Neptunia Sisters vs. Sisters review: More Nep, Nep, Nep - Technobubble Gaming

Gamindsutri’s kooky console-based goddesses are back for more zany, third-wall breaking high jinks in Neptunia: Sisters VS Sisters.

A spinoff from the long-running Neptunia game franchise, Neptunia: Sisters VS Sisters surprises with a chunky story campaign that would be worthy of the main series as well as a new action-based combat system.

Does the marriage of a classic narrative with a new fighting mechanic take the series to new heights?

Neptunia Sisters VS Sisters: The story

Neptunia: Sisters VS Sisters’ story starts out with the goddesses Neptune, Noir, Blanc and Vert getting ready for a trip to the PC Continent in response to an SOS distress call.

After some familiar Neptunia banter, the four younger goddess candidates Nepgear, Uni, Ram and Rom are left to hold the fort, so to speak, while their sisters are away.

It doesn’t take long for trouble to come knocking as a horde of monsters are sighted near Planeptune. Histoire sends the four candidates to investigate, leading to the discovery of a secret hidden lab.

Upon investigating the lab, the four come across a mysterious woman suspended in a capsule. After accidentally freeing the “Grey Sister,” the goddess candidates end up trapped in the capsule, waking up to a much changed world two years later.

In this new world, the goddesses have lost a good part of their strength as the population gets hooked on a new device called the rPhone. The new device — which suspiciously sounds like a certain Apple product — earns a massive new following thanks to its state-of-the-art tech and myriad applications. This causes the console-based goddesses to lose “shares” to the new device, which significantly curtails their power. 

It’s an interesting take on the rise of smartphones and how they’ve supplanted traditional consoles, particularly in Asian markets. It also symbolizes the battle between handhelds and smartphones. Just like Neptune, Noir, Blanc and Vert are based on the Dreamcast, Playstation, Wii and Xbox, the younger goddess candidates Nepgear, Uni, and twins Ram and Rom are based on the Game Gear, PSP and the dual-screen Nintendo DS.

The story is easily the strongest point of Neptunia: Sisters VS Sisters. 

The narrative is quite chunky, to say the least, and emulates the in-depth storytelling of the mainline Neptunia games. This means plenty of comic bits combined with some poignant moments about family ties and friendship. 

A good part of that narrative is also voiced, making the game almost akin to a visual novel. On the PS5, the story segments look nice and smooth, especially when it comes to the character animations.

In addition to the excellent Japanese dialogue, the game also comes with English voice acting that’s quite solid. Having a good amount of voice acting really makes the personality of the characters shine, and the characters are certainly one of the best parts of any Neptunia game.

Throw in a good soundtrack that mixes some old-school Eurobeat and JRPG tunes and you have another excellent entry in the Neptunia narrative.

Neptunia Sisters VS Sisters: The gameplay

While the story tastes like classic Neptunia comfort food, the gameplay is where  Neptunia: Sisters VS Sisters mixes in some new flavor.

You still have dungeons that you run through and explore while running into an assortment of enemies. The combat, however, replaces the series’ classic turn-based fighting with real-time action.

I can see the reason for the change as a lot of JRPG franchises have long switched to action-based combat to attract a new audience. At the same time, it’s a bit of a risk as it could alienate longtime fans of the series.

You basically have a three-person team of three active goddesses in your party, with the rest placed on standby. During combat, you take control of one of the goddesses but can freely switch to the other two at any time. 

Switching shouldn’t be done willy-nilly, however. Instead, changing characters is best done in the middle of a combo for a couple of reasons. One is that it allows you to extend combos, which are fueled by AP points. Naturally, three goddesses have more AP than one goddess and switching also allows you to refill the AP gauges of the other goddesses. Properly timed switching also buffs your combos, allowing you to deal even more damage.

The game starts out by slotting certain moves into your combo repertoire. It’s actually better, however, for players to manually organize their combo sequences. Some moves, for example, get more powerful if they are done after a particular type of move, so you will want to essentially program the right combination and sequence of moves to do the most damage.

In addition, you can use tactical skills to unleash damaging special attacks or heal allies mid-battle. Just like normal combos, tactical skills can be changed as well. Fill up your Goddess Gauge and you can do a Goddess Transformation. Besides buffing your stats, combos also do not require AP while in goddess mode. A Goddess Transformation can also be finished with a flashy EXE Drive.

The action-based system can be quite fun when you get into a groove and stunlock foes with long chains. At the same time, it can also feel a bit uneven.

While you can block and evade, the timing can be challenging to pull off when comboing, especially since the game pretty much encourages you to be aggressive with attacking and chaining constantly. Stunlocking enemies is practically a necessity as being passive usually opens you up to getting attacked by enemies. 

Getting attacked is especially bad news given how healing can be tough during battle. For starters, you can’t just spam healing items as you have to wait after using items. Even when you have a healer like Rom in your party, you have to charge her tactical skill gauge first in order to pull off her healing special.

Making matters worse is that your ally AI can be unreliable. Many times, I’d be comboing with a character and the other characters end up eating major damage while being controlled by the AI. This, once again, encourages you to keep chaining, especially when fighting against a group of enemies, since this makes the character you’re switching to teleport to your current target and away from other enemies. 

Battles can be more manageable if you ambush foes by hitting them in the field. The timing and distance for this, however, is a bit unforgiving. You basically have to be at just the right distance as doing it too close will make you whiff and bump into the enemy. The animation when you’re out on the field can also be a tad choppy, especially when moving the camera.

The issues with the combat are a bit unfortunate as fighting can be fun when it works properly. As it is, however, it can feel a bit repetitive and half-baked so it could have definitely used more time in the oven. Throw in the basic dungeon design and it’s easy to feel like you’re just going through the motions sometimes.

Typically, you go through the story to get to the action in most games. In the case of Neptunia: Sisters VS Sisters, I honestly felt like I was going through the action to get to the story, which is easily the best part of the game.

Final thoughts on Neptunia: Sisters VS Sisters

Idea Factory and Compile Heart serve up another dose of Nep-Nep in Neptunia: Sisters VS Sisters, complete with the kooky and offbeat storytelling that Neptunia fans know and love. The use of a new action-based combat system can be potentially polarizing, especially since it feels uneven and could use more polish. If you love the narrative of Neptunia games and its characters, however, the story alone makes this worth playing.

• Rating: 6.5 out of 10
• Cost: $49.99; PS5 (reviewed), PS4
• More details:  Official Neptunia: Sisters VS Sister website