The Hyperdimension Neptunia series has caught my eye for the better part of a decade now. Seemingly always showing up in my suggestions on Steam, I only have a small experience from early entry Re; Birth1, but I live for games that satirize the game industry. It’s fair to say none do it better than this series. Amongst the many spinoffs is Neptunia Virtual Stars, seeing release on PS4 last year and having just come to PC now, it’s bringing Hack-N-Slash/Third-Person Shooter gameplay to the forefront. So, how does it pan out?

Neptunia Virtual Stars starts out with some story cutscenes. When I say some, I mean 40 minutes worth before I’m actually thrust into the Hack-N-Slash gameplay. With some taking place in artwork and others with the in-game engine, it was agony sitting through what felt like a visual novel at a snail’s pace.

The anticipation to finally enter the actual game was wearing off with each new scene, even if the dialogue gave me a chuckle every now and then. I noticed a Steam review say they skipped every cutscene, but the hook of this series is its charm in parodying games, so I didn’t want to miss out on any jabs or gaffes. Thankfully, there’s an option to change dialogue speed and this was immediately utilized.

Once the gameplay was finally starting, I found myself immediately struggling to make sense of the control scheme. I wanted to experience Neptunia Virtual Stars with mouse and keyboard, but hovering my hands over the spacebar to continue the dialog every few seconds for the 40-minute span was exceptionally tiring. Once movement was introduced, it showed button prompts. The in-game settings didn’t show rebindable keys like most games on the platform do either, so the optimization of this title comes into question.

After the struggle of guessworking the controls, I finally came across an enemy. It took quite a lot of hits to take down, almost like grunt enemies had a mini-boss’ health bar. I’m used to bullet sponge in playing The Division and Borderlands series, but this was frustrating to the point of making the combat a true chore. I did enjoy the variety of weapon types between the stars, but it was still a slog and not at all what I was hoping for.

Longtime fans of the Hyperdimension Neptunia series will find some excitement as the pulpy story is here but with as little free time as I have to play games, most of it was spent in cutscenes that progressed as slowly as one could imagine. The wait to the gameplay wasn’t worth it, either, as it’s just as much a test of patience.

Post-release, Neptunia Virtual Stars is sitting at a rating of “Mixed” on Steam at 50%. This is a serious dip from the other games that typically reach the heights of “Very Positive” and “Overwhelmingly Positive”. Criticism is echoed towards the combat/controls with the saving grace being the story. With so many great Third-Person Shooters out in the market, I can’t see this ever being worth its steep $50 price point. Who knows, maybe the series will satirize this entry at a later point!

A PC review copy of Neptunia Virtual Stars was provided by Idea Factory for this review.

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Neptunia Virtual Stars

$49.99

4

Score

4.0/10

Pros

• Brilliant Environments
• Topical Humor

Cons

• Painful Combat
• Controls/Prompts are Busted
• Story Outbalances Gameplay