Remember when Idea Factory made good quality Neptunia games?

[Chen]

After waves and waves of mediocre spin offs, a crappy remake of a remake of a reboot on the way, and 5 years without a new mainline game, I sure don't.

[My1]

Originally posted by RobDeLaMorte:

To be fair, even if the VAs were theatrically trained and stuff you can't do much with "1D tsundere" writing and so on. xDD

okay? I think in japanese it's pretty nice with the voices, and I can easily hear by the voice alone who speaks which feels a lot less easy in the dub when I heard of the dub at first, many sound kinda similar at least for me, but my native language isnt english anyway

[OneManCast]

Originally posted by Sleeper:

Originally posted by Chen:

Idea Factory just doesn't care anymore, and I doubt losing all their fans and making no money on their yearly spin offs will make them care anymore.

IF/Compa does not make the spin offs. The majority of them the IP is licensed out to another company to produce. You guys are acting like ignorant children throwing a tantrum and its funny!

Also what makes you thing that they haven't been working on a new Nepnep mainline game in the background?

Except here, where they literally made the spinoff. Also, licensing things out to other companies is not a good sign either. The fact we're getting an absolutely dreadful Senran Nin Nin is disgusting. If I weren't YouTubing, I wouldn't touch that pandering trash with a pacific ocean distance pole.

"Ignorant children throwing a tantrum"

Yeah, real way to sell your points and ideas with ad hominem. Really convincing and totally not a concession of an argument/s.

As to your last point, again, Neptunia Virtual Stars is made by the main company. Inundate that with all the other excess garbage like "Neptunia and Friends" and stuff I like but would also be considered "inundated garbage" like "Chaos Chanpuru" and "Mega Miracle Force" that the passion for Neptunia died years ago.

So who is really the immature one here? People who shill for games with no quality like 4GO, or people who are tired of the same freaking game done thrice. The level of hubris it must take to demand others (which you're implying, whether intentional or not with the whole "childish" nonargument) to pitch money into a series that died the moment we had 4GO. Super Nep RPG and Nep Virtual Stars are solid, but goodness is 4GO trash.

Oh and another truth bomb: Neptunia is about shoujo ai and satirical commentary, not memes, references and 4th wall breaks. Pick up the OG Neptunia and Mk2 and even RB2 to a lesser extent. This last bit applies to y'all who think the series is a game of memes, weebs and references.

I'm sick of seeing Nep break the 4th wall. Its freaking stupid. I remember a series back when they had this concept called "character depth".

I agree with that one person who said that the series pretty much died with Victory. Christ that game was so trash that the only worse game was Megatagmension.

[OneManCast]

Originally posted by Yunocchi:

There is something I don't understand among all these extra-side games, why aren't they making a romance/visual novel of the series ?

From what I see, they already have well established characters and the complete world of gamindustry, so they would only have to make a setting. And it doesn't seem like romance was out of the question with the Neptune wedding scene, drama cd, and VR sessions where you could bond with them.

Maybe it's just me ? But I have a feeling it would do pretty well.

They sorta did that with Gun Gun Pixies (or however you spell it).

[OneManCast]

Originally posted by Arthur:

Last thing I want from Neptunia is a dating sim, it is just not the point of the franchise, plus the yuriheads in the fanbase are already plentiful, having 'em multiply in quantity will just add salt to the injury that is the current state of the IP.

Yet you think memes, overinundated and mindless references and excessive 4th wall breaks aren't?! XD

[OneManCast]

Originally posted by Kiru:

The funny thing is, that Neptunia 1 is still the best Neptunia writing/story to this date. And most people (understandably) don't even know that one.

mk2 was generally pretty bad, as it played serious what Nep1 laughed at. That was uncalled for and weird. NISA tried to fix it in the English script somewhat, but you can't fix it very well like that, especially when people use JP voices as English wasn't fully voiced. Mk2 was also responsible for making people dislike Nepgear, though the game sucking wasn't her fault. The writer(s) just messed up hard.

Victory was at least half of its time quite typical Neptunia, threw it eventually away though. Still, this was something. This was probably where Nep was at its prime. Okay, but not frustrating gameplay, nice story and characters for a good part of it.

Victory 2 improved some of the gameplay (debatable), but added a lot of characters and was never really able to sell them. The story sucks as well, and no matter how much a game might lampshade something, it's not okay to fight the same boss 10 times in a row. (the first act) The "big" battles advertised ended up being just exactly 1 was also kinda.. sad. Every other was a 100% the same functioning palette swap.

Spinoffs were generally not good I don't think we have to talk about them. And Rebirth was handled by Felistella, THE worst commercial active dev in this genre. They also ruined Summon Night. Rebirth 1 had exactly 1 new area that was not recycled from mk2 or victory, recycled everything else, added terrible balance on top of it and pointlessly frustrating elements, while the story isn't anywhere near as good as what the original had. I didn't believe they could create something worse than the original Nep on Ps3 as far as gameplay goes. They did.



Most people nowadays don't know any Nep other than Rebirth or VII. Given the rather low quality of these games, if you are still caring about Nep, you probably have never actually experienced why Nep even became a franchise. In way it died with Victory, as it got turned into something rather different afterwards. You have to deal with a lot more bad things with the games if you want to get into it, and honestly I wonder how people even CAN get into it with games like Rebirth 1 or VII. If I'd not been a fan before playing these games, I would've never beaten them.

Several objections:

No, Mk2 was not trash. It had some tonal clash, but it stuck true to the genre of satire that the series is based on.

Also, Mk2 made me like Nepgear thanks to the Conquest Ending. Which made Nepgear look like a star of a main protagonist. Of which Neptune sucks at these days.

Which is funny that you mention that while the entire complaint about Nepgear's character in Mk2, became its opposite complaint with the infamous and disgusting scene where Vert laughed at the idea that Nepgear could be a main character. THE TRUE AND CONQUEST ENDINGS EXIST!

Nep games are never fulled dubbed. 'Tis one of the reasons why I play subs.

In what flipping world was Victory anything like Neptunia? It was pure flanderization at its worst, with overlybloated story with humor that insulted your intelligence.

(Who the f thinks "Neppy-chan, can we milk you?" and "He reaped and sewed his own seed" are hilarious and faithful to Neptunia in any way. That ain't Neptunia, that's the F tier superhero story called DEADPOOL. Of which, Neptunia is not.)

Oh and don't get the AWFUL Peashy or Plutia or Rei characters. I liked anonydeath and copypaste though. Not to mention Victory was a dumpster fire of game mechanics.

Its really NOT "debatable" in its artistic sense because literally everything improved:

-Monsters
-Parts Break is INFINITELY better than Guard Break
-The level designs were also far superior.
-Let's not ignore the Sharing Field part of the gameplay
-The map designs
-The ability to fight giant enemies
-The combo attacks are sure f-ing better than the Lily Rank abilities

So in what way is this "debatable" other than in the most nitpicky, pedestrian, garden variety usage of the word?!

Also, you say "added in a bunch of characters and couldn't sell them" (paraphrased) but frickin' the DLC for Victory Re;Birth somehow DON'T?! That's a laughable, idiotic and downright wrong assertion. AT LEAST THE DLC DON'T FURTHER BLOAT THE ALREADY BLOATED STORY LIKE IN VICTORY?!

The spinoffs were bad? Well, except for:

-Producing Perfection
-Hyperdevotion Noire
-Super Nep RPG
-Nep Virtual Stars

"If you're still caring about Nep, you probably haven't experienced why Neptunia became a franchise."

Except there's also the deluded idea that it may change, or maybe some people either play it for social media purposes and know that the algorithm is a thing. Try not to dismiss other policy positions when trying to review things, please, thank you.

Don't mistake fan fatigue for the actual story of Nep Virtual Stars being bad. Same goes for pretty much the rest of the spinoffs I mention.

Seems to me like there's no ruleset to how you grade a "good" neptunia game. You just put your subjective feelings and postulate them as objective fact.

"And Re;Birth was handled by Felistella"

Which were all inferior versions of the original counterparts, excluding Re;Birth 3, which is just the same story with maybe one or two different DLC characters.

[OneManCast]

Originally posted by vkobe:

well cyberdimension was enjoyable ^_^

but it is true since cyberdimension i didnt see fun game from idea factory and it seem this neptunia is not really a good neptunia

If, by enjoyable, you mean the most obnoxious and dislikable versions of the main characters AND NPCs, then sure.

Man, you must have low standards if you think 4GO is the highbar of Neptunia fun. *Groan*

The idea that 4GO is better than Nep Virtual Stars is unfathomable.

[OneManCast]

Originally posted by Kaezeribato:

When you see that a buggy and trashy mess like Cyberpunk sold so many coppy you understand that IF can keep milking Neptunia for at leat a dozen year and still making a huge profit. I mean in Cyber goddess they still used the same mob as Victory, making new game probably dosent cost much...

Call of duty, fifa, battlefield, halo, and a lot of ther game are just cashgrab, but there is still a huge amout of sheep to buy each and every single copy/past they make.

Have you even played Black Ops: Cold War? Sounds like you haven't.

[OneManCast]

Originally posted by Chen:

Originally posted by Kumad:

Agreed The original IF trilogy was still a paraody but it never reached the absurd degrees it did with the remakes and the continued baffling localization and translation (hahaha isint funny saying someone to drink emo juice)

Its pretty clear the JP IF just wants to make new games and stories. Before Neptunia they made serious in tone and very difficult strategy games and now after neptunia it looks like they want to go back into more serious/dark stories that of course will have fanservice but arnt walking paradodies and walking memes.

but the fanbase wont let go especially the EN fans so the English branch of idea factory wants to keep making spinoffs or translating games already made and bringing them over.

I hope IF keeps in this direction and slowley goes back to its roots before the Neptunia boom ruined everything. They had such creative and difficult games, great stories interesting characters. they use to be my fav developer until the nep boom.

i'd give an arm for another tactics game, i'd give both my arms for a re release of the spectral souls series. I'd give my soul to get a new neverland game. Anyone remember when Hilo was the mascot for the company? i miss those days.

The English Branch of IF does nothing, all game development comes from JP IF and Compile Heart. Stop drinking in the weeb juice, it's the JP side of Neptunia both in development and fanbase that is killing the franchise.

A japanese company will only listen to it's japanese audience first and foremost, and those smooth brains just want breasts, breast jokes, and cheap 4th breaks and video game references. Not even jokes, references.

Neptunia is dead, and they killed it.

Other than the fact that I still want my fanservice, I do otherwise entirely agree with this post.

[OneManCast]

Originally posted by _Gustavo:

LOL while you guys complain there's the Senran Kagura collab spin-off already announced. I do hope for a new game on the main series but i don't hate the spin off, i even bough this one on my second account

Yeah no, I'm going to complain even more about that dumpster fire.

[OneManCast]

Originally posted by PROFILE NAME:

You know when you sit there and really think about this series as a whole, Megadimension was genuinely the only actually good one, wasn't it? The Rebirth games were just okay at best, and all the spinoffs were garbage. The only one that was kinda decent was 4GO just for how different it was, but it was still easy and boring and the online functioned at the bare minimum effort.

Kinda like Senran Kagura, I feel like you grow out of this sh*t after a certain point and seeing enough sh*tty games in a row.

Quite a few objections:

The Re;Birth games were not okay, the 1st two games they remade were great.
Conflating "different" to "good" is negligible when your game's MP runs at the capability of a 2005 Runescape server (I'm being generous in this analogy) unlikable D Bag versions of each main character (and even worse NPCs), a soundtrack with songs that bleed into each other. A sign of poor composition. The ONLY thing it had going for it, was its 3D world design (Which you're better off equating to the Unreal Engine) and the character designs (which you should credit Tsunako as an artist, not 4GO as a good game)
Also, I find it funny you talk about "different" and literally never mention Hyperdevotion or Super Nep RPG. Mmmkay. Also, Superdimension Neptune vs Sega Hard Girls is arguably one of the best stories of the series. So miss me on the whole "all the spinoffs were bad" nonsense.
Last but not least: Ageism is not really a fair critique. "Growing out of it" is one of the most arrogant arguments you can make. To fight ageism with ageism, you sound like a Boomer Karen who thinks anime is for kids. Ridiculous.

Here's what makes you move on from a series and it has nothing to do with an abstraction like "Grow out of":

Terrible gameplay
Terrible story.

That's legitimately all it takes.

[OneManCast]

Originally posted by Killer Queen:

the only good neptunia games were HDN1, mk2, and victory. the ps3 originals. megadimension destroyed how characters acted same with rebirth. Neptune becomes more retarded that usual, blanc becomes white heart all the time, and Noire is well uhh, well theres just something missing. The only good spinoffs was neptunia rpg and the noire spinoff. neptunia rpg still had ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up character personalities though. and had Noires new va which sucks ass

You mean the original Noire VA sucks ass. Mendez actually respects the character and doesn't turn Noire into Erin Fitzgerald. You have to actually portray the role you are given. You can't just make a vapid valley girl and slap it on her character name. Noire is a regal, hardworking woman who actually gives a hoot about her nation, isn't lazy AF, and doesn't cause her Oracles any form of annoyance.


One of the things I liked about the beginning of Nep Virtual Stars is how they just ripped apart what the main characters had become.

[OneManCast]

Originally posted by Arthur:

Originally posted by _Gustavo:

I'm a big fan of the franchise, but i know that quality is not the selling point of it. I just hope they never give it back to a western developer like they did with Super RPG, that thing was atrocious .

Why exactly is Nep RPG bad? I have yet to play it myself but out of all of the Nep spin-offs that is the one which seems to have the most heart poured into it.

Edit: Nevermind, just read your review on the game, but even with its downsides, it still sounds leagues better than MegaTag/Action Unleashed, or any other spin-off really.

I respect and appreciate you so much.

[OneManCast]

Originally posted by CLG:

Neptunia and compile heart has always been mediocre. You should take your nostalgia goggles off and actually look at what kind of series neptunia is. The rebirth games have always been really bad gameplay wise and the originals were even worse. The only mainline nep games with decent gameplay are VII and VIIR. It took them how many releases to finally make an "average" game? The reason why compile heart made so many spinoffs was because it was just outsourced to other companies since compile heart doesn't actually have enough budget to make their own games half of the time, and don't forget that most of their new IPs were just copy paste neptunia clones with minimal effort to change the formula in just about anything.

Also if you are complaining that your characters are doing no damage in this game then maybe you should actually look at the games mechanics because I've been nearly 1 shotting everything with Vert. You can break this game very quickly and easily within the first hour of gameplay.

Budget and gameplay wise this is the most effort compile heart has made into one of their own releases. This game was not outsourced to another company, it was 100% made by compile heart so they had to make everything from scratch. It's kind of ironic that everybody is hating on this game but it's the most innovative compile heart game since agarest. "Nep" fans have no idea of what they actually want.

I'm swooning over you right now for being an agarest fan. I also agree with your assertion on the innovation of Nep Virtual Stars.

[OneManCast]

Originally posted by RobDeLaMorte:

Originally posted by Chen:

Victory was never a good game, it marked the decline in Neptunia writing quality when they thought it would be funny to make Plutia into a child rapist

She abuses her "friends", cancerously takes over the entire story, and gets away with everything in the end too, hooray! :D

I can't tell if she's a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ terrible OC they found on fanfiction.net, or literally some creator's kink in character form, either way she ruins the game completely. She was even OP in REbirth 1 as DLC, ruining the difficulty curve, the ♥♥♥♥♥.

Rumor has it that it was a character that was Naoko Mizuno's repressed sexual side. Albeit they're just rumors.

[Nino Nakano]

Uhhh....posting spree much?

And 4GO isn't ♥♥♥♥. Tamsoft actually put a lot of effort into it, right down to getting the anime aesthetic to work in UE4, which according to them was really challenging to do.