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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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.
I'd buy this, nevertheless.
would but it too.
LOL but.
Buy, I mean. God, I'm such an idiot.
actually it does look really boring
Alas, would but it too have been duly score'ed! But alack - for Gamespot doth spite teh loli...
Most of those characters aren't "Young" at all. Nis and Neptune look the most "Young" among them, this prude bitch needs to get her fucking eyes checked.
"My gender is being hypersexualized again and I don't like it. This game sucks."
Yeah well lady, deal with it. It's not as if us guys don't have to deal with every male protagonist looking like hollywood superstars or steroid abusing bodybuilders or overtly effeminated over sentimental or stereotypically hot bloodedly idiotic...
Oh wait...
Amen...Hey, either gender gets stereotyped and hpersexualized, so I don't see the reason the reviewer is b*tching...
Like I said, close-minded bigot...That and she clearly can't accept the fact that IT SELLS!!!
-Azure Xuchilbara
(account suspended)
i like this game, its not the best but i can play it with a beer in the hand and the controller on the other! Its perfekt madefor man.....like sankanku complex .......(sorry woman users from sankanku)
this is my rewiew:
7,8/10
beacause i don't undestand Japanese!!!
If i would understand it it will be 10/10
ps: western magazin about games are shit, believ it ore not, i worked there in a pratikum for 4 moths.
With your grammar, I highly doubt you worked for any Western magazine.
You don't know Japanese? Well then pick up the Localized version. Problem solved.
I'm a girl and I thought that they looked cute..
@06:17 You don't have to be perfect in English to work for a German magazine. He's obviously German. Anyone who thinks that Western = English is stupid. There are other languages too, you know.
He said it was a practicum, which means probably an unpaid internship as part of a college education.
Bitch just feel frustrated because the game has almost 100% female casts and no BL looking bishies casts for her schlick like the Tales series.
You know how a lot of Caucasians think Asians look 5-10 years younger than they are? I've also noticed that you could have a 6-foot tall amazon with an hourglass figure and GG cups, but if she has big eyes, many would say there's no way she's more than 12 years old.
With all the lolicon pandering these days, I can see how that kind of thing would become the assumption, but many are still so set in this you have to wonder if they're blind or something.
F*ck game reviews...That first sentence in the "The Bad" list shows that the reviewer was a close-minded bigot...
Rea search anime and MOE~ before reviewing an anime RPG with "Characters are disturbingly sexualized caricatures of young girls", idiot...
You should know what makes it sell...I enjoyed that game very much, and the cute characters making awesome videogame references and parodying others in cutscenes and events (Gears of War, Resident Evil, Halo, Mario, Kill Zone) made me laugh my ass off...
Not to mention they break the 4th Wall 95% of the time in every event including the storyline by making said videogame references and insulting the (shady) NPC's~
You fail to mention those points...
Such an incomplete and ignorant review...
I was actually expecting this from IGN, but it seems GameSpot has 'them' too...
@Obsidian
That said, I already have and finished playing this...
The Premium Edition I bought straight off NIS had a deck of playing cards with the characters in them as well as a hard-cover 50-page artbook and custom game box (the artbook had the uncensored oppai cover)...
It was around 59.99 + S&H, but totally worth it...
Now I can play poker while looking at Neptune and Gust's smiling face~
-Azure Xuchilbara
(account suspended)
IGN's review for this one is actually pretty sound and fair!
Because IM in Taiwan, I bought the premium edition and I had to pay 96$. I miss gaming in the states.
Gamespot can't see a GOTY infront of them even when they trip over it.
This? GOTY?
Oh... A DFC fag... No wonder....
Somehow, there seems to be a unified consensus about how gameplay feels.
Too bad for the shot-sightness of some critics.
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.
Already pre ordered it with a full down payment. Cant wait to get my hands on it. I really wish they would get people to review games that dont have an obvious bias against the game. Put a guy who likes JRPGs to review it and it would get at-least a 5, not some crazy woman who hates it because it has scantly clad female leads. Its a ero-jrpg what did they expect? Clearly a niche title yet they reviewed it as if it was aimed at main stream audiences, the title knows what it wants to be and isnt ashamed of it.
Do like that the average user score (as in the people the game is aimed at) is 7.5, 75% is a much more respectable score for such a game.
3.0 is tooo low..
i mean it isn´t a milestone, but the game makes fun and i like the setting.
i´m playing it for 2-3 weeks and it still makes fun to play it.
and the random heal system... lol you can configurate it with the PP points in the games and it´s NOT random!!
it´´s a really good game for jrpg and anime/otaku fans ^^ (well the game is like a combi of visual novel + rpg)
Listen to yourself, read the review.
Do you really think the reviewer gave a damn or gives a damn?
no but i wanted to write my opinion about HN
fuck the reviewer, that's all I have to say.
I wouldn't. She's old, and she's angsty for a reason...
You can't fuck her, she doesn't want to be hypersexualized
Gamespot are a bunch of anti-loli moralfags.
Dude, did you see the tits on some of these girls?
If those are lolis...
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.
Whining about people being weaboos on a website that reports what's happening in eastern asia and on 2ch? How goddamn stupid can one be?
I don't know, but every human has nipples. Or the lolis aren't humans?
Gamespot typical shitty western review website.
Hater gonna hate. They rather have people fapping to 50 year old grannies than the beautiful.
i don't care how bad the game is. at my local Fry's Electronics, they have the game with the art book included no extra charge. i'm buying it because of the art book. whether i play it will be another thing
The review is typical of the more judgemental sections of the Western gaming mentality. It's filled with pretentious attempts to sound mature, enlightened and well-educated, but just shows that the reviewer refuses to accept or understand any culture other than her own. There's an overwhelming aroma of sex-negative feminism in there, too.
No doubt gamespot and the critics would have given the game a higher rating if the game had been filled with men in tight spandex with their buttocks jiggling about. At least this reviewer has the excuse that she's female.
However, it is nice to see such a high user score for such a niche game.
Wait till the review for DNF comes around the corner and they tell about how delightful and fun it is to pay the strippers for favors.
Shake it baby.
For the purposes of a game review, the concept of a review itself being a whole debate in the industry and medium on its own, I would agree that the evaluation given should not be coloured by personal or cultural biases.
Outside of that and in a general sense, however, I don't think anyone should be expected to approve of or accept foreign cultures (or aspects of them).
Culture decides history, so I just look at the facts and make honest critiques where they apply.
She should write for ANN.
Why? Is there someone who's like her?
Their writers are all rabid moe haters who accuse nearly every anime of having "creepy sexualised young girls."
Not really. A lot of them are but there's quite a few reviewers who do like moe and who always writes positive reviews for otaku-bait stuff, Theoren Martin for example.
Really? I've only readafew of their reviews, but I never noticed anything like that. In fact, The Sacred Blacksmith was PRAISED for its character designs.
Can't wait to see ar tonelico 3 review.
Oh god, you're so right.
I fucking hate ANN.
Haha
Calling anime out on its horseshit is the best thing ANN does. They actually help get real shows out there and demonize the garbage only otaku bottom feeders could enjoy.
100% agree. I hate them.