Neptunia: Sisters VS Sisters Review – Video Game Goddesses Brought to Vibrant Life

Hyperdimension Neptunia, a series that began as an imagined console war between goddesses for the Xbox 360, Wii, PS3, and canceled Sega Neptune, would seem doomed to be out of date in a 2023 world of phone gacha games and PC releases. However, the action RPG Neptunia: Sisters VS Sisters, recently brought to the West on PC, PS4, and PS5, proves that, without a doubt, the franchise is evolving and thriving in the present day.

Through a time skip, familiar Neptunia characters must find their footing in a world of phone games, setting the stage for hilarious and engaging story scenarios. Though the action elements in Neptunia Sisters are a bit unintuitive and better suited for the prehistoric original Neptunia game, this newest entry in the franchise features dialogue and visual novel segments much more than action.

Stellar character designs, voice acting, and writing which explores modern gaming culture all ensure that Sisters VS Sisters is a standout release that elevates its Neptunia goddess candidate cast to new heights.

▍Modernizing the Console Wars

While Neptunia: Sisters VS Sisters returns to the familiar world of Gamindustri, ruled over by competing goddesses who represent various video game consoles, this newest entry takes the franchise into new territory. The player explores an unfamiliar cast of characters through the sisters of the main franchise protagonists; at the same time, the plot and humor within Sisters move away from the console and retro game references common in Neptunia.

The mysterious rise of “rPhones,” distracting consumers from console games and weakening the goddesses, drives the game’s story and cultural references. Instead of dated consoles, phone games, VTubers, and recent trends in social media are explored by Neptunia characters, frozen for three years and ignorant of modern anime and gaming culture.

The story of Sisters VS Sisters is simple and straightforward, offering few surprises as the player investigates Neptune’s disappearance and the rise of the rPhone. The game’s writers are not trying to weave a complicated plot; instead, Sisters VS Sisters seeks interesting scenarios for its likable cast, to provide the player with a variety of fun, funny, and unexpected scenarios and conversations related to anime and gaming culture. 

Neptunia: Sisters VS Sisters absolutely rock this goal of bringing modern gaming to life, while the game is packed full of wonderful scenes that offer insightful and humorous commentary on the eccentricities of mobile gaming. The sudden appearance of a character resembling Reimu from Touhou is one such pleasant surprise. 

▍Strong Writing and Animation Make for Vibrant Characters 

Scenes that lack gaming references, focused instead on character interactions, prove just as strong due to fantastic writing. The characters are all interesting and distinctive, bouncing off one another very well in interactions that span telling ghost stories, finding a Pokemon GO raid, and sending Super Chats.

Neptunia: Sisters VS Sisters does get a bit stuck in the main plot, boring the player with cliche events or game references that turn a bit stale. The saving grace is that it never loses its tongue-in-cheek touch, making sure not to take itself too seriously, and humorous or light-hearted moments constantly brighten up plot-heavy stretches. The 2.5D character models displayed during dialogue look as good as traditional 2D portraits while bringing the characters to life with fluid, fantastic animations.

▍Repetitive Combat Can Be a Snore

However, the RPG action segments in the game drag, creating a harsh break between fun visual novel-style cutscenes, and repetitive random battles with slimes. The combat system pits player characters in real-time battles against enemies, with rechargeable Action Points allowing the character to string together attacks into combos.

You can equip various attacks, called Combo Skills. While these different moves offer interesting visuals, they do not alter combat significantly, changing attack ranges or allowing you to exploit elemental weaknesses. 

Outside basic combos, damaging enemies allows a player to initiate chain combos, switching in different party members who perform buffed attacks. The gradually charging Tactical Gauge allows a player to use special moves, for damage or healing. A chargeable goddess gauge allows player characters to transform into their goddess form and attack without using Action Points; the goddess form and goddess gauge allow the use of a character’s destructive, flashy EXE Drive move.

▍Flashy Combat Visuals Almost Compensate for Messy UI

There is clearly an abundance of gauges and flashy attacks, but the combat often involves little more than smacking enemies with your strongest moves and spamming combo attacks. Glimmers of depth and deeper mechanics surface in the game’s huge variety of equipment and combo buffs, which allow a character to be equipped for bonus damage after successful guard breaks, or for a character to be geared more defensively, with multiple buffed dodge dashes. 

But the game’s difficulty never demands mastery of its mechanics, and it is hard to feel enthusiastic about combat when fighting the same dull enemies, or backtracking through an area you have already explored for a quest item. Neptunia: Sisters VS Sisters leans more toward a visual novel than RPG, and the action segments are not a huge detriment to the game but could have been removed entirely or expanded upon for a better experience. 

Tougher, more varied enemies and mechanics, and more intricate maps and puzzles, would be greatly appreciated to blunt the repetitive motion of the action elements. Cleaner, simpler UI would also help a player as they battle hordes of Gamindustri foes in maps that can be difficult to quickly navigate.

Though, the game’s cast of characters allows you to overlook combat woes, and look fantastic while doing so. The detailed attention paid to character cosmetics and models, which look stunning during special moves, fits with the game’s overall fantastic treatment of its cast. 

▍A love letter to Neptunia fans

Neptunia: Sisters VS Sisters includes all the anime tropes with an incredible variety of personalities that never feel cliche or boring. Dialogue bounces characters off one another expertly, for humor or more touching moments.

Absolutely incredible voice acting from the industry’s best, like Kana Ueda and Kana Asumi, brings fantastic characters new and old to life. The game’s new character Maho is a bright and hilarious addition to the cast with a great dynamic with recurring characters, often explaining smartphone gaming to her oblivious friends. 

Neptunia: Sisters VS Sisters will disarm you with charm. The character models look fantastic, and the voice acting is out of this world. Written into fun scenes with heart and humor, the cast is engaging and never predictable; when you least expect it, the shy young goddess Rom will offer a deadpan remark that sells a scene.

Though the action gameplay is a bit repetitive and unintuitive, there is combat depth if you seek it out, and enjoyable animations to get you through battles. Fantastic writing grounds the game’s scenarios in relatable, interesting explorations of phone gaming culture. Lighthearted, tongue-in-cheek cutscenes in which goddess characters yell about gacha mechanics make for an incredibly entertaining entry into the Neptunia series, ideal for series veterans or newcomers to the Gamesindustri console wars.

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