The nature of the Drama CDs: It's just heartwarming to see all the CPUs act like normal girls instead of acting like leaders of their nation and saving the world. Instead, ones who have a normal, happy, and loving life with their partners.
Neptune's particularly has to be the most heartwarming of them all. She cooks breakfast and actually does work with no complaint, something you never imagine she would do. But it's all due to her partner who is with her.
Noire is being able to spend some time with her partner without being the usual workaholic we know. It's nice to see how she ends up acting like the housewife at the home. She cleans, does laundry, and cooks for her and her partner. While her partner messes up some of the chores, Noire admits she still had fun and they spent time together eitherway.
Blanc's writing is finally progressing well and she has someone she can confide in to help her give her tips on what to do in contrast to never wanting anyone to know what's she writing. That's trust.
Vert's the same with Neptune in a way, going out eating, and buying clothing.
Uzume is spending time with her partner while adjusting to the time in Hyperdimension. Particularly cute and funny on how she's trying to drink coffee without sugar and cream.
While the Drama CDs in the VIIR are a bit dubious, it is still heartwarming and it ends well, considering they are the last Drama CDs Compile Heart has produced since:
Nepgear's the one that ends well. It's obviously in the start, she has a crush in the self insert and later they reciprocate her feelings which makes her happy enough to transform into her HDD form for them to see. Cue to the SI being shy because Nepgear is showing skin which makes her dismayed. At the end, despite getting punched for poking her so much* Neptune and Nepgear are definitely sisters if you watched the CPUs getting poked Drama CD, Nepgear accepts the relationship happily and kisses her partner before telling them they shouldn't hurry in the relationship and to promise her that they won't do this to anyone else but her.
Steamax appears all cool, quiet and mysterious when he first appears in front of the protagonists, but that was actually just him being too nervous to speak to cute girls. When situation forces him to converse with the girls, he immediately breaks into a stuttering shy boy. He's also seriously at a loss when, in response to him scattering porn all over, Neptune (as Purple Heart) decides to flirt with him. His interactions with Uni are also filled with this.
Uzume can also be cute when her true personality slips through, as well as when she's called out on it.
Anti-Climax Boss: The Final Boss Dark Orange is a Fusion Dance of Kurome with her perfected Dark CPUs and Rei's leftover power, yet she's not that much more difficult than any individual Dark CPU.
The NEXT forms' appearance. Some like how different they are while others don't, with the latter questioning the artist's thought processes behind them.
Out of all of the dreams that Kurome gives to the 4 main CPUs when they get sent into the Heartdimension, Blanc's dream is one of the most contentious within the fan base (at least in the West), as said dream shows her with a more buxom figure that she takes pride out of and proceeds to comment on how beautiful she is with her new body, right in front of Rom and Ram no less. To some, it ruined what was supposed to be a Heartwarming Moment by using her A-Cup Angst as nothing more than a punchline for an already worn out joke while also depicting her as a far ruder and more condescending person, rather than fleshing out a specific part of her character (such as her writing skills) like with the other CPUs note Neptune's laziness is reinterpreted as her being a Friend to All Children, Noire's tendency to overwork herself is revealed that she's willing to give her job to Uni so she can live her life as a schoolgirl voice actress, and even Vert's often overbearing fixation towards the Candidates is shown in a more bittersweet light, as not only does she have two sisters that she can dote with, but said sisters are shown to love her back, implying that she wants to be loved due to her loneliness of being the only CPU without a sister. , which many felt They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot on. Some have even (jokingly) gone as far as to decry the scene as "heresy", saying that it goes against Blanc being the only flat-chested CPU in the series. On the other hand, some either don't mind it due to it being a Funny Moment or have come to defend the scene, as though it is Played for Laughs, it actually hints at her deep-rooted body image issues. Since the Heartdimension was made by the original Uzume (Kurome) as a visualization of the CPUs deepest desires and that Blanc has been previously established to have a low opinion on her underdeveloped figure, many have interpreted that Blanc's desire to have a figure on-par with the other Goddesses is the result of her not receiving the same amount of affection and respect compared to the other CPUs (namely Vert) due to said underdeveloped figure, rather than wanting to boast about her figure for the sake of it.
Neptune is, in general, much more pleasant than in Victory, acting much, much nicer towards Nepgear and Noire. A noteworthy example is her distress over Nepgear getting left behind in the Zerodimension, whereas Victory Neptune seemed bizarrely apathetic to her sister getting left behind in the Ultradimension for years in the Good Ending. Basically, Neptune has the Character Development from the Re;Birth series than the original where this game takes place.
Nepgear herself was salvaged from her Designated Monkey role in Victory into a more competent character.
Difficulty Spike: Noire's prologue during Hyperdimension G is really rough compared to the other prologues and everything that comes before it. You start the prologue in a level, with no chance to return to the world map until you've completed it. Even when you do, you'll only have Noire and Uni for the duration of the prologue who have very little multi-targeting capabilities and no healing skills, every significant location is farther away than those in the other CPUs' prologues, and unless you grind you're going to be underleveled every step of the way. There's a reason that God Eater joins Noire with healing skills.
Fan Nickname: "Big Nep" for the older Neptune from the Ultradimension.
Fridge Sadness: When Blanc is trapped in Kurome'sLotus-Eater Machine, she's given a Happy Placein which she's portrayed with a far more voluptuous figure and is shown to be quite pleased with it, if a bit pompous. While the dream is Played for Laughs, it's all but hinted that her A-Cup Angst goes beyond an inoffensive Boob-Based Gag and that she really suffers through body image issues; she doesn't have the best self-esteem regarding her breasts, she tends to lash out on others (namely Vert) who tease her on her figure, and she has a nation that loves her for her petite body, but she couldn't bring herself to return the favor because of the constant body-shaming she has to endure from the more buxom Vert. It's also hinted that her body image issues stem from other characters (namely Vert) giving her scrutiny for something she has no control over, which is why she gets along with C-Sha just fine due to the latter not bragging about her breasts nor teases Blanc about her inadequate body unlike Vert.
Game-Breaker: In VIIR the "Healing Form Release" for the CPUs means that so long as it gets back to the CPU's turn, they can fully heal even if they have just a sliver of health left. The counter attacks are also ridiculous, costing less AP and SP than the normal variants, plus they can be used multiple times before the character's next action. Oh, and the enemy still uses up their move. In fact, these two things alone alleviate a lot of the hardship that some tropes later on this page have.
I Knew It!: It is confirmed that the adult Neptune is actually from Ultradimension, AKA the same Neptune that Croire encountered at The Stinger of Victory's True End.
Victory was criticized for heavily relying on comedy, to the point that the more serious moments were sprinkled with jokes. VII goes for a more darker tone with high-stakes while still keeping the series' humor, creating a perfect balance between silliness and seriousness.
The other Candidates are much more relevant in this game after getting shoved into the background for most of the previous story.
More Popular Replacement: Uzume succeeds Plutia as the deuteragonist Planeptune CPU from another dimension, but is overall more beloved by the fanbase than the latter, as Plutia would frequently abuse her HDD form to get in her way, while also using said form to bully, intimidate, and torture both her enemies andher allies without any repercussions to said behavior, which made her into a Base-Breaking Character. Uzume, while Hot-Blooded, has a strong sense of duty towards her loved ones and sacrifices herself to save the world, making her a much more respectable CPU in the eyes of fans. Additionally, Plutia would often slack off on her CPU duties alongside Neptune even if she's asked to, while Uzume takes her job as a CPU very seriously.
Obvious Beta: It is rather unfortunate that the PC port of VIIR has obvious signs of this trope. For starters, many errors and bugs that had been reported during the port's beta testing phase still made it into the final product untouched. Also, the port has missing content (Some scenes in the scene viewer are missing) compared to the original PS4 release. For extra irony, the VR features are broken on the PC port. Trying to use it as intended will result in the game crashing.
Ron the Death Eater: Canon Nepgya is a cheerful, if somewhat quirky, Nice Girl who goes so far as to refuse to insult the player in the bonus voice lines, offering to be insulted herself instead. So it's surprising that most fanart and fan fiction featuring her portray her as a bullying, abusive Jerkass, usually with Rei as her unfortunate victim.
Sequel Difficulty Spike: Enemies hit hard - even harder than in Victory and mk2. Characters’ movement during battle is also now limited, making positioning more important. In addition, the combo structure in this game is slightly different: the number of combos is determined by the weapon equipped, making a good selection of weapons far more important. This means spamming the same Combo Skills as the player does in previous games is no longer an option. To compensate for this, the EXE Drive gauge now fills faster, although it resets to zero at the end of every battle, unless you obtained the EXE Driver (it will always remain filled). As a bonus, transforming in HDD Mode is no longer consumes 20% SP, but one EXE Drive Gauge bar. It doesn't help that certain areas also force players to go solo or in pairs, healing items/spells are not as effective as before and HDD mode barely boosts stats.
The scouting system has some improvements compared to the previous games it's been in, but having bonus dungeons, tougher monsters, and hidden treasure requirements as random finds through the system is annoying, especially since the Remake system in the Re;Birth games let you just unlock such features on your own volition.
Traveling on the world map is nice visually, but is annoying because there are also random encounters. Once the encounters become trivial, it feels more like a chore. Thankfully, a flag given to you in new game+ turns off random world map encounters entirely.
One that is more of a scrappy lack of mechanic. This game doesn't have innate experience share, meaning that each character have to be level up separately. Unused characters or those in the back row get nothing except when using a very late game chip or with some characters (Uzume and S-Sha) having it as an innate skill. The above problems are fixed in VIIR as there are no more random world battles and everyone gains exp regardless if they take part in battle or not.
NEXT White's Blaster Controller opens with a Sword Beam (complete with an axe) that freezes the enemy, then impales the enemy multiple times with ice spikes, then pulls out a Wave-Motion Gun, and finally blasts the enemy to smithereens.note Also, her hat flies off at the end due to the recoil from the gun. Many find this detail very cute, especially given how she doesn't seem to notice, and were upset when it was removed in the Updated Re-release.
NEXT Purple's Dimensional Slice seems to be the odd one out, considering it's just a slash. However, it's a tremendously overpowered iaijutsu-style slash following from an extended powering-up sequence that results in an instantaneous attack so strong that it can slash through conceptsnote Though, it's going to be hilarious, and very unfortunate, if you miss.. This property of Next Purple's ability actually gets used in the G arc, and it's able to simultaneously slash through the delusion forced upon all of Hyperdimension at once.
Surprisingly Improved Sequel: Compared to Victory, every character gets plenty of development, the story is better written and the gameplay is the best on the franchise.
That One Achievement: Card Master, which requires you to collect all cards from CPU chips. A few cards in the set have a microscopic chance of dropping from the chips, so you can expect to spend hours reloading if you want to earn this one.
That One Attack: Some bosses' weapons can hit you very hard if you don't pull off a Parts Break ASAP, to the point that one of the characters involved will insist on doing so. These include Steamax's Fuuma Shuriken, Dark Green's lance, Dark Black's sword and Dark White's axe.
The fight against the brainwashed CPUs. It's a 4 vs 4 fight, however, your opponents all start off in their HDD forms, meaning that they have all the advantages that they bring with them, including increased attack power, defense, focus, and mobility. Their basic attack combos can deal a large amount of damage, even if your party members are properly even-leveled by that point. And to make matters worse, they have access to skills and EXE Drives, which they can spam without the EXE Gauge limit. Blanc and Vert in particular are the most dangerous since their EXE Drives can target multiple party members at once. With four powerful bosses, each with a deadly arsenal of attacks coming your way, you'll likely spend more time on healing and reviving fallen party members just to try and keep their heads in the fight, and that depends if you're lucky enough to avoid a Total Party Kill.
Affimojas. While his first phase is easy to defeat with access to magic users, the second phase requires placing the NEXT CPUs in front, of which Vert is the only one who can do damage without breaking his cape. If you didn't think to put Rom & Ram behind the other members, you either need to grind EXE meter with the others while spamming Sylhet Spear, or actually attempt to get a parts break. Either route results in a long and arduous battle.
That One Level: Westwind Ravine during Noire's prologue in the Hyperdimension G arc. Noire stands alone at one end of the map, with the exit to the world map at the other end, and some mobs and a mandatory boss fight standing in between. With only a few healing items on hand, and no opportunity to save until you manage to get Noire out of there, avoiding encounters is a must if you want even a chance of getting her through that boss fight and out into the world map alive.
That One Sidequest: Hidden treasure requirements requiring you to perform consecutive symbol attacks without being seen. Get spotted or miss once and you have to start all over. It's more difficult than it should be because of the monsters' Hitbox Dissonance. Fortunately it's made much easier with the White Orb as that prevents enemies from noticing the player and encounters can only be triggered with Symbol Attacks.
Tough Act to Follow: Between the three-act dimension-spanning plot, the large and developed playable cast, and the introduction of the NEXT Forms, Victory II is generally considered the peak of the franchise. The following main series titlenote Sisters is actually a spin-off title, but it explicitly takes place after the events of this game reduced the scale on everything despite being released seven years later.
Ugly Cute: In-game reactions to Umio are usually "WTF?", but many players would agree with Uzume Squeeing over him like a mascot.
Alternative Title(s):Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory II
's Infinite Spear is a grossly exaggerated repetition of Sylhet Spear topped off by a huge green laser at the end. It's the only EXE to do over 100 hits on its own on a single enemy.