Developer: Tamsoft, Compile Heart
Publisher: Idea Factory
Platform: Vita, PS TV
Tested on: PlayStation TV
MegaTagmension Blanc + Neptune VS Zombies – Review
Idea Factory’s Neptunia franchise has always been a quirky one, where the universe revolves around games, and goddesses referred to as CPUs. While these humoristic RPG games have always offered gamers rather solid mechanics, all with hours of witty banter and the necessary dose of cute looking girls, last year Hyperdimension Neptunia U: Action Unleashed was released, which totally wiped away the well-known mechanics of the other games and presented us with a brawler-like game along the lines of the Dynasty Warriors games. While the score wasn’t extremely high, it was an amusing sidetrack of the main series. That being said, today we have another one of those spin-offs, that follows the formula of Neptunia U, albeit in a slightly simplified manner.
Story
It seems for once things have gone quiet in Gamindustri, granting the CPUs, Neptune, Vert, Noire and Blanc the chance to live a normal college life, together with their sisters, the CPU candidates, Nepgear, Uni, Rom and Ram. Even though these goddesses and their successors don’t really need to attend school anymore, they wish to bond with the human populace and even learn a thing or two about how they interact and feel about pretty much everything the world has to offer. Sadly, Gamicademi, the school they attend is about to close its doors permanently. Childbirths are declining and thus the amount of students that choose Gamicademi as their school is rapidly dwindling as well. It seems there is only one thing left to do, which doesn’t involve making a lot of babies that is, namely try to promote the school, hoping many more students will enroll.
Of course, attracting new students is easier said than done, but it seems Neptune has the perfect idea: film a zombie movie and send it in for a competition, hoping many people will see it and become enamored with the school. Sadly, Neptune isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, something she sometimes realizes herself, and thus she tries to involve Blanc in the entire ordeal, who at first declines but immediately changes her mind when she is offered to be the one who is allowed to write the script and direct the entire thing. Even though Blanc’s ridiculous zombie plot doesn’t make that much sense, it seems at least their movie will look realistic as all of a sudden actual zombies are slowly flooding the campus, granting the girls ideal footage but also a real threat they will have to contain. Luckily, the people affected with this undead disease can turn back to human thanks to the goddesses’ ‘share energy’, which is power they draw out of the worship of their human underlings.
As expected, this game has a rather flimsy plot, which actually gets timidly interesting somewhere halfway the story mode. That being said, if one franchise can get away with a nearly non-existent story, it’s probably the Neptunia franchise. Nonetheless, the negligible story is constantly made attractive thanks to the silly humoristic dialogues and the actual ‘script’ of the movie the girls are making. Truth be told, we found the experience quite lovely, simple as it is. Also, this is the first time that Blanc takes the lead, instead of Neptune, which is actually a rather amusing touch.
One thing was quite noticeable, namely that the girls feel different than in the other games, as their bonds are altered and some characters seemingly never heard of one another. While for the most part the quirky behavior of all the characters remains intact, some personalities have apparently been altered in a rather drastic fashion.
Graphics
Graphically MegaTagmension Blanc + Neptune VS Zombies dons the typical Neptunia style, thus you’ll get cute anime-like visual novel sequences, with an occasional beautiful splash art thrown your way. The characters maintain their original looks from the previous games, but they look a tad younger, perhaps to suit the entire college setting of the game.
Where the visual novel portion of the game shines, the actual gameplay part lacks a bit in quality. While the characters and the enemies all looks decent, it’s the environments that look rather bland and uninspired. You’ll constantly be battling in the same small ‘arenas’, albeit with different colors from time to time. The problem is, just like in the other Neptunia games, there is nothing to see in the arenas, everything is just flat and clutter-free. An amusing twist this game offers is that the enemies, at least in the story mode, all have a ‘zombie’ skin over them.
Sound
Even though the game has a decent amount of catchy tunes, it’s the voice acting that steals the show for this specific title, except if you’re heading into the multiplayer mode right off the bat. That being said, the voices, both English and Japanese perfectly suit the personalities of the characters and the many humoristic dialogues they have with one another, with more than one silly one-liner. The story goes hand in hand with the voice acting, thus elevating a simple story into something rather likeable.
Gameplay
MegaTagmension Blanc + Neptune VS Zombies is the second brawler type game that situates itself in the Neptunia universe. You’ll be occupying yourself with short missions in which you’ll have to kill specific amounts of zombies in order to progress. This remains rather constant for all the different modes the game has to offer but for a game like this, it’s pretty much ‘enough’.
During the story mode you’ll always have tagteam based battles, which means that you’ll always be able to pick two characters to clear the mission at hand. You can switch freely and when one of them dies, she will resurrect after sixty seconds, if you keep the other character alive. In addition you’ll also be able to use special moves and guarding abilities. Nonetheless, compared to Hyperdimension Neptunia U: Action Unleashed, the mechanics feel rather sluggish and sloppy. The fluency of the previous game seems to be missing and the action has been toned down, making the battles seem even smaller. Where hordes of enemies used to come at you, it’s now only small clusters of monsters yet you’ll have a harder time properly defeating them. The two things that drag down the gameplay the most are the camera and the fact that you don’t have a proper and intuitive lock-on system. The latter proves to be one of the most annoying systems ever seen in games like this.
After plowing through the story for several hours, you can dive into the multiplayer mode, which is actually, quite nice. You and your friends can tackle kill missions together, but this also means you’ll only get to choose one character from now on. That being said, the mode itself can also be played solo, if you wish to gather more money and experience for your characters first.
Your selected character(s) will level up if you play missions with them, and in turn they will slowly become stronger. When leveling up, they will also receive ability points which you can distribute among health, defense and power upgrades, or an addition to the combos the character has already learned, unlocking new moves. Other than that, the level and gear system is really simple, as you’ll only be able to purchase new weapons for the characters and small passive upgrades to add to the weapons. While this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it takes away a certain kind of motivation to keep on playing after you’ve cleared the story mode and messed around a bit with the multiplayer mode.
Completionists and those who just love dressing up the girls will be able to purchase a truckload of accessories or unlock new costumes by simply playing a lot. That being said, the ‘ripped’ clothes mechanic, a.k.a. the fan service of the previous game has been removed, which might ruin some of the boys’ fun. That being said, it never had any proper influence on the gameplay anyway, it was just a quirk added to the mix.
One thing that truly proved to be annoying when playing through the story mode of the game was that, after each mission, the game throws you back to the story menu, which is quite odd for a game to do.
Conclusion
MegaTagmension Blanc + Neptune VS Zombies is a welcome addition to the brawler side of the Neptunia franchise, it also feels like a small step back from the first attempt of such a game. While the game is simple and enjoyable in many ways, some of the mechanics feel sloppily finished or dated, which might hamper the fun for a decent amount of players. Nonetheless, players who liked or loved Hyperdimension Neptunia U: Action Unleashed will certainly enjoy this one as well.
MegaTagmension Blanc + Neptune VS Zombies - Review,
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