Cyberdimension Neptunia: 4 Goddesses Online - Online games are serious business!

Cyberdimension Neptunia: 4 Goddesses Online is an action RPG developed by Compile Heart and Tamsoft and released in 2017. Despite the name, it is a single-player game focused on the adventures of our Goddesses (Neptune, Vert, Noire, and Blanc) and Goddess Candidates (Nepgear, Uni, Rom, and Ram) within an MMORPG of the same name.

The story is essentially a parody of the MMORPG genre, with the Goddesses acting as players and protagonists who complete quests, saving the world and crack jokes about drop rates. The plot does not deviate much from the standard formula seen in previous games of the franchise.

All the characters have a new costume that fits with the aesthetic of the virtual world and the classes they are configured to use (each character has a different unique class). For example Neptune is a paladin so she wears heavy armor while Vert is an enchanter so she has a much more cloth-like equipment. 

What? Is that not how normal people relax? Crank a new game while waiting for the burnout from the previous to pass before going back?

I overall like Blanc more as a character, but I have a special spot for Noire. Her tsun tsun relationship with Neptune is always nice to see.

There are three endings to the story, which follow the typical pattern of a Normal Ending, an Alternate Ending, and a True Ending, with increasing requirements to obtain them. It is generally very straightforward to obtain all three, as they are linked directly to how many Goddesses you have recruited.

Neptunia is one of the franchises dearest to me in the JRPG world because of the amazing character designs by Tsunako and the lighthearted, positive themes, even if we ignore "that" ending from that one specific entry. I generally play every game they release as soon as they're released.

Nepgear's unwavering love for her older sister Neptune is present in every franchise and I love it.

Don't say these meta things! Clearly it was god luck, there's no way it was just a scripted drop!

This title marked the first time the franchise migrated to Unreal Engine 4. This helped significantly with overall rendering and model quality, although asset reuse is still quite evident in many scenes. To make things worse, this engine did not support the Live2D technology used in previous titles, which removed a feature that made the dialogue scenes look much more lively.

The game itself is quite short by JRPG standards, taking about 10 hours to complete, unless you go out of your way to pad the experience by completing every side quest. Believe me, there are many of them, and you can easily double your playtime by going through them all.

I totally agree with Blanc/Rom/Ram here, what's the point of playing a game if you just use those? It defeats the point...

Wait, you actually sell eggplants? Do you have a farm or something Neptune? Now I have a lot more questions for Planeptune's government...

Overall, I think Cyberdimension Neptunia: 4 Goddesses Online remains a very niche game with a limited budget and quality. I don't really suggest buying it unless you are a fan of the franchise and want more story content with the heroines you love.