[Klashikari]

Originally Posted by JohnNiles

I've got about 21 hours on my savefile and I'm close to the end of the game. Perhaps you skipped some of the plot conversations? Though I did extra quests for shares and levels, and I may have left the console idle at some point. The game IS short. Each landmass requires a few fetch quests and some boring conversation, and that's it.

I'm pretty sure I didn't skip any plot conversations, unless they were locked by share requirement or anything of that kind: I simply have no chirper event left. Of course, I merely did few quests left and right, which lead me to the bare minimum of 50-60% for each landmasses' respective share, for Noire, Vert and Blanc recruitment.

I can see the game being around 20-25 hours for the true end, but that's still quite meager for a single walkthrough (in term of JRPG, that is).

MK2's pacing is horrendous. Most games do a better job of managing tension and relaxation. In MK2 it's just going from one fetch quest to the next. (I'm not saying I wanted to spend more time in dungeons, I would've preferred more opportunities to hang out with the party.)

That's probably my biggest complain with the game: the execution of the plot is really linear. Whereas Neptunia had a convulated dungeon grinding and landmass travels (since for "some reason", you can't even progress in a landmass storyline unless you progress on another landmass), the scope of the plot was extended to a certain degree, with various events connected to each other (Singe's plot in Lastation, Majekon's active role in her own revival, instead of being passive like in MK2).

Really, if it wasn't for Linda's "team rocket-style" returns all the frigging time, the game normal end would definite be possible below 2 digits for the time counter.

The chirper system and lily ranks should've handled the pacing issue, but they didn't. You get a third of your characters early on, a third halfway through the game, and the rest near the end of the game. Tying lily ranks to time spent in the party was a bad move. I'm debating whether to get the remaining ranks, or just get it over with.

The lily rank system was definitely a very odd addition: When you have Neptune joining you with rank 2 (neutral), it just doesn't make any sense. Suffice to say, I was expecting more interactions due to lily rank, such like... well, improved/additional abilities between both characters (and not solely focused on couple skills with Nepgear only), a bit like in Fire Emblem and its support system, but it merely unlock 1 skill for some couples (well, Violet Shwerstern is broken though) and used for the ending branch.
The big problem with chirper is that every interactions between characters are pushed on these, but the main plot rarely allow characters to expand themselves, past few things. Really, even if the plot was to be serious from the get go, I definitely can see why some people complained that MK2 was inferior to Neptunia 1 in term of characters etc.

Originally Posted by xizro345

I didn't have any issue with the plot pacing, which is better focused and makes more sense than the original. And I finished at about 40 hours, but I went straight for the true end since I didn't have time to replay it.

The plot pacing was "fine", although few cycling things really annoyed me to no end for their redundency (mainly Uni's inferiority complex was really shoved down to my throat I just couldn't tolerate it after her third appearance, and as stated above: Linda).

My beef with the main plot however is how things are really set on a straightline, with little to no detour. I really think they could have blended more side quests and side events than just the main plot, because at some point, I just couldn't handle how cheesy MK2 was (the overdramatization with piracy was a bit difficult in chap 5, and while Brave and Uni "debate" started fine, it became incredibly cheesy afterwards).
Cheese apart, there were far less interactions between the characters, and while I understand Nepgear was the "main heroine", it just impair a lot of possibilities you could have with this franchise.

Eventually, every characters got less quirky, amplified with NISA translation (good lord, it is like they multiplied Neptune's food mentions like 10 times, when you compare the script and the jp voice over).
I mean, things like "Noire Style" definitely was akin to what Neptunia 1 had to offer, and I was hoping more of this kind of content once you recruit the goddesses and go on in chap 5. Yet, Chap 5 turns out to be done with a single fight with Magic, then 6 being hardly anything long either.

YMMV I guess, but for some reason, I can't help but think MK2 was basically the complete opposite of Neptunia 1: good gameplay with comfortable points here and there, but story and characters were weaker overall.
In Neptunia 1, the main group was basically bunch of girls ready to kick some bad guys asses, and confront anything on their way, along with good ol' silliness. But in MK2, the whole deal with friendship etc made the whole point "more cliche" than it already was.
Hell, even the lore was sort of dampened: albeit vague, the first game has some backstory about Majekon, as well as the 4 goddesses being more or less sisters, along with the console wars, and established parties (political stuff with the nations churches, Guild etc). But in MK2, the lore is... merely giving a setup, without even expending anything (nothing really about the guild, nor the rare mention of "true goddess" and the likes). Hell, the origin of Neptune & co, as well as their sisters completely omitted just doesn't help in anything... and their attempt to expand material with the nepedia wasn't really enough.