Hyperdimension Neptunia - Game consoles personified

^ Then again that goes for many characters. Blanc as a priest and Nepgear as mage is another thing...also Noire and Vert swapping weapons.

Speaking of Rom...hoo boy is her skill set insanely versatile in VII...

Give me cute or give me...something?

Holy crap... the chapter 2 end boss was tough. It took all my healing, Compa's First Aid Kit (fucking MVP) and all my goddesses to do it.

Hmm I don't remember that boss being that hard. Were you abusing Noire's EXE? It debuffs the crap out of enemies, to the point they nerf it in 3 and VII.

Anyone pick up anything with the summer sale?

edited 23rd Jun '17 6:50:57 PM by Memers

I spent way too much money.

That is all.

If people are wondering exactly what the sales are here is a tweet.

I haven't gotten any Exe drives yet, I beat that boss with a level 12 party. Especially in the early game I got massacred in dungeons and I just don't have the patience to spend six hours grinding to get them.

If you got all the DLC, there should be something in there that boosts gained EXP by a ton.

Or am I thinking of another one of the remakes?

Rebirth 1 is the one game that doesn't have that. There is an exp up plan but its not the super one that you get from dlc.

Anyway IIRC you want to be like level 15 minimum for that fight, and looking it up it was before you get EX Es sorry. Buffs though are what you need to abuse Medistation S from Noire, Megadaptor from/for Plutia. Then just use your skills like Verbal Abuse, Critical Edge and Lace Ribbons.

edited 24th Jun '17 12:09:30 PM by Memers

Of the three Re;Birth games, which one would you recommend to someone who has no experience with this franchise?

The Anime.

Rebirth 3 probably. Of the 3 it did the comedy, combat, and characters the best. And while it is the one of the 3 that is a direct sequel, very little actually matters or is even brought up and Nepgear and Neptune explain the few things that do. The storyline is the most 'need to know' out of all the games as well.

VII is the best mechanics and story wise but you really need to play Rebirth 3 IMO to really get about 1/3rd of the game.

Of everything though I have a soft spot for Hyperdevotion Noire Goddess Black Heart. It's the most standalone game in the franchise, has more shoutouts to franchises people would know, and has combat anyone who has played an SRPG would instantly recognize... if you like SRP Gs that is.

edited 30th Jun '17 8:54:03 AM by Memers

^ I dunno, the problem going with RB 3 is that you don't exactly have introductions to most characters...all things considered Zerodimension's Noire, Blanc, Vert kinda much relies on you knowing the character from the other games beforehand so you can see some difference between here and there...

I dunno, either go with RB 1 or the anime.

Give me cute or give me...something?

The game purposefully makes you go visit those characters in the intro and Nepgear goes into monologue mode. The scenes are written to hit all the high notes and sets things up pretty well.

You don't really need to know everything and IMO some of those scenes it is better if you don't, in a repeating history kind of way.

My 2 cents:

Fuck no on the anime. It's a bit TOO compressed.

If you want an entry point without having to play all of them, Re;Birth 3. If you only want to play one, ever, and never play the series again, Re;Birth 1.

IMO, you only need Re;Birth 2 if you're in for the long haul.

And at this point I would probably hold off on VII and wait for VIIR to come out.

All the spinoffs are terrible except Noire, and the Sega Hard Girls one which is just OK. I personally wouldn't direct anyone to any spinoffs unless they're all caught up on the series up to the point they came out, since some of the spinoffs rely on already knowing characters or have writing even more meta than usual.

And honestly, it's easy to start this series on any entry if you just briefly read up on the 12 characters that form the core cast.

edited 30th Jun '17 12:23:21 PM by burnpsy

Yeah, it's not like the characters are all that complex. You might miss an injoke or something...but all three of the Rebirth games are like that. Rebirth 1 even references the fact that it's a remake. A lot, and it has playable characters who showed up later in the series and who are literally introduced with an "I'm from another dimension. Nice to meet you." And that's about it.

Due to the presence of the Rebirth games, the series turned into a bizarre mobius loop of references that only all make complete sense if you played the entire series from the start. And trust me, the original Hyperdimension Neptunia is awful. You don't want to do that. But, it's mostly just references and cameos. The series is surprisingly good at not having the main plot hinge on an unexplained reference.

Not Three Laws compliant.

With the Steam Summer Sale I would say VII is worth it, its going to be at least a year and half before VIIR even dreams to hit PC.

With Noire all you really need to know is Neptune was the MC and now she is not, damn near everything focuses on the Generals themselves which are completely 'original' characters for the franchise hence why I mentioned it, especially if one is a fan of Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Record Of Agarest War Ms Pac Man, Dynasty Warriors or the other 10+ franchise represented.

I would only rec the Sega Hard Girls Game to someone who is a fan of said Sega Hard Girls, the game is criminally short although its got some very interesting Chrono Trigger style temporal mechanics.

EDIT: ... So apparantly Fairy Fencer F Advent Darkforce on PC has a bug that wont allow the game to start if your computer's date is set to july 1st or beyond... WTF.

edited 1st Jul '17 3:40:44 AM by Memers

^ Eh I don't really know too much of the Seiha girls but I do find NepSeiha to be fun, especially the combat mechanic (other than the horrendous SP regen...seriously, if you're going to use the hit to restore SP and make SP item expensive, don't make the hit only give 1 sp AND combining with expensive skills!).

Speaking of NepSeiha, is it just me or the more suggestive jokes are pretty much nonexistent when it comes to the Seiha girls? Most of those are on the HDN girls.

edited 1st Jul '17 6:38:59 AM by onyhow

Give me cute or give me...something?

It's got nice ideas but it's only about 25 hours long and feels like half a game really.

Seiha girls are barely themselves in the game, they don't get any chance to interact and shine and each one alone is rather boring, which is another issue.

There are several running gags in the show that are rather up there like Saturn got herself the reputation of Likes Older Men which stuck with her the entire series, much to her chagrin. Dreamcast is an avid shipper, like Saturn x Gilius Thunderhead, as well as a real Yuri tease its ambiguous on if it is intentional or not. Saturn also gets roped into various Noire style Reluctant Fanservice Girl antics in Space Channel 5 cause Dreamcast wanted ratings as well.

All of which would have easily worked in the game with some minor changes but the final boss is basically right after you complete the party. There is only one scene where all of them truly interact casually. Dreamcast and Uzume being in the most serious era hurt too.

On the Neptunia side it's roughly the same deal. I mean we never get to see Uzume and Plutia interact or Iris Heart and Orange Heart... hell we only saw one 'True Uzume' joke.

edited 1st Jul '17 7:50:10 AM by Memers

It's a shame, because the SHG humor would fit right in with Neptunia. Megadrive's like a grumpier, snarkier Histoir who obssesses over her game manuals, doesn't trust modern technology, and is so terrible at trying to be intentionally cute she looks as though she's about to have a nervous breakdown. Saturn tries to be the only sane girl, but more often than not gets roped into Dreamcast's antics and has a thing for older men and is nervous about her potential as a console and if any kids would want to play her. Dreamcast's the best, her personality is a lot like Nep. She's got a headbutt attack that can one-hit-kill anything she hits instead of using her cool sword, which has the VMU as the handle and is an orange blade with the console's swirly logo. My favorite gag of her's is when she tries to log on to the internet, only to take minutes as she's eternally broke and still uses her console's dialup server.

Yeah.

Instead the game is focused around the eras and the fighting between the consoles and the goddesses, so for example the Saturn era its Neptune vs Saturn. Which actually turns out to be very funny because Nep is well Nep and Saturn has a lot of Noire like qualities. But interaction between those eras is next to nil and the fact that the Dreamcast era is played absolutely serious Dragon Ball Z style fight between Uzume and Dreamcast hurts massively.

On the plus side the era mechanics let them mess with the levels a lot and have each level evolve or devolve depending on the era. Find some ruins in the Dreamcast era closed off by a collapse? Time to go to the Game Gear era and see if its open.

edited 1st Jul '17 4:29:20 PM by Memers

I was watching a playthrough of the game and couldn't help but think that the Hard Girls were a lot more "serious business" than they were in the anime. Especially Dreamcast.

Noire's English VA just tweeted that she will cease all non-union work.

So she will no longer voice Noire. A replacement has been hired for 4GO.

That's kinda sad to hear. We'll have to see how The Other Darrin ends up sounding.

On an unrelated note, should we make a character page specifically for the core cast, focused on what's common to their portrayals across the series?^note Neptune, Noire, Blanc, Vert, Nepgear, Uni, Rom, Ram, Compa, IF, Histoire, Arfoire and maybe Warechu

It feels like it would be a useful tool for people to read to get up to speed on the characters and their usual in-jokes so they can jump in anywhere in the series.

edited 1st Jul '17 10:04:48 PM by burnpsy