Title: Super Neptunia RPG
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Developer: Artisan Studios/Compile Heart
Publisher: Idea Factory International
Release Date: June 25th, 2019 (NA)
File Size: 3.2GB
Review copy provided by Idea Factory International
This is a spin-off of the Hyperdimension Neptunia JRPG series that was created by Compile Heart and Idea Factory. In an interesting twist, this is made by Artisan Studios, a new Quebec City in Canada-born studio. Where prior games were 3D, this is exclusively a 2D game. This is also the series’ debut on a Nintendo console after being PlayStation-exclusive (with occasional PC ports) for so long. How does this game fare on Switch? Let’s find out!
This as said is a 2D game. In some ways it reminds me of Fallen Legion: Rise to Glory which I also reviewed. It animates very similarly and are both RPGs, but play very differently. Anyway, the game stars the series’ main protagonist Neptune, or Nep for short. She is (get ready) amnesiac, though even she acknowledges the trope. See, this game is basically “4th wall breaking” the game. No, really. The game world takes place in Gamindustri (heheheh) and folks talk about games and the lore of games and… stuff. It’s pretty nutty just how self-aware it all is.
Sorry, too much sink for me to handle.
So Nep wakes up after a mysterious dream where you see these four women battle against this evil force (who’s fascinated with the word “sink… sink… sink”, and not the one in the kitchen, but to “sink into the ocean of oblivion”). This dream sequence is where you have your first battle in the game. I’ll get to the mechanics in a bit. So Nep wakes up and she’s in a random house, and again she has amnesia, so she has no clue what’s going on.
So a guard of sorts finds her and after Nep explains what she knows (very little), the guard has her go to the guild to sign-up and do missions and such. You then get to explore the town. Here’s how exploring works; you move with the stick (gasp), but an odd trick is how you go different paths. You can’t just move the stick to go in a certain path, you have to literally jump to go up the higher path. It’s odd but you get used to it.
Nep, and she’s got a STICK!!!
So after a bit, you’re finally able to start exploring the wilds outside of town. First Nep encounters a Dogoo, who seems to be the main grunt enemy of the series (like Goombas in Mario). And she all of the sudden “conveniently” finds a particular stick that she can fight with and combat begins. Battles are as expected 2D. Nep is always on the right side of the screen while enemies will be on the left side. Depending on your character’s position you’ll attack with one of the face buttons. Y is the default one for example. There’s not actually a turn system, but actually something of a Xenoblade Chronicles-like timing system where you have to wait until your AP meter reaches a certain point before you can attack.
For example, Nep’s normal attack requires 2 AP points. Attack and 2 AP is taken away and you have to wait until it fills back up enough. Seemingly you can have up to 12 AP max. One mechanic is that if you attack an enemy on the field with Y to start a fight, you’ll begin a “Symbol Battle”, which is simply beginning the battle with 2 AP in your AP meter already. Sometimes attacking certain enemies with the right attacks can give your AP a big boost, like attacking those white cats you find in the Ratchet Volcano with Nep. These will be a cake walk for Nep early on. Also, if you hold down the ZL button, the battle speeds up tremendously, but timing of inputs might be a bit off because of it.
Nep against a Dogoo
Not far into the game you’ll come across a woman with long lilac hair named Chrome (not from the Fire Embull) who seems to know who you are, though is mysterious in nature. She is the target of the Bombix Mori, the folks who you were hanging around with. Well shock and awe, they’re the bad guys and soon you and Chrome team up against them. Chrome is a magic user, and her attacks are of course a bit different. For example, she needs 3 AP to use her default magic attack, but against these witch-like enemies, you score practically a full AP meter when having Chrome attack them, and then you can just have Nap wail on them.
Soon after, you can start taking on quests from the guild, as well as already accept quests from the townsfolk and whoever else has a favor to ask of you. You just talk to people, find out what they need, and then you’re good to go. A lot of times you may already have the thing they need (items, credits, etc) and you can simply speak with them again on the spot to complete the quest. Rewards can include items, credits, and experience points. Sometimes quests will need to be specifically active I’ve noticed which you can check for in the quest section of the pause menu. This is needed seemingly to complete the first quest to beat a Firoro (a big fiery monster). So keep that in mind if you find yourself beating a quest monster… only for it to not count.
Someone’s got a case of the munchies!
Visually it’s a mixed bag. Artistically it’s actually VERY nice to look at. Everything is seemingly hand-drawn/painted and in high-res (err, mostly). The art direction is very well done. Though at occasions some bits look odd or even bad. Examples include the blur effect when dashing with the R button on the field (very handy for clearing gaps), it looks uber wonky. And there’s this one instance of a puff of smoke and my GOD is it low-res. I don’t know if that was deliberate or a weird cutback on Switch, but it was baaad. BUT, as nice as the artwork looks… there’s the performance. It is NOT good. The game seems to run in 30fps when it wants to? But most of all it’s stutters, like, a lot. Battles can even chug very badly, particularly during the first boss. It gets really bad as well when using the speed-up function as well.
Also worth noting that there seems to be input lag on the field, particularly with the jumping. And speaking of which, well I explain in a sec. Let’s get into the audio. The audio is actually very good! 90% of the story dialogue is fully-voiced in English (and Japanese if you want), and the voice-acting is very well done IMO. The only real critique is Nep herself. See, she is UBER perky, and adorable, but… you get to the jumping. You WILL hear her joyfully go “BOING” and “LIKE A KANGAROO” A LOT! Which can get very annoying after a while, so be prepared for that! The music is very nicely done as well. Seriously, I enjoyed the music quite a bit more than I expected to.
OOF that smoke effect
Overall there’s a lot of potential here. I actually really like the combat. It’s fun to wail on opponents when you have a lot of AP. The artwork is very lovely and the animations of Nep and company while not uber complex, are very charming all the same. The music as said is very pretty at times (I really like the Ratchet Volcano and battle themes in particular). But the performance is by far the biggest issue with the game that holds the experience back. It’s really sad, this could be SO much better if Artisan would just patch the performance. I really hope they do. In an odd twist I may have no choice but to recommend the PS4 or Steam versions unless you’re willing to wait for any patches for the Switch version. I personally would hold out but that’s just me.
You’ll Love:
+ Combat is legit fun with the timing system.
+ Very pretty hand-painted backgrounds.
+ Characters actually animate very nicely (despite it being flash-esc) and I love their expressions as well.
+ Voice-acting is very well done and you get it in both English and Japanese.
+ Really enjoyed the humor the game has.
+ Has screenshot and video capture support.
You’ll Hate:
– The performance is very rough, like it chugs badly when things really get busy on screen during battles.
– Input lag when jumping in the overworld. I find it easier if you jump first to “wake it up” as it were. This is most common seemingly after you “die” in a pitfall.
– You’ll likely get tired of hearing “BOING” and “LIKE A KANGAROO” after a while. It’s way too frequent. It’s very cute, but they needed to dial down the frequency by, like, a LOT.
– Some odd bits where there’s no voice-acting during the story. Don’t know why that is but some scenes are just silent when 99% of the rest of the scenes are fully-voiced.
Score: 7/10 (it’d be an easy 8 or 8.5 had the performance been very smooth)
