QCF: Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth 2

ot long ago, NIS America released Hyperdimenson Neptunia Re:Birth 1, a full-on remake of the original Hyperdimension Neptunia which saw release on the PlayStation 3 in 2010. The first Re:Birth overhauled and vastly improved the RPG mechanics from the original 2010 release making the 2014 Vita release the best version of the first narrative by far. Continuing this trend, NIS America released Hyperdimension Neptunia Re:Birth 2 on January 27 2015, and the changes are even more dramatic.

Hyperdimension Neptunia Mk.2 was released to the PlayStation 3 in 2011; taking place directly after the events of the original game, the gameplay mechanics in Mk.2 were revamped greaty from the first release and forms the template by which Re;Birth 1 actually follws. Re;Birth 2 returns to this gameplay style—as such, Re;Birth 2 feels very much like a carbon copy of the original PS Vita release with a minor cast shakeup and very few actual additions—let's take a closer look.

The game flow here follows exactly the same patterns you'll be familiar with if you've either played Re:Birth 1 or read my previous review; Gather information, hit up a dungeon, beat a boss, get ambushed by a secondary boss directly afterwards, often fail, suck it up, grind it up, level up, meet a couple new faces, wash, rinse, repeat.

Battles play out exactly as they have before with learnable, upgradeable, interchangeable, and enhancement-ready abilities that eventually give you an edge against even the most fearsome enemies, all of which can be seen on the battlefield before picking fights. Handy also for avoiding checks your stats can't cash. It's all so carbon copy, so much so that I'm going to take a page from NIS America's book and make this review just a little easier for myself.

“Navigation is easy and quick. The controls are nice and tight. Combat is much more tactical; 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, for not only dealing the most damage to as many enemies as possible, but also healing your party with the greatest efficiency.

You can also assign a wide variety of attacks to each character, which can be combo-ed together 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 easy to navigate. Simply moving the player icon to your destination is all that's needed to get around. 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 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 what about new additions you ask? Well, outside of everything I just “Re;Birthed” above, the addition of Stella's Dungeon adds a real-time element to Neptunia Re:Birth 2 that enhances your game progress. By sending Stella off on her own escapades, players can collect additional plans, healing items, Disc Dev items, accessories and so forth. Operating in real-time, each area she explores will wrap up in a prescribed amount of time, so stuff gets done even if you're busy doing something else.

Stella initially starts off with nothing, but quickly finds armor, accessories, weapons and power-ups to help her with harder floors and more advanced areas in which to find better materials. The menus and overall function of Stella's Dungeon is pretty clunky though; until she has one of every type of equipment, the game will let you know she isn't equipped every. Single. Time.

The cast change-up is also pretty clever; all of the Gamindusti CPU Candidates are representative of the real-world's biggest hardware manufacturers handheld machines; NepGear (Game Gear) Uni (PlayStation Portable) and Ram & Rom (The Nintendo DS' two screens). Other characters join the fray in addition to mainstays Compa and IF too, such as Red (Red Company). Unfortunately, to use the coolest characters like Falcom, you'll have to pony up the cash yet again. This is still the very stupidest part of Neptunia; no full-priced JRPG of any kind should ever force their players to pay to use more than a small handful of characters.

This time around, the English voicing is stronger than the Japanese because, on the whole, NepGear is way less irritating than Neptune was in Re;Birth 1. The OST, on the other hand, suffers compared to is Direct predecessor. Overall, the art direction is everything we've already seen with super moé, jiggly art and all kinds of panty shots—again.

So, if you dug Neptnia Re;Birth 1, Re;Birth 2 is pretty much almost a guaranteed winner. It will be easy for players to get fatigued from this game style though; with three games in less than eight months sporting more or less the exact same gameplay template (the other to being Re;Birth 1 and Fairy Fencer F) if the repetition these games sport for well over 40 hours each turns you off? A change of pace between games is highly recommended. As such, I found Hyperneptunia Re;Birth 2 to be slightly on the wrong side of boring; for serious fans only.