Without mod the definition is too low. I choose reborn to lower the grind. Story is bad, controls are not smooth. World is huge (too much imo) and enemies were quite repetitive. The world map is one of the best i ever found. Character development is ok, enough freedom and not over complicated. 2 problems: no explanation anywhere and increasing the power of a power also increase it's cooldown. So it can be very tedious to change gamestyle if your power is too high (you're stuck with using lots af specific cooldown reducing gear). Bronze is extra extra easy. Silver is a littel bit difficult and i think gold is where the fun start. I played bronze while exploring a lot and doing all the side quests i was able to find. Big mistake, as a seraphin, i was able to clean everything with one spell, an aura, area of effect damage: best gameplay ever. Rushed silver in 4 5 hours but couldn't find the will to continue with gold. I didn't try underworld (the expension) also. Conclusion: clunky but ok-ish gameplay quite repetitive big world to explore beware of overleveling (bronze 1 to 46, silver 47 to 90 gold start at 95 96) not the diablo like i would start with, but if it's your thing and it's the last you haven't done, sure, go.
Character creation and combats are top, lots of classes and races with similar to gold box combat, but it's not add, it's completly new with specific monsters, spells, invocations etc etc. I found it very interesting and very refreshing. Exploration of the world: you are definitly free, you'll roam land and water (and in my memory water fights weren't bad). First time i played i litteraly skipped the firsts dungeons and found, after lots of roaming a later (in the normal order) dungeon, and still was able to finish the game. The world is big, some nice encounters and great descriptions and cherry on top of the icing of the cake, you can craft (or pay someone to do it) the weapons of your choice, why was it possible in a 1980's era game and not found anywhere now???why??? This feature was so good, you find an antic and lost dwarf artisan city and they are able to craft the best weapons if you can afford. Conclusion: it's a very good game despite outdated graphics (if the pics presented in the description doesn't pull you off, go for it ;) )
Way too long, uninteresting crafting, vendor loot (mixing finite number of chest and random weapons: not a good idea, either fixed weapons or insane number of loot, like borderlands or path of exile), story not that good, unbalanced (as soon as you reach level 3 skill, especially the bow). I just enjoyed the first chapter (the fight with the boss and three mid boss resurected was really interesting). After that, i just wihsed the game would end as fast as possible. (i also liked the orc/barbarian invaded village and the fact i was able to nearly kill both sides (just one of the barbarian managed to escape, RIP poor tavern keeper)).
What's happening in the "real" world is good and interesting while what's happening in the "mmorpg" game is not. I would have preferd the opposite, an actual game and primary focus in the real world and simply the virtual novel part for the "mmorpg" game. The ending is .... not really good. The fact you have to find as much as possible ways to die is.... not well implemented and artificial. The fights start funny (whee a pool fighting game), but get tedious quite quickly (mainly because type of monsters are not relative to their shape, i found monsters specificity not easy to read which, in the end lead me to play in easy and not care anymore...at all). But yeah, main default: bad writing and unintersting charcaters in "mmorpg" part (whicj is the main part).
At the begining, the heroe is in jail and refuse to go out and save the world because he's kinda lazy and find the food good enough to stay. I insta loved this game, the best is that the humour doesn't go down. Lots of situations (second meeting with the distant lady is sooo good) and characters are really funny. I was nostalgic of the humour found in the first three nepnep games and this one is up to this hard task. Good fight, story is definitly ok and it's funny and well written from start to finish. If first three Neptunia game pleased you, this one should also.
Game not tested on GOG and a while ago: BUG: when you save over an already existing save, a pop up message ask you to confirm. But for me 99% of the time it was black police on black backround. Be sure to move the curor up or down ONE time then press the ok button. Check the game play time to see if you have saved yout game. Otherwise: the game is moderate (combat, level design) to good (graphics, visual novel parts, wrtiting )with 2 incredibly bad defaults: the rate of random encounters is crazy, way to many encounters (sometimes three in a row). IT'S THE MAIN PROBLEM, don't underestimate. the touching mini game is bad beyond everything i suggest heavy uses of cheat engine to bypass the two defaults, enabling to focus mainly on the good side (graphics and usually writings). With CE, buff your char to max stats, only use auto combat and physical attacks. Play on easy and as soon as possible use encent and encounter rate reduction ring, then the game is tolerable. For the touching mini game, CE can also be used to slow down the game (10% 20% make your choice). You can also find guide with accurate explanation of what to touch. I only had problem with one girl: gargoyle, took me 2 attempts. For the special ending, the last mini scene is really good and really funny BUT you have to grind 6 dungeons with close to no story (capture coco in the first dungeon is enough). Your choice here, watch the scene on youtube or do the dungeons, took me around 10 hours in easy mod, max cheat car with auto combat and reduction item equipped and used. So in conclusion, for me, CE made the game playable, but without i wouldn't recommend it.
paste of my steam comment (180 hours played) This game is sooo good, it'll break your legs, hack your screen, drive you mad, permanently ruin your character in the lobby if you are not carefull, trap you between a cyber demon and a deadly helicopter, screw your save, empty all your amunitions and wonder what the devs wanted you to understand with their story. But you'll earn a lot of brouzouf so.... More seriously, this is a raw gem, it's a gem, a life changer experience but it's raw, check some gameplay before. paste of my mandalore gaming video comment: The term brouzouf is not really french slang, i am not sure any people i know ever heard of it. It comes from a parodic science fiction show named "objectif nul", aired on canal + in 1987. This show was the first appearance of "les nuls", in which alain chabat was more or less what we could call the leader (if there was any). Alain chabat was (still is, perhaps) a great fan of a ultra violent science phy comics (or bande dessinée) named ranx xerox and wrote the scenario of the third opus in 1996 named amen!, ranx xerox could certainly fit in the inspiration source of E.Y.E for it's craziness and lack of value of human life. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6lqFlQ7EAM and a reply: The term was popularized among french gamers by the Joystick staff who used it liberally instead of "money". link to mandalore video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AScCVzENcjs I am still thinking if i am going to buy this game or not on GOG, drm free vs only single player, still wondering. If you like strange and marvelous think, get it.
I played it on Amiga emulator a while ago. The game is really good. The castle is interesting to explore with a lot of secrets/puzzles. The gameplay is in between two genre: point and click/puzzle adventure and rpg/dungeon crawler. Combat is hard, don't hesitate to use CE to slow down the game if it's too fast for your liking. Enemy respawn can become tedious and beware because you only have a specific number of spells (you can't grind components, each is spell is cast one time only). So save often and on different files. Dark humour, numerous gory death and complex exploration with a mix of dark humour and a specific ambiance (calm and oppressive). (but beware, only tested on amiga).
