How Did It All Go Down? Here’s What a Press Event Feels Like
Held in a small bar in the heart of San Francisco, if you had just happened to wander into this venue during the event there was very little sign that major game announcements were about to go down – save for the large Hyperdimension Neptunia banner that greeted us. Once inside over 80 fellow members of the specialty gaming press, streaming community and other industry professionals mingled and talked shop. As the announcements drew closer and closer discussions in the small bar centered around a few topics – what could these mystery games that IFI may announce be? Reactions to the playable demos available at the event and of course the talk of the town: the then upcoming PlayStation Experience convention.
As members of the Idea Factory International PR team took to the presentation podium alongside members of the Japanese development teams responsible for the various games on display the entire room hushed as they knew that they were in for a real treat.
Impressions of What I Got To Play
Megadiemnsion Neptunia VII
Megadiemnsion Neptunia VII was probably the demo that I spent the most time with during my time at IFI’s demo stations. What was on display was a near final build of the English localization that will go on sale on [release date here] complete with voice acting and from what I could tell a near final translation. There were three save states available for us to check out, the save state that I chose for my play through had Neptunia and Co. in a very large open environment reminiscing of those to be found within the Rebirth titles only exponentially larger. Combat is still as fluid and refined and is very comparable to what I’ve played in the Rebirth titles. In essence this means that combat systems introduced in Hyperdimension Neptunia: Victory and refined in subsequent games – Targeting boxes in front of your characters before pulling off combat, linking together chains of moves and it wouldn’t be a Neptunia game without flashy transformation sequences. My brief time with Hyperdimension Neptunia V.2 at the IFI presser felt like spending time with a very close friend, who also happened to get an awesome new hairdo. This visually striking PS4 entry in the franchise is one to watch out for!
Blanc + Neptunia Vs Zombies
Alright so this one is so out of left field I just had to play through the demo version of the game! It might feel like zombies are overused in media – whether we’re talking about TV shows like The Walking Dead or recent gaming sensations like Call of Duty: Zombies, it seems like the undead might start rising out of their graves any day now. Thankfully from the brief taste of Blanc + Neptunia’s aesthetic and gameplay that I experienced proved that this title just might have what it takes to set itself apart.
The first thing that grabbed me about Vs. Zombies – aside from the concept – was that fact that this game takes place in an alternate universe of sorts. The familiar cast of the Neptunia franchise are transported out of the familiar and relatively comfortable setting of the normal GamesIndustri into a high school setting complete with its own high school uniform and school clubs. A bright cheerful aesthetic, a long running trait of many of IFI’s games, also helps also set VS. Zombies apart from other undead infested titles that might be available for the PlayStation Vita. It is nice to see Idea Factory International willing to take risks with one of their most recognizable franchises – switching locations, genres, settings and even lead characters to keep things fresh.
Unfortunately, Vs Zombies doesn’t seem to be as far along in the localization process as V.2, so I couldn’t actually understand any of the story text or many of the menus from this demo build. This demo offered two different areas for players to hone their skills in – aptly named “Scene 1” and “Scene 2”. Once a scene has been selected you have a choice of three different playable characters. Each “scene” was basically a room filled with a pre-determined number of enemies that player had to quickly eliminate. I dashed around my enemies, juggling them with quick strikes as Neptune in a very cute purple school outfit. All told someone who is quite familiar with action games could probably finish the demo version in under five minutes. But as they say “quality over quantity” – The demo for Blanc + Neptunia Vs. Zombie gave me just enough of a taste for its quick paced combat, bright colorful graphics and cute outfits that I am finding myself starved for more… brains…. I mean time with this game.
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Check out a few minutes of Blanc + Neptunia Vs. Zombies From IFI’s press event
Hopefully this article has you just as excited as I am for Idea Factory International’s early 2016 line-up for PC, PlayStation 4 and PS Vita.