Developer: Idea Factory, Inc.
Publisher: Idea Factory International, Inc.
Where to buy: Steam
Price: $29.99
Very rarely will I sit down to play a game I know nothing about. When presented with this game to review, I had no idea what to expect. I have never played a title in this series before and honestly was a little overwhelmed at first. Thankfully, after playing through a majority of the game I can safely say most of my worries were unwarranted, however I do have some issues that prevented me from fully enjoying the experience.
I do want to start off by saying this game is unique. That is not a bad thing. Actually, in this case, a very good thing. Many games in this age have a hard time feeling fresh, different, and unique. Hyperdimension Neptuna Re;Birth1 does a good job at throwing in new, yet familiar elements that you can really only find by playing through the game itself. It’s a unique experience. You’ll notice me saying unique a lot during this review. There’s a reason for this which is simply this game does things other games do not do. Let me explain a little bit.
Graphically, the game looks great. Great animation, and great visual effects. The environments look like something out of a animated show. Character models look polished, and well done. If I did not know the name of the game, I would mistakenly confuse this game for a title out of the Tales series. Do not take that as a bad thing, I consider that a good thing, as this means the game is visually appealing and looks very polished.
Audio wise however, I have some complaints. The one major complaint which thankfully you can change, is the voice acting. The english voice acting is just not all that good in my humble opinion. Thankfully, you can switch this if it is a deal breaker for you to Japanese, which helps immensely. Also, the music is actually pretty well done, the problem however is that it is way over-used. Within a 30 minute spree, I heard the same song 7 times. While I enjoy the music that is offered, very little seems to be offered and is overused, which means you will get sick of it after a while.
Gameplay wise I have a couple very minor nitpicks. Dungeon layouts are also over-used, meaning you will see many of the same layouts for dungeons. Again, a minor nitpick, but a noticeable one. My major nitpick is the fan service. There is too much. To my understanding, they actually cut out a lot of the fanservice for this port, which I am glad. I could only imagine how much was in the original title. The game would at times stop feeling like a RPG, and more a visual novel. This was frustrating as I would start to enjoy the story, just for visual novel type segments to appear and just ruin any immersion I had with the game.
Now that i’ve got the cons out of the way, let us focus on the pros. Visually the game is great looking for a port of a PS Vita title. I played this on my PC and noticed no FPS drops, and had no crashes. The PC port is a very stable port and honestly I would recommend this version to anyone who is new to the series. The colors pop, the game is stable, and a lot of fun can be had.
While the combat system is unique, it feels like a very simplistic design. The game has turn based combat, which has you planning out your attacks over multiple turns. The difficulty at the start of the game is actually pretty tough, so you will find yourself sitting and wondering what the best strategy for each given situation is. I appreciate this, as it makes me stop and think before just going in hammers swinging.
Overall, I can suggest this title only to the hardcore RPG market. There is a lot of fanservice in this game. Almost too much if you ask me. However, if you do enjoy JRPG’s, want a good well presented story, and don’t mind the fanservice, there is a lot of fun to be had here.
Recommended for JRPG Fans.
