

Bumpers let players choose between meter-limited elemental attacks that deal out a ton of damage and can be fantastic for clearing out a sea of foes in a smaller area.

Short-range attacks lead to combos that can either be started off with long-range attacks or using the long-range attack to start a daisy chain of short-range attacks.Įach character has their own weapons, but generally players want to stay close and then dart around with the right trigger to run around the battlefield or just dart out of attack paths with a quick trigger press. This can come in handy, though, as it prevents combat from getting stale by mixing up the two combat types and blending them in with elemental attacks. Short-range combat meshes well with long-range combat, although players will be largely using melee combat as that’s unlimited while longer-range attacks are meter-limited. Combat allows players to lock-on or you can just slice and shoot through foes that are close together and take out several enemies at once. Each has their own strategy because just tackling a slew of goons is easy.

Some major battles showcase single large enemies and several lower-tier enemies and others are just a large horde mode-style battle. Exclamation points show the player the next major battle on the map and that helps make it easy to figure out where you are in relation to item boxes or major battles. While it can be tricky to get items in some action RPGs due to convoluted maps, Neptunia x Senran Kagura makes it easy with an efficient overhead map design and a basic structure to the dungeon layouts. This essentially gives the player two lives to work with through the entire dungeon - not factoring in being able to use healing items throughout and grab from chests throughout the dungeon. The action RPG aspect of things is a lot of fun and enables players to pick two characters to bring into battle for a dungeon. The mix of fast action and slower-paced visual novel is something that may not work for everyone, but winds up working out thanks to each genre being done so well. In execution, the tone fits together as well as peanut butter and jelly, resulting in amusing dialogue most of the time. The two franchises’ casts come together to deal with The Steeme Legion’s invasion and it’s impressive to see how well each franchise fits in with the other. It’s interesting to see both franchises come together as they’re completely different in tone, with Senran being more serious and the Neptunia world being goofier.
#Hardcore gaming 101 neptunia series#
This blend allows the strong writing of the Neptunia series to shine as it always does for story and character moments while still showcasing the cast of Senran Kagura that’s likely more well-known from the anime adaptation than the games themselves. With the multitude of genres we’ve seen both franchises in, from tactical and action RPGs to shooters, it was probably wise to go with a third-person action game mixed with a visual novel. Despite each being highly-regarded in their own way, they never crossed over until now - when the universes of both worlds come together and some robot ninjas invade the world too. The Hyperdimension Neptunia games have delivered some of the funniest action RPG action in many years, while the Senran Kagura series has gained fame via both its anime and multitude of gaming formats - from action-heavy games to pinball.
