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Genre: Action, RPG
Developer: IDEA FACTORY, COMPILE HEART
Publisher: Idea Factory International, Inc.
Release Date: Oct 23, 2018
Edited by KnightAvenger
If you’ve played a Neptunia game before, Megadimension Neptunia VIIR won’t really be bringing anything too new to players. Even more so if you’ve played Megadimension Neptunia VII, as it’s a direct remake with a few extras tacked on, such as the VR scenes.
For those new to the Neptunia series, this is a “love it or hate it” RPG series developed by Compile Heart and published by Idea Factory. It’s off-the-wall and full of humor, doles out a liberal dose of fanservice and breaks the fourth wall repeatedly.
The basic premise of the series is that the world (Gamindustri) is broken into several countries, and each has its own Console Patron Unit (CPU) or goddess who leads the country. The countries are all based on game console companies, such as Lastation (Sony Playstation). The CPUs gain their power from share energy, which is how much faith people have in their CPU.
This particular installment starts off by focusing on the main character, Neptune. She’s the main comedy relief of the game and a Sega-themed CPU. She’s accompanied by her somewhat more sensible sister, Nepgear, as they are thrown into an alternate dimension – a wasteland where they meet another CPU who is the only survivor, aside from monsters.
The game carries on from there with a variety of standard quest objectives, mostly clearing dungeons to get an item or continue in the story. In dungeons, you’ll walk (and jump) around, break objects, find items and attack or be attacked by monsters. Between dungeons, the story is told with visual novel style scenes (for the most part) and the occasional third person cutscene or CGI cutscene. The main parts are voiced but not all side scenes are.
The comedy doesn’t end with just the script. On top of Neptune’s brand of humorous idiocy, a talking fish being an important character and other similar comedy, even the enemies are a joke. You fight not just against the standard monsters but also visual novel screens, Mario-style pipes and more.
Other than the joke aspect, the battle system is a fairly standard turn-based style with a few nice features. You gain AP points as time goes on during a battle and can spend them on standard attacks, special attacks, or if you position yourself well, combo attacks. Positioning yourself perfectly can be a bit awkward at times, unfortunately, as facing an exact direct is difficult, but if done, then you can sometimes hit several enemies with one attack. You have a range which you can move about in for your positioning.
After you complete a battle, all health and status will be restored. I, personally, found that this makes the game too easy. I never really had much trouble even when skipping battles and using under-leveled equipment.
Graphically, the game isn’t anything amazing. It’s a slight improvement on the older games. I noticed a few textures out of place which just don’t appear as detailed as the majority. It’s nice and bright, though.
You may have noticed that I’ve barely mentioned VR so far. That’s because, despite the title and marketing of the game, VR is really a small section which feels tacked on, and most of the game was played on a monitor as standard. I’m, personally, very into my VR gaming and I’m happy that Compile Heart is adding VR content, but I wasn’t very impressed by it.
VR scenes were unlocked as I played, though. Some were accessed separately and some were played as a chapter ended. They weren’t really related to the rest of the game, just really there for extra scenes with characters.
I played the PC version on Steam with a HTC Vive. Graphically, the VR scenes looked like they were on the PSVR, so it’s disappointing that they didn’t seem to make any improvements for the PC version there.
Performance was absurdly poor with noticeable stuttering when making any movement, even on a high-end PC (i7 5820K, GTX 1080, 16GB RAM) which runs any VR game without much issue. There were also sometimes issues with positioning in the VR scenes. It didn’t really have any other features standard to VR gameplay, either, such as centering.
I would recommend Megadimension Neptunia VIIR if you don’t particularly care about the VR scenes and enjoy the type of humor that the game uses. As mentioned, this series does tend to be a “love it or hate it” one. There are little improvements which could be made here and there, but it’s, overall, a lighthearted and enjoyable game. That said, if Megadimension Neptunia VII can be found cheaper, it might just be worth grabbing that instead.
Pros:
- Fun, lighthearted comedy.
- Lovable cast of characters.
- No technical issues found in the main game.
Cons:
- VR felt like an extra and had many issues.
- Some textures could use improvement.
- Occasional issues with battle system and UI.
Eden gives Megadimension Neptunia VIIR a Drastik Measure of 7.5 out of 10.0 (75).
Many thanks to Idea Factory for the review copy.
Megadimension Neptunia VIIR is available on Steam for $29.99 (USD).
