Megadimension Neptunia VII (PlayStation 4) Review

Megadimension Neptunia VII does things pretty much by the book, as far as the Neptunia series goes: a zany meme-filled and self-referential plot, attractive personified videogame consoles as 'goddesses,' story-dungeon-story pattern, and a turn-based battle system that will leave fans in a familiar place. The actual game is broken into smaller separate arcs that all must be played through, focusing on a specific character… but largely things are unchanged. For fans that want absolutely zero deviation from this, they will likely be happy with the game, but based on ultimately thin narratives and meme humour can only go so far for so many games before its starts to feel tiring, which is what occurs here.

One of the most notable things is the graphics are a great improvement - the first time the characters are talking, its refreshing how crisp their anime portraits look. Small details and softly moving hair and clothes make these a great upgrade from ones in the past (albeit they were never bad, in the first place). The problem comes from this being on PS4, and uninspired dungeons and lack of graphical intensity makes this something that could easily have ran on PS3. Running through dungeons and dodging enemies, calls attention to just how simple everything looks. It is unfortunate that despite the jump to a new system, many of the problems remain, such as dull, lifeless dungeons. This rears its head as early as the second dungeon, where the inside of a train station looks as inspired as early PS2 3D games, with washed-out walls, no great visuals of any kind, and an extremely grating song that plays on repeat.

Neptunia releases have always been hit or miss, the first of which suffered from so many problem it was actually remade and completely overhauled later, and due to that, this is carried more on its premise than execution. Its premise is the idea that this is a fictional world where the goddess of the Xbox, PlayStation, and so on, battle for the people, and it is a novel and entertaining idea. The series has long tapped into this available pool of humour to generally good effect. A player who is a fan of JRPGs coming to this series for the first time would probably enjoy themselves, but for those that have played before there is nothing new under the sun and this fact becomes obvious rapidly.

The narrative in the first arc, for example, is about a nearly destroyed world where they must meet with the goddess and try to solve the problem of why nearly everyone is dead - a sober plot, which is quickly sidelined and rendered moot by the random humour and pointless ranting occurring frequently throughout. There is a fine line between serious plot and still maintaining a comedic element, compared to thrashing the plot due to over-emphasis on jokes, which this adventure clearly falls into. The series is not incapable, as demonstrated in Hyperdimension Neptunia Mk2, which threaded this balance to excellent effect. It is hard to sympathise or take anything seriously when talking about this apocalypse with nearly everyone is about how the world is dead, and then it is juxtaposed with 'hot spring scenes' and cooking up big dinners of pudding.

Battles are the same, for the most part, as well. On a turn, the player moves the characters forward and when within range can launch a series of attacks based on previously set attack patterns. The only notable difference is that there are 'formation' attacks, so flanking can be activated but is does not change things much. This section, like much of the experience, suffers hard from series burnout. Take, for example, the titular character, Neptune's battle cry of "I'll Nep you all up!" is pretty funny the first time, even the first several, but it is heard so frequently that it becomes an annoying reminder of the whole cut and paste job the series has become. At some level, fighting the exact same enemies the series had 7+ games ago stops being cute and starts coming across as incredibly cheap.

It is unfortunate that Neptunia VII is not better, because arguably this is one of the major JRPG series that is out in the West. What was once original becomes a generic clone of itself, as much of the humour has worn thin and there is little left to use as material. JRPGs are often enjoyed mostly due to narrative, and when it has become as trite as this, it becomes a chore to slog through an unremarkable combat and dungeon system.