Review: Hyperdimension Neptunia (PS3)

ESRB: T (for Teen)
Genre: Role-playing Game
Developer: Idea Factory
Publisher: NIS America
Release Date: February 15, 2011

PASS

Editor’s Note: Despite the game’s “Teen” rating, it has some mature content that will be discussed in the review.

Just when I think I’ve seen everything I can in a video game; Gamefly recently sent me Hyperdimension Neptunia instead of Bulletstorm.  This game is the perfect example of the kind of sexist drivel that gives anime style art a bad name.  The game is rated “T (for Teen)” with several content descriptors, there is bad language, sexual situations and partial nudity in the first ten minutes of the game.  It should probably have been rated “M”.  Moms beware: the cutesy packaging is deceptive.

All that said, there is some professional looking artwork in Hyperdimension Neptunia.  The use of colors is eye popping and effective.  The costumes are – interesting.  But, the game has that creepy hentai style of pubescent (yet with developed breasts), that gets both fans and Japanese politicians all hot and bothered — presumably for very different reasons.  It is games like this one, that are being imported to the USA that would curl the hair of conservative anti-anime governor, Shintaro Ishihara.

The game’s presentation makes me wonder who the target market for this game was supposed to be.  Teens, I guess.  The problem with that is, teens that spend most of their time gaming get pretty good at it, and Hyperdimension Neptunia doesn’t have the gameplay to back itself as a serious RPG. JRPG fans would come down pretty hard on this mess, I imagine.  All JRPG’s usually get compared to Final Fantasy games and this one cannot even be compared to an older FF game.

For those who are into looking at cartoon/anime breasts, there is definitely more than enough of that.  It seems as if someone had tons of these designs for the women, and then a game was worked around it.  It is as if the gameplay was an afterthought.  The game is full of dialogue boxes with the characters: Green Heart, Blanc, Black Heart and Purple Heart showing off their cleavage, side boobs, and under boobs time after time, as the text goes on and on forever.  Even if you’re the sort of gamer to appreciate all the cleavage, you probably won’t be willing to sit through the endless amount of text as it goes on, and on.

Idea Factory’s Hyperdimension Neptunia is a brittle attempt to rag on the video game business and casts the big name game consoles as Goddesses at war. But, like an Ourobourous swallowing its tail, the game eats itself.

“Shut yer hole, thunder tits.” This memorable quote from the game is exactly how I would imagine a Goddess speaking, wouldn’t you?  The english voice acting, isn’t acting at all. The lines are read with a tone of incredulity, and vacancy. Why would my character say any of this?

Someone (or several people) either from Idea Factory, NIS America, or the script writer for the english dub certainly seems to be carrying several grudges. Someone came out with Hyperdimension Neptunia with an axe to grind. Even convention goers and video game players themselves get slammed by these console Goddesses.  The characters have merely been tacked on and used to fill out a JRPG template and not even a good one at that. Neptune herself was conceptualized from the unreleased SEGA Neptune,  which was planned for release back in 1994 and never made it to the shelves.  There is Princess Pear a character who must symbolize Nintendo’s Princess Peach, though the Nintendo Princess herself has never taken her clothes off.  Each of the game consoles is represented by one of these  under-dressed anime type girls: Purple Heart, for the never released Sega Neptune, White Heart (Wii), Green Heart (Xbox) and Black Heart(PS3).  And, of course the console war is on between these personified archons.  The war is for control of the planet “Gameindustri”.  Purple Heart has been banished to Planet Neptune (bitter at all Sega?), she has amnesia and has to collect Key Fragments from around the world.

The excuses for having the girls touching each other or strip out their clothing aren’t convincing.  One of the characters is dressed only in a few cloth bandages within the first fifteen minutes of the game.  The nudity is all fan-service; there are numerous crotch and panty shots. With its long lingering trailing camera pans over the the ladies chests and private areas, the game is a primer for video game sexism and objectification.  Heaven forbid that a teen girl were to get a hold of this nightmare, having been attracted to it by the female avatars or the RPG genre. There are numerous digs at White Heart or Blanc for being flat-chested; a common and hurtful type of bullying for girls.  Unfortunate high school females who develop late or never at all do not need a message like this in a video game. This aspect of the game is so insensitive and so mean that it may be the worst part of the dialogue between characters.

The story itself is reference heavy and the in-jokes don’t really work. The dialogue is shockingly terrible and there never seems to be a punch line.  It is all so awkward.  Some reviewers have said that they actually feel asleep. My reaction was irritation, bordering on throwing stuff. The cutscenes are stupid. The whole thing fails and is not really erotic. The female characters snipe at each other lewdy.  Playing this game was like watching an episode of Cheaters, with all of them contesting each other for dominance.

It isn’t just the horrible narrative, to use that term loosely.   Even worse, if that’s possible, are the game mechanics under the story.  The RPG aspect of the game isn’t very well done and again, you get the feeling that this was all thrown together without much care.  It is as if they were counting on consumers buying it based on the packaging, and then being satisfied that they got your money.  Most of the game takes place in the linear dungeons. They didn’t put much effort into those either. It is monotonous and repetitive. They over use the same textures and don’t do anything innovative there.  There is no area of exploration, so they saved a lot of money by not bothering with environmental art.  Boobs don’t grow on trees so why have them?

As you might expect, since there is no place to go, random battles pop-up constantly.  The battle system is reminiscent of an old PS One RPG, Xenogears.  It is all focused on the somewhat flashy, but very long attack animations.  Again you are given the feeling that the battles are unnecessarily long, just to test you to see what it will take to get you bored and quit.  It’s like the game is saying “Why are you still here?”  There’s puzzles, but nothing you haven’t seen before, and then there are enemies and then the boss battles, rinse repeat.

Even though there is a nurse with a giant syringe as her weapon, the healing feature in the game is broken.  Healing items cannot be used manually or used outside of combat.  Instead, healing items get assigned points and go off randomly in battle without any way for you to control it.  None of the characters are going to ever develop better powers.

There are many games from Japan that I have seen, and would love to see, get a port in English. Why this one made it through is questionable.  Sure, dating and sex are part of life but how it is discussed and in front of whom is always going to inspire debates and differences of opinion.  This game has some how fallen badly between the cracks; it is far too graphic for teens and it isn’t interesting or sexy enough for an adult to enjoy.

Hyperdimension Neptunia is one of the worst and most sexist, senseless and worthless games I have ever played. Do yourself a favor keep walking and pass on this heap.