Neptunia Riders vs Dogoos is one of the stranger games that I've reviewed here for ANN.

As far as Neptunia goes, it's something of an institution at this point. Starting back in 2010 on the PlayStation 3, the series focuses on the adventures of girls known as Goddesses in the realm of Gameindustri which, as you might expect, is full of puns, parodies, and references to video game consoles and culture. While certainly not an industry juggernaut, it has a dedicated following. It has spawned dozens of games along with anime, manga, and light novel tie-ins.

Personally, I've only played the Neptunia game Top Nep. Unlike the other titles which typically are more RPG-focused, Top Nep is an on-rails shooter akin to Space Harrier. I got it on sale from Steam for an absurdly low cost, played it and had a good time. It wasn't much but it was good simple fun, and I appreciated the silly tone/atmosphere. I assumed I would get something similar with Neptunia Riders vs Dogoos.

What I got was uuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

So Neptunia Riders vs Dogoos is exactly what the title describes. You take on the role of the goddesses riding motorcycles across a series of levels and face off against enemy riders to collect Dogoos. Dogoos are essentially Dragon Quest slimes with dog emojis for faces, though occasionally they do have anthropomorphic forms that wear nothing except speedos and have the dog slime as a head (the enemy riders are the latter variety). Each level is an enclosed course where you and an AI companion drive around collecting Dogoos and battling two opposing AI riders, trying to gather a set amount of Dogoos before the enemy team does.

The controls and gameplay interactions are simple enough. It's a vehicle-style combat game, so acceleration, braking, drifting, turn radius, and other elements come into play. While you drive you have a visible collection radius around your motorcycle that will gather the Dogoos. This radius can increase when you drift, so the core driving skill comes from moving swiftly around the map and drifting through packs of Dogoos to gather as many as possible in one go. You also have a short-ranged melee attack and a ranged blast you can send out. These attacks cannot kill or defeat an enemy, but they do stop them from moving and - most importantly - make them drop a clutch of the Dogoos they have collected. Since each level only has a limited number of Dogoos, most levels involve a rapid opening scramble to gather as many Dogoos as possible, then a battle to steal the opposing team's Dogoos once supplies dwindle.

Each level has additional modifiers to try and keep things interesting. Each course has new hazards and mobility options like ramps, speed boosts, and elevators to make movement more varied. Additionally, there can be hazardous interactables like whirlwinds that throw you onto new plateaus when you run into them. There are also special Dogoos types that give buffs or debuffs when you collect them. There is even a function where you can vacuum up the debuff Dogoos and launch them at your opponents to shrink them, slow them down, and more.

The gameplay loop is fine on its own, but it has very little meat on the bones. Most of the levels take less than five minutes to complete and the additional variables don't do much to add variety to the experience. Most levels just involve finding out where the Dogoos are “really” hidden - usually by hitting a ramp or something to find a stash of Dogoos you couldn't see before - and then bonking the enemy riders a few times to finish out the total you need. The friendly and enemy AI is competent enough, but they don't offer much in the way of challenge and truth be told, it's hard to make out where they are or what they're doing at most times. The enemy circle outlines and attack animations are rather muted and in a game with swarming clouds of Dogoos gathered around all the riders it can be difficult to tell friend form foe.

The story doesn't add much to the equation, either. Each region has a few levels and a main villain, which is a Goddess that Uzume already knows. Uzume will express shock that the other Goddess wants to fight her for some unknown reason, then after a few levels it is revealed that the Goddess was under some kind of spell and is now on your team. Literally lather, rinse, repeat for each of five regions, you discover the root cause, and that's the game. Maybe this means a lot more to those more well-versed in the Neptunia story, but I can't imagine it offers much joy even for the true believers. Even if I am a super fan of something and just want to see my favorite characters interact, I want to get some character specific dialogue, or hear interactions I haven't heard before. This game is mostly Uzume saying “I can't believe you're fighting me!” again and again regardless of who she's facing. It all feels very ctrl+c then ctrl+v if you catch my drift.

There are a few extra bits and baubles to extend the experience. You can customize the bikes with add-ons that adjust the bikes' stats (though for the life of me I couldn't feel a difference during play). You can also unlock cosmetics for the Goddesses, which all seem varied enough but didn't offer much interest for me I'm afraid. The visuals just aren't that exciting either in fidelity, style, or variety. There's also extended challenge modes for each level but they don't add that much difficulty to the core experience in my opinion.

On its own merits, none of these things are particularly bad. I had a decent amount of fun riding around power-sliding through goofy dog slimes, and the game never takes itself too seriously to get upset about the shallow plot or simple visuals. I was done with the game in about three hours or so, a goofy single-session experience that was silly and inoffensive, but not much more.

But then I double-checked the MSRP for the release. $39.99.

I'm sorry, the value proposition here is a bit outrageous. A game which has only two to three hours of gameplay, maybe a few more if you struggle with the challenges, all of it highly repetitive at that and only the barest excuse for a story - that is not a forty-dollar game. I know this game is a niche of a niche, a spin-off title within a silly sub-community of the wider gaming space, but I cannot in good conscience recommend this game at this price unless you are a Neptunia completionist. I honestly thought this was going to be a budget title in the $10-20 range, and even then it's hard to recommend it to a wider audience.

There is simply not enough game here to justify the cost, and even at a steep discount you are probably better off skipping this one. It's a cute little romp but it is far too repetitive and shallow for that asking price.