Neptunia as a whole is a light-hearted tribute to video games, especially the Japanese indie scene. Your first two companions, Compa and IF, are the personification of Compile Heart and Idea Factory, the game's publisher and developers, respectively. You'll meet more characters alluding to Japanese companies and series, as well as countless other video game references in the form of enemies, dungeons, attacks, items, jokes and even entire game mechanics – like how you can burn game discs with status boosts of your liking and equip them as accessories.

The unusual setting aside, Neptunia is a standard yet solid JRPG. The story is told via 2D cutscenes (with its fair share of puns and fan-service), while the simple dungeons are explored in a 3D third-person camera.

Touch an enemy and you enter turn-based combat, where characters can freely move a certain distance and each weapon/skill has a different range. The game shines on the impressive amount of depth underneath, with a robust equipment and crafting system, special goddess forms, diverse enemies, multiple status effects and many companions to use (even more with the DLCs). You can customise their powers, attack types, appearance, battle formation and pair them with other characters to gain special bonuses and combos.

Battles can be very tough, so you'll have to grind at some points, usually by doing side-quests at the guild and revisiting dungeons in pursuit of XP, items and materials for crafting. An interesting feature here is the ability to “re-program” dungeons, adding new monsters, different item drops or raising the difficulty.

A huge hit, the game quickly got multiple sequels, manga and anime versions and a series of spin-offs, such as card games and an idol-raising sim – a total of 19 games as of 2021! Neptunia is an extremely niche game, but one that perfectly resonates with its audience.