Western reviews of ero-RPG Hyper Dimension Neptunia have seen the game denounced for its “disturbingly sexualized caricatures of young girls” and “depressing stereotypes of vapid, sexy cuteness,” a promising condemnation if ever there were one.
The game is definite niche title even in Japan, and by no means a masterpiece, but has generally received average reviews in Japan and amongst western JRPG fans – however top US reviewer-for-hire site GameSpot considers it a virtual abomination:
This hypersexualized role-playing game degrades the console war with questionable gameplay mechanics, choppy animation, and some truly awful music.
The Good:
* Building combos can be rewarding.
The Bad:
* Characters are disturbingly sexualized caricatures of young girls
* Visuals are choppy and poorly animated
* Music is so repetitive that it verges on painful
* Story does little to build on promising premise
* Random healing system is irritating and poorly executed.Hyperdimension Neptunia begins with a promising premise: It personifies each of the major systems in the so-called “console wars,” lending each its own personality and powers.
But if you’re expecting an amusing deconstruction of the video game industry, prepare to be disappointed. Instead, Neptunia’s premise is a thin excuse for a role-playing game that revolves around hypersexualized young girls.
Thus, key characters amount to little more than disturbing dolls wielding such weapons as a giant syringe.
Characters like IF (short for Idea Factory) and Compa (Compile Heart) have their own look, but otherwise, they’re almost completely devoid of personality, existing only as depressing stereotypes of vapid, sexy cuteness.
With no marketing bribes forthcoming and a (female) reviewer who evidently hates both anime girls and JRPGs, let alone niche ecchi RPGs, such a rating is perhaps none too surprising.
Those interested in depressing stereotypes of vapid, sexy cuteness and disturbingly sexualised caricatures of young girls will find the game to be readily available.
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it's a gamespot review, who cares?
play it, you'll like it or you won't...
personally, gimmie...
Fun stuff to click on "Reply to Fapping Time".
I understand the "it's a gamespot review" part, they've always been one of the gaming sites with the worst reviewers.
Just for the fun of it I went and red her review.. it looks like something a pre-adolescent kid could come up with as far as writing reviews go, GameSpot will never cease to amaze me with how bad their reviewers can be.
Biased reviewer is biased reviewer. My moralfag sense is tingling.
Looks like the developers forgot to pay the magazine.
Money is what make the world go around. C The Possibility prove it lol
The irony in all this is that it's on the top 10 list of messageboards on their sister site Gamefaqs and most users there are hailing it as 'a gem you need to pick up asap'
The picture shows that the average ratings of users and other critics are significantly higher than theirs.
Yeah. It would seem that actual gamers enjoy this game more than the reviewers. That being said, check out the ratings on G4 or GameStop. I, myself, greatly enjoyed this game. Just got the second one. It is really entertaining and funny.
I downloaded the game and tried it out and I completely agree with the review. I was looking forward to the game but I found it painful to play. Everything was terrible about it. Poor script, poor voice acting (JP track, didn't listen to english), vapid characters, constant slowdown, etc. Granted I only played through the first dungeon but it was not the slightest bit enjoyable.
You downloaded it? Buy it, you useless twat.
If the game was worth any money I would have bought it. I'm glad I didn't waste my money on such a piece of shit game. The last thing I would want to do is encourage more sub-par games to be released.
WTF This game is bad-ass!!!
She wouldn't know a good game if it snuck up behind her and gave surprise buttsecks
Gamespot are a bunch of anti-loli moralfags.
Dude, did you see the tits on some of these girls?
If those are lolis...
I don't know, but every human has nipples. Or the lolis aren't humans?
Sankaku Complex are a bunch of loli weaboos.
I wish I were a loli. Does that count?
Not all of them are. Don't have anything against them personally, but I really despise the ones who obsess over Japan and such through the sole influence of anime and related material.
it's really a bad thing to even considear the opinion of the majority of game reviewers. Why? I will give a example:
sfIV is lauched. Capcom says it was maked for beginers. 99% of the reviewers or haven't even played the game or really don't know almost anything about fighting game, but gladly repeated what capcom have said (). When people actually play the game, they discover that the combo system is FULL of crazy links of 2 frames (you have to hit in the exact 1/30 of a second for it to conect). For fighting games entusiasts, it was wonderfull because it's rewarding to play it, but that don't chage the fact that capcom have lyed and that the majority of the "reviwers" have just repeated it because capcom is big. So, i think that the inverse hapens too: just because the company is small, they talk bad about the game. Sorry for my english.
Also another reason is that this game is probably aimed at otakus, not gamers and gamespot reviews games for gameplay, nu-gen graphics, and anything else that is found in top games today.
Many of the negative users reviews say that HDN is good only if you're into anime girls. Still going for it, as much as I am a hardcore gamer that views games like gamespot, my love for anime out balances it
Wow I never thought that being sexy would be a bad thing in a video game o3o;;
Oh wait this review was from a girl, who not only hates anime girls but JRPG's as well. So...I don't know about everyone else but I'm going to completely ignore her rating >.>;;
I like anime girls and JRPG's and I intend on getting this game >.<
Biased reviewer is biased -nods-
I am female. I adore the art in this game. Frankly, a shitty game with smexy anime girls is worth playing sometimes XD
I agree with ya XP
sexualizing girls? i don't see any difference with the girls in this game compared to others. i have to -1 to gamespot for this for trying to be different, retardedly different.
Sexualizing 'young' girls.
is there something about Kat Bailey exactly, or are people just raging because she bitched about sexualized girls?
in all seriousness, i was just curious if this is part of some trend for her.
i don't recognize the name and frankly i stopped reading Gamespot after Kasavin left as he was the last editor they had who was worth anything.
Part of the issue, of course, is to never trust 'professional reviewers'. If you're a part of any decently involved gaming community, which this more or less is anyway, you already know this.
Youtube is a wonderful source for evaluating a game and how it plays, just from watching gameplay videos. I just wish more people would actually do a little research themselves rather than blindly following reviewers.
You know in an age where you can find porn in .3 seconds on the internet, fanservice is just becoming annoying.
Gamespot suck. HN is good game for a right person.
Since it's intended for niche market, it's not surprising it gets very low score from GS/Gamefaqs, and not to mention it's reviewed by (female)(biased) reviewer.
Quick, someone should tell 2ch about this!
I want to see how they respond.
I hope they'll respond it by taking this review to the Pixiv artists and make the reviewer into a running internet joke.
I get the feeling that 'hypersexual' is supposed to imply that something is wrong, but I can't figure out what.
"* Characters are disturbingly sexualized caricatures of young girls"
"key characters amount to little more than disturbing dolls wielding such weapons as a giant syringe."
i dont see anything wrong or bad with this, in what hole does this people live?
OMG there's a people still believe gamespot's rating? lmao..
You will never know a great game out there in this wide wide world if you still sitting inside cave with your gamespot's reviews.
(─‿‿─) V
Gamestop is so biased--only IGN is worse.
I guess that they think "Bolder-punching Chris" is better
"there's a people still believe gamespot's rating?"
Yes, why not? "User Score" usally speaks truth.
It's just yet another situation where the dumbasses had someone who doesn't like JRPGs or whatever review the game. There'll be nothing particularly groundbreaking about the game at all, but the concept itself is amusing enough to be a bit new in the midst of all the other stuff we're used to.
Anyone who gives a game like this a 3 is a moron, plain and simple. You can tell how stupid it is by this line:
"This hypersexualized role-playing game degrades the console war..."
Degrades the console war? You actually gave credence to childish fanboys and irrational marketing bullshit as something worth putting on a pedestal? Again, a good, hearty, go fuck yourself. You don't deserve your job.
I think it's like saying To Love-Ru has too much ecchi in it. They're totally missing the whole point.
This game is hardly ero if you ask me >_>
my biggest upset with the game, as with all games such as this, that there are no subtitles during combat sequences for w/e little excerpts characters may yell out...
i was thinking so....they're suprised that an ero game has...ero in it~?
it's like giving a shooter a bad score for 'characters are disturbingly willing to shoot anything and everything that moves'
Can this even be compared to stuff like ero?
They all look like typical personification girls to me...
Unfortunately most common people will belive it. It's fun getting such review. When most western games do the same of worse.
Funny enough, disturbingly sexualized caricatures of women are considered acceptable in western games. Makes me wonder how the reviewer would react to old grandmas in tights.
Well, some people absolutely hate these things.
Me for example. Can't stand it.
Still, i don't make a point out of people that do like it.
That'd be like trying to stop porn.
And you can't stop porn.
In Soviet Russia the Porn Stops you
completly agree
Fucking female reviewers...
or gays reviewers...
I'm a girl and I'm getting this...looks cute to me =3