"Virtually everything a JRPG should not be"
"Powerful premise, regrettable result"
"A case study in how not to design videogames, Hyperdimension Neptunia aspires to be a parody of the console war and instead winds up an unfunny joke"
If you peruse the reviews at GameFAQs, the above denotes the lower rated ones of the PS3 game Hyperdimension Neptunia. To be fair, I tend to ignore any reviews that are radically in favor of a game or radically against, often finding the middle of the ground reviews to be the most honest.
But you know, in the case of Neptunia, they might not be that far off. . .
If you're expecting a long post where I bemoan all the flaws of Neptunia and tell you how every moment from start to the game's ending was an excruciating journey, you're not going to get that. I played Neptunia for about 25 minutes: Long enough to see the introduction sequence, long enough to play through the first dungeon. Long enough to get acquainted with a few of the characters, and long enough to get a feel for the battle system. Have a look at it yourself:
While gameplay trailers can only do a game so much justice (or injustice), I'm wondering if you all picked up on some of the same things I did: The horrendously slow feel of the combat. The dull music. The bland, uninspired background. I was treated to a lesser version of this in the tutorial stage and quite frankly, couldn't bring myself to play the game much longer.
..In the end, yeah, that's all I really have for this post. A poster at BlueGartr who loves JRPGs as much (if not more) than I did convinced me to give the game another shot, but that will likely happen far, far into the future. The sad reality is that while the story of Neptunia might have kept me interested enough to play years ago, today it has to contend with numerous other games with much more engaging gameplay for my attention.
..And even if it didn't, at this point, I'd rather go through another play of Unlimited SaGa.
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