School is now in session for the CPUs of Gamindustri! Join Blanc in her starring game as she helps the Film Club make their movie WHILE trying to save the school from the zombie outbreak.
MegaTagmension Blanc + Neptune vs Zombies is a hack n’ slash game starring everyone’s favourite CPU from Lowee, Blanc! All of the girl’s have headed off to school, but now that they are in their senior year (with the candidates in the years below them), the school is on the verge of closing! To help save the school they have decided to make a film about them beating up zombies with some crazy plot, and Blanc is at the head of the movie as the director and screenwriter.
The best way I can describe the plot of this game is it is very Neptunia series. The characters will have silly back and forths, and the plot for their movie ends up happening in real life. Zombies end up appearing all over the academy, allowing for the girls to use this opportunity to shoot their film. They don’t just aim for the one film either, they go above and beyond and film the sequel as well!
Spanning over a total of 12 chapters, each chapter of MegaTagmension will last around 1-5 levels. Each “level” is labeled as a “cut scene”, with most having a cutscene that proceeds these. One neat feature that MegaTagmension has for this is that if you should happen to choose the correct two people for that level, you will get a unique scene with those two characters. I’m not quite sure how you’re supposed to actually figure out exactly who you should use for a scene, but I did get at least one by lucky chance.
MegaTagmension features all of the main characters who have been introduced so far in the Neptunia universe, as well as newcomer Tamsoft. While this definitely leads to a nice variety of people to choose from – something you’ll need to do if you want to try and get all of those special cutscenes – you can very easily just pick whichever character you want and stick with them for most of the game. I ended up sticking with using Uni as soon as I got her since I found that her attack was very good at handling enemies and keeping her alive.
If you played through Hyperdimension Neptunia U Action Unleashed, you will find that this game plays extremely similar to it. One key change, though, is that you can no longer simply spam your special actions. They are now on a timer between uses, leaving you having to use attacks between special actions. These specials are still quite strong, and I’m actually kind of glad that you can’t simply spam them to kill everything like you could in Action Unleashed. Granted, just mashing Square and spamming attack a lot with Uni isn’t much better, but it’s still better than just ability spamming!
Support characters are something that you’ll unlock through the game (you will start with IF and Compa), and can help you out in the way of buffs during the levels. These buffs only last for a limited amount of time but can really help you get through the levels faster. I ended up just equipping the characters that gave me some sort of attack boost and found I could usually get ~2 skills in for how long the buffs would last.
Outside of the main story exists a multiplayer mode, but fear not as you can definitely play this mode solo. While I didn’t delve all the way through it, I did play at least some of the missions (up to the level of my Uni and when I started getting killed). The missions will play out very much the same as the storyline levels, asking you to either take down a large boss enemy or just a horde of enemies in general.
Bosses in MegaTagmension may cause you some issues, or at least they did for me. The biggest issue I had with them was simply locking on. Unless I completely missed something, I found actually getting the camera to lock onto a target to be an absolutely pain in the butt. I would press the button and find the game just not responding to trying to lock on most of the time. When it came to the large bosses in multiplayer, or really just bosses in general, this was a big issue.
Another control issue I ran into was just the “pause” menu in general. Unless you actually confirm the pause, all it really does is bring up a menu of things you can do. This includes item usage, and in my time playing the game I never really bothered to use any items. I never found a need to use them, and whenever I did I would’ve been dead long before I could get to it in the menu.
MegaTagmension Blanc is definitely overall solid, but I did find that there were some bits that were just annoying. The main one was the camera lock on, especially with the oversized monsters that were present. I definitely did enjoy it though, and can easily give it a recommendation. Do keep in mind that each chapter in the main story will probably only last you around half an hour (at least for the bulk of the chapters), making the main story playtime somewhat low. Most of the action exists within the multiplayer area, something that you can do with others (online or via adhoc), or just on your own.
If you’re a bit iffy about the fact the main story is a bit on the short side then give this game some time to try and get it on sale instead. For now, I do give it an easy recommendation since I did enjoy my time playing it (and often found myself laughing at the jokes within the game), but was a bit sad about the fact each chapter really didn’t end up being overly long.
MegaTagmension Blanc + Neptune VS Zombies Review Score
4/5
MegaTagmension Blanc + Neptune VS Zombies is available now on PSVita via PSN and Amazon. The game is schedule to also eventually release on Steam. The game is compatible for use on PlayStation TV.
I would like to thank Idea Factory for providing me with a Vita code for review purposes.
