Neptunia Game Maker R:Evolution (Switch) Review

Title: Neptunia Game Maker R:Evolution
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Developer: Compile Heart
Publisher: Idea Factory International (NA)
Release Date: May 14th, 2024 (NA)
File Size: 6.8GB

Review copy provided by Idea Factory International

Fittingly I just reviewed this game’s prequel; Neptunia: Sisters VS Sisters (herein after “Sisters”) on the day that this one came out in NA. How about that? Anyway, it’s actually funny that this game was actually announced for Switch prior when the game was revealed for Japan back in 2022. At the time, Sisters wasn’t on or even known to be coming to Switch. Sure enough a bit after Compile Heart also announced a late port of Sisters for Switch. Funnier still, BOTH released on the same day in Japan on October 10^th, 2022, in fact they even released a physical 2-pack exclusively on Switch to boot.

As with the prequel, this game also makes the move to the Unity engine after basically near exclusively using Silicon Studio’s Orochi and Mizuchi engines which for whatever reason evidently had issues running on Switch. With that out of the way, how does this one fare? Let’s find out!

The full 3D opening cutscene with newcomers Reedio, Pippih, and Jagaa!

This time we begin with a super brief narrated intro by Neptune herself, but right away after we get another full 3D animated cutscene. This time featuring a familiar character riding a motorcycle in what literally looks like a location ripped right out of Crisis City from Sonic ’06. Anyway, we see a stand-off between three new girls and an armored foe named F-Sha (the reference escapes me) and when a fight is about to break, our earlier motorcycle-riding heroine bursts through the window; it’s Older Neptune! Apparently she is the “President and CEO” of these three new girls! Then a tutorial commences with Neptune fighting F-Sha on her own. Once you complete this section, a second fight featuring the other three girls joining in begins and you get to learn about chains and whatnot. More on THAT in a bit!

Once done F-Sha takes her leave, but she’s also tagged along by a smaller girl who Neptune seems to know who she calls Crostie, but “Crostie” is happy being able to do what she wants and takes off with F-Sha, calling the latter her own employer. After, Neptune does the classic “this reminds me of how this all began” and we’re brought back three months into the past.

The crew exploring the first forest dungeon, plus an NPC who can give you a side quest.

Older Neptune arrives in this dimension with Crostie, who’s actually named Croire (“Coh-Are”), and she’s basically a parallel to Histoire in some form. Anyway, here she’s able cross dimensions, but seemingly was being held against her will by Neptune as she was held captive in Neptune’s “Nep Note”. (yeah, that certainly raises questions doesn’t it?). Anyway, Neptune used this power to arrive here and she just seems to be adventuring to collect rare bugs (a call-back to the inspiration of Pokémon, Satoshi Tajiri’s love of bug-collecting, maybe?).

She arrives in a town and is ruffled in a line-up for a new game console (it’s not addressed which). In this, Neptune loses her Nep Note! While looking, she finds herself in an abandoned building with a TV and an old game console ready to go. She plays it; find it’s bad, yet so bad it’s a blast! Suddenly, the three girls from the beginning appear! They are the petite Pippih (“Pippi”, based on the Apple Pippin!), the feline-esc Jagaa (“Jaggah”, naturally the Atari Jaguar), and the white-haired Reedio (the Panasonic 3DO!). Indeed, all are based on old, failed consoles of the 90’s (Virtual Boy rep… when?), not too dissimilar to Neptune’s namesake, the cancelled Sega Naptune! Anyway, the three created this game and are actually goddesses like Neptune, but their shares (the source of their power) are gone, but Neptune’s enjoyment of the game helped them regain a small amount of them.

A battle showcasing a chain in action.

The three then ask Neptune to be their President and CEO to help them make games and get their shares back, and Neptune immediately agrees (much to their surprise), as she always wanted to dabble into game development and just wanted to help out her new friends. We’re then introduced to the second game mechanic; the game building… building. You pick a building based on a genre (each generally a parody of something, think you’ll all recognize the platforming one!), and then you’re introduced to a sort of skill tree-like system to purchase sections of with cash. All of this is semi-automated for the tutorial (you do it manually but it just forces you to make one specific choice for the most part in the menus, basically “click here stupid!”). Anyway, once that’s done, you set out to find a route to sell the games you’ll make. This is where the dungeons come in!

Indeed, you go to the world map (with an awesome, grand orchestral track to boot, it’s killer!) and you (again with just one choice…) “pick” the forest area to start with. If you’ve played Sisters… you’ll immediately notice how this area reuses the same music from its forest dungeon. I liked it though, so that doesn’t bother me, but I’ve noticed music recycling in other entries as well. Cost-cutting, I’m sure.

A look at the building management mode where you pick an object to place in the plaza.

Anyway, you’ll then notice some interesting changes from Sisters. First, you now have FOUR characters instead of three, but also, when you use Y to smack an opponent to do a surprise attack (to stun them when the battle starts, and it doesn’t have to be from behind them)… THERE’S AN AUDIBLE SMACK! Indeed, one gripe I had with the prequel was the complete lack of feedback with this. This is a nice improvement already, but it gets better!

The combat, oh my god they really improved things. First the big one, where when you chain by swapping characters (this time using the d-pad, and it even shows the character icon in the direction recommended to change to (but any is fine), super handy), when you do so, your attacks not only get a .10x boost in power, but your attacks get bigger and grander. Like in a 5-chain (if the fight lasts that long), you’re at 1.50x and unleash group attacks so big the game chugs! Note that if you get hit enough your chain breaks, but also the multiplier only goes up to 2.00x at Chain 10 (but the chain can go on). This is crazy satisfying and funny enough is much easier compared to the prequel. Like I can’t get over how much better this is, and it even feels more responsive in a way I also can’t explain. However some enemies make holding chains really hard, like these metal ball enemies in the cave dungeon that do a sweeping laser that’s very hard to dodge. That can get pretty annoying.

Disc Development in action.

Back to the management stuff, again we have the return of the Disc Development mechanic where you pick a genre, audience, and this time two creators to then wait with a real-world timer for the disc to be made. Here you may experience an “issue” where you can fix it by spending extra CP or just “leave it to the creators” but it only works 25% of the time. The discs when finished are your passive buff items as before and have a separate section in your character’s equipment menu to use them in. There’s other stuff with the creators (BTW you recruit these via in-game emails in a menu like the Chirper menu last time), and you can have up to 5 creators roam in the building plaza at a time where you can enhance them to shorten development times, or dismiss them to git gud on their own. It’s certainly more in-depth than last time.

Visually it’s to me a considerable upgrade, but on the other side of the coin, some cutbacks come with it. Like, it’s so much more vivid-looking and shadows look much more detailed (plus self-shadowing I noticed but that may have been here last time too), however the shadow draw-distance is definitely lacking. They get lower-quality and then vanish the farther you move from something and the “line” is super close and noticeable. Also while it runs smooth most of the time, there’s a brief pause when a new area loads after a second or two. I think it’s overall less smooth than Sisters but graphically otherwise is much nicer looking to compensate. Audio-wise it’s as you’d expect; wonderful English voice-acting when it pops up, and the music is really awesome. The battle theme is MUCH better this time around. Really dig the strings used here. Again the map theme just sounds so epic whenever you go to it.

The main menu. Looks much different visually than last time.

Overall this is such an improvement over Sisters. It’s weird as I’d have thought this was a direct sequel as it came right after with the same engine, battle system, the works, but there’s like no direct connection that I can tell. From what I’ve experienced, you’re easily able to skip Sisters and just jump straight into this one and I legit really recommend doing so. I think the character chemistry almost even better here than in the last game, despite these being new characters (Older Neptune actually appeared in Megadimension Neptunia VII prior), oh and fun fact, the three new goddesses and Croire are actually designed by the original series character designer Tsunako after leaving Compile Heart in 2018, so that’s neat!

You’ll Love:

• The combat is such an improvement over Sisters. The chain system with attacks getting bigger and more powerful adds an addicting element to it.
• Visuals also got a nice bump. It just feels more vivid and detailed, plus more and better shadowing it looks like which really adds to the look of the game.
• The music also got an upgrade. The main map theme has a grand orchestral intro and the battle theme has a mix of rock and orchestral as well which to me is miles better than the last game’s.
• Really dig the new characters and their voices to boot. Plus the bonus of all being created by the original designer after numerous years is very notable as well.
• Has screenshot and video capture, as well as Cloud Save support for NSO users.

You’ll Hate:

• Slight nag in the combat is how easy it is for some opponents to disrupt your chain by just spamming seemingly unavoidable attacks because of how they sweep across the arena, making it hard to dodge. Just to keep in mind.
• While the visuals are definitely better, you can see some more noticeable compromises; such as how the shadow draw distance is very low where after only a couple feet from you, shadows very visibly decrease in quality with a clear “line” where it happens to boot. Also there’s an annoying split-second pause/freeze after an area loads and you start moving. Only happens once (or rarely twice) in each area, but it’s not pleasant.

8.5/10