Im doing the review over the PS4 version so i dont have that much hours on steam.
NOT Spoiler Free Review!

First of all, i really love the aspect of the Heroes and the Goddesses being different people in this game :D

That way you can bot play Neptune and Purple Heart Back to Back :D
The best aspect of the game is the online function! You can play quests and guild missions together with you friends and help each other getting farther in the game.

The Playstyle is very cool, most things are skill based so you dont always need the best equipment.
Of course after a time it will be very challenging without upgrades.

Im only halfway done with the game The second half of the game after Cheetah and i love this game.

This game not as hard to master than some of the other Neptunia Games tho! I have about 30 Hours and do have about 52% of the achievements. Well i did every Quest and defeated every side Boss until my point xD.

Much Non-sense Talk if you like Anime and JPRGs this game is perfect for you!

Nep Nep!

Cyberdimension Neptunia: 4 Goddess Online is an enjoyable Hack and Slash RPG. The characters have interesting character development, and all of their major dialogue is fully voice acted. The music is enjoyable and really pulls the entire MMO theme of the game together. The story is fantasy, anime based and enjoyable. The game’s performance on PC isn’t the best ever. The multiplayer is also a frustrating mess that players should currently avoid.

Gameplay:
One half of a player’s time will be spent using the Hack and Slash mechanics to beat countless monsters to death. To perform this task, players will need to mash the attack button to perform combos to deal damage. Like other Hack and Slash games, this gameplay can become monotonous which is why an ability system and a guard system are added. These mechanics help to add some spice to the gameplay.

The guard system is pretty standard. Blocking allows the player to mitigate a huge portion of damage and a perfectly time block mitigates all damage while also allowing the player to counterattack. This was the system that I found really made the game enjoyable. Monsters of the player’s equal level can do quite a bit of damage, especially bosses. The player can turn all of these well-choreographed attacks into counter attacks, even the boss’ attacks. The inclusion of a satisfying and well-implemented guard system makes the gameplay feel skill based instead of a button mash fest. Even just normal blocking can be useful. An example would be that a worm monster deal about 174 damage to me normally, but only about 14 while blocking. There is also a dash system but the dash is so short it is completely useless and I never used it.

Abilities are also available to liven up the gameplay. Each of the twelve available characters, which can switched to and played at any time, have their own class and set of abilities they gain occasionally upon leveling up. Every ability I observed while playing scaled with a specific stat, usually strength or intelligence, so that they all felt useful all game. Abilities can also be magical and thus contain one of four elemental types. These elemental types are fire, ice, electricity, and wind. They each have their own corresponding status effect that they apply which are burn, freeze, paralysis, and stun. A monster can also be weak to one or more of these types of magic which will make their break gauge fall even further than a normal magical attack. Abilities had tons of particles and often did a respectable amount of damage so I ended up wanting to use all of them even though only 8 can be stored into the quick use bar at a time.

The break gauge is the reason a player would want to potentially use slightly weaker magical attacks over pure button mashing. Magical attacks lower a monster or boss’ break gauge extremely quickly compared to standard attacks. When a monster becomes broken they will be forced into a stunned state. During their stun state they can’t attack and take more damage. I often found myself using this helpful mechanic as bosses start to have gigantic health bars later on. Creating only one broken state can allow the player to reduce the boss’ health by over half. Magic projectiles are slow, so it can take some good timing and mana conservation to effectively use magic.

The AI of the player’s three companions is quite good. They didn’t get stuck, do anything stupid, and they rarely died. They even understood the guarding system. I would have liked them to be a little better at guarding as they did have a tendency to stand right in front of the bosses during the boss’ large AoE attacks and they would inevitably take quite a bit of damage. The player can also change their tactics, but overall I found that allowing them to do their own thing was a viable strategy.

Overall, this is a solid Hack and Slash game with a simple but enjoyable combat system. Abilities are varied and always useful. I really appreciated the great balancing and the synergy of the standard attacks and the magical system. What did irk me is that on occasion in tight corridors, the camera will zoom in and it can become impossible to see anything.

Story:
The story is where the player will spend the other half of their time in this game. Most of the dialogue scenes are fully voiced and are in a visual novel format. I was surprised with the amount of movement and action the developers were able to pull off in these scenes as most visual novels I have seen use only static images of characters that change emotion state.

I found the characters enjoyable as they all acted like different people with their own personalities. While they may usually play their stereotyped role, such as Neptunia playing the overly energetic character, they were able to become uncomfortable in certain situations and had clear likes and dislikes. The game also treads the line of being an anime game and an anime game parody quite closely. The characters, mainly Neptunia, know they are in a video game and thus break the fourth wall quite often to introduce new characters. While the story is full of anime clichés and can become tiresome, the occasional joke made at the clichés expense helped to give it a unique quality and kept the story refreshing.

Sound:
The sounds for combat are all appropriate and fit the fantasy theme. They were pretty standard and didn’t really stand out to me.
What did stand out was that every major dialogue scene was completely voice acted. The voice actors are of high quality and actually hearing the character’s voices helps by adding a depth to them.
The music is of a fantasy, orchestral style. It helps to really tie the theme together, though I found it way too loud. Initially it is difficult to the voices of characters over it, which is why I would suggest turning it down to 25%.

Graphics:
The graphics are clean and crisp. The graphics in this game are both 2D and 3D. Combat is often done in three-dimension while dialogue scenes and the town are in two-dimensions. Both art styles fit. The game tries adhere to the graphical style of a cutesy anime. I like the large amount of different emotions that were drawn for each character. The use of a “camera” in dialogue so that we move between different groups of people talking helps to add some movement during the dialogue text. Monsters and their recolors stand out well from the background and so do a player’s characters. The particle effects for magic are also beautiful, but occasionally distracting.

Performance and Port Quality:
This is my biggest frustration with the game. First of all, there aren’t any keyboard prompts during the game or its tutorials. I only found this out after 30 minutes of dialogue and when a player does the tutorial, the options menu isn’t initially available so I couldn’t figure out the keys. I ended up playing on a controller.
Secondly, the performance of this game isn’t great. It even requires 8gb of RAM and an I7 CPU to run at minimum settings.

Multiplayer
The multiplayer is awful considering it is a feature advertised on the store page. The games that I joined were laggy, jarring, and not enjoyable. After every mission the player is also kicked from the multiplayer section, making it irritating to play with friends. Finally, if the host dies, the entire mission is over. No one should buy this for it multiplayer currently.

Pros:
Fun Gameplay
Interesting Characters
Voice Acted Dialogue
Weapon Attacks and Magic are of equal importance
Diverse Classes

Cons:
Poor Performance
No Keyboard Input Prompts
Occasionally Frustrating Camera
Terrible Multiplayer

Rating
8/10.

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First off, I'd like to point out that I think of myself as a pretty solid fan of the entire Neptunia franchise, I own every game on PC, and because of this I felt like I didn't want to give this game a negative review. Instead of writing an essay on all of the issues that have been discussed in the steam discussions already, I'll just point out a few of the pros and cons there were at least for me.


Pros
- It's a Neptunia game! ( only really matters if you're a nep collector like me )
- The character designs and particle effects are well made. It's satisfying to swing around a giant flaming popsicle as nep.
- The new outfits for all the characters are neat and cute.
- The music for the most part is really good, none of it recycled from previous games.
- No recycled levels from previous games ( despite them being boring ).


Cons
- Plutia is not a playable character. --- This is unforgivable. ---
- Uzume and Peashy are also not playable.
- The netcode is awful so multiplayer is literally unplayable unless you're lucky or in the same room. This was pretty much the selling point for me and ended up being a complete and utter disappointment, apparently it's just like the PS4 version.
- The combat is boring, there is seemingly no skill required, just target enemy, mash buttons and spam your best ability.
- The customization options are lackluster, bad hair colors and very few actual costumes. Accessories only show up on your main character and not on NPC party members.
- Level design is boring, there are no landmarks just open fields, or empty dungeon cooridoors. One level toward the end seemingly uses default Unreal Engine assets which felt cheap and kind of threw off the immersion for me.
- This one isn't actually their fault, but there is supposedly no Live2D support in Unreal Engine, so the dialogue cutscenes are all still-frames with simple camera focus animations and particles.
- There will probably be no bug fixes, as we have seen no response from IF regarding their efforts to improve the netcode or fix other issues.


I can understand that working in a brand new engine, especially Unreal, is outside of their comfort zone, but the way the product was handled after release feels like they just dumped the game on us, took the money and ran and that's probably exactly what they did. I do not recommend you buy this unless its on sale and if you really really REALLY want it despite knowing the flaws.

Really, really, really wanted to like this game, yet it kinda just hurts looking at it in my library. Maybe if they make a new game with Plutia as a playable character I'll consider overlooking this trainwreck.

This game is afflicted by a myriad of glitches and problems that moderately to substantially affect and degrade the experience, including these most severe (but not limited to).

1. No latency compensation for the multiplayer (lots of rubberbanding)

2. It is impossible to get 100% of achievements fixed?

3. In multiplayer Die = Kick (Even host) and mission completion = Disband group.


4. All menu keybinds are hardbound.

5. Many users report their controllers not working for this game!

And over 100 more bugs & problems
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1529943312/

(How did this get past QA testing?)



-Full "abridged" review
-Opinion piece/analysis (VERY LONG)




There is ALOT of implicit lying in this game, many of the features don't work well.

While the game can be enjoyed, (as 87% of the people did) if one strays far in any direction (Using keyboard + Mouse, rebinding keyboard, playing multiplayer, noticing the damage numbers, placing accessories on AI parners.) It's clear this game needed much more QA testing, and frankly, it's shocking how such an inept product can recieve such a high rating.

Firstly, due to the double damage glitch, the entire game's difficulty is reduced, add to the fact that many of the game's secondary systems (the elemental system, "defense break" mechanic, and ultimate attacks) are trivial, or very easy to compensate for, like ultimate attacking when bosses defenses are down, results in a fairly easy game.



Words to describe game: Easy, Simple, Cheesy, Relaxed, Funny, Soft-Porn, Glitchy.



-The glitchy end-game (multiplayer) can take 40-200 hours to "Complete".
-No NG+ (New Game Plus)
-15 Save slots
-All achievements are easy.
-After beating game, you can freely explore.


-only 45% of the VN sequences are voiced by the English voice actors.
-The Character portraits aren't animated with "Live2D" technology (the portraits are static images).
-None of the post-final-boss VN events are voiced in English.


-Cutscenes are 1M 30S long on average

(even the kiddos)
-No "adult" actions, (lap-dance, pole-dance, fully stripping)
-Implicit lesbianism throughout the story.
-Most/all Females have supermodel hourglass bodies.
-Outfits range from cute, to "HOLY @$@!".
-Only miniskirts & panty Fetishism


-A lot of "slice of life" chilled VN events to pad out the story.
-Lots of references to other Neptunia games and Japanese games.
-Some jokes refer involve sex (Kiddo has breast envy)
-No "serious Violence" (childrens show).


-95% of the Story is communicated through VN (visual novel) sequences.
-Lots of interpersonal talking.
-Very low stakes story (none of the meaningful characters die)
-No tension in the gamplay (no "wow" moments are possible)
-Story is: Log in---> assemble 4 items ---> Get distracted by hackers---> Get angels ---> Beat hackers ---> Beat jester.

-You never communicate, trade, or see any other "Players" (no 3D models for "players")


-Each (non-angel) character has 4 unique outfits and reskins of them, and 3 hair colors.
-Only accessories on controlled character show (due to glitch).
-Many of the accessories/outfits are unlocked after you beat game (why?)

-VN sequences that mention how a boss has already been weakened won't actually have a weakened boss.
-VN event says a "superweapon" needs to be prepared, so just survive for awhile, but you just beat up boss normally instead.


-Repetative
-Barely any difficulty curve.


-No secrets or locked doors, in any dungeons.
-everything is accessible.
-chests and collectable items aren't hidden.
-Level design is non-existent, each dungeon is just decoration. You don't consider the environment when fighting.
-Some levels are maze-like (but you keep your minimap).



-No "overworld" just move a cursor around on a 2D map.
-Many of the bosses are glitchy.
-Bosses take between 2M to 10M to beat.
-Linear dungeon design.
-1M 30S average to run from dungeon start to dungeon end. (moderate/small size).

-You're thrown into a short missions to fight a boss.
-Multiplayer is desolate/dead
-The end-game is the broken "multiplayer"
-Items exist that permanently improve stats by a small amount.


-Many enemies can't cope with the ranged characters.
-Nothing is lost for having a character or yourself KOd.
-All playable characters have a single homogeneous button-mash friendly attack pattern (no timing needed).


-Health bar
-Defense bar (reduces damage, & is depleted by attacks, magical attacks deplete the bar faster)
-Once Defense bar is depleted, enemy is stunned and vulnerable.


-No minigames and barely any gameplay gimmicks
-No custom enemy encounters; Enemy Ambush, Stealth enemies, Invincible enemies you must ignore.
-You only fight bosses individually, (not 2 at once, unless end-game multiplayer).
-You get into fights into clearly visible enemies predictably.
-Healing and buffing is simple; Press a button and heal/buff entire team.
-Omnidirectional blocking/Counterattacks, Time them correctly for counterattacks.
-Can interrupt basic attacks at any time to block.
-Very little grinding needed (Short side quests will suffice)
-No unblockable enemy attacks
-No Heavy/Light attack combinations.


-All enemies are "damage sponges", no meaningful vulnerabilities or resistances (ice against fire golem).
-"All" enemies rush you, stay in melee, and attack rhythmically.
-No meaningful unique enemy attributes/skills (untargetable, frost aura, Summon minions, Teleport away, Explode on death)



-Enemies don't consistently recoil when struck in combat.
-Enemies don't have a little aesthetic "I'm hit" animation when struck.

-Can be used at any time in combat (recoiling from hit, blocking, attacking) as a completely free action.



-Essentially 3 dumb bots will follow you around
-Can only change entire team's tactics; Can't make healer be supportive.
-AI's tactics changeable only in menu (badly integrated into gameplay).

i'm a simple man...
i see noire i buy the game...

Edit :
Pretty much a fast game...

Already Done with the game... (100% achievements)

Was expecting to play together with friends after done all achievements..
but lagging everytime i play together with my friend..

Well i just hope they fix it soon so i can play with friends i guess...

⚖️ Grade = B. Worth a buy, if you enjoy Neptunia Drama, MMORPG Combat System. However, if you want Good Combat Challenge, Large Exploration Area, don't buy it

✔️ Visual novel story presentation
✔️ Variety of sluggish enemies
✔️ Customize Bot Companion
✔️ More new characters & outfits
✔️ New graphic engine
❌ Defeat large group of enemies in a very short time
❌ Fight a group of cute enemies
❌ Smart enemy
❌ Cinematic scene
❌ Score/Time Attack for replay value

👉Reveal long version checklist


🕘 2018: Game released
🕘 23 hour later: Fun to play because it is still new
🕘 27 hour later: Lost interested because too many flaws

🔊 Core gameplay is singleplayer, not multiplayer
🔊 Easy to fight because wonky enemy design again
🔊 Remove companion to increase difficulty
🔊 Online coop mode is very lag & unstable
🔊 Community Rating: Very Positive

⚠️ Very slow startup ➜ True, about 3 min
⚠️ Too easy to win ➜ True, but we are optional will play without companion
⚠️ Unplayable multiplayer ➜ True, high latency for all both player

💎 Smooth & Well optimized Unreal Engine Graphic
💎 Diverse Camera Position
💎 Aggressive Companion (three of them also the same)
💎 Allow to switch to any companion to proceed

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All I can say is it's a HUGE improvement compared to the rest of the spin-offs which felt lackluster and honestly feels like a return to the franchise in a way and while it's not "officially" Vert's spin-off, having more focus on Beru was very appropriate given the MMO setting and her well-known gaming persona which spiritually ended up feeling like her own game regardless.

The premise is quite promising and feels fresh with the completely new environments (no reused environments here) next to the fantasy vibe from the music and art alone. It reminds me of the Agarest games with the additional SAO/.hack themes. All-around Cyberdimension is literally "playing a game within a game playing another game" and the fact Neptune and co. acknowledges it makes the experience that much more enticing. OH and Bouquet is absolutely precious (besides being adorable and innocent). She's quite unique in that she's technically not real since she's a form of advanced AI but despite following her duties as a guide, she has shown to have emotions and self-consciousness which sparks her curiosity since she has the freedom to think for herself.

That's not to say it's all perfect cherry blossoms though. As much as I cherish our NepNep I think the biggest culprit is still the gameplay at its core similar to any past Neptunia title. It has reached to the point where it's simply way past its prime by still using outdated mechanics and has unfortunately never been innovating or well-appreciated since most of us just trudge through it for the character interactions within the story.

What we have in Cyberdimension is arguably a simplified version of Unleashed with the addition of a basic parry system. Reused and outdated character and monster models remain, obtaining end game gear is laughably bad (almost requiring you to farm mats online) since the drop rate offline is garbage but leads to another issue: connecting to multiplayer is inexcusably broken with poor netcode (stutters and FPS drops) for anyone who isn't the host and a few other hiccups (such as when a quest is completed or you fall in battle, the party instantly disbands), there's no newgame+ and therefore a lack of replayability once beaten and no post-game content besides grinding for gear/leveling with multiplayer exclusive quests that go up to level 200 but luckily aren't necessary to do (thankfully none of the achievements are locked behind multiplayer either if anyone was wondering). Certain beloved characters from the previous games make a return but have become side-characters/NPCs and are unplayable; Uzume, Plutia and IF to name a few and the story is predictable for the most part but being light-hearted and just having more Nep involvement makes it thoroughly enjoyable nonetheless. No longer having animated cutscenes is also completely absent and seems like a misstep; we want the game to go forward, not backwards (the characters feel more lifeless without it).

It's your own preference regardless of what I say but people with higher standards that are expecting a huge change may be left in the dust (not that there isn't any improvement) since Neptunia has so much potential but I completely share sympathy with those of you that want changes for the greater good and not just a slightly, altered base game. However if you just take a step back with a laxed mind and appreciate it for what it is, you may find this to your liking especially if you're already a Nep fan. I HIGHLY recommend waiting for a better discount as I don't think the current price is justified with some poorly implemented and removed features such as having a lack of replayability, questionable controls/camera or still retaining old, mediocre combat.

I honestly feel at this point an expanded visual novel without the gameplay aspect could work very well for Neptunia since that's why most of us are here; having a vast and loveable cast with gaming humor and references, fantastic artwork by Tsunako and the slice of life dialogue.

Even with its faults though I feel this is possibly a new stepping stone and hopefully IF will come to realization that the franchise needs to improve and change in order to thrive because eventually Neptunia may be nothing more than a nostalgic memory. However I'm glad that I still enjoyed my time with it and can finally appreciate a Nep spin-off for once besides the main series (Re;birth/VII).

A game about a game inside of a game. Nep/10

Edit:
The singleplayer game is decent but the netcode is terrible in multiplayer if you wanna play with friends. The logos at the start when you launch the game is unskippable and long so I just alt tab and wait it out but I still love the game though even with the cons.

Cyberdimension Neptunia: 4 Goddesses Online is an anime action RPG with the neptunia characters.

The game plays out as a casual adventure exploring an MMO type of story that is a mix between mostly voice acted visual novel and raiding dungeons. If you don't know the neptunia characters, you can expect a lot of goofy anime cliches, rivalry, banter and fourth wall breaks by Neptune. The story is silly as well with the main party beta testing the new MMO game that has references to other MMOs like Sword Art Online and jokes of that nature. There is some fanservice in the story dialogue and CGI.

When raiding the dungeons, you can choose which character you play as and 3 additional characters that will accompany you as the raiding party to give the feeling of playing an MMO. The additional characters are controlled by AI that can be changed how it behaves, from more aggressive to more passive stance. Combat is on the easy side with the buttom mashing hack and slash, the usual expected spells for damage, buffs and healing and consumables that help heal or revive fallen allies. Most of the playable characters are melee, but it's definitely safer to play at range. Dungeons at some point will get reused with enemies that get reskinned and recolored.

Online co-op exists, but it's not optimized and there was a lot of stuttering. Luckily, it's a separate thing from the main game with it's own quests that won't stop the story's progress or contain exclusive item drops. You can also customize how the characters look like with accessories that can be further expanded by buying the DLCs that are cosmetic only.

As most action RPGs go, you will have equipment that you have to find as drops, craft and grind for. But if you follow this excellent walkthrough you can go through all the main and side content with very minimal grinding. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1315645278

It's fun to pick it up for the neptunia characters, the anime style of humor and story and MMO jokes, but if that doesn't pull you in, the gameplay will get repetitive.

For achievement hunters:
There are some achievements that have a character level or skill requirement, but they aren't missable. The others are for completing all the content and some grind. With the guide by Ztarman everything is easy and simple.

It's like playing Action-MMOs.
But intead of toxic party/community, you get 3 cute waifu companion.
11/10 would recommend.