Neptunia Game Maker R:Evolution

What’s that old saying? Ah yes. There are three certainties in life, taxes, death and the annual Hyperdimension Neptunia entry. At any given point, the team at Compile Heart is seemingly just weeks away from releasing another entry in their dungeon-crawling RPG series and I’m all for it. Last year, we had Sisters Vs Sisters, a game that mixed up the established formula by relegating Neptunia to a supporting role. For Neptunia Game Maker R:Evolution, fans will be glad to hear that Neptune is front and centre once again… kind of.

Neptunia Game Maker R:Evolution is a standalone title in the franchise, allowing players to drop into Gameindustri without prior knowledge. It’s quickly established that this ‘Older Neptune’ is a dimension-hopping bug hunter on the lookout for the most adorable bugs throughout the multiverse. On her travels, she lands in a world where popular video games are revered around the globe, and the worst selling ones turn into angry demons and threaten to level cities. Yes, really.

In the opening moments of Neptunia Game Maker R:Evolution, Older Neptune arrives to find an abandoned building with a mysterious gaming machine running a new game. As she picks it up, the Failed Goddesses emerge to take credit for the creation. The women, Pippih, Jagaa and Reedio, are all plays on the Apple Pippin, Jaguar and 3DO consoles of yesteryear, and convince Older Nep to help them build a new company to become the biggest shareholders in the world of video games. Throughout the 20-hour campaign, Compile Heart weaves a story that revolves around the pitfalls of game development and pokes fun at ridiculous things like the console wars, review bombing and journalists… WAIT A MINUTE!

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At A Glance

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To give credit where it’s due, Neptunia Game Maker R:Evolution is one of the funniest games in the franchise that I’ve played so far. Older Nep and her group of Goddesses regularly poke fun at how stupid aspects of the gaming community have become. These range from arguing over which plastic box is better, to the act of gaming piracy. Each subject tackled treads a fine line between comedy and running the risk of alienating the player. Thankfully the game doesn’t go out of its way to offend the players but it does share a pointed light at some of the problems facing the game industry. It was well written to the extent that when a joke didn’t land, all of the characters were aware of the awkwardness and called it out. 

Despite its name Neptunia Game Maker R:Evolution is not a video game that allows you to create levels a la Super Mario Maker, rather it retains the dungeon-crawling RPG that fans of the series come to expect. The story portion of Game Maker R:Evolution is presented in a visual novel style where characters pop up on a static screen and guide us through each chapter. The artwork is as lovely as previous games, with Compile Heart fully embracing high-definition artwork that pops out of the TV. There are little movements given to each of the Goddesses that made them feel more alive and it seems a lot of attention went into producing each scenario. 

At the end of each 15-20 minute segment, I was given free rein to explore the world map, where I could choose to jump into a dungeon to progress the story or undertake some side quests to make a little extra cash on the side. Sadly, the dungeon aspect of R:Evolution is the least enjoyable aspect of the game. The levels themselves are rather simple, often flat with an obvious point marked on the map of where you have to go. Throughout the game I even recognised locations from previous titles that appear to have been copied into the game, complete with treasure chests in the same areas. There are a few moments that do save Game Maker R:Evolution from being a total write-off, including a mountainous area where I had to look for various waypoints to progress and a mine level that required me to use various gems to unlock doors. Sadly, these puzzle levels were few and far between and most of the game was spent simply running from one end of a dungeon to the other.

I imagine this is why Compile Heart thought it was a good idea to give you a motorbike to power through each dungeon. By pressing Circle, Nep could summon a bike and speed through each level in record time. It’s a little cumbersome since each dungeon is not designed to be treated like a version of Mario Kart, but it was still marginally more fun to work my way out of a tight corner than slowly trudge through a level. Unfortunately having a motorbike doesn’t stop enemy encounters either and hitting them results in a battle, which is where things go from bad to worse.

In R:Evolution, I had access to four players by simply tapping a button on the D-Pad. Once they were selected, I could use Square or Cross to unleash different attacks. The game encourages you to dive into the menus and set a string of moves to either attack button to maximise the damage, and to begin with it seems quite fun. The trouble came when I reached level 15 and I became overpowered. Despite enemies registering at higher levels, they fell at my feet rather quickly which meant each fight became a button-mashing exercise that provided no challenge whatsoever. 

As you progress through the game, more Goddesses are added to the roster but these are simply reskins of the characters I had already unlocked. The same can be said for the baddies, who are limited in variation. Even deep into the game’s story I was still coming up against the same sunglasses-wearing birds that populated the first level I explored. The cherry on top of the mess that is the actual gameplay is the constant yammering by the characters. Every dungeon was filled with constant snippets of dialogue  like “Do the math,” “Let’s check the map,” and my personal ‘favourite’, “By my calculations, our destination is in front of us.” Each one repeated more times than I cared to count and has somehow become ingrained in my head. In a rare fit of anger, I shouted back at the TV screaming  like a scolded Regina George, “Stop trying to make Math happen.”

To break up the dungeon crawling, Game Maker R:Evolution allows you to create games to power up the Goddesses. Using the cash and various items I found exploring each area can be used to hire a game designer to work on a specific game that a fan requests. This works like Football Manager, where you simply select the best players from a list and set them working on their genres. After a few minutes, you are presented with a disc and a sales report. It’s a fun little distraction as you can make multiple discs to upgrade your offices, but aside from a few little bonuses in battle, there’s next to no incentive to spend more than a few minutes on this feature.

It’s a shame that the gameplay is so average, as Neptunia Game Maker R:Evolution is a sharp, well-written entry in the Hyperdimension Neptunia series. The plot is genuinely funny and if it was presented as a visual novel over a dungeon-crawling RPG, it would undoubtedly be one of my favourite games of 2024. Sadly, the boring dungeons and lacklustre combat killed any momentum that the story tried to build. The limited enemy pool and the lack of any challenge will put off any RPG fan, possibly even those who consider themselves Nep-Nep aficionados. Neptunia Game Maker R:Evolution is a game that tells people that it’s perhaps time for Compile Heart to slow down on the quantity of games and focus on the quality of the end product.

In the interest of full disclosure, VGamingNews was provided with a copy of the game to conduct this review.

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