There are plenty of anime games out there to choose from, most of which follow a fairly similar RPG style and minimal cutscene animation. While it’s nice to feel like you’re experiencing the story, as opposed to just watching it, most games start to blend together, like the Is It Wrong To Try And Pick Up Girls In A Dungeon… series for instance. Neptunia Virtual Stars sets out to try and break away from the crowd. Without an anime to be based on, this game is unchained from needing to follow a set path or make sure it nails a particular story beat.

Neptunia Virtual Stars takes place in a world protected by four goddesses, all of which are your typical anime girl goddess types. Noir, a moody girl with dark hair, Blanc, who’s quiet and just kinda there, Vert comes off as ditzy and “oh did i say something sexual?”, and finally Neptune, who’s just overly excited and basically seems like a child. Anyone who has seen a slice of life anime if used to these tropes for characters. Once the initial “surprise” of a world led by four adolescent seeming goddesses wears off, the story’s next beat hits. When the goddesses attend GGS (their worlds exact copy of E3), they end up trapped in an MMO. Yup, we are nailing all the trends here. What’s next, titans?

Honestly, the story is hard to follow, if for no other reason than the fact the boob physics during cutscenes are absolutely wild! Trying to read what’s on the screen when just above you can see boobs bouncing around is incredibly distracting to say the least. On that note, I hope you enjoy story, even if it is only half-cocked, because there is A LOT of dialogue before you get any form of control. Once you get control though, you’ll just want to get back to letting the characters tell the story.

The main section of the game is incredibly limited for what is meant to be an “MMO”. For starters, the areas are incredibly small, bland, and lack anything really distinguishable. The main game plays as if it was made for the original PlayStation. When moving your character, the movement isn’t as free as a PS4 release should be, instead locked to eight directions (forward, backwards, left, right, and the four diagonals). Granted, if you just walk forward and instead move the camera to face where you want to go, then the movement feels more free. But who plays games like that?

The battles with the goddesses are incredibly underwhelming: lock onto the enemy, slide endlessly so as to not let them even attack you, shoot till dead. It’s a tried and true method, and works throughout the whole game. Although, suddenly in the story you’ll be met with two popstars, Me and You, who instead are sword and bow users, respectively. These two are a lot more fun to play as, as the style of play requires a bit more attention. The big issue with these two though are the fact that the swords combos don’t seem well put together, so it is hard to chain attacks the way you should be able to. The bow on the other hand is just a bow, but it’s incredibly hard to lock on to the right enemy, especially the more enemies there are.

Neptunia Virtual Stars suffers from artificial difficulty. The game isn’t hard, but filling an area with enemies and having terrible sword combos makes it seem like it is. At least you get a bopping anime theme to open up the game right? That is probably the best part of the game as a whole. With most story elements already being done somewhere else, and average at best, almost unplayable at worst gameplay, this is definitely not one recommended unless you’re a massive anime fan waiting for something new to come out.

 

Graphics: 6.0 Neptunia Virtual Stars looks pretty average. It’s definitely not going to stand out for its visuals, but it’s not the ugliest thing ever either.	Gameplay: 2.0 Monotonous, boring gameplay, with a horrible amount of weight on artificial difficulty is what will stop me from returning to Neptunia Virtual Stars.
Sound: 7.5 An absolutely popping theme song and pretty standard anime tunes throughout makes the music stand out more than anything else in this game.	Fun Factor: 1.0 It’s one of the few games I can genuinely say that I did not at all enjoy playing.
Final Verdict: 3.0

Neptunia Virtual Stars is available now on PC and PlayStation 4.

Reviewed on PlayStation 4.

A copy of Neptunia Virtual Stars was provided by the publisher.