MegaTagmension Blanc + Neptune vs Zombies (PlayStation Vita)

Also available for Windows

Let me preface this by reminding (or informing if you're new to my gaming habits) everyone that I'm Hyperdimension Neptunia Super Fan #1. I fangirl over that series harder than anyone on the Racketboy forums past, present, or future. Keep that in mind as you read my review of this game.

This game is horse shit. There it is. I said it. This game sucks. "Oh, well, it's about school girls - who are goddesses that personify game companies - killing zombies in miniskirts because weeb pervs; of course it sucks." I mean, yeah, there's that, but I also enjoyed Hyperdimension Neptunia: Producing Perfection which is just a raising sim where the CPUs become pop idols. Okay, my standards really aren't that high when you've got cute anime girls (let's be honest, I'm one of those weeb pervs). And this has cute anime girls in SCHOOLGIRL outfits. Seriously. I should love this game.

But I don't. I own all 11 games in the series currently out in the West (and I have the 12th game pre-ordered), and I can honestly say that this is, without rival, the weakest entry in the series. The writing, first and foremost, is shit. I mean, you don't really expect a literary masterpiece from a series that is 110% fan service, but the other games were at least clever and made some marginal sense. This game is a fucked up kind of frame story where it's about the CPUs being students at a school and trying to make a movie about zombies to save the school by getting more kids to attend but then there really arezombies so they just film them actually killing the zombies for the movie and half the story is that while the other half is the movie script that Blanc wrote (which is an unmitigated and cringe-filled disaster). Like, it's not even the funny/endearing bad kind of writing like the entire House of the Dead series. This just hurts.

The other awful thing is the gameplay. If you've played Hyperdimension Neptunia U: Action Unleashed, then you know what to expect from the gameplay, but imagine a super gimped version of that. There are 12 "scenes," each of which have, on average, 6 or 7 "cuts" (basically chapters and levels, respectively), but each cut takes less than a minute to finish on average. I could have finished this game in its entirety in one 3 hour sitting even with the lengthy dialogue scenes. Imagine if Dynasty Warriors had about 80 levels, all of which could be complete in between 30 and 60 seconds and had between 30 and 50 enemies each. Now put a Neptunia skin on it. That's this game.

There are some optional scenes that you can unlock based on who you use in a certain level, but I never bothered with them for the same reason that I spaced this game out over four or five days - it was so fucking boring that I had to make myself finish it. It hurts me to tell yall what a steaming pile of shit this game is. It really does. You all know how much I adore this series and how hard (and obnoxiously) I push everyone on the Racketboy forums to play it. I don't like telling you guys to steer clear of this game because it makes the rest of the series look bad, but this game is fucking awful. Unless you're a hardcore Vita weeb like me and my buddy Exhuminator or are a Neptunia super fan like me, don't bother with this game. Play the rest of the series. Don't play this.

And truthfully, I can't even recommend my equally eroge-loving friend Exhuminator pick this one unless he finds it for less than $10, even with the anime schoolgirl miniskirts.

​My Rating - 2 Neps