Pretty early into the game, I'll start with general things and then specific things like combat. The game runs well, it is a bit annoying that you can't skip the starting part despite being able to in most Neptunia games (where it says it's made by Compile Heart and all those). There are multiple settings you can change like music volume (the characters are weirdly quiet, maybe kind of muffled or the music is WAY too loud). You can adjust the camera and the game feels fast. If you've played a Neptunia game you probably have a good general idea, battles are real time without turns. There is online but you'd have to know people to set something up, online is dead. The game seems interesting enough and worth getting on sale, apparently there's a lot of grinding, but usually they're tied to good quests or you're learning new skills so I never noticed. It seems like you need to clear many repetitive quests to progress the story sometimes, maybe or talk to NPCs. Definitely feels more engaging after beating the second or third dungeon, you finally unlock three or four shops all at once. A large number of side characters are in this game, like Compa, Warechu, and many more I feel like I've only seen once or twice. It is very easy to play for multiple consecutive hours around that time and onwards. They did have a strange way of implementing accessories, some cool unexpected things you can do and some you can't (like putting glasses over a character's eyes.) Some fanservice, classic characters, each character feels unique and you can change the character you control. There are some minor annoyances like all the bizarre gay stuff, cross dressing, the Noire Uni ragebait photo, and seemingly an obsession with bringing up people who are different from their avatars but it's whatever. For more specific things you can jump cancel, dash or block instantly while attacking (blocking seems best?). This doesn't work with skills so skills are likely akin to a finisher move (early game). Going through text feels a little different than other games but not sure exactly how, maybe the window transparency or pacing. Each character feels unique and interesting enough, except Ram she seems useless. Although apparently some people like her. You do become profoundly broken once you start getting gems from bosses it seems and the blacksmith makes a big difference. Ironically the game might start out difficult because of low level and few resources and get easier rather than harder because of all the strong options you have. I wouldn't say it's difficult but there are a lot of scenes back to back (when talking to NPCs, which most of them are optional) which feels like maybe they could be spaced out a little more. (I was a decent way into the game before I noticed I forgot to equip any new skills, I had like 5 new powerful skills.) One important thing to note, unlike most Neptunia games when characters level up it only goes to the current party and alive characters. So while you can occasionally swap characters mid game and late game you'll always be using your base team since A. They'll have a massive level lead over the others B. Easier to have perfect equipment on 3 or 4 characters instead of 8. C. The weaker characters will probably get one shot anyways. I just have all of the AI controlled characters as unkillable tanks and play a glass cannon character that does absurd damage. It seems optimal as long as you aren't careless and take unguarded hits multiple times, you end up with so much money that you can constantly have blessings and full items which is overkill. Currently guild rank 6, passive healing is so broken... Beat the game, if you want all achievements you can swap your party right before or after killing a boss to give weak ones tons of exp. Most of the game's grinding seems to be post game if you want to do a 100% run. It's pretty frustrating the game won't tell you where to get drops to upgrade equipment, especially post game. You can always look it up but it would have made a lot of sense as a QoL feature, especially considering they bothered to let you level up past 100 and put a lot of effort into wanting people to play the post game. Also drops from enemies (especially bosses) are done horribly, you can increase drop rates but can never guarantee getting what you need. Meaning a boss might have a high drop rate with modifiers but you could be competing with 5 or even 10 potential drops to get the one item you need 3 or 4 copies of. TL;DR You'll probably get through the main story, the story isn't amazing but the gameplay loop is fun and it's worth getting on sale. You shouldn't bother with much post game, the systems waste your time unless you're a die hard fan or enjoy playing just to play. Online is obviously dead. Why did they make drops NOT GUARANTEED post game AND you have to hope you get the right drop out of 10-15 options?! Insane.
