RE-REVIEW: Megadimension Neptunia V-II

Title	Megadimension Neptunia V-II
Developer	Idea Factory, Compile Heart
Publisher	Idea Factory International
Release Date	7/5/2016
Genre	Japanese Role Playing Game
Platform	PC Steam
Age Rating	T for Teen
Official Website

We already reviewed the PS4 version of this game earlier this year and needless to say we loved it. So I won’t rehash most of the game proper, that way we’ll avoid any redundancy. To start off I’ll give my own personal opinion on the game itself, regardless of the platform, and then I’ll discuss how good the PC port was from a technical perspective.

As I discussed in my last review set in this world, I’m totally on board with these characters. So I was already predisposed to like this game going in. For my money, Re;Birth 1-3 are three of the best games that you could buy on the PS Vita (I also own Re;Birth 3 on the PC). But what has impressed me the most about these games and this developer is that they seem to be getting better with every title. That can sometimes work against a developer, however, to keep up that streak and to meet expectations when the expectations continue to grow. So I was quite shocked that they not only met my growing expectations with this game, but they exceeded them.

Even if I was not a fan of the series going in, I would have been impressed by this game. This is just top-down a great Japanese RPG. Not only do they take advantage of the extra power available to them to create a prettier game, but they changed up the fighting mechanics to be much more satisfying. I have the Platinum trophy for all 3 Re;Birth games. But getting the Platinum for this game was one of my favorite experiences in gaming in quite a while. It wasn’t difficult to do, it was actually easier than the previous Nep games, but it remained very fun throughout. As I’ve been telling people for the last few months, this will feature prominently in our Game of the Year discussions at year’s end. And this has been a very strong year already for game releases.

The first thing I will get out of the way for the PC port is the system requirements. Since this is the port of a PS4 game, this will be of high value for our audience. Normally I would not bother stating it so explicitly in a PC review, but its appropriate here.

Those minimum specs are not too bad for any PC that you may have purchased in the last 3 years or so. The recommended specs can get a bit dicey, however. The PC that I tested this game on was a bit better than the Minimum level, but not up to the recommended specs on Processor or Graphics Card. But it still ran very well at 1080p and I did not have to turn down any settings. It looked a little better than the PS4 version, and also I didn’t experience the minor slowdown that I experienced in the stages with falling cherry blossom leaves (like I did on console).

Other than mouse and keyboard, I only have two controllers available to test out on my PC, they are an XBox 360 wired controller, and an old SNES style USB controller. Thankfully this game detected both of them rather easily, and then I could remap the buttons however that I want. Because my other controller did not have analogue sticks or L2/R2 buttons, I would have needed to use a combination of controller and keyboard to make that configuration work, there are simply not enough buttons on it. But, in my limited experience, it seems that they did a good job with the controller detection. As for the controls themselves, there was a bit of input delay, but it was very minor. The only time I could see it being an issue is in the Neplunker dungeons. However, those dungeons have pretty bad collision detection anyways, so I would never recommend that you beat your head against them until you have your New Game+ key items anyway.

Unlike a lot of other PC ports that I’ve played, especially coming from Japan, this title actually has a robust keybinding menu (along with controller selection) within the game proper. It frankly sucks to have to quit out of a game to add a button configuration that you like from an external menu, although that is still better than not having any at all. And if you choose to play with mouse and keyboard, you are likely going to want to make use of this menu. I didn’t play for long with that config, but their default settings are not the way that I normally play PC games. Really though, this game was made with a console controller in mind, so you really should play with a console controller, you will enjoy the experience more.

The sound came through with no hitches at all. There were no issues with volume or wonky sound effects, and this game has the best music and effects of any Compile Heart game I’ve played so far. If you play this game with a controller, there is no reason you would not think that this game was made specifically for PCs. So for a Japanese console company release, this had the least issues of any that I’ve ever played thus far. Perhaps it helps that the PS4 architecture is very similar to a PC, in order to make it more accessible to developers than the PS3 and PS Vita were. One area that I prefer about the PC version, however, is the way that they do their DLC. To start off with, it automatically downloads the Japanese language option along with that massive (17 GB) initial file, and as someone who always plays these games in Japanese, that was very welcome. Not only that, but it has a DLC menu shown above, and you can navigate your available DLC a lot easier. It actually combines all that free DLC that was a total pain to comb through on PS4 into one quick download that you can perform within the menu itself. Not only that, but Steam itself makes it a lot easier to purchase the rest of the DLC and group them together into one purchase. So I have to say that this game is more than worth the normal $49.99 asking price. But it’s crazy that it has a first week sale for 40% off that ($29.99). If I could give this one a 6 star review, I would.

Review Score
Overall

Review Copy Provided By Publisher