By: David (@friendshipguy_)
• Cyberdimension Neptunia: 4 Goddesses Online
• Developer - IDEA FACTORY, COMPILE HEART, TAMSOFT
• Publisher - Idea Factory International
• PC/Steam
• Rating - T
There are some genuine gems that Idea Factory pushes out from their Neptunia franchise on the regular, though often times the gap between those is filled with titles that don’t quite have as much luster as the others. Cyberdimension Neptunia: 4 Goddesses Online for PC unfortunately lacks a lot of shine that I’d hope for it to have.
4 Goddesses Online is a spin-off from the main franchise games, and it acts much like that. It’s a short departure from the other series, throwing its characters into an MMORPG/ARPG hybrid in which they beta-test the game as themselves, which plays oh so well into the hyper-meta, fourth-wall breaking angle Idea Factory takes with Neptune and company. There are some seeds of mystery and intrigue sewn in throughout the plot, but the gist of the story is just that; however, Vert gets to shine as a sort of patron saint to MMO’s in this title, and gets a fair deal of dialogue where she guides her party through the foundation of just how the specific genre of game they’ve been thrust into works.
Much of the meat of the game is taken up through quests distributed via the guild clerk in the town’s overworld, and mostly consist of fetch quests or kill quests in true MMO fashion. It’s not something that really bothered me; from the inside out, it may look like busy work, though most of these can be completed with a single run through one of the many locations players unlock throughout the game. There were only a few of these actual quests which required me returning to town, and farming my way through a few different varieties of monster to get a specific ingredient to tick it off the list, but not all of them are mandatory to complete. There’s only a few quests that are necessary for bumping you up to the next rank in the guild to get to the next one. The only deliberation from this is about halfway through the game—depending on how long it takes you to burn through the first few—where you’re sent on mandatory farming quests to create an item that’ll help you progress through the game. That’s the gameplay loop though, and it isn’t a gripe I had with the game.
What snagged me was the combat of the game, and it’s something that you’re unable to escape. You have one attack button, and several skills to assign to face buttons on your controller—if you opted for it—or keys, but nothing ever really chains together organically. This doubles when you give a ranged character like Plutia or Uni who utilize ranged attacks a try. Mashing the attack button runs you through the same cycle of the same three attacks, allowing you to build up meter and ability points that allow you to buff your character, or dish out those skills you’ve earned. There’s no specified combos in the game, though I suppose it’s mirroring an MMO, so they leaned hard into the angle despite MMO/ARPGs like TERA existing which manage to meld these two genres fairly successfully. It struck me as something mildly concerning considering Megatagmension was a brawler heavy game that didn’t have a robust combo system, but it had combos none-the-less for specific instances. Melee characters get a bit of a meatier experience, but I spent most of my time playing as Uni who mantles the thief class often found in MMOs and uses pistols to play off her FPS-centric motif as a character. All of her attacks are ranged save for a few skills which throw in kicks to either knock up an enemy or make some distance between her and her target. Oftentimes your companions are clobbering on the same target that the status effect thrown out by your attack never sees the light of day, or they’re too busy trying to find a way onto the same platform you’re on.
The controls are serviceable, they do their job well when you’re not jumping or in the air in any particular fashion, but that’s about it. There’s a particular instance early on in the game where Neptune herself effuses about how the “controls are comfy,” and that’s just not the case when it comes to platforming. There’s two speeds: not at all, or incredibly fast. This is really only seen when you’re airborne as mentioned previously, but there are a few sections within the game where you’ll have to tumble with these if you want to get as much loot as you can. Doubly so is the camera, which is serviceable once again. You can set the distance it follows behind you at to the point that your party is fairly far from the camera itself, though anything past the default sends trees and brush into your field of view, obscuring the action that you’re meant to be keeping your eyes on. That being said, the jump to Unreal Engine 4 yields a buttery smooth 60 frames per second on my desktop, and really made cut scenes with fully modeled characters stand out!
Despite the controls, and the combat to be a little dull, I still enjoyed my time with the game. Id’ be hard pressed to believe that anyone who enjoys Neptune and her friend’s adventures at this point are more than complacent with the controls and mechanics of the game because they’re all playing for that sweet, juicy dialogue. The characters are hard not to love, and most probably have a favorite. Everyone’s here this time, taking on a traditional MMORPG class and the dialogue holds up exceedingly well as per usual. This won’t be the first, nor the last time that I mention that Idea Factory should really ball these characters up into a visual novel or push for a studio to make an anime. In fact, the only real major gripe I have with this game is exclusive to the PC port on Steam, and that’s that it can take anywhere from a few seconds, to five minutes to be able to get through the main menu. This isn’t anecdotal either; if you look through Steam reviews of the title, people are still reporting the problem to this day, but it’s not keeping anyone form enjoying the game. To this date, there hasn’t been a patch to address the issues, and while the time is variable, it often ends up being on the far side of a few minutes for me. It doesn’t bother me much, often giving me time to go and get a drink before settling in for a session.