Not just a Compile Heart problem, Tales looked pretty bad too, post Vesperia which was apparently really high budget. Judging from *w*, Nep VII and Estival Versus, it looks like the PS4 has enough oomph/ease of programming that lower budget anime games should pretty easily hit 1080p/60fps at a reasonable IQ level which is great.
Supposedly the PS3 had weird architecture compared to the PS4, who is much closer to a PC (probably means we'll get more and better ports).
Although I did actually get one area to drop to around 40 frames. On the other hand it was a pretty huge open dungeon with all the areas visible to each other. There was even this tiny little cliff with nothing on it that overlooked the whole place.
Also, the game looks great in motion. In a way youtube and previews don't really convey.
Yeah, PS3 was weird for sure. ...my will to not buy the Dream Edition is waning (should have realized this before release). Anyone get it who can comment on the quality of the extras? If I get it, it's LE or nothing, to me there's no sense in getting standard editions of games certain to be localized.
From what I've seen of it: nice big orange box. Kinda complete 3 CD OST: reused tracks from HDN Mk2 and HDNV aren't included, and I can't seem to find anything that might be the final boss theme, but every single new track so far seems included(one of the CDs is just a "VA pretends to be character" sorta thing though). 56 page "visual book". It has concept art but I don't know if it's all that or if it has CGs in it too.
Someone posted a whole lot of pictures of it in this album.
From what I've seen of it: nice big orange box. Kinda complete 3 CD OST: reused tracks from HDN Mk2 and HDNV aren't included, and I can't seem to find anything that might be the final boss theme, but every single new track so far seems included(one of the CDs is just a "VA pretends to be character" sorta thing though). 56 page "visual book". It has concept art but I don't know if it's all that or if it has CGs in it too.
Someone posted a whole lot of pictures of it in this album.
$9 Neptunia PP and a few other discounts on recent Neptunia games ($7.50 Victory, around half off on Noire and Rebirth 2). If you enjoy the humor IMO PP is worth the $9 and just mash through the life sim crap and pretend it's a VN.
$9 Neptunia PP and a few other discounts on recent Neptunia games ($7.50 Victory, around half off on Noire and Rebirth 2). If you enjoy the humor IMO PP is worth the $9 and just mash through the life sim crap and pretend it's a VN.
I meant the "study/practice/etc" stat growth crap. Though IMO the concert stuff isn't too bad (though the interactivity is pretty pointless). The dialog is the good part. I might rebuy a couple things including PP just because cart swapping is a pain. At <$10 it gets tempting to double dip just to remove that annoyance.
I really need to get back to Neptunia... got Rebirth1, 2 and Noire laying around, but I still need to Plat PP. At this point I don't think I'm ever going to open the LEs and just get additional copies.
Welp, I (hopefully) got a copy of Neptunia VII order (courtesy of Wilflare), did an import OT of that ever get made? Any useful guides? I bumbled my way through Estival Versus and a couple dozen shmups but an RPG is more intimidating.
Was happy to see it looks like the Sisters are back and not postgame crap I think.
I really need to get back to Neptunia... got Rebirth1, 2 and Noire laying around, but I still need to Plat PP. At this point I don't think I'm ever going to open the LEs and just get additional copies.
I'd suggest the digital copies from the sale but apparently those won't do. I can't bear to not open my LEs but I'll leave a game sealed if I can get a digital copy instead for an acceptable price and the game is valuable enough (never gonna open that Retro City Rampage PS4 copy).
How bad is PP to plat exactly? Considering working on that with a guide now that I can play it in short spurts with another cart inserted. Working on Noire...also with a guide...I really wish they'd stop doing these completionist-punishment trophies. How do you even make an idol game have more demanding trophies than a JRPG? There's usually only a couple trophies in Neptunia RPGs that actually require a guide/grind.
It kinda depends on your tastes really. Opinions seems kinda split.
Pretty much all three of those games can be played independently from one another for the most part.
yup, they're all great except for Hyperdevotion Noire, which is just okay
edit: so what's the easiest way to do lily rank grinding in re;birth 2? it took me an additional 30 hours in mk2 to get max lily ranks and i'd rather not do that again
yup, they're all great except for Hyperdevotion Noire, which is just okay
edit: so what's the easiest way to do lily rank grinding in re;birth 2? it took me an additional 30 hours in mk2 to get max lily ranks and i'd rather not do that again
Best possible Lily Rank+ disk on both characters you're grinding for, Symbol Gain. Takes like 5 minutes per character to get to a modest lily level. Also I don't think Mk2 required anything like that much grinding unless you did it for fun. Make sure you're only doing it for Nepgear still, and stop at whatever rank you need (I assume for holy sword)
Best possible Lily Rank+ disk on both characters you're grinding for, Symbol Gain. Takes like 5 minutes per character to get to a modest lily level. Also I don't think Mk2 required anything like that much grinding unless you did it for fun. Make sure you're only doing it for Nepgear still, and stop at whatever rank you need (I assume for holy sword)
Finally finished Victory II, got all endings, and have an urge to share some no spoiler feelings about this game.
Overall this game is good. Graphics are basically PC Rebirth 1 level, 60 fps in most dungeons, the design feels better than the Rebirth trilogy. The plot felt better than Victory/Re;birth 3 for me, not going to dig into it, but Victory/Rebirth 3 felt a little redundant after
saving Peashy
for me, while this time Compile Heart managed to keep up the climax until the very end. The battle system do changed a lot from Victory, and these changes(combo setup, faster exe charge, etc) are mostly towards a better direction, but it still gets boring after 10-15 hours and after that you'll want to L2 everything and end the battle as soon as possible. The battles of this series are just never my type.
Also the theme songs are great. All 5 theme songs are nice, but 妄想Katharsis just stands out and becomes the best theme song of the series (for now, just like I thought Go Love & Peace is the best theme song of this series until half a week ago). As for the new characters, Uzume is cute, the fish is better than he/it looks, but the Golden Third just don't get enough appearance to be remarkable, except their corresponding company memes.
And now, time for some criticism:
When I first got the game and started playing for a few hours, I felt like "wow all these dungeons are completely new, Compile Heart was really doing something for the past two years". And after that, those reused dungeons from previous game appear, and assets from the new dungeons are getting reused too, which made me feel the only excuses can be "It is a Compile Heart game, what were you expecting" and "At least there is no Factory this time". The same goes to the enemies, but at least all enemies old or new got some voice acting.
The running around the world map and getting random encounters is my most hated experience in this game. Those enemies are low level, low reward, can be killed with one combo, but comes in great numbers, with amazing positioning knowledge to avoid being team wiped by one AOE. And besides this, my hatred list of designs also includes "No healing after level up", "No healing on the world map unless you reached a town", and "No experience for the benched unless you are Uzume or S-sha".
On the contrary to those nasty mobsters, some bosses are really easy. A lot of them will not use their powerful skills until their health is really low, so for most of the time these boss will be hitting one of your team for a few hundreds of HP, and you don't really need to heal unless it hits one of your party several times in a row. However there are bosses that are difficult to beat and requires you grinding a few levels before trying again.
Well this does sounds like whining, but I'm still looking forward to seeing Neptunia Victory III/mk5 or whatever the series will bring on.
A final note:
The bad ending of
Victory II can compete with the "You know what" from mk2
Good to see some opinions.
I'd say the graphics are better than that really.
I do love that they managed to maintain a constant, coherent, but also fun and interesting plot all the way. There's no "Fight Underling 5 times" but also it's not nearly all over the place like regular Victory.
Mechanics are definitely the best as well, the change to EXE and transformations has seriously improved the way they handle.
The OST is probably the best in the series really. They've finally managed to craft some really memorable music.
I loved all the new characters and while I did think the Gold Third were a bit underepresented, they didn't really take over the spotlight either.
Asset reuse is basically CH norm, even between Mk2 and Victory. The new stuff is still rather notable, and the old stuff got such a nice coat of paint too.
The random encounters and no shared experience really are weird decisions.
And yeah, the difficulty spikes are back. But personally I felt it was the opposite. Rather than the game suddenly getting harder, the game just had a bunch of suddenly easy encounters at times. The worst parts about bosses is that they do have cool strong moves, but they use them so rarely you'd not know they exist. If the game could get patched to have a hard mode or enemy difficulty increased it'd be great.
I disagree about your last point. I feel like
the normal ending is far more thematically appropriate, and despite having the death of a character it was still very hopeful. I think everyone who plays the game should at least experience it because it's serious but not out of place within the game. The True ending is really good though and should probably be done first though. Also I love that they brought back the voice cast thanking you after the credits.
Like with most CH games, I think Neptunia VII was two steps forward, one step backwards, then a weird drunken lurch left and right. I wish they could focus more on these mainline entries rather than spinoffs.
the Normal Ending is hopeful and really bright. The true ending is sweet, but a little too forced in my opinion, and I will sue Compile Heart for making up rumors if Sega doesn't come up with a new console in two years. /s
However, we may have some misunderstanding here about definition.
What I meant by "the bad ending" was the ending without even fighting the 4 Goddesses, aka "The Fallen Ending" or "悪堕End", and it is not in the achievement list, just like the Conquest Ending not appearing in mk2's achievements (or was it? too long since I played that game). Although not as long as Conquest, that ending will arouse some serious melancholy that lasts a few hours to several days.
And by the way, I still have a uncollected CG and I don't know where I can get it.
I think it is a four goddesses' FF style cosplay picture, because i saw it a few days ago and it says "Compile Heart/Idea Factory 2015" at the corner, so I assumed that it comes from this game. However I can't find that picture anymore, thus I have no idea how to get it now.
the Normal Ending is hopeful and really bright. The true ending is sweet, but a little too forced in my opinion, and I will sue Compile Heart for making up rumors if Sega doesn't come up with a new console in two years. /s
However, we may have some misunderstanding here about definition.
What I meant by "the bad ending" was the ending without even fighting the 4 Goddesses, aka "The Fallen Ending" or "悪堕End", and it is not in the achievement list, just like the Conquest Ending not appearing in mk2's achievements (or was it? too long since I played that game). Although not as long as Conquest, that ending will arouse some serious melancholy that lasts a few hours to several days.
And by the way, I still have a uncollected CG and I don't know where I can get it.
I think it is a four goddesses' FF style cosplay picture, because i saw it a few days ago and it says "Compile Heart/Idea Factory 2015" at the corner, so I assumed that it comes from this game. However I can't find that picture anymore, thus I have no idea how to get it now.
Damn. I've been rushing all the way through my 2nd playthrough, didn't gave a shit about scouts and never did any guild mission above level E. Time for some painful grinding......
Disk dev is most relevant to reduce grinding--I think Red idea parts often have things like lily rank up, money up, drop rate up. Make lots of disks with your best grind reducers and the best other effects (I usually add paralyze to attacks and physical/magical defense as extras).
Disks have some nice buffs here and there but the grind reducing ones are huge so they're about all I ever focus on. Lily ranks without them take hours, with them it takes minutes.
It's $7.5 digitally if the golden week sale is still on. Victory is good but I guess you can wait for the Vita version at this point if you're not a collector.
Beat up the "risky foes"/the big monster icons on the maps to get disks. Sometimes (always?) you need to use Add/change Enemies to find the ones that have disks. Every time you get a Medal (letter) you take it back to planeptune for an event and you get a reusable disk for this.
I wish they would have patched that, it's a universal complaint and awful intro to a series that other than Rebirth 1 doesn't really have difficulty spikes. That said I don't think I ever fought a boss more than twice in Rebirth 1. Do the "optional" dungeons if you haven't, Reb 1 seems designed around expecting you to develop and play them immediately. Also Plutia is pretty OP if you got her (she's only a dollar).
That final boss is a joke if you do side content. The other two were problems, IIRC compounded by "two boss fights in a row". I think VII does this at least once too right? Really wish they wouldn't. Was very relieved that Omega Quintet never does that.
Also the first hard fight happens when you only have Neptune (good) compa (useless) and IF (90% useless) IIRC. They really need to work on making Makers not suck. Cave and Falcom in Mk2 are the only ones that are really good, and that's because they're OP DLC characters.
I wish they would have patched that, it's a universal complaint and awful intro to a series that other than Rebirth 1 doesn't really have difficulty spikes. That said I don't think I ever fought a boss more than twice in Rebirth 1. Do the "optional" dungeons if you haven't, Reb 1 seems designed around expecting you to develop and play them immediately. Also Plutia is pretty OP if you got her (she's only a dollar).
Lucky for everyone that ReBirth 3 comes with EVERYONE EVER as free DLC. And they join right at Chapter 1 to boot! With story/side events too.
Seriously though I'm pretty sure RB3 has 28 playable characters. There's so many of them I think all the DLC together takes up 1.5GBs. But hey, it's free, and sure beats paying whatever the hell the crazy original price was for DLC on PS3.
Yeah I love how Rebirth 3 is doing the extra characters, I despise the "wait until the end of the game or even NG+ before getting a character", honestly I'd rather pay a buck each instead at that point since it's the difference between actually using them and not. Playable Chika and Kei in Reb 2 is cool in theory, in practice I unlocked them so insanely late I only used them to watch each of their combat animations and then stopped playing because I had the platinum.
Not really a big deal to me, story-wise half the people that join you (all of the makers) barely do anything of consequence anyway. Other than Histoire they're just in since they were already made for Victory and weren't in the first game at all anyway.
Oooo niceeeee I believe Re;Birth 2 also had all the DLC as free? Haven't started it yet, but saw that only Re;Birth 1 and Hyperdevotion and character DLC.
Even if it's only been in Japan at the moment, it's hard to find info on Neptunia U. Anyone know how the game turned out?
Are there difficulty settings to make the game more enjoyable? I'm afraid if it's going to be monotonous while just mashing buttons against bad AI.
I want to get 100% completion for PP and actually play Noire but I have a review code for Neptunia U and I have Neptunia VII coming so I guess I'll have to put those off for a while. Don't want to get burnt out.
Even if it's only been in Japan at the moment, it's hard to find info on Neptunia U. Anyone know how the game turned out?
Are there difficulty settings to make the game more enjoyable? I'm afraid if it's going to be monotonous while just mashing buttons against bad AI.
Review codes are out as of yesterday, no embargo other than late game story stuff. I only just started it, humor has been fantastic so far, haven't played enough to comment on gameplay. Looks nice too. Looks much closer to Neptunia than Shinovi Versus, maybe it's the art style but it looks cleaner than I recall Shinovi Versus looking too.
And it's not really "bad AI", AI in these sort of games rarely attacks on purpose because it would be basically unplayable if everything attacked constantly. You can't really give the player a "one vs hundreds" feel if each of those hundreds is equally as capable as the player.
I will say the gameplay is a bit more different from Shinovi than I was expecting, but at the same time if you don't like that style of 3D brawler/Musou-lite it's probable you won't like this either. But like PP I can definitely see potential for the humor making up for the gameplay anyway. The first 15 minutes were great anyway.
Oooo niceeeee I believe Re;Birth 2 also had all the DLC as free? Haven't started it yet, but saw that only Re;Birth 1 and Hyperdevotion and character DLC.
Not quite, ReBirth2 had no DLC characters but still had the 3 level cap break DLCs and I think a couple other cheat code things (including one to un-ruin Stella's Dungeon). Histoire (and the other oracles) are part of the base game as lategame unlockables, Peashy and Plutia just don't exist in it at all.
Ah, I see. I'm usually mixed on musous to begin with. I was more of a fan of the 2D sidescrolling brawlers or games like DMC/Bayonetta type gameplay. I'm mostly interested on how the gameplay is on higher difficulties (if there's a setting) since I'm not too interested in the story for the spinoffs.
Ah, I see. I'm usually mixed on musous to begin with. I was more of a fan of the 2D sidescrolling brawlers or games like DMC/Bayonetta type gameplay. I'm mostly interested on how the gameplay is on higher difficulties (if there's a setting) since I'm not too interested in the story for the spinoffs.
It's not really about the story so much as the humor IMO, don't really need good story for that. There's a big difference between story and writing. I'll see if there's difficulty options, I didn't see any but I only played one level. If it's like Senran Kagura I'm guessing the normal enemy fights are never more than trash for you to enjoy beating crowds of enemies and only the bosses (almost always one per level) are the only real challenge.
Combat seems a bit more varied than SK already though, there's "heavy"/triangle combos too instead of it just being a single/charged attack, and the transformation mechanic is more involved. Spamming triangle also damages your clothes because of reasons. If it's as long as SK it'll probably take me like a week to get an impression of late game fights though.
I don't mind the lack of "running". There's still the dash button, and run was kind of stupid in SK anyway. Normal run speed in this game is fine and run was only this awkward thing you really only need in very large levels when there's a break in the action and you need to get around. If I run in Estival it's usually to see what silly animation my current character has for it.
It also has the per-character voice disabler option that PP had, I love the idea but I don't hate anyone quite that much. Was a bit tempted to put it on for Ram though.
This is a bit of a weird specific question but after you've played a bit more, can you say how Neptune sounds/talks? Mostly I'm wondering if she still uses a bunch of weird made up words and such. Also any memes and such? Sometimes it gets a little overbearing.
For the most part there really isn't much of a story, not even the usual stuff. I mean, the plot synopsis is literally "Everyone is bored so they go beat up stuff".
Also I do believe there's some sort of unlockable hard mode, but it's less about difficulty and more about "If you get hit twice you explode" style difficulty.
I've never played this or SK style games but annoyingly there are no fights with other human sized opponents. For some weird reason those were all relegated to a sort of arena/colosseum mode. For the most part bosses are either giant enemies or a small pack of big ones.
Also I just remembered that U has a couple new tracks. For some reason I forgot about them but it's probably the most for a spinoff. They're kinda jazzy/funky for some reason, I felt there was a noticeable increase in trumpets. Also this is the first time transformations get their own theme too.
This is a bit of a weird specific question but after you've played a bit more, can you say how Neptune sounds/talks? Mostly I'm wondering if she still uses a bunch of weird made up words and such. Also any memes and such? Sometimes it gets a little overbearing.
For the most part there really isn't much of a story, not even the usual stuff. I mean, the plot synopsis is literally "Everyone is bored so they go beat up stuff".
Also I do believe there's some sort of unlockable hard mode, but it's less about difficulty and more about "If you get hit twice you explode" style difficulty.
I've never played this or SK style games but annoyingly there are no fights with other human sized opponents. For some weird reason those were all relegated to a sort of arena/colosseum mode. For the most part bosses are either giant enemies or a small pack of big ones.
Also I just remembered that U has a couple new tracks. For some reason I forgot about them but it's probably the most for a spinoff. They're kinda jazzy/funky for some reason, I felt there was a noticeable increase in trumpets. Also this is the first time transformations get their own theme too.
Combat is pretty fun, the characters have pretty nice varied attacks. I really like Uni's animations though her range is pretty limited (as in, almost all of her attacks go straight forward not to the sides much). I still doubt I'll use them much, but Rom and Ram are actually kind of fun to use and have more varied attacks than usual. Degekiko and Famitsu are cool, I'm glad they just said screw it and have them an HDD equivalent and made them basically no worse than anyone else.
The writing's pretty great, even more self-aware than usual, it's sort of like the entire game is one of the more silly side-events in one of the RPGs, full of jokes and characters' quirks (I swear Vert's going to kidnap Nepgear some day)
If you've played Senran Kagura it probably plays a fair bit less like Senran Kagura than you might expect, it's almost like half Neptunia features half SK features than SK with a Neptunia skin sort of.
This is a bit of a weird specific question but after you've played a bit more, can you say how Neptune sounds/talks? Mostly I'm wondering if she still uses a bunch of weird made up words and such. Also any memes and such? Sometimes it gets a little overbearing.
Also I do believe there's some sort of unlockable hard mode, but it's less about difficulty and more about "If you get hit twice you explode" style difficulty.
I've never played this or SK style games but annoyingly there are no fights with other human sized opponents. For some weird reason those were all relegated to a sort of arena/colosseum mode. For the most part bosses are either giant enemies or a small pack of big ones.
Also I just remembered that U has a couple new tracks. For some reason I forgot about them but it's probably the most for a spinoff. They're kinda jazzy/funky for some reason, I felt there was a noticeable increase in trumpets. Also this is the first time transformations get their own theme too.
Neptune is...she's Neptune. *shrug* I wouldn't say she's "using a bunch of made up words" and stuff but she's totally Neptune and that's not going to change. Unlike the RPGs Neptune does not get an unreasonably high amount of screen time nor are you often forced to use specific characters so it's really not a big deal. You can mute character's in-battle voices too (I only mute the enemies, they kinda suck).
I dunno about the difficulty mode, I haven't unlocked anything like that yet, you can pick missions above your level if you wish and they're really hard, and you can limit yourself by not equipping better gear. There's a "forced level 1" equip though it seems more like an extreme self restriction than any sane hard mode.
Transformations technically always had their own themes but only when you fight that goddess, not what you fight AS them.
