超次元アクション ネプテューヌU！
Every now and again comes a game which does everything right. Somewhat less often comes a game which does everything wrong. However even less often than that, is a game which does a lot of simple things wrong, but does things that a lot other things that other games fail at exactly right.
Hyperdimension Neptunia U (HDN:U from now on), is that rare third category. A game which fails in a lot of easy to implement areas, and yet wins out in a lot of areas that other games just don’t, but should. Let me begin.
HDN:U is what I like to call an “Anime style strip-fighter”, and although that’s not an official term, I think it defines the genre pretty well. Along with Onechanbara Z2 and Senran Kagura, it’s one of the three big titles in the genre released this year and, having experienced the HDN universe before, I thought I’d try it out.
The concept is simple, with two attack buttons, a few special moves and a “limit-break” you beat up bad guys Dynasty Warrior style. Taking too much damage will cause your clothes to be ripped off in an almost-titillating manner, (more on that later), and every level is more or less completed by killing an obscene amount of these baddies.
The game lacks a lot. There’s almost no variety in mission types, most stages consist of only a single room, and the majority of enemies function almost exactly the same to one another, (in all honesty I saw about maybe 3 enemy types who behaved differently than the rest, although these three types really did make a difference). The character models are disappointingly low resolution and the polygon count is far too low to render anything sexy, (sorry guys), the English voices are atrocious and, most disappointingly, there are absolutely no alternate costumes to speak of, (honestly, this last point is ridiculous, in an 3D anime brawler like this, alternate costumes are an expected part of the package, every game from Dead of Alive to Onechanbara have them, so why doesn’t this?).
With the exception of the lack of costumes, the other flaws mentioned above don’t actually detract from the experience that much, if at all. This games main purpose is twofold, it’s simultaneously a nice way to relax & blow off steam, whilst being a fun bit of soft porn in the process. As mentioned above, the soft-porn part of the game falls flat on it’s face due to the low-res models and the lack of any dialogue that won’t make you cringe in your chair if observed sexually, (in both the English and Japanese dubs no less). It does however, fulfill the latter part of it’s purpose absolutely excellently. Out of all the games I’ve played, this is one of the easiest I found for blowing off steam after a long day, and it accomplishes this goal rather cleverly.
You see, what HDN:U accomplishes rather perfectly, which I have yet to see another similar game do so gracefully, is an integration between fanservice and gameplay mechanics. Namely, it’s “Costume Break” mechanic has been fashioned in such a way that it actually enhances the gameplay instead of making it (for lack of a better word), somewhat awkward.
The problem with Costume Break Mechanics is that they’re counter to the players goals: You want to beat the game with the highest score possible, which means taking a least damage as possible, and yet a large portion of this games appeal comes from seeing your characters have their clothes torn off mid-battle, which requires taking damage. It would seem that the game has been bought with a particular investment in mind, which then becomes redundant fairly early in. So how does HDN:U get around this?
As those familiar with the series may know, all the protagonists in the HDN universe are capable of transforming into a far more powerful version of themselves. In this game there’s a small bar called the HDD in the left hand corner which fills up the more enemies kill. When it reaches halfway or more your transformation is unlocked. When your clothes are torn off however, you’re immediately given half a bar of HDD. The logic here is that if you’re failing at a mission, the game gives you a little “boost” to help you out. Now the genius part is there are 3 options for your characters clothing: “Normal”, “Tears easily”, “Doesn’t Tear” and “Already Torn”. What this means is, players of the game both get to choose their level of fanservice, whilst also deciding how they want their meter to work.
This sounds really straight forward, but when combined with items that affect your HDD bar, they really use the clothes tear gimmick to add another layer of depth to the game. Personally, the way I played was with an item which lets you start with a full HDD bar, and had the “easily torn” setting on, so that I could transform straight away, and once my bar has run down, all I had to do was get hit and transform again. Now, the otherwise counter-intuitive fanservice mechanic is working entirely in my favour. and thus it’s something to be embraced and experienced fully, rather than a tacked on gimmick which would otherwise go ignored as a hassle, (as so many other iterations of it do).
It may not be perfect, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction, because after all there’s no reason why a tits-out fanservice anime fighter can’t be a masterpiece, it’s just a matter of working things out innovatively to create something which takes all of it’s parts and makes the sum of them so much greater. Hyperdimension Neptunia U has a lot of flaws, but it also shines some light on an underexplored genre, and breaks some new ground whilst it does it. All in all, if you’re looking for an anime fan-service game to blow some steam off without any major commitments, this is the cheapest of the 3 big titles out of the moment, so chuck some cash in Compile Heart’s direction and a clock a couple of hours in it.
The Only Superking 