ippon Ichi's Hyperdimension Neptunia has seen a number of entries to its series over the course of the last five years or so. Most, if not all, have seen release in North America, two of which made it to the Playstation Vita; June's Hyper Dimension Neptunia: Producing Perfection was a shallow, mostly pointless mass of fanservice code that should pretty much be ignored. Hyperdimension Neptunia: Re:Birth 1st, however, is worth a much closer look.
You would be forgiven if you didn't realize going into it that Re:Birth 1st is a actually remake of the first entry in the series; albeit heavily remixed one, but that's exactly what it is. It tells the story of a fictional (and literal) console war, with nations modelled after all of the popular console brands you can find on store shelves even today. In each nation, a powerful goddess called a CPU fights for shares which represent their respective power amongst each other. Their battles were fierce and one CPU, Neptune, fell, crashed amongst the people of Gamindustri, and lost her memory. That's where the very typical story of Hyperdimension Neptunia picks up.
The original Hyperdimension Neptunia was a heavily flawed game at its core; poor control, a bad camera, stunted, crippled battle elements and a confusing, overcomplicated navigation system made for an RPG experience that left me shaking my head. The combat was actually so bad that players can't actually choose what to heal or buff when it's needed most. Ultimately, I ended up shelving it for good. That said, the enormous amount of remixing and tweaks to Re:Birth 1st makes it almost unrecognizable from its original form, but that's not exactly a bad thing.
All of these issues have been addressed in future games in the series and Re:Birth 1st applies these fixes to the first part of the series. Navigation is easy and quick. The controls are nice and tight. Combat is considerably more tactical in this reimagining; a circular field opens up with each character's turn, allowing for free movement within it to approach enemies or player characters to interact with. Each action has a specific range, so careful positioning is essential, not only for dealing the most damage to as many enemies as possible, but for also healing your party with the greatest efficiency. Oh, and unlike “vanilla” Neptunia, players can actually select healing options and their targets, rather than hoping and praying that your healer will choose the right healing item or ability and the right target when they absolutely need it. You can also assign a wide variety of attacks to each character, which in turn, can can then combo together into an assault strong enough to decimate an enemy's defenses, hit them hard, or send a flurry of hits their way. This not only dishes out death pretty quickly, but also fills the EX-Drive gauge which allows for even more hits or can be expended for ridiculously powerful EXE attacks and abilities which can lay waste to even the huge, powerful “Risky-enemies.” The combat is actually pretty fun though, which is good, because Re:Birth 1st can turn into a real grind-a-thon.
The world map itself is a lot easier to navigate. Instead of having to wait for ridiculous coincidental continent movement in order to get to other nations in Gamindustri, Simply moving the player icon to your destination is all that's needed to get around, with is far less frustrating and a lot more swift than ever before. In each capital, shops, guild missions and world information are accessible. Everything is more or less interconnected; items are pretty expensive, so completing missions through the guild helps greatly. The enemies are pretty tough really early in the game as well, so more missions and - again - a lot of grinding are going to be a pretty big component of the game, even early on. This kind of artificially extends the gameplay and while, yes, again, the combat is fun, it can be kind of boring when all you're doing is killing a bunch of lower level enemies and not progressing the plot.
One huge addition to Re:Birth 1st is the Remix system. On the world map, moving your player cursor to little world bubbles allows you to chat up the denizens of Gamindustri. More often than not, you'll obtain an item called a “plan.” Collecting parts from enemy battle drops and harvest points in dungeons allows you to finish a plan, which can grant anything from new items and weapons to extra, tougher enemies and changed-up harvest points and even new dungeons.
So the gameplay is solid, but really draggy for the most part. The story is... well, basic. It's more or less your standard gotta-save-the-world-maybe-with-your-ex-foes kinda fare, but it works. Unfortunately, the main draw here is basically the super moé art which, in several instances, are emphasized with many risqué still images – with some that, uhh... jiggle. It's even interactive in the gallery by touching the screen, which makes for a pretty uncomfortable feature. Despite all of this, the art direction is still pretty great; super clean, well-produced and a definite plus for anyone into super anime-style games. The music is average on the whole, yet still miles better than the original and there is complete dual language voice support as well but stick to the Japanese, despite it being slightly irritating... way to many desus for me, thanks.
One thing that was prevalent in the original release that makes a comeback here is the unfortunate need to buy a considerable amount of the cast to use in battle, which is really dumb. Characters for use in battle are a buck a pop and there are four (so far) which kind of leaves me feeling a little too nickel and dimed. Commonplace nowadays, sure, but man, remember a time when this crap wasn't a thing? I miss those days.
So where does Hyperdimension Neptunia Re:Birth 1st stand? With its great combat getting a little drawn out from excessive grinding, amazing art direction mired by constant panty shots and jiggling, average but non-intrusive music, and a super-play-it-safe plot, Re:Birth 1st still manages to be more than enjoyable; good—though not great, desu. Dammit.
