YMMV / Neptunia Game Maker R:Evolution

• Game-Breaker:
  • Any of the three combo Cancel disc effects, but "All Cancel Optimization" in particular due to bundling all three types in one slot to allow for more disc effects, allows for an utterly ridiculous amount of damage in a short period of time. Unlike in SvS where you could only cancel after the main portion of the attack went off, you can cancel within the first couple of frames here negating the entire attack. While that last part seems like a negative, you can only trigger a Link Chain after reaching the currently controlled character's Finisher, which can similarly be done almost instantly into the animation. A Link Chain has a few important characteristics, first is that it provides temporary invulnerability to the characters involved, second is that it gradually increases all damage done up to double, third is that it locks most enemies that are hit by it for the duration, and finally it is the fastest method of building the Link Drive gauge to enable a character to use their EXE Drive. By completely canceling all normal attacks you can fire off a normal EXE Drive at a Level 1 Link Drive roughly every half a minute or less, a better time to damage rate than building to 2, 3 or 4 for various augmented Link Drives over the base EXE Drive, while making yourself nigh invulnerable.
  • For the races, the Wind-Up Key is a way to make almost any bike have perfect stats. This key is available for purchase from the shop almost immediately for very few Credits and equipping all three of your bike's slots with one will max out its stats. The only bikes that can't hit perfect stats this way are Raijin and Atomic Shadow, which can not hit perfect stats using any combination of accessories from the shop. Doing this trivializes all but one race.
• That One Boss:
  • K-Sha. In particular the version of her where the group is split into four groups of three, your choice of who aside from fixed placements for the Failure Goddesses and Older Neptune, to fight against each of the Gold Third. Jagaa is forced to fight against her, which is to her significant disadvantage due to lack of ranged attack options. K-Sha is likely to be ~10 levels over most of your characters at this point if you haven't spent time grinding in the Neptral Tower, has an excessively high damage output per hit even on attacks that fire off multiple shots that come out quickly which may very well instantly take out the target, as well as infinite range on her attacks and an exceptionally aggressive AI that will not let up the pressure on you. Attempts to revive fallen characters, which are gated by time for the Technical Gauge to fill up and mutually exclusive with the ability to use a healing skill or item due to all of it using that one gauge, are met with her switching her focus to them since they'll be an exceptionally easy kill. Oh, and there's no warning that the event that starts this series of boss fights will do so. About the only way to handle this fight the first time around is to overlevel in the Neptral Tower or to exploit the Game-Breaker Cancel effects mentioned above.
  • As far as enemies in the racing minigame go, the miniature Lizard Man is incredibly difficult to beat. Thanks to having nearly unlimited Stamina, which all the monsters use to catch up and overtake you, you'll never be able to keep ahead of it for more than a second or two if you try to race fairly. Even a bike setup with three Wind-Up Keys will not have an easy time beating this one, and it all comes down to how well you can time your Boosts on whether or not you'll win. The only other way to win is to go off the main course and go over a broken bridge using an incredibly thin wooden beam to skip a large portion of the track, but if you fall off that beam you'll be back on the track facing the wrong way on a narrow path to make it nearly impossible to catch back up.
• Unexpected Character: While Older Neptune was advertised as the main protagonist of the game, the addition of the Gold Third and Croire came as a shock to many, given that several earlier advertisements of Game Maker all but stated that Older Neptune would be the only returning character from VII. The Gold Third's return in particular was met with excitement as it was with surprise, given that discounting an Updated Re-release of VII, their previous canonical re-appearance was through Chipper icons. And unlike Uzume, they were never featured in any spin-off title, playable characters or otherwise (apart from a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo in Cyberdimension where they aren't shown on screen or referred to by name, and their identities are only implied by the fact that they are a group of four adventurers, and their particular ways of speaking).
• Unpopular Popular Character: The Failure Goddesses are called that for a reason; not only do they start the game losing the battle for the Market Share, causing them to be labeled as pariahs for their dimension, but their shoddy attempts at creating games were the leading factors to the creation of Zaikopath and the cursed game discs that F-Sha has been trying to hunt down, to the point that it only took until the end of the game for them to regain the respect they used to have. Outside of universe, they're beloved by the fandom, thanks to their unique, trend-breaking designs (especially in Goddess mode) and Woobie statuses.

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