Neptunia: Sisters vs. Sisters Review (Azralan)
I've tried multiple times to like this game, but I just can't. I don't often feel the need to label a game as bad, but this is one such case.
The good things first: The illustrations are nice, the new (3D) character models look great and the story has been pretty interesting so far. In terms of visual fidelity, the game world is also quite pretty. The game also runs pretty well on the Steam Deck.
However... this game jsut ahs so much wasted potential.
1) The switch to Live2D.
Not necesasrily a problem. It just seems like a ton of effort for basically no gain. The models feel a bit stiffer than the old, hand animated ones. Or rather, they feel a bit rigid in their movement. The use of Live2D also comes at a surprisingly high performance cost. Standard gameplay ran pretty well at around 60 FPS but dropped to around 20-30 FPS when there are 2 characters on screen in the visual novel sections... I get that FPS aren't exactly important in VN sections, but that's still kind of ridiculous.
2) The combat system.
It's extremely clunky. They use an action-economy type system with regenerating points. This encourages switching between your party members to keep the combo going and have the other members regenerate action points. The core idea is pretty neat and the overall structure of the combat reminds me a lot of the Tales of Berseria, which I quite enjoyed.
And to the games credit, by using the disc system you can get around a lot of the clunkiness... such as avoiding 3+ seconds of recovery animaitons after an attack. They give you a dodge/block button, but enemy attacks aren't telegraphed enough and even if they were, you'll just be stuck in animations. It's also hard to see what's going on due to the slightly excessive particles flying around.
3) The empty world.
The world sure looks nice, in terms of graphical fidelity. There just isn't anything there. Most dungeons consists of long empty corridors that connect relatively large clearings with maybe 1 (sometimes even 2!) possible monster encounters you can engage. Sometimes you won't even find those and just run across the empty clearing. There are also a lot of dead ends, few of which have collectibles or anything of note. Indoors, there are just some insanely huge rooms with a few chairs at the wall and maybe a small decorated corner... or it's an office building and just full of desks and nothing else. Few or no enemies and no collectibles. Just empty space.
4) The missing story-gameplay connection.
I didn't notice this much in the beginning of the game, but a few hours in (or at least during the current arc) something stood out to me.
Example 1: There is a giant monster horde coming for the city. People have to be evacuated. It is our job to draw the monsters away. Story-wise we are constantly battling monsters and luring them away from the evacuees. Gameplay-wise we run through empty corridors for 5 minutes, with about three optional free-roaming monster encounters in our way. During the several events that interrupt our running, the characters are exhausted from constantly fighting and it's clearly a stressful situation. The event ends and we just hold forward for another minute until the next event pops up and things are even more dramatic.
In other places, the game is capable of forced fights during events. Why not here?
Example 2: shortly thereafter, the CPUs finally arrive on scene and we can deal with the monsters. The music is hype and... they just put some particle effects on the screen. Then the monsters are dead. Why not change the party to consist of the newly arrived CPUs and have them battle the monsters in a forced battle? That would fit so well...
Example 3: Planeptune is overrun by monsters and we have to get to the top of the tower to use a device that repels the monsters. So we run through the huge city with a somewhat confusing layout with basically no monsters there...
Just... why? Honestly, it seems like the devs would've rather made a visual novel but felt like they HAD to make an RPG. The story is certainly interesting enough for one.
So yeah, I can't recommend this game unless you think you can stomach what I described above. It's tragic to me, because I was so excited for this game and really want to like it... but I just can't. I tried several times already, but the game just keeps getting more and more disappointing.