Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth1

OK, I always regarded the Neptunia franchise, and by extension all Idea Factory/Compile Heart games, with certain suspicion, because I watched the rhythm at which they put games out; I think Idea Factory almost single-handedly maintained the PS Vita fed with games in its last years. You know how this can be described as, right? The game looks fine enough but with RPGs looks aren't the most important. For one the visual novel part seems really meh, and the RPG isn't great either. I prefer turn-based these days, and Re;Birth 1's system is almost turn-based, but mixed with some kind of action. It could really be described as Action RPG. Another thing is that I must have really gotten bad at exploration because I'm on the first dungeon and I think I've covered it all, but I can't progress further... this should be a little more intuitive. The dungeon's map really reminds me of Bioware games, but I haven't had problems finishing those as long as I liked them. My patience with Neptunia is running out, however. I spent about 7 dollars on the game but I think I can consider them forfeit by now. All in all the game didn't captivate me.

Let's be frank, original game on PS3 was just awful, with convoluted battle system, subpar graphics and big problems with pacing, plus Idea Factory never really got, how to do good tutorial, and that game really suffered because of that. Re;Birth 1 is big improvement and third best in main line in my eyes, right after Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory and MegaDimension Neptunia VII, it still suffers from odd pacing issues and difficulty spikes but other than that, it's really good spin on franchise and worthy your time, especially if you are fan of Idea Factory's work and JRPG gendre. In my opinion if you want the best deal or just want to get into Hyperdimension Neptunia, Re;Birth 3 is the best way, which has more content and more characters, but Re;Birth 1 is still solid game and I would recommend it before rather disappointing Re;Birth 2 (Hyperdimension Neptunia Mk.2 sucked big one, and when they improved it significantly with Re;Birth 2, it's still the weakest game in main series). As far as port is concerned, you don't need controller because with keyboard and mouse it's fine and playable, but this game was designed around Dualshock, so you are better off with one.

Everyone has different backgrounds when it comes to anime. Some have never heard of it (not many can use this excuse now), some watched famous shounens in their youth, others have some experience with every genre, and still others stick to their own niche. I fall more in the second camp. I watched and read shounen manga and anime as a child, (oftentimes dubbed). Stuff like DBZ, YYHA, Yu Gi Oh, Bleach, really basic saturday morning cartoon stuff. Eventually as I matured I watched less anime but still mainly watched shounen and seinen, like Hellsing Ultimate, Berserk, Hajime no Ippo, and Gurren Lagann. You might be asking why this is relevant? Well... this game is unlike any of those things. If you've ever watched Bobobo, this game is more like that than any anime I can think of right now. Its very off the wall, very comedic, and meta in its humor. There are not many shows that can pull that off *well*, let alone a satirical game, but HDN does it finely. You'll laugh, cry, but mainly laugh, and you'll be left in awe and have your heart race at points that I don't wanna spoil. Its full of cuteness and charm despite being a budget game. I'll just list the main flaws here so you can be aware of them. The dungeon designs are *very* simplistic to the point of being trivial. There is some grinding to be expected. The sheer amount of dungeons can get tedious. Enemies get reskinned often. The rest of the game entirely overshadows these flaws with its characters, relationships and story. Its satisfaction and straight-up fun personified in cute girl form and that's better than it sounds, trust me. They knew where to put the budget in terms of combat (no spoilers!).. Give it a try. You won't regret it. This is my first time playing something this focused on cute girls and fanservice to this extent, but I'm very much happy I did. Also play with the japanese voices, the dub sucks and that's coming from a dub lover. The more of a gamer you are, the more you'll like this game.

Hyperdimension Neptunia is in many ways your standard JRPG fare, cute girls with expressive eyes, turn based combat that demands grind, lots of content designed to steal a month or so of your time and lots of little scenes when the characters interact with each other to make the world feel alive. Our protagonist in this case is an amnesiac girl that fell from the sky, and the setting is the world of Gamindustri, comprised of four main lands. Each land has a Goddess, and the Goddesses are locked in an eternal fight for power in the "console war". What makes it stand out then? It's mostly one thing, a pretty cool UI that shows the extent the game commits to this whole "world inside gaming consoles" idea, not only with mere name references but with features like burning discs or getting to customize our experience using "plans", a system that is basically akin to filling your limited storage space with the features you decide. It lets you feel like you really earned those special benefits for your grinding and gives you the power to customize some of the game experience at your discretion, once you manage to unlock such features. UI aside we have a lot of features to get ourselves lost on, quality VA (and quality translated dialog) and charming enough characters, even if they are hollow tropes, a consequence of the game not taking itself seriously despite offering a fully fleshed out gameplay, a fun enough contrast to be captivating for most of the game. The story doesn't fare so well though, the whole setting doesn't matter at all and it quickly becomes a generic stop the evil villainess plot. It makes the late stages of the game feel unsatisfying, and while the humor is mostly good, sometimes it veers into the typical juvenile territory, or into scenes that simply fail to land and feel nonsensical instead. -1 because of a weak story despite the compelling world created. Most of the other "bad" things are part and parcel of the genre.

Anime waifu lovers/gamers - get it. JRPG fans - worth checking out on sale. Everyone else - time better spent elsewhere. Full review - https://www.gog.com/forum/hyperdimension_neptunia_series/review_rebirth1_niche_game_repetitive_gameplay_6510/post1 -- [Story] Simple story. Characters are based on different console makers - Sega Neptune, Sony PS3, Nintendo Wii, and MS Xbox 360; these 4 goddesses fight for market shares to be the strongest. During a battle, Neptune falls back down to earth and gets amnesia. So she goes on an adventure with Compa and IF to recover her memories and uncovers an evil conspiracy along the way. While stories and conversations are mostly in visual novel format with dynamic sprites, the characters and their interactions are easily the best part of the game. [Gameplay] There's no overworld. You move between towns and dungeons using menus. Only dungeons are explorable and they're very simple. They're recycled so you can be playing the same environments 3+ different times. There are tons of monster palette swaps too so enemy variety isn't the best. You'll also get recycled bosses from sequels. It gets repetitive quickly. Battles are turn-based in a battle arena. You move your character up to the enemy and attack with 3-4 move combo that you can customize. [Break] moves destroys the enemies' shields fastest. [Power] moves do the most normal damage. [Rush] moves helps fuel the Super EXE drive gauge - basically FF7 limit breaks. I used an Xbox One controller and controls were smooth. You can press [Q] or [LB] to skip character battle animations and cutscenes, which is a great timesaver. [PC Requirements] As long as you have a GPU with 2GB VRAM, you should run this pretty well. [Bugs] A few minor ones. Biggest one was DLC character Kei Jinguji's voice playing at 100% volume even if you mute voice volumes. [DLCs] I played my first playthrough with DLC Pack 1. It comes with a lot of content. You can turn them off each DLC in the menus.