Neptunia Shooter
| Timeline | |
| Platform | Steam Playstation 5 |
|---|---|
| Release Date(s) | May 21, 2019 (Steam) December 17, 2020 (JP/PS5) |
| Game Info | |
| Genre | Shmup |
| Companies | Idea Factory International |
| HDN Wikia Score | 65/100 |
Neptunia Shooter is a shooter game developed by a team from Idea Factory International, which usually only handles the English localization of Neptunia games. Released worldwide to Steam on May 21, 2019, it is also included in Neptunia re☆Verse to make that game seem like it has new content.
Story
Save Neptune's friends from the evil space dogoos.
Gameplay
No no no, it's not THAT kind of shooter. It's a classic, arcade-style sidescrolling shoot-em-up like R-Type or Gradius. Sorry to get your hopes up, but Compile Heart, and much less their fucking localization team definitely lacks the ability to make something like an FPS.
Pretty straightforward, just move and shoot, only 3 buttons, shoot, switch, and switch. No bomb in this game, not that you need it since it's pretty easy, especially once you get Vert. Unlike most shmups, you don't explode when you die, you just make a D: face and get a ton of iframes.
That the game is developed by the localization team definitely shows. Surprisingly enough the game is alright, it actually plays just fine. The gameplay is serviceable and and the music is catchy, although nothing groundbreaking. But the game is just. So. Short. You're looking at a fat 12 minutes of gameplay, which is STILL half the length you normally expect from your average shmup. Shmups usually have rather intricate backgrounds that you see for a fraction of a second, while Neptunia Shooter only has the same 20 or whatever frames of generic space for the entire game. Not to mention the small amount of 8-bit sprites make you wonder if all the assets for the game were created in less than 24 hours.
Trivia
- What the FUCK is a parsec?
- At the end of Parsec 1, there is a pair of big dogoos on the bottom that shoot a bunch of tiny dogoos upwards. This is a reference to Gradius, which in its first stage has a pair of volcanoes that shoot rocks in a similar fashion.
- The 6 different shot types can be thought of as similar to Radiant Silvergun, although in that game the control scheme is far better as each attack is relegated to a combination of 3 buttons rather than requiring you to frantically mash L or R to swap through 6 characters.