Neptunia ReVerse (PS5)

In the land of Gamindustri, there exist four nations: Lastation, Leanbox, Planeptune, and Lowee. Each one is protected by a goddess who battles in a realm above for full rule of the land, this Console War raging for centuries… If the names for these things have seemed a bit off, it’s certainly intentional, since while this is the story of a fantasy realm, it is one based on video game consoles. Lastation, Leanbox, Planeptune, and Lowee are stand-ins for PlayStation, Xbox, Sega (by way of the cancelled Neptune console), and Nintendo (by way of the Wii), but while the turn-based role-playing game Neptunia ReVerse takes place in a world based around video games, it is not directly commenting on them, treating such references as a way to build new lore as well as feature a game world where characters can more reasonably comment on video game elements in their world since doing so is practically part of the setting.

 

Neptunia ReVerse is a remake of the first Hyperdimension Neptunia game meant to coincide with the series’s 10th anniversary, although with the series having produced one or more games every year since its inception, this remake didn’t seem to have too much time to do much beyond polish the look and throw in some goodies like a simple fishing minigame, extra playable characters who came from later entries in the series, and an Arrange Mode that is meant for returning players more interested in the gameplay than experiencing the original story. Neptunia ReVerse primarily follows Neptune, who after stumbling in the centuries long Console War ends up losing her memory and her goddess powers. Along with amnesia comes an incredibly fun personality though, Neptune herself one of the strongest elements of the adventure due to how silly she can be. While other characters in the game will be named for video game publishers or maybe acknowledge video game elements like how monsters and loot systems work, Neptune is a lot more direct in pointing out narrative tropes or design elements, sometimes perhaps doing it a bit too much in a short span of time but still providing a fun voice that also comes with a likeable personality beneath that jokey surface. Neptune can’t take the world seriously, but that also means she can punch through people’s doubts and fears with her optimistic search for fun, pulling people along and keeping spirits high so other party members can overcome their own issues. At first it can seem like she’s again laying things on too thick, outright criticizing scenes she deems too dramatic, but as the game gives more space for serious matters, it becomes clear her disruption is an intentional piece of what makes her the perfect protagonist for rounding everyone up and hopefully changing Gamindustri, because the Console War has moved into the background as a much greater threat could bring down the entire world if the game girls don’t find a way to get along.

The cast of Neptunia ReVerse will be what keeps you interested and invested in the adventure, mostly because of the humorous exchanges between members of your growing party and your growing understanding of who everyone is and what their dynamics are. IF, representing the game’s Japanese publisher Idea Factory, is a more straightforward adventurous girl who plays off Neptune and her adoring friend Compa well in the story’s early stages, but IF gets even more interesting when you meat Vert, the goddess of Leanbox, who dotes on IF heavily and IF is conflicted about her admiration for Vert and her more basic emotions of enjoying the praise and petting of someone who adores her. Noire, goddess of Laystation, can’t be honest with herself about how she feels about the group, Neptune all too willing to prod the girl to fluster her. Oftentimes, long conversations are practically a reward in themselves for clearing out a dungeon or defeating a boss, the writing pretty consistently funny even if not every character archetype is to your tastes. The scenes are often just barely moving models of the characters chatting in something close to a visual novel presentation, and it is a shame this remake didn’t take the time to do things like at least add in a picture or two of some of the sights the girls mention looking at that you can’t see. There are some scenes mostly meant to provide some provocative eye candy of the ladies, although even if the game’s self-admitted shameless embrace in showing off its attractive leads doesn’t click with you, they’re at at least written to be fun to listen to. A bit weirdly though, there are characters in the story that just seem to pop up and eventually join the party without having much of a reason to be there. You might get saved from a doomed situation by a character you know nothing about who mentions knowing Neptune from another dimension, this not relevant to this game’s events and simply a way to bring in some of the bonus and cameo characters named for other companies and franchises like Falcom, Tekken, and CyberConnect2. While some bonus characters are just handed to you, the ones that weave into the story feel rather out of place and don’t get much room to show off who they are or contribute more than a rare line or two in a cutscene.

 

Generally, while the girls of Gamindustri are what’s going to keep you on board in this RPG, the battling has some appealing elements as well. Battle in Neptunia ReVerse take place in 3D space, and on a character’s turn, they have a circle representing their movement range so they can approach enemies and attack from different angles. Attacks and spells can cover a specific area so positioning is important. You can have four girls in battle at once with each one having a back-up they can swap in, but different skills can motivate different strategic layouts. A character may be able to heal everyone in a space around them, incentivizing you to cluster people up, but boss monsters often are great at punishing all targets in a space, so you can’t do so carelessly. Factoring in the turn order to keep characters safe and trying to hit as many enemies with an attack as possible are common considerations, although sometimes lining up a sword strike or hammer blow to hit more than one target can be a bit fiddly in the free moving 3D space. Most of the time it won’t be too crucial to hit multiple foes at once, the player usually able to approach which monsters they want to fight in a dungeon and the dangerous threats are often very large and obvious. Your party does have a range of attack options though, even for their most basic of strikes. Once you start a standard attack, you can branch it off in a short combo to emphasize things like power, breaking through an enemy’s guard meter to make them more vulnerable, or dealing less damage in favor of the next turn coming sooner, and you can even customize which specific attacks enter these combos. On top of that, you have a range of attack skills and abilities that deplete your SP that is fairly hard to restore beyond leaving the dungeon or using limited items, but then there is also the EXE Drive. Fighting enemies will build up power for it, and as you start getting different layers in the meter, you can attach additional strong attacks as combo enders or spend that meter power on the strongest moves in your character’s arsenal. Add in the goddesses all being able to shift into more powerful Hard Drive Divinity forms, and when a battle with a special monster or boss arises who requires a degree of strategy, you can really explore the depths of this battle system.

Dungeons in Neptunia ReVerse are generally more stages for running into multiple battles than interesting locations in themselves though. You’ve got some fun gaming name references like the Neo-Geofront, Hyrarule Snowfield, and Halo Mountain, but they are mostly there to host monsters rather than provide navigational challenges. In fact, Neptunia ReVerse has no shame in reusing some dungeon designs across different areas, but since the monsters are new and the rehashed areas are often tiny, it’s not really bothersome. At towns in each nation you can pick up quests that incentivize you to take out specific monsters or try to get item drops from them, this tying to a Shares system that is important to getting the game’s best ending but also likely being the way you’ll earn most of your money, the Shares thankfully not much to worry about until you near the game’s end so you can embrace the other rewards first and sweep things up later. Plans though are an interesting element that encourage more frequent battles with tougher foes. Plans have specific action or item requirements to activate and you can only activate so many Plans in a single playthrough, some of these granting rewards like extra dungeons, equipment, or outfits, while others can be some bonus characters or even things like shifting the difficulty to be easier or harder. It can feel like Plan progress is slow unless you directly want to purchase specific ones and put in the work for it, and despite having extra content for replaying the adventure to get the extra Plans or face tough bonus bosses, the combat does lose some of its luster over time. While you can fight interesting monsters like pipes meant to look like the ones from Super Mario or floating screens showing a scene from a dating game, a lot of reuse of more standard monsters and even bosses can make the fighting seem repetitive. The story even has plenty of forced losses to bosses that usually reveal themselves a bit when you see your attacks are missing or dealing no damage, but needing to prod a boss to see if it is a doomed battle means you might delay setting up your useful powers or alternatively waste them before you realize the nature of the fight. It’s a little fragrant how often it whips out unwinnable fights too, but with a save point before pretty much every boss fight, you at least don’t have to worry about losing progress if you guess wrong on if the fight is even possible.

THE VERDICT: Neptunia ReVerse is all about its heroines, the delightful Neptune getting herself a lovable friend group of funny personalities where seeing them interact is where most of the game’s fun comes from. The sometimes repeated dungeons and recycled enemies and bosses do weaken some of the RPG side’s appeal, but whipping out all your powers intelligently against the tougher foes and bosses as well as working towards Plans or other rewards still gives the game side its own strengths. The battle system has enough complexity for when it’s time to step up and take a battle seriously, but it’s the hilarious and lighthearted interactions between party members that really make fighting through this adventure worthwhile.

 

And so, I give Neptunia ReVerse for PlayStation 5…

A GOOD rating. After ten years of games in the series, Hyperdimension Neptunia still knows the real appeal of the franchise lies with its heroines. Not only will this be pretty apparent by how the game shops and Plans shower you with ways to buy them new outfits even if it isn’t wise to spend your resources that way, but the RPG combat leaning on recycling so much could have been dangerous to the game if not for the delightful interactions that usually start and end each dungeon crawl. The gradual expansion of the cast is well handled, early allies like Compa and IF still getting great moments down the line, but the clutter of all the bonus characters who sometimes pipe in once they’re piled on to you later down the line does feel a bit sloppy. The extra characters are great additions to the battle side of things, giving you a wider range of attack types and options for constructing your party, but the weak integration of the side characters into the plot feels almost like it’s giving you false hope for even more delightful personalities in the friend group. The core characters shine as you travel about Gamindustri and come to understand them, the self-aware humor and fourth wall breaking just a part of the game’s broader sense of humor that starts to get better at not dwelling on any angle too long once it has the range of options to pull from. Neptunia ReVerse being sometimes faithful to a fault to the original game does mean it’s not going to be reaching for the stars with some fight designs or elements like dungeon exploration, and while it could be called a definitive remake, it doesn’t really try to reinvent the game’s presentation, losing some parts and gaining others. Despite some references forward to other entries, it does feel like a good starting place for people looking to get into Neptunia if you are at least somewhat aware that you’re getting into something that is both a first story and a tribute to some games that came after.

 

Treating video game consoles and associated companies and concepts as a cornerstone of a world’s history and lore is a fun touch, but Neptunia ReVerse is mostly about creating a lovable cast with personalities fit for bouncing off each other often. While in time you’ll probably forget the repetitive dungeons or basic battles, you won’t soon forget Neptune’s silly attitude and the way her lack of seriousness can draw out great reactions from others. You don’t get much in the way of heart-warming or heart-wrenching moments that could make for a truly deep story, but there’s a sense of simple fun in the characters and world design and some layers to the combat that at least make it clear that, while maybe having multiples new games a year for this franchise feels excessive, it’s definitely a series that could be appealing to return to from time to time to see more of what was established 10 years ago and gussied up a little bit here.