It's Nep-Nep time!
Cyberdimension Neptunia: 4 Goddesses Online was a game I was both excited for and worried about. On paper, it sounded really exciting: Hack 'n Slash Action-RPG in an MMO setting. But seeing videos of it in action, I had a different impression. Combat looked a bit stiff, graphics were rather poor, and gameplay looked repetitive. But I'm stubborn and I was prepared to buy and play through it. I was sadly hit with a ton of disappointments when I first started.
Things that disappointed me:
- The beginning is so long with lots of talking
- Environmental graphics were not that good
- Camera angles can be awful and the environment can sometimes block the entire screen
- Enemies looked cheap and lazy
- Combat felt stiff and clumsy
- Lots of revisiting areas (though I kind of suspected that from previous games)
- No exciting item drops like in a real MMO
But after about 6 hours into the game, things started to change:
+ I got the 4 little sisters, they're so much fun to play! AND THEY'RE SO CUTE!
+ More skills were added and combat suddenly got a lot more interesting
+ There are a lot of original music for once!
+ Revisiting areas and killing the boss over and over felt relaxing and somehow familiar
+ And then I realized it's very similar to Phantasy Star Online, one of my favorite games
+ Boss fights can be quite challenging and preparing my team for them is entertaining
+ Story took a different turn and it really got me into it
The familiar feeling of grinding and farming felt almost cathartic despite it usually feeling like a tedious chore in other games. The fact that it reminded me of the days of playing Phantasy Star Online is probably what got me really into the game. I finished the main story, then the MMO's game story, and stopped right afterwards because post game was mostly just grinding and farming to fulfill quests and I really wanted to move onto new games. It took some time to get used to, but learning how to dodge, parry, and use skills effectively really changed how combat felt. I liked arranging my party and leveling them up. Switching between the different characters and utilizing different skills kept the game from being monotonous. The character designs are great. Tsunako did a wonderful job. Bouquet is flippin' adorable! I really like all the new and different outfits the characters wore, especially after seeing them in their familiar attire for so many games in a row. The game has a lot of flaws, but it was well worth playing through and I had a lot of fun.
Showing posts with label Hyperdimension Neptunia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hyperdimension Neptunia. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 13, 2017
Tuesday, June 9, 2015
Hyperdimension Neptunia U and more Drakengard 3 Rant
[MORE SPOILER ALERT FOR DRAKENGARD 3]
After listening to the music a bit more, dissecting the words and meaning behind them, and pondering on the whole story again, Drakengard 3's theme goes a bit deeper than I had tried to explain yesterday. In my review of Drakengard 3, I mentioned the theme of "loneliness" a lot. What I failed to point out was how this actually affected all the characters. I've already mentioned this for Zero and Mikhail, so I think I can skip those. Besides the idea of being "alone", there was also the "sense of belonging" that leads to the perception of being "alone".
[The Disciples]
Dito - Dito mentions many times how he seems to hate the world and all things in it. He could never find companionship that shared his sadistic outlook for violence and inflicting pain. He abhorred his time with Five and at one point in the game mentions how he was "having the time of his life killing people and watching Zero slaughter them alongside him". It sounds messed up, but he seemed genuinely happy with Zero. Yet, in Branch D he switched sides to the resurrected Five to live his dream in a chaotic world of death and destruction. When he finally realized that he was about to disappear from summoning an angel without an intoner's song, he showed weakness for the first time. He cried out for Zero not to leave him, but there was nothing she could do.
Decadus - As a masochist, Decadus only wanted to serve one that can please him in the way he liked it: to be punished and consistently insulted. When serving Four, she was light on reprimanding him. But he served her faithfully and even wished to have himself killed after Four was slain. Zero captures him instead and Decadus humbly accepted to serve her until death. He seemed much happier with the party in tow as each member, other than Mikhail, verbally bombards him with insults as he moans in pleasure from them. Despite his weird ways, Zero does say that he's "been nothing but a perfect gentleman to her". Zero seemed to have enjoyed his company and Decadus evidently liked being part of the group. Out of all the disciples that leave in Branch D, Zero looked most pained to see Decadus go.
Octa - His entry into the party was one most unexpected. He shows up looking like he was about to start one huge boss fight, only to drop his weapons and surrender.
Scene begins at 1:38
Octa had left because he wasn't satisfied with serving Three any longer. He felt he didn't belong there anymore. He claims that Three couldn't satiate his sexual desires any longer. Despite being a dirty old man (even though he claims to be 22), he was wise and perceptive. He often gave the most useful advice throughout the journey. He would also mention a lot about sex and having a never ending erection along the way too. But near the end of Branch D, when 3 of the disciples are gone, he says that he couldn't get an erection whatsoever. Perhaps he felt the group felt lonely without the others around. Perhaps what all the disciples wanted was a sense of belonging. Despite being a band of weirdos, they stuck together as a group.
Cent - The pretty boy without a brain, Cent often spouts nonsensical statements as fact when he probably just made it up on the spot. They made it a point to show how much of an idiot he is. The only time he seemed right in the head was when he's around Two. It seemed that Two and Cent were deeply in love with each other and that they were alone when separated. It did seem like Cent was the most disjointed from the group out of the four members.
[The Intoners]
Five - There isn't much to say about Five. She becomes obsessed with something and then immediately loses interest when she has it. Nothing really seemed to satisfy her.
Four - She felt that they all should stick together as sisters. She seemed to have all sorts of fond memories of Zero, but none of them seemed real. But to her, she felt like she belonged at Zero's side.
Three - She never seemed sane to begin with. She's like the black sheep of the family and didn't really have a place among the sisters. Almost like she was lost in her own world, she never really seemed to have any connection to any of the characters, including her own disciple.
Two - Deeply in love with her disciple Cent, she never seemed to function correctly without him. After the initial encounter with Two, the struggle of self conflict and sanity between Two and Cent is shown again and again in the alternate branches.
One - She is the only intoner that didn't lose her mind to the parasite's power and the only one that questioned their reason for being in the world. She figure out what she and her sisters truly were and soon fought for the same reasons Zero did. She was the only Intoner without a disciple and no one understood her motives. Ironically, the one person that did understand her was the one she had to kill: Zero.
Thinking about it all, I really liked the narrative of Drakengard 3. It's a shame that the rest of the game couldn't match up with the quality.
[Rant on Hyperdimension Neptunia U]
There isn't any spoilers for this game, because there's really nothing to spoil. I kind of wish they had fleshed out some sort of story for the game, but it's simply just a spin-off meant to take on the Action Hack-n-Slash genre. There isn't much I want to say about the game, but I wanted to talk a little bit about it. I was disappointed with it, but I somehow still enjoyed the game. I've completed the main game and didn't feel like I got much of an experience out of it, despite putting in 21 hours into it. The game does have end-game content, but I'm not sure what to think of it. The game itself plays a lot like Dynasty Warriors and/or Senran Kagura as it was made by the same developers as SK. The catch is that most of the levels are arena based (one small room) and require taking out a lot of enemies. The main gripe I have about the game is how confusing the balance of the game is. Low level quests were sometimes ridiculously difficult while some high level quests were actually not that bad. The recommended levels they listed don't seem to match up with what you have to put up with. Some of the worst scenarios I had to deal with is a room full of enemies that can do a string of attacks that stun you. When a group of enemies attack you in such a fashion, you will die because you'll be eternally stunned. It's even worse when those same enemies have so much health that it takes a decent amount of time to take even one down. I do appreciate the challenge the game provides over what SK games seemed to have presented, but it seems poorly balanced compared to the SK games. Perhaps this was a change to the North American version because many English speaking fans that played the Japanese version said it was so mind-numbingly easy that it wasn't worth playing. It took a bit of grinding, but I was able to complete the main quests by utilizing all the different abilities they provided so that I wouldn't die so easily. Afterwards, it unlocked four things for me: Cheat codes, a Chapter 4 quests, a Gauntlet tournament, and a tower. The Cheat codes can be unlocked by fulfilling certain requirements. What they are, I don't know. Chapter 4 quests give really high level and high difficulty enemies to fight against. The Gauntlet is really unbalanced. It gives items at the end (of which it didn't throughout the game), but the gameplay is so broken that it's not that fun. On Wimpy (Easy), enemies are defeated in 1-2 moves. On Decent (Normal), you die in one combo while they take minimal damage. On Pro (Hard), you do 1 damage each hit while they One-shot you. I'll try it more when I hit max level on my characters, but right now it's just farming for items on Wimpy mode. The tower I haven't tried much yet. It's just going up one floor after another to reach the top and fight the lass boss again. I can dare to say that the game is adequately entertaining for me, but I can't say that it's really worth $40. The game feels like it lacks depth and dynamics. What made SK really great was the flow between story and gameplay. HDN:U just seems to throw a lot of long-winded quests and then giving a few short conversations between the characters. I'm probably going to play it more just to get my $40 worth, but it's kind of a hard game to recommend. You'd have to really like Hack-n-Slashes in its bare core form or Hyperdimension Neptunia to enjoy the game.
After listening to the music a bit more, dissecting the words and meaning behind them, and pondering on the whole story again, Drakengard 3's theme goes a bit deeper than I had tried to explain yesterday. In my review of Drakengard 3, I mentioned the theme of "loneliness" a lot. What I failed to point out was how this actually affected all the characters. I've already mentioned this for Zero and Mikhail, so I think I can skip those. Besides the idea of being "alone", there was also the "sense of belonging" that leads to the perception of being "alone".
[The Disciples]
Dito - Dito mentions many times how he seems to hate the world and all things in it. He could never find companionship that shared his sadistic outlook for violence and inflicting pain. He abhorred his time with Five and at one point in the game mentions how he was "having the time of his life killing people and watching Zero slaughter them alongside him". It sounds messed up, but he seemed genuinely happy with Zero. Yet, in Branch D he switched sides to the resurrected Five to live his dream in a chaotic world of death and destruction. When he finally realized that he was about to disappear from summoning an angel without an intoner's song, he showed weakness for the first time. He cried out for Zero not to leave him, but there was nothing she could do.
Decadus - As a masochist, Decadus only wanted to serve one that can please him in the way he liked it: to be punished and consistently insulted. When serving Four, she was light on reprimanding him. But he served her faithfully and even wished to have himself killed after Four was slain. Zero captures him instead and Decadus humbly accepted to serve her until death. He seemed much happier with the party in tow as each member, other than Mikhail, verbally bombards him with insults as he moans in pleasure from them. Despite his weird ways, Zero does say that he's "been nothing but a perfect gentleman to her". Zero seemed to have enjoyed his company and Decadus evidently liked being part of the group. Out of all the disciples that leave in Branch D, Zero looked most pained to see Decadus go.
Octa - His entry into the party was one most unexpected. He shows up looking like he was about to start one huge boss fight, only to drop his weapons and surrender.
Scene begins at 1:38
Octa had left because he wasn't satisfied with serving Three any longer. He felt he didn't belong there anymore. He claims that Three couldn't satiate his sexual desires any longer. Despite being a dirty old man (even though he claims to be 22), he was wise and perceptive. He often gave the most useful advice throughout the journey. He would also mention a lot about sex and having a never ending erection along the way too. But near the end of Branch D, when 3 of the disciples are gone, he says that he couldn't get an erection whatsoever. Perhaps he felt the group felt lonely without the others around. Perhaps what all the disciples wanted was a sense of belonging. Despite being a band of weirdos, they stuck together as a group.
Cent - The pretty boy without a brain, Cent often spouts nonsensical statements as fact when he probably just made it up on the spot. They made it a point to show how much of an idiot he is. The only time he seemed right in the head was when he's around Two. It seemed that Two and Cent were deeply in love with each other and that they were alone when separated. It did seem like Cent was the most disjointed from the group out of the four members.
[The Intoners]
Five - There isn't much to say about Five. She becomes obsessed with something and then immediately loses interest when she has it. Nothing really seemed to satisfy her.
Four - She felt that they all should stick together as sisters. She seemed to have all sorts of fond memories of Zero, but none of them seemed real. But to her, she felt like she belonged at Zero's side.
Three - She never seemed sane to begin with. She's like the black sheep of the family and didn't really have a place among the sisters. Almost like she was lost in her own world, she never really seemed to have any connection to any of the characters, including her own disciple.
Two - Deeply in love with her disciple Cent, she never seemed to function correctly without him. After the initial encounter with Two, the struggle of self conflict and sanity between Two and Cent is shown again and again in the alternate branches.
One - She is the only intoner that didn't lose her mind to the parasite's power and the only one that questioned their reason for being in the world. She figure out what she and her sisters truly were and soon fought for the same reasons Zero did. She was the only Intoner without a disciple and no one understood her motives. Ironically, the one person that did understand her was the one she had to kill: Zero.
Thinking about it all, I really liked the narrative of Drakengard 3. It's a shame that the rest of the game couldn't match up with the quality.
[Rant on Hyperdimension Neptunia U]
There isn't any spoilers for this game, because there's really nothing to spoil. I kind of wish they had fleshed out some sort of story for the game, but it's simply just a spin-off meant to take on the Action Hack-n-Slash genre. There isn't much I want to say about the game, but I wanted to talk a little bit about it. I was disappointed with it, but I somehow still enjoyed the game. I've completed the main game and didn't feel like I got much of an experience out of it, despite putting in 21 hours into it. The game does have end-game content, but I'm not sure what to think of it. The game itself plays a lot like Dynasty Warriors and/or Senran Kagura as it was made by the same developers as SK. The catch is that most of the levels are arena based (one small room) and require taking out a lot of enemies. The main gripe I have about the game is how confusing the balance of the game is. Low level quests were sometimes ridiculously difficult while some high level quests were actually not that bad. The recommended levels they listed don't seem to match up with what you have to put up with. Some of the worst scenarios I had to deal with is a room full of enemies that can do a string of attacks that stun you. When a group of enemies attack you in such a fashion, you will die because you'll be eternally stunned. It's even worse when those same enemies have so much health that it takes a decent amount of time to take even one down. I do appreciate the challenge the game provides over what SK games seemed to have presented, but it seems poorly balanced compared to the SK games. Perhaps this was a change to the North American version because many English speaking fans that played the Japanese version said it was so mind-numbingly easy that it wasn't worth playing. It took a bit of grinding, but I was able to complete the main quests by utilizing all the different abilities they provided so that I wouldn't die so easily. Afterwards, it unlocked four things for me: Cheat codes, a Chapter 4 quests, a Gauntlet tournament, and a tower. The Cheat codes can be unlocked by fulfilling certain requirements. What they are, I don't know. Chapter 4 quests give really high level and high difficulty enemies to fight against. The Gauntlet is really unbalanced. It gives items at the end (of which it didn't throughout the game), but the gameplay is so broken that it's not that fun. On Wimpy (Easy), enemies are defeated in 1-2 moves. On Decent (Normal), you die in one combo while they take minimal damage. On Pro (Hard), you do 1 damage each hit while they One-shot you. I'll try it more when I hit max level on my characters, but right now it's just farming for items on Wimpy mode. The tower I haven't tried much yet. It's just going up one floor after another to reach the top and fight the lass boss again. I can dare to say that the game is adequately entertaining for me, but I can't say that it's really worth $40. The game feels like it lacks depth and dynamics. What made SK really great was the flow between story and gameplay. HDN:U just seems to throw a lot of long-winded quests and then giving a few short conversations between the characters. I'm probably going to play it more just to get my $40 worth, but it's kind of a hard game to recommend. You'd have to really like Hack-n-Slashes in its bare core form or Hyperdimension Neptunia to enjoy the game.
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