Trying every PS-Plus Extra game: Magadimension Neptunia VII

First off, what a completely ridiculous name for a game that almost nobody is going to remember. I chose this one because of no particular reason. At this point I am just randomly scrolling to games and choosing them based on nothing.

A little while ago I drunkenly purchased PS-Plus Extra which immediately granted me access to near 100 games that I have never played. I do not play enough to ever make it though all of these games and it would be tough for anyone to actually do that since these titles seem extremely random and thus far, most of them aren't very good. I am sure that Playstation intentionally threw a bunch of crap games in there just so they could get their numbers up. I do enjoy finding the occasional "hidden gem" and that is my primary objective here. I am avoiding all AAA games because everyone that follows gaming already knows whether or not these games are any good or not.

Yesterday I went down the road of Megadimension Neptunia VII (which I will just call "Mn" henceforth) for about an hour because that was all I could endure.

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From the very limited amount of time that I spent playing this I am not going to pretend as though I have a solid opinion about the overall game. This was never my intention because it would be impossible for me to put enough time into 100 games over 3 months to be able to make a real assessment of the entire game. Instead, I am simply looking for how well a game instantly captivates you and whether or not it can effortlessly make you want to continue playing. Thus far of the games I have tried only one of them has managed to accomplish this and that game was Spiritfarer - which is an absolutely excellent indie game.

MN on the other hand is a pretty usual JRPG with some tweaks that make it unique, but mostly it is so loaded down with immense complexities and dialogue right from the start that it makes it really difficult to stay interested.

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The combat system is almost exactly the same as almost any other turn-based JRPG that you have ever seen and the only differences that I can easily detect are customizations that you can make before you ever enter battle. There are hit points and magic points even though they don't call them that. The amount of times you get to attack are based on certain attributes and in the top right corner you are always aware of whose turn it is going to be next so you can plan some semblance of a strategy about what to do next or which enemy you should be focusing on killing. The playfield comes into play to some degree because the positioning of your characters around an enemy can result in more powerful combos and from what I can tell, this game has a lot of those that are possible.

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The major problem I had with MV early one wasn't how the gameplay worked, it was the fact that you didn't actually get to do any of it. For the first, I would say half an hour, the users are subjected to a low-budget anime of sorts which thankfully, you can skip if you want to. It goes on for a very long time and I found myself no longer paying attention to what it was talking about and therefore just started skipping it. I FINALLY got to a part where you are at least somewhat controlling where the character goes only to have it almost immediately hijacked and then thrust me back into an anime dialogue sequence AGAIN.

When we finally did get to the combat I was a little less than impressed.

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I would imagine that as the game carries on that the combat becomes more involved and significantly more interesting but at least in the first hour of play you are really only doing basic attacks and your position on the playfield doesn't appear to be terribly relevant.

During the "tutorial" your play is frequently interrupted by menus that tell you how to play the game and I would imagine that this would be important information for anyone that has any intention of actually playing the entire game. This was happening A LOT and the game was incredibly involved as far as "coupling" various players on your squad and telling you how to navigate the menus. Basically, the game is extremely complicated despite its cutesy look. Since I was only going to play it for an hour unless it truly captivated me, and because I was already annoyed by the amount of mandatory dialogue scenes that I was forced to sit through, I started to just ignore the tutorial and get back to the action.

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Again, I only played for 1 hour and only found 3 of the possible characters but at that point I could already tell that this game has a TON of possible combinations and how each of these interact with one another might be interesting to someone that has this much time to dedicate to a single game.

Wandering around the world is pretty lame and the progress is totally linear. In this regard I feel as though it sticks to the JRPG turn-based trope really well. JRPG's were never really my thing and the last one I remember playing for any amount of time was all the way back on the GameCube with Tales of Symphonia... so yeah, it's been a while since I really dived into this type of game.

For the right person who loves anime and is willing to put in the time to unlock this game's true potential, I think MN VII might be a decent game. For me, I am not going to devote the time to learning the many combinations of possibilities for my characters in a game that is going to interrupt gameplay every 4 minutes for another dialogue scene.

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Games played so far in my trip through all the "Extra" games on Playstation Plus

• Windbound (survival game with rogue-like elements - not recommended)
• Magicka 2 (top-down humorous multiplayer hack and slash-sort with immense spell system - maybe recommended)
• Tearaway: Unfolded (charming casual 3D platformer with inventive graphics and gameplay designed for all ages - recommended for casual players)
• Spiritfarer (casual simulation / resource-management style game with an extremely good story - recommended for all)
• Observation (point and click survival sort of... interactive game of sorts set in space - found it very boring after just one hour and do not recommend)
• Gabbuchi (simplistic puzzle game that I feel is better suited to mobile devices. Not recommended on consoles)
• The Messenger (8-bit style action/platformer that is a throwback to original Ninja Gaiden. It's simplistic fun. Recommended)
• Megadimension Neptunia VII (typical JRPG with some adjustments made to combat for uniqueness. Could be fun and I lukewarmly recommend for someone willing to dedicate 50 hours to a turn-based RPG)