Megadimension Neptunia VII

Started playing this yesterday on the PS4. To be honest, I'd have to play this and Hyperdimension in the PS3 side to side to notice a graphical difference. Not like it matters anyway, they all look good to me.
So, this time some dimensional rift shenanigans happens and Neptunia and Netgear get sucked into a different dimension. I've only played some 5 hours and enjoying it. Gameplay (so far) is different in that you're not doing the usual list of missions, but a much more focused approach. Perhaps it opens up later, but right now it's been basically do primary mission, chat chat chat, do next primary mission.
It's also a bit harder so far, as your party changes frequently (because of story stuff) so you're not always fighting with a full group.

Enjoying it so far, will keep updated as I play more.

Thanks for the impressions! I was curious…

Ok, I'm 11 hours in and the game changed. Basically the first several hours feel like a DLC adding a 'preface' to the game. After you kill the preface boss, you even get a new start screen to start a new game (it's all part of the game though). The second part is now more similar to the series, you have missions, shares, etc. You're then asked if you want to play as Neptune, Noire, Vert or Blanc. Not sure if you'll eventually play as each of the 4 or if this was a decision for the whole game.

Wow, so you get to play as any of them? That's kind of an awesome addition…

Originally Posted by Aubrielle
Wow, so you get to play as any of them? That's kind of an awesome addition…

Yes. I'm hoping it's like in Suikoden 2, where you eventually play the 4 chapters, you just decide in which order you do it. I never replay a game after I'm finished, so that would mean I'd miss on whatever the other 3 sub-stories would be.

Ok, my fears have been subsided. I finished Nep's sub-chapter and now I got to pick the next one.

Just finished the game. I think it's the most meta game I've ever played. It's divided in three 'games' (or chapters if you will), each with its own menu screen, but part of the same game. IIRC the previous games had 3 characters in battle, this one has 4. Since you can partner each with a backup, you have 8 characters in the group. Other than 'switch' to the backup at any time, backups passively also have the option to provide defensive or offensive bonuses to the active member of each pair, plus at 3 and 5 'friend levels' they give an extra bonus like SP regeneration, immunity to paralysis, etc.

Who you have available to form the group keeps changing with the story, so your strategy keeps changing. Another change is that the combo system is now tied to the weapon… do you use the 100 power weapon that lets you use 4 rush commands in a row, or the 120 power weapon that only lets you use 2 rush commands but 3 power commands? It's up to you.

Another new addition is the city development levels, you can invest money in each city (Planetune, Lowee, etc) on 3 levels: Commerce (more items available in the store), Industry (more items to develop with your components), or Marketing (increase in your 'shares' and free gifts from your people).

The scouting system is back, you can send your long list of scouts to all the dungeons for items, find new dungeons, new monsters, or hidden treasure chests. As a pseudo-completionist I tried to uncover all the hidden treasures in each dungeon, but I had to quickly throw the towel, there are way too many dungeons, and the hidden treasures I found were mostly cosmetic (like a new headband for Vert).

All in all, I liked it. I only have two dislikes: one, it's too expansive… 3 different dimensions with dungeons, side-quests (optional) that have you go all over the three dimensions to kill enemies (or their drops) to complete. As a pseudo-completionist I try to do all the quests and side-quests in the previous games, but here I had to stop for sanity and keep to the main story. My second dislike is the random battles in the overland map. Three dimensions to cover, since you can only re-send the scouts from a city in each dimension, if you want to keep them going on missions that means having to go to travel the map back and forth a lot, and you'll fight one or more random battles on each trip.

Now, in all fairness my two dislikes are totally optional, you get more money and the hidden chests are mostly cosmetic, and the hidden dungeons are optional, but if you are a completionist, prepare to spend over a hundred hours, most of them just getting the requirements to discover the hidden chests (like 'get 10 surprise attacks in a row' or 'fight 10 battles in a row without healing'), so my advice… forget your 'completionism' when playing this game and just enjoy the story.