Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory Review

Now on LSN!

The very, very beginning of Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory is a classic bait and switch. The four CPU Goddesses are engaged in a brutal battle royale. Neptune, in the tradition of the Hyperdimension series, loses with consummate ease: as is befitting for a character that is the personification of SEGA as a console maker, not a pachinko parlour empire. But it turns out—naturally—that Neptune and her four fellow CPU Goddesses were merely engaging in virtual combat in a videogame. Gasp! Spoiler alert?!

It sets the tone of humour for newcomers to the series, while also reassuring returning fans that very little has changed. Unfortunately, after this brief scene, the beginning devolves into a quagmire thick and suffocating with verbosity, overdrawn visual novel-style cutscenes, tutorials and fetch quests. To make matters worse, Neptune has been sucked into an alternate dimension where she lands on a doppelganger Noire and subsequently meets the Planeptune CPU from this alternative universe, Plutia.

Plutia is just as dim-witted, selfish and incompetent (and bizarrely likeable) as Neptune, which makes it very hard for poor Noire and the miniaturised Histoire to play the straight men when confronted by two characters who, on the vastly superior Japanese dub, have a combined age and IQ of twenty six (as opposed to the English dub where everybody does). Before other characters enter the fray and balance the conversations, and before one acclimates to the dialled up craziness of the interactions, the lengthy conversations are more intrusive than entertaining—of course, they can be skipped.

But to skip the cutscenes early on would result in less appreciation of the characters when the balance has settled, and thus to make one of the greatest aspects of the Hyperdimension Neptunia series incomplete. Though many of the characters can be almost insufferable in their comical, over the top childish vocal tones and constricted reasonings, if one has had adequate exposure to some of the more relatively obscure Japanese cultural oddities that (almost) disturbingly exist, then Victory’s accurate and ridiculous parody of myriad Japanese conventions becomes highly amusing and even addictive.

Addictive because, though unbelievably over the top, the series’ stories and characterisations are more than simply a parody. Victory, like the rest of the series, manages to successfully satirise the things it parodies, meaning that the story can be enjoyed as a ridiculous, completely vapid (reverse) Otome, just as much as it can as a humorous criticism of one. The jealous, overly affectionate interaction between the all female cast is not only humorous as a parody of some of Japan’s more bizarre erotic tastes, but also effectively engaging in and of itself. Perhaps not engaging as erotica, but certainly engaging as a brain dead soap opera.

Luckily—in the tradition of Tatsunoko—much of the cast of Victory remains the same, despite Victory being set in an alternate dimension some twenty years in the past. This means that Neptune, much to her simultaneous amusement and horror, mistakes the alternate dimension’s games for highly accurate indie darlings: successful pastiches of old school aesthetics—minus the irony.

Once the doppelganging cast is filled out, the havoc that Plutia and Neptune can wreak together is successfully offset by the less ridiculous supporting cast—including Nepgear who returns in the tradition of Rico in Killzone 3: simply to be chided and bullied so as to appease fans who found her to be something of a bore in mk2 (while also poking light fun at the fans’ criticism). The villains have just as much chemistry as the main cast, and play a more active role in the story than the villains did in mk2. And, just like the main cast, are a mixture of old and new faces: Arfoire and Pirachu both welcomely return. These two series staples are supported by the likes of a cross dressing mech stalker and a serious Japanese businessman, clad in a crisp suit who dearly loves and dotes on his mutant daughters.

Peashy, the other wholly new protagonist, is somewhat shallow by comparison to the other protagonists due to her young age. But her youth means that she is treated by the other protagonists as their adopted daughter, which adds an extra dimension to the dialogue and character interactions; allowing the other characters to develop, even if she herself does not in any great way. She also wears what almost appears to be a red testicle headband.

After the unbearable opening, the gameplay improves drastically. No longer is the flow constantly interrupted by cutscenes or tutorials. But, the number of tutorials was certainly necessary—the issue being their placement—for Victory’s combat system is wonderfully complex, and drastically improves upon mk2’s excellent, but flawed combat system. The most notable change is that once the CPU Goddesses transform into HDD Mode, they no longer leak SP—resulting in whole battles playing out in this powerful form.

HDD Mode raises the stats of whoever transforms, while also allowing them access to an alternate list of special skills that are generally improved or altered versions of their normal skills, but with even more elaborate animations. The vast majority of Victory’s boss battles are fought by default in this mode, and it allows for the boss battles to be all the more ridiculous and over the top. Both player and mob attack animations are lengthy, elaborate and often highly amusing—Kenji Inafune shooting lasers out of his mouth and eyes as a ship is a definite highlight.

In battles and dungeons, character models are drastically improved. Not only are they more detailed and look cleaner with less jaggies than in mk2, but the animation is smoother and there are less moments when the frame rate drops—though it still regularly does mid-special skill animation. However, in the slightly more detailed in-engine cutscenes that pop up now and then to complement the visual novel cutscenes, the characters’ thick, cartoon-like edges are riddled most distractingly with numerous jaggies, and most dungeon environments remain ripped directly from a low detail PS2 RPG—barely rendered in HD.

During combat it is necessary to move the characters about in a strategic manner: carefully placing them far enough apart from one another so that mobs cannot hit multiple members of one’s party at once, while also bunching them together for the sake of area of effect buffs, or to take advantage of bunched up mobs that can all be hit with a single attack. Each weapon has a unique area of effect and thus, when taking on normal mobs, it can sometimes be wise to use the weapon with the biggest area of effect, rather than the weapon that is the overall strongest.

The light strategy of using space and considering one’s immediate surroundings mid-battle adds a layer of depth to the combat that is often lacking in JRPGs. Normal attacks must also be carefully considered: X attacks do the most damage to a mob’s guard points (until a mob’s guard has been broken their defence is irritatingly high), Square does the most damage to a mob’s HP (to the point where breaking their guard may be unnecessary), while Triangle usually notches up the most combos, without doing much damage to either GP or HP but also resulting in the player receiving more turns than the more powerful X and Square attacks which result in a longer delay between player turns.

High combo attacks are also useful to build up the EXE Drive Gauge which can be used to unleash a devastating EXE Drive attack that can sometimes cripple a powerful boss in a single hit. EXE Drive attacks also mean one must consider one’s party setup: some EXE Drive attacks require certain partners in battle with the performer of the attack—or perhaps specifically out of battle and linked to the aggressor through the lily rank system. The basic attacks also gain a further level of complexity due to being player-made: there are three phases of attack for each turn, and each phase is based on the attacks that the player has applied to the button in question.

An extra attack is added when at least one EXE Drive Gauge is filled (the more powerful EXE Drive attacks and Ex Finishers—an extra attack at the end of a turn, or whole ‘nother turn—require multiple gauges to be filled to be used) in the form of Combo Skills, and these too are selected by the player. Although it’s usually a simple matter of selecting the attacks with the best hit count to damage ratio, it still adds another simple layer of complexity to proceedings, and pressing the attack button for each attack gives the combat a certain sense of genuine tactility.

Whilst wandering through the dungeons (mobs wander too; illustrated and avoidable within the environment) it’s possible to perform a symbol attack by hitting X. The party leader swings blindly in front of her, and if she hits a mob then her party gains the initiative in the ensuing battle. Conversely, if the symbol attack is mistimed and an attacking mob reaches the party leader pre or post-strike, then the mob gains the initiative and a full regiment of first attacks. If the party leader runs from an attacking mob and is hit from behind, then her party suffers the same fate. It’s a simple system which provides the dungeons with some tangibility so that it feels all the more like the characters and mobs are genuinely a part of the lifeless, JRPG dungeon environments. Mob designs are an amusing remix of Japanese gaming conventions, not limited just to JRPG monsters—Tetris blocks, Mario pipes and trading cards are amongst the dangerous roster of mob archetypes.

Further complementing the symbol attack is the supplemental Elder Scrolls-like levelling and achievement system. For everything that the party leader does within the environment of a dungeon (or during battle) she gains experience for with contextual stat boosts. Run a certain distance, and the character in question will unlock an in-game achievement—while also boosting her agility stat. It’s another minor addition that helps to greatly engage one with the dungeons, battles, and levelling and equipment systems. Which is necessary due to how rudimentary some of them actually are: Questing, crafting and the coliseum (battle powerful mobs in a controlled environment) all return as well as the addition of game development (a more canny form of crafting), but most of all of these side activities boil down to simple research and retrieve grinding. However, with the strength of the battle and dungeon systems, such simple and banal tasks can soon become hopelessly addictive.

In my foolish quest for the true ending I found myself falling well short of being able to defeat the final boss, despite all but breezing through Victory up to this point. The result was ten hours of studious equipment crafting and clever grinding. Truth be told, I went a little over the top in an addiction-induced mania because, once resigned to the fact that I was in fact inferior, the frustration of failure faded away and was transformed into an engrossing obsession with becoming stronger. Even the absurd scouting system was almost enjoyable, despite its frustrating and random nature: scouts are sent to dungeons through a menu system and return with items, money, or affect the dungeon in some way or other.

Tough and rare mini-bosses might be added to the dungeon upon the scouts’ return, or the experience points received by the player in the dungeon the scouts’ been sent to might be boosted—the scouts might even discover new and challenging dungeons! The issue is that to prompt the scouts’ return and thus the desired effect on any given dungeon, one must enter and then exit any dungeon of their choosing. This means that if one has a specific objective in mind for any particular dungeon (which is a necessity for achieving the true ending as well as for both forms of crafting, questing, and—to a lesser degree—grinding) one has to send one’s scouts to that particular dungeon, then repeatedly enter and exit a dungeon until the desired dungeon has been blessed with the randomly occurring required effect.

To make matters more tedious, not only are visual conventions for mobs oft-repeated, but so too are boss battles and even dungeons themselves. However, the context of the repeated boss battles is in the best tradition of American soap operas or children’s animes wherein each episode the same villains and protagonists face off in a slightly different context. The mobs, while looking the same, often have more powerful or slightly different special attacks so that even when facing what appears to be a simple dogoo, one must be on guard. And thus the seemingly tedious in the Hyperdimension series can soon reveal itself to be effortlessly engaging due to its irreverent sense of fun and whimsical wit. And—thanks to the wonderfully engaging combat system and complex interplay between the simple crafting, equipment, levelling and strategy systems—grinding through the same dungeon multiple times still manages to be engrossing.

Although it’s easy to get lost in the side activities, it’s just as easy to ignore them entirely (so long as one does not commit to the true ending) because, despite lacking in many areas (such as variety of dungeons and mobs) when compared to the polished standards of more mainstream JRPGs, one can quickly become lost in the storyline dungeons due to the excellent level and EXE Drive Gauge balancing. If one goes through a dungeon killing the vast majority of mobs (and who wouldn’t when the combat is so engaging?) then one‘s EXE Drive Gauge is usually filled, and one’s party is of the appropriate level to kill the end of dungeon boss. There are but a few moments when grinding is absolutely necessary.

Even so, despite Victory being generally easier than mk2 and the original Hyperdimension Neptunia, much of the hardcore spirit has not been lost. In the scouted out and optional high level dungeons, it’s an exciting feeling to venture into the unknown—taking on mobs levels out of reach and building up a full EX Drive Gauge in preparation for a feisty, ambitious and unknown mini-boss battle.

The Earthbound Papas (Nobuo Uematsu’s band) round out the package with a wonderful blend of synth pop and electronica to accompany the dungeons, battles and lengthy visual novel conversations and cutscenes. These conversations—as performed by the Japanese cast—are rich with a sense of genuine enjoyment on the part of the actors as well as a good natured sense of frivolity, both of which are easy to empathise with and thus squeeze all the more enjoyment from. In a similar way one can easily forgive some of the more glaring flaws within the game as a whole due to how irreverent, and exceptional everything good about Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory truly is. And the final credits sequence is once again a superb tribute to the history of gaming. What more could one want?