakest in the series by a very long shot indeed — can get a huge kick out of.

All of the above said, Re;Birth1 does also recycle a whole ton of material from previous two games Hyperdimension Neptunia mk2 and Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory — principally dungeon aesthetics and layouts, monsters and music. Consequently, those of you who played mk2 and/or Victory will probably find a lot of familiar material in Re;Birth1 but that’s not actually a bad thing; the comfortable familiarity of the recycled material gives the game a feeling of consistency with its predecessors (for obvious reasons) while the new stuff that is included — no, it’s not identical to its predecessors — stands out all the more for being a big contrast to the material that’s been used in three games now. In essence, the game represents a refinement of the Hyperdimension Neptunia formula that developer Compile Heart has been experimenting with over the course of the previous installments and, while not completely perfect — a couple of minor elements from the previous games that I really liked have been ditched for Re;Birth1 — it is, by far, the definitive Neptunia experience, and a game that is beautifully designed for portable play.

Neptunia games have always been about two things: a silly, enjoyable, well-written and witty story coupled with some surprisingly compelling, grind-and-farm-heavy dungeon crawling. Re;Birth1 is no exception; its narrative retells the story of the original Hyperdimension Neptunia with a few twists here and there as well as a host of new characters, while there’s plenty of incentive to dungeon crawl thanks to its quest system and one of the main mechanical highlights: the sprawling Remake system.

Remake allows you to craft various things. So far so conventional, but unlike many other crafting systems, Remake allows you to craft game mechanics as well as items, weapons and armour. Finding the game a bit challenging? Dig up a programmer’s plan to weaken all the enemies and hack it into the game to make things a bit easier for yourself. Want to find the hidden treasures more easily? Build your own treasure scanner to enhance the minimap. Annoyed at that age-old RPG problem, “You Failed to Escape”? Craft yourself the ability to escape from battle with a 100% success rate.

Of course, all this makes it sound a lot easier than it actually is; to complete these plans you’ll have to first of all find the plan in the first place — they can be anywhere from inside treasure cubes in dungeons to held by various NPCs around the world map that pop up after every major story beat — and then collect all the ingredients, most of which tend to come from monsters. The game doesn’t hold your hand with this; if you want to craft a plan, you’ll have to figure out where on Earth you’re going to get all the bits from, though thankfully a straightforward dungeon and monster encyclopedia in the menu allows you to see which enemies haunt which areas, and what they might drop when you kill them — assuming they’ve already dropped it for you at least once. Through this system, you’re encouraged to explore the various dungeons and fight as many different enemy types as possible in order to fill out that monster guide — the more complete it is, the less you’ll have to look up on the Internet later.

The nice thing, though, is that it’s all completely optional. There’s no obligation to go fiddling around with plans at all — though your life will be significantly easier if you do — so if you simply want to plough through the main story as quickly as you can, that option is always open to you. Likewise, there’s no obligation to complete quests, unlock optional dungeons or kill boss monsters — though failing to do so may well leave you a bit underlevelled come story boss time, at least on your first playthrough.

As with previous installments of the Neptunia series, the game is absolutely dripping with personality. Each character is a clearly-defined — though often (deliberately) tropetacular — person in their own right, with many of them poking fun at established video game and anime characters. Indeed, a number of the new characters for Re;Birth1 are direct references to game series and developers such as Steins;Gate creator MAGES., Senran Kagura publisher Marvelous AQL and legendary fighting game series Tekken. Each of these characters is beautifully designed to encapsulate the very essence of the thing they’re supposed to be referencing; MAGES. wouldn’t look out of place in Steins;Gate herself, for example, and even has alternate colour schemes that directly reference the characters Mayushii and Faris, while Marvelous AQL has costumes based on the Senran Kagura girls’ iconic outfits.

It’s a cliché to describe something as a “love letter” to something else, but I’m going to do it anyway. Hyperdimension Neptunia has always been a love letter to fans of Japanese video games and anime, being packed full of references both obvious and incredibly subtle, and Re;Birth1 very much continues that. It’s a game that celebrates the joy of having fun with interactive entertainment, and I defy you to play through it with anything other than a huge smile on your face.

Except, of course, when Killachine flattens your party for the fifth time in a row because you didn’t prepare properly and ended up with everyone stunned and clustered together, just waiting to be cleaved. You don’t have to keep smiling then. But you’ll probably try again rather than flinging your Vita across the room.

My only trouble with it is that I don’t really want it to end. Although when those end credits do eventually roll, I can console myself with the fact that there are three new Neptunia games out there that I haven’t played yet — strategy RPG Hyperdevotion Noire: Goddess Black Heart, the rather Senran Kagura-esque brawler Hyperdimension Neptunia U and probably the most exciting offering: PS4 title Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory II, a game that, if I don’t own a PlayStation 4 by then, will almost certainly make me go out and buy one immediately the moment it is released.

Yes, I’m a fan. And unashamed of that fact. It’s a series that consistently makes me smile; given how much I love it now, it’s rather odd to (re)discover today that I’ve only been playing these games since January of last year. But I hope I’ll be able to continue enjoying them for many years to come yet.

1724: Remake Rebirth

You may recall a short while back that I’d picked up a copy of Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth1 for Vita and that I’d played it a tiny bit. Well, I’ve played it a bit more now, and can comfortably say with some confidence that it is probably the best Neptunia game yet — and also a fine entry point into the series as a whole.

The original Hyperdimension Neptunia was something of a tough sell. While its story and characterisation was a hell of a lot of fun — it’s what won me over and made me such a fan of the series in the first place — the gameplay was repetitive as hell and, while inventive with some of its mechanics, was highly flawed. I wouldn’t have judged anyone who put it down after a few hours, in other words, as I know that not everyone can overlook mechanical and technical issues purely by virtue of there being an adorable main cast doing a variety of silly things.

The two follow-ups — the confused timeline and alternate universes of Neptunia mean that they’re not “sequels” as such — completely overhauled the game systems to make them much better and more fun to play while maintaining the distinctive character that the first game had set in place. Until now, Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory had provided the definitive Neptunia experience — not perfect, by any means, but by far the most solid installment to date.

Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth1 builds on the solid foundation of Victory’s mechanics and retcons them into the story of the original game. Only the story and characterisation have been revamped too. And the game frequently pokes fun at itself for being a remake.

In other words, far from being a simple makeover of the first game, Re;Birth1 is very much a new Neptunia game well worth playing in its own right.

And you can tell that the Neptunia team has had quite some time to refine their craft by now. Many of the series’ trademark quirks are still present — the dungeon designs are still somewhat repetitive (many, if not all, seem to be copy-pasted from mk2 and Victory) and there are some characters, enemies and abilities that just appear to be flat-out unbalanced (possibly deliberately so, I might add) — but numerous nips and tucks have been made here and there to make it overall a very positive experience.

Victory’s heavily random number generator-based Scout system is out the window, for example. This was the main means through which you unlocked “hidden” dungeons, enemies and items in Victory, and it could be a right old pain in the backside. Instead, Re;Birth1 replaces much of its functionality with the “Remake” system, in which you can craft various Plans in order to put new items in the shops, unlock new dungeons, add new enemies and add new gatherable items. There’s still a slight element of RNG in play in that you need enemies to actually drop items you need to craft these plans, but it doesn’t encourage save-scumming in the same way that Victory did.

Outside of gameplay, the writers (and localisers) have been honing their wit to a sharp point, too. Neptunia has always been a superb, on-the-nose satire and parody of both the games industry and modern anime, and Re;Birth1 is no exception. The original game, while amusing, featured a few jokes that felt a bit “forced” along the way; Re;Birth1’s script, by contrast, flows much more nicely while still containing plenty of amusing references for those who know what to spot.

The biggest highlight for me, so far, though, has been how the relationships between the characters are depicted. There’s a much stronger feeling that, after several games now, the writers have a strong feeling of who these characters really are and how they relate to one another. The banter between them is natural and enjoyable to witness, and those who have been fans since the beginning will doubtless enjoy certain friendships and rivalries explored in much greater detail than ever before.

I’ve still got a long way to go in the game yet, but I’m having a real blast; as with mk2 and Victory before it, I’m having a lot of fun just wandering around, getting into fights with the variety of silly enemies (many of which are themselves game references) and grinding for experience and abilities. It’s a game that’s fun to take at your own pace — you could charge straight through the story if you see fit, but there’s a lot of fun to be had on the side, too, and I intend to enjoy every minute of it.

So I think that’s what I might go and do before I drop off to sleep. Nepu-Nepu!

1695: Goodbye Despair

My copy of Danganronpa 2 showed up today. I haven’t cracked it open yet, because I’m not sure I’m quite awake enough to appreciate its dark charms right at this second — and also because I have several other games on the go right now, too. But it’s a game I’m particularly excited about, largely because the first game was so good. So let’s talk about it.

There may be spoilers ahead. I’ll try and keep them to a minimum, though.

Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc (the first game) came out of nowhere for me. Originally a PSP title, it didn’t get localised into English officially until the new(er) Vita version, courtesy of NIS America. I’m thankful that we did get it eventually — plus somewhat surprised that it’s one of the few Japanese games that made it over to the West that was acknowledged and even celebrated by some critics. Why surprised? Well, because there’s a lot of stuff in Danganronpa that is usually torn apart by Western critics — particularly regarding attitudes to gender — and yet, for whatever reason, this time around, it was celebrated as an excellent game.

But what is it? It’s… well, it’s a little strange, to be honest. It’s sort of a visual novel, but there’s more to it than that. There’s freeform exploration and conversation as you investigate several different murder mysteries, then every so often the game turns into an even more chaotic take on Ace Attorney’s courtroom sequences as you solve puzzles and pick out truths with your metaphorical “truth bullets”.

Trigger Happy Havoc was bold, energetic and striking. Its colourful pop art-style visuals (with a peculiar but effective “2.5D” pop-up book-style aesthetic) were very distinctive and gave the game a unique visual identity, albeit one that wouldn’t look out of place in a Persona game. Its music was catchy, memorable and fit the action well. The voice acting was excellent in both English and Japanese for once. And the writing was truly, truly excellent — with additional credit to NIS America for doing a great job with localising some difficult material in their own distinctive manner.

Danganronpa is a game you play for its story, and it’s a mysterious one that will keep you guessing throughout. Unlike many other murder mystery games, where it’s often obvious “whodunnit” quite quickly, Danganronpa regularly keeps you guessing right up until the truth is finally revealed. And the overarching plot that ties all the cases together follows this pattern, too; you’ll have plenty of theories about what’s going on by the time the “big reveal” comes around, but you might still be surprised by the truth.

Danganronpa is also a game you play for its characters, and they’re a truly interesting bunch. Initially positioned to the player as the “ultimate” in their respective specialisms, they all gradually reveal themselves to be complex individuals with their own goals, motivations and priorities. In other words, they’re not all very nice people on the inside, yet there are numerous occasions where you’ll be forced to ally with even the most objectionable of the bunch in the name of seeking out the truth. The game also isn’t afraid to kill off characters it’s spent ages building up the player’s relationship with, too, so don’t get too attached to anyone you meet; it’s probably safer that way.

Assuming Danganronpa 2 follows the pattern of its predecessor — and there’s nothing to suggest that it doesn’t — I’m in for a treat. If you’re yet to experience the unique joys of these fantastic games, then grab yourself a Vita (if you don’t already have one, of course!) and indulge in some thrilling murder mystery action.

1690: One Lunchtime with Velocity 2X

As promised, here are some thoughts about FuturLab’s new release Velocity 2X, one of my most anticipated Vita games.

Note that I am no longer a professional games reviewer, nor is this a review, and as such I am going to be thoroughly unprofessional and you are just going to have to deal with it.

Let’s begin.

Squeeeeeeeeeee.

Ahem. Sorry. But I feel it’s somewhat justified, because it’s pretty much the noise my brain made when I started playing Velocity 2X for the first time last night, and continued over lunch at work today. It is immediately striking in many ways — the delicious, sharp-edged, flat-shaded vector graphic-style artwork; the rock-solid 60fps frame rate (it really does make a difference in a game like this); the gloriously colourful lighting effects; the thumping, catchy soundtrack; the subtle little effects like parallax effects “in front of” the main play area; the lovely animation on Kai when she gets out of her ship.

This beautiful presentation is married up to a beautifully designed game, too. Much like its predecessor, Velocity 2X starts very simple and gradually grows in complexity as you progress, layering mechanic on top of mechanic until you have a level 50 that is virtually unrecognisable from level 1.

It’s not just the gradual growth that makes Velocity 2X a delight to play, though — it’s the sheer fluidity of it all. This is something carried over from the original game, in which skilled players could seamlessly chain together short-range teleports, bomb-flinging, shooting, avoiding bullets and collecting shinies to make it look utterly effortless. It’s entirely possible to do this in 2X, but the addition of the new mechanics makes it even more impressive when you can pull it off — particularly in the new side-scrolling segments.

And speaking of the side-scrolling segments, they’re a lot of fun. They require a certain shift in your thinking from the top-down, vertically scrolling nature of the in-ship gameplay, but they’re recognisably consistent, too. Kai’s “Teledash” move is an absolute joy to use, and before long you’ll be firing yourself through walls, flinging yourself high into the air and spraying bullets in a deadly arc around you without breaking a sweat. And, if the previous game is anything to go by, you’ll need the skills you pick up in the deceptively simple early levels much later in the game — only there, you’ll need to combine things together.

The pursuit of perfection is also present and correct in 2X. While it was easy enough to make it through the original Velocity without too much difficulty, scoring a “Perfect” rating on every level by collecting all the collectibles, scoring the maximum possible number of points and doing so was a lot more difficult. And indeed this seems to be the case in 2X as well — with the added twist that there’s a fourth category of things to collect — the “Rekenium Shards” Kai collects while on foot — to add to the mix. It’s challenging and addictive, and it makes you want to punch the air when you pull it off.

The whole thing is wrapped up in a much stronger story than the original game. The first Velocity did have a story, but it was very subtly told and a little too easy to ignore. When it’s possible to go through a whole game and not realise the main character is female, that’s perhaps a sign that you should pay slightly closer attention to the non-gameplay aspects. (Although fans of Metroid might disagree.)

2X strikes a good balance, though. The first time you challenge a level, you get a short bit of dialogue that helps to advance the plot and develop Kai’s character. On subsequent occasions, however, you’re straight into the action — no frustrating skipping over dialogue you’ve already seen. The story is quick, pacy and enjoyable, and supported by a considerable amount of “further reading” background material in the in-game Codex, unlocked through collectibles in the game.

So far I’ve had a great deal of fun with Velocity 2X, but I still have a long way to go. I’ve Perfected the first ten levels so far, and am looking forward to seeing how the game continues to develop. Perhaps most importantly, however, it seems like a great game to play at lunchtime, so you can count on my Vita being a fixture in my work bag for quite some time yet.