Also available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and Windows It is no secret to anyone who's read any of my reviews here that I'm a huge fan of the Hyperdimension Neptunia series. There's a reason my rating system uses "Neps." While the games themselves are usually solidly in the "average" tier, it's the characters and premise of personified game consoles that keeps me coming back for more game after game after game, and Neptunia: Sisters vs Sisters did not disappoint. It didn't surpass my expectations, but it also didn't fail to meet them. Idea Factory seems to have given the series a soft reboot of sorts for the 9th gen Playstation console. They remastered the remake of the first game with Neptunia ReVerse, and while this is not a remaster of the remake of the second game, it does take a cue from the second game by having the CPU Candidates, the little sisters of the main characters, taking the role of the main characters this time with Nepgear being the protagonist instead of Neptune. The story, however, is all new, and not only that, but this is, according to Gematsu, the first time that the CPU Candidates' models have been remade from scratch since the characters were first introduced. I'll be honest, I'm a big fan of Idea Factory, but that's more effort than I usually expect to see from them, especially from this series, so I was pleasantly surprised by that. The premise of the game is that the CPUs of the four nations of Gamindustri - Planeptune, Lastation, Leanbox, and Lowee - go to help handle some crisis on the PC Continent, but that continent ends up being swallowed up in some kind of dimensional vortex. Unfortunately, Neptune disappears into the vortex, too, leaving Nepgear as Planeptune's sole goddess. Not only that, but something called the Trendi Phenomenon is breaking out across Gamindustri, causing massive outbreaks of monsters which has pushed Leanbox, Lastation, and Lowee to the brink and effectively destroyed Planeptune as a nation entirely. Now it's up to Nepgear along with Lastation's CPU Candidate, Uni, and Lowee's twin CPU candidates, Rom and Ram, to unravel the mystery and save Gamindustri. Visually, the game looks really good for the series, and some of the enemy models are gorgeous, but it definitely doesn't even come close to pushing the PS5. It looks like a nice PS4 game. I haven't played it compare, but I bet if you put the PS4 version and the PS5 side by side, no one other than Digital Foundry would be able to tell the difference, and I'm not 100% sure even they would be able to notice. Still, though, Neptunia is a not a hardware-pushing or high-budget series, so for the price of the game ($50 MSRP if I remember correctly) and the precedent of the series, it's a pretty good looking game, and it runs at a pretty smooth and stable frame rate. Honestly, my only real complaint with the game is the side quests. Some of them are pretty reasonable, but others are insanely frustrating. Gather 15 of Item A. Okay, cool, that's fine, except that Item A only appears in crates. Crates only respawn when you leave and re-enter a dungeon, and there are only like 10 in each dungeon. You also only have a 3% chance of obtaining Item A when you break a crate in that dungeon. Or Slay 10 Monster As. Okay, well Monster A only appears in this part of this dungeon, and it only has a 10% chance to spawn. You have to kill everything in that part of the dungeon and then just wait for things to respawn (takes probably five minutes of waiting) and hope that one spawns. And then do that 10 times. Not hard, per se, but needlessly annoying. Neptunia: Sisters vs Sisters is not going to win any Game of the Year awards, it won't be remembered as a groundbreaking RPG, and it won't be lauded for its stunning visuals or riveting storytelling. That said, it's fun time. Annoying side quests aside - and I only found around a quarter to be super annoying - it's a cute, fun little game, and it's longer than I expected with my playthrough clocking in around 40 hours. It'll probably get a price cut fairly quickly or be available cheaper used, so if you're into waifu fan service, give it a go. My Rating - B |
I'm a teacher.And I like to play video games. I like to collect video games. I like to talk about video games, and I like to write about video games. During the day, I teach high school history; during the night, I spend my spare time gaming. Then I write about it. Archives
May 2024
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