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| Title | Neptunia Riders VS Dogoos |
| Developer | Compile Heart |
| Publisher | Idea Factory International |
| Release Date | January 28th, 2025 |
| Genre | Driving, Action |
| Platform | PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch |
| Age Rating | E10+ |
| Official Website | |
Once again it is time to take a look at another spin off game in the Hyperdimension Neptunia franchise. This one is a motorcycle combat game called Neptunia Riders VS Dogoos. Uzume finds herself in a dimension other than Gamindustri, one where Dogoos fill the lands. While looking for a way out of this world, she runs across some familiar faces, but something about the Goddesses we all know and love is strange. They are all obsessed with Dogoos! Uzume must restore her friends’ sanity, while looking for a way out of this Dogoo-filled world.
Graphically, Neptunia Riders VS Dogoos looks pretty good on PlayStation 5. The character models and bikes are nicely detailed and the different stages provide a variety environments for you to race through while collecting all the Dogoos you can. The game ran at a solid framerate most of the time. There was one instance where there were just a ton of Dogoos on screen that slowed it down for just a second, but nothing here that would affect gameplay.
In the sound department, the game features some fan favorite tracks from the older games and some new tracks for each of the five stages. These tracks are all pretty good, and I found myself humming along a few times while I was riding around collecting my horde of Dogoos. The sound effects here are nothing special, but they get the job done. You hear the roar of the bike engine, the beeps and blops of picking up the Dogoos on the track and the different effects they provide. The game is fully dubbed in both Japanese and English, so pick whichever is your preference and enjoy.
Gameplay here consists of you and your partner running around each stage collecting as many Dogoos as you can before your opponents can. The first to 100 usually wins, but there are some stages where you will need to collect 125 in order to proceed. You can attack the opposing team to knock some Dogoos free from their control. Dogoos will have special effects as you pick them up while some will slow you down. Others can make you jump higher and a few will even cover your vision with a mask. These effects usually work along with the stage gimmick. For example, one stage has you shrink down to tiny size to reach certain areas while another has you collecting Winged Dogoos so you can jump higher and glide.
I had a lot of fun with the mechanics here, and it makes replaying the stages feel a bit different each time you play. That’s a good thing seeing as there are only 15 of them in total, and you can complete the story in about two hours. This is a very short game if you’re just looking to get the story out of it, but if you want to do the challenges such as complete each stage in a certain amount of time, or do them all solo with no partner, you can add some hours to the playtime.
Overall, Neptunia Riders VS Dogoos is a fun game. Each of the stages has unique features, the Dogoos provide a good variety of effects that make each run a bit different, and the game runs well on PlayStation 5. My biggest issue is you can complete the story in 2 hours and this is a $39.99 title. I get you can extend this by doing the extra challenges the game has to offer, but there should’ve been more unlockables or maybe a two-player split-screen mode to give this one a little more value. I can really only recommend this one to the hardcore Neptunia fans out there. This isn’t a bad game, but it doesn’t offer a lot of meat for non fans of the series, but on a good sale there is fun to be had here for them as well.
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Game was provided by the publisher for review.
