Something has appeared and is shaking the very foundation of Gamindustri! The world is more and more enamored with pop idols, and this growing interest has caused the source of Neptune’s and her friends’ powers—known as Shares—to vanish.
Will they find a solution to win back the hearts of Gamindustri’s inhabitants, or are they doomed to obscurity forevermore!?

Hyperdimension Neptunia: Producing Perfection is the latest game from Compile Heart and Idea Factory (who also released Monster Monpiece a few weeks ago)! In Producing Perfection, you plays as an idol manager (a genre very popular in Japan, but almost inexistent here) whose goal is to prepare the CPUs (the characters) of the Hyperdimension Neptunia universe so that they can get their stolen fanbase back.

Hyperdimension Neptunia: Producing Perfection – Launch Trailer

At the beginning of the game, you are asked to choose which CPU – out of Neptune, Noire, Blanc and Vert – you want to train. Apart from getting back the lost fanbase of Neptunia and her friends through concerts, the game’s story is a bit thin, and luckily the characters are well aware of this and don’t take themselves too seriously (see image below).

This game is split in two phases: in the first one, you are building the stats of the CPU you selected at the beginning of the game, in a way that is similar to how you play a Sim game. You have to balance the stats carefully because each one has a different effect on the Concerts you will be able to produce later. Basically, the game is divided into days, and in each day you can do an action (train voice, rehearsal, doing publicity to raise the fan base) in order to either raise one of the parameters of the character or raise her fan base. But be careful because if you push her too hard, stress level will increase and she will become unable to perform properly, and she’ll then need to spend a few days relaxing in order to relieve her of her stress. There are also a lot of events that trigger at set intervals and if you go thorough those events with the CPUs, you will increase their affection and confidence towards you.

In the second phase of the gameplay, you will be setting up Concerts which will dramatically raise the fan base if you perform accurately (or increase your haters if you fail). While setting up a concert, you can choose who will participate in it (friends of the character you selected can join), how they will be placed on stage and which effects you will be able to do in real time on the stage.

While I thought that the Concerts would be the main feature of the game, they’re actually a bit boring: the song selection is not that good (and I’m a HUGE fan of J-Pop) and each of the three effects you can do while the CPU is singing each has a 15 to 30 seconds cooldown, meaning that if you do them all at the same time, you won’t be able to do anything else than move the camera until they’re available again. It would have been fun if the Concerts changed the gameplay to a rhythm game like Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA f or Theatrhythm Final Fantasy.

Final Thoughts

Hyperdimension Neptunia: Producing Perfection, as its name implies, is a game built around the Hyperdimension Neptunia universe. I liked the fact that you can train each of the CPUs individually and that the dialogs are all fully localized (and mostly voiced) in English. On the other hand, the song list isn’t very impressive and the Concerts themselves are a bit boring to play since the gameplay is mostly passive. It would have been fun if the gameplay switched to a Rhythm-based game instead of just giving us a few array of interactions, but at least the graphics are great and true to the Hyperdimension Neptunia games.

Hyperdimension Neptunia: Producing Perfection is a game that will please Idol Manager gamers, but I’m pretty sure that the target audience of this particular game genre is as niche as it gets.

[review pros=”You can train each one of the four CPUs
Fully localized in english” cons=”Get repetitive after a while
Songs list isn’t very impressive
Concerts are too passive” score=70]

Cost: $39.99

PSN Game size: 1.4GB

You can purchase Hyperdimension Neptunia: Producing Perfection from the PSN.

Disclaimer

This review is based on a digital copy provided by NIS America.