BUY.
I'm going to go ahead and admit fully right now: I haven't completed the game yet. I'm in the final chapter, and I have the DLC, and multiple playthroughs ahead of me, but I do not see anything in the last few hours or so of the gaming changing drastically enough to sway my opinion of the game whatsoever.
I am still kicking myself since the moment I picked this game up, for not having played the Re;birth versions of the games on the Vita, or as soon as I possibly could have. I'm going to have to list off the negatives and downsides of the game of course, but know fully well that this is one of my favorite JRPG's in the last few years, and nothing I've played in recent memory has made me simply laugh and feel good just from playing it. Having stated that, allow me to list this games few flaws, so we can get it out of the way and I can talk about all the glorious things it nails perfectly.
Difficulty spikes are probably this games biggest flaws, which a veteran of the series can easily see coming and knows to avoid them, or knows how to set up their characters properly to prepare for the oncoming enemies, a Neptunia "virgin" will be absolutely crushed very early in the game. The Chapter 2 boss is apparently notorious for being a "brick wall" for new players, that you either grind past or find you way through, or you give up on the game to never return. There are several points like this throughout the entirety of the game, where you'll go from crushing the enemies you're fighting, or atleast being on the same level of them and having a relatively challenging time, to getting crushed into the ground. I'm someone who enjoys grinding and exploring side content in games, (a piece I need to write sometime in the future) but even I found a few encounters incredibly difficult, and I "game overed" a few times in the later chapters of the game, because the enemies were simply crushing my defenses. Eventually I just looked up a few choice grinding areas, and then realized I needed to keep up to date on all the plans and equipment I was finding, instead of relying on what I was getting from the Shop, but it's a level of depth and effort that you typically exert in a normal JRPG in order to have an extreme advantage over your enemies, not stay competitive. It's something I personally found very interesting and ended up enjoying, because it was an added level of gating, instead of telling me that "No, you can't go here yet, go do some bullshit sidequests" it said "If you really think you're tough enough, go for it, but don't come crying when you get crushed."
Despite my interpretation of the mechanics, it is still a huge flaw, one which could possibly be allayed by atleast having a "recommended level" for the encounters or story missions to prepare the player before hand, or making the difficult ramp a bit smoother -- instead of having the chapter 2 boss just instantly crush you into nothing, how about having the entire area where you fight the chapter 2 boss be incredibly difficult, with the side areas having a gradual difficulty increase, up until you reach the point where you're at the level and strength you're supposed to be for that boss fight, instead of just tossing the player to the wolves.
Another flaw of the game is the heavy use of reskinned enemies and dungeons. I understand why it had to be done, considering the size of the company, and what kind of game this is, and they even make a joke about reskinned enemies and dungeons very early in the game, but that still doesn't excuse it. It's something I've learned to stomach throughout the years of player lower budget, smaller games in this vein, where you typically have 15-20 truly unique enemies, with the rest of them being reskins or giant versions of enemies you fight, but even so, the enemies themselves are very interesting and unique, like a warp pipe or a visual novel screen being enemies. There are also uniquely skinned enemies that you'll only see in the Colisseum, which gives you something to look forward to, but they're still reskins at the end of the day.
I'll go ahead and mention the Fanservice, which is pretty light from what I've seen so far, compared to what I was expecting when I picked up the game. The "CPUs" do have a transformation, that turns them from their "moe" characters into busty, scantily clad latex goddesses, but that's the most egregious it gets, with a few side characters you get and see later in the game having large chests with very little covering them. It doesn't really bother me, honestly, because I'm the target demographic and this is such a niche game that you know what you're getting when you get into it, and I was honestly expecting far, far worse than what I've seen so far. It's incredibly mild, no bath scenes, and no "hotdog/banana" eating scenes, with "cream" splashed all over their faces/mouths like you'd see in other games of this type. Still, if that bothers you at all, this is not the game for you, but you probably knew that coming into this and stayed away anyways.
Now let's get down to the meat and bones of why this particular game is edging it's way into my top 10 favorite franchises of all time.
The combat in the Hyperdimension Neptunia games proper used to be your standard fare of a line of your allies, that you take turns attacking with. There was the "card turn" system in the corner that would dictate who was getting to attack next (which I always enjoy) but other than that, the tactics was fairly limited. In the remakes of the games, dubbed the Re;birth games, the combat is taken directly from HDN (Hyperdimension Neptunia) Victory, in which each character has a circle around them that dictates how far they can move that turn, and a box infront of them that dictates who and what they're targeting. Different weapons have different sizes, with one "square" being the smallest, and the largest I've seen has been an incredible large rectangle, spanning almost a character's body length. The box is typically directly infront of the character, except with specific characters who boxes is ahead of them, giving them "ranged" attacks, which allows you to be even more in depth with your positioning. It's incredibly easy to attack multiple enemies with your attacks by simply wiggling your character around until the "attack box" is just barely grazing them, but it also applies to your characters. If you position them too close together, you can and will have multiple characters attacked, which could go bad incredibly fast.
It's that level of depth and interactivity which really drew me into the combat of the game, and even when I quickly stomp enemies into the dust, it's fun for me to just move my characters and see how many enemies I can kill in a single attack. Getting more into the depth of the combat is the fact that you have different attack types; Rush, Power, and Break. You select attack, then each of these 3 categories is available for you to choose an attack from by pressing the corresponding attack button. You set up the "commands" for each attack in the chain in the menu outside of battle, and then go crazy. There's even more depth with the EXE gauge, which is essentially a burst meter that unlocks a "combo finisher", that isn't depleted unless you use special EXE attacks from the combat menu.
Sound like a lot to take in? It really is, initially, but it's incredibly satisfying. Your rush attacks are multiple hit attacks that are generally weaker, while Power attacks are your harder hitting, singular attacks. Enemies have a "guard" bar, and that's what Break attacks are for -- doing more guard damage than the other attacks, to "guard break" them in order to do twice as much damage. Specific characters are better at some things than others, so instead of needing a plethora of attacks at your disposal constantly, you more or less figure out what they're best at doing, and then spam it. The EXE system isn't that complex either -- the bar takes so long to fill, that unless you're intentionally trying to fill it, or wearing special items to increase how quickly the gauge fills, you won't even get a single bar before you hit the end of the dungeon, but that's mostly due to how short they are than anything else. Overall though, you have plenty of options for customizing your party and setting your characters up, and I really, really enjoy the combat because of it. Each character "feels" different, and I find myself often switching between multiple characters because I can't decide who I enjoy the most.
That's one thing they really nailed in this game, is that all of the characters are more or less on par with eachother -- some may have higher stats than others, and there's very likely a "best" set up, but the characters themselves are all good, and all of them are useful. You'll never be stuck in a situation where you have a character you really like, but you can't use because they just aren't as good as the others, and that's something I really admire about the game out of everything.
While we're discussing systems, I think it's worth mentioning a few of the "crafting" systems the game has, which are very interesting to me. Throughout the game, you are given (or find, in dungeons) items called "Plans". These have various effects, from adding new dungeons to explore, to crafting new weapons, to even changing core game mechanics (like a permanent exp or drop boost, being able to jump higher, the like). You have a set amount of "memory", that's given to you throughout the story, or you'll rarely get it through quests or as a "Event" on the world map. Plans are more or less your basic crafting "recipe", with the materials you need to craft the item, and the memory cost. Initially you have very little memory, so things like adding dungeons comes at an incredibly high cost. The plans are one time use, because if you use it for crafting an item, it unlocks that item for sale in the shop, and if it's a dungeon modifier (add enemies) or a core mechanic change, you'll have the option to toggle it on or off. The drawbacks are that memory is so limited, and early in the game you can run out incredibly easily, leaving you without much to do aside from progress the story and hope for the best. They do get more liberal with how much memory they give you after the second chapter, but even so, I had messed up and spent too much memory just unlocking healing items for the shop, and didn't have enough to unlock a dungeon to grind in, so I was wary throughout the game.
It's an interesting way to handle a crafting system, and even more interesting is "burning discs". Discs are an equipable item that have their own slot on your characters, and they're incredibly hard to come by. As a matter of fact, outside of the aforementioned "Events" on the world map (which are predetermined events, you gain new ones at specific points throughout the chapters) you can only gain discs by collecting medals, from either defeating powerful enemies, or collecting them from quests.
What makes Discs so interesting is that you'll collect modifiers throughout your journey, finding them at gathering points, which you then "burn" onto the disc. The modifiers have various attributes, in 3 different color categories. One category is incredibly beneficial things, like HP regen every turn, EXP drops up, while other categories focus more on specific enemy defense, general physical or magical defense, and propertlies like adding poison or paralyze to your attacks, or increasing the EXE gauge per attack. Each item has has a "level", and the discs have a maximum level for that category on them inherently. As you progress through the game, you eventually find more and more discs with level 5 maximums (the highest) which makes for incredibly powerful characters.
Moving on to the story, I think it will be incredibly polarizing. I personally love the humor they go for, they break the fourth wall, make gaming related jokes, parody things, and there's a lot of hilarious humor found in the "Events" on the world map. If you've ever played Disgaea, and you enjoy that story telling and humor, then you will definitely love this game. If you found that type of humor and story grating, then go ahead and pass, because this is more of the same. The characters are fantastic and loveable, you'll instantly get hooked on their personalities because they're just so.. extreme them. It's all so funny and perfect, that the humor of the story gets you to let your guard down, and the strength of the character just crushes you. It's a lethal combo, and one that finally edged me back into my teenage "Waifu" phase, after thinking I was done with it 10 years ago. I'm honestly hooked because of the characters alone, and I'm looking forward to playing the spin off games, and any future games they release, because I just want more of them.
Gushing about the story aside, the game takes place in "Gamindustri", where there are four capitals each controlled by "CPUs", which are the rulers who protect the cities, and do what they can for the people. The beginning of the game is talking about the "Console War", which is evidenced by Neptune (the embodiment of the Sega Neptune) being knocked out by the other 3 in the fight. The other 3 of course being Vert (who rules Leanbox, or Xbox) Noire (who rules Lastation, or Playstation, and Blanc, (who rules Lowee, or Wii). Eventually you meet other characters of various Games, Developers, and Publishers, all of which whom eventually join up with you and become playable characters. (You have Tekken, MarvelousAQL, etc.) It's incredibly fun and interesting, and while the story is your fairly standard "heroes save the world" story, the journey to the climax is filled with jokes, and fun.
If you're a JRPG fan, and you're looking for something to play during a lull because you, like myself aren't very interested in games like The Witcher, then I highly recommend delving into the Neptunia franchise. It's rich, full of games and is constantly getting new games localized, and has plenty of things to do and enjoy. If this is your first time stepping into the JRPG game? I'd recommend you pick something a bit more beginner friendly, because while this game isn't the most punishing JRPG I've ever played, the early wall and complex systems could definitely turn you away from an otherwise fantastic sub-genre. Otherwise, pick up this game. Pick it up, and pick it up NOW.
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