Video Game /
Hyperdimension Neptunia mk2
aka: Hyperdimension Neptunia Re Birth 2 Sisters Generation
Hyperdimension Neptunia mk2 (
Chōjigen Game Neptune mk2) is a
Continuity Reboot to
Hyperdimension Neptunia, and the second game of the
Neptunia series.
The four goddesses and Nepgear are captured while trying to take down ASIC. Three years later, Nepgear is freed. She must now save her sisters and hopefully succeed at taking ASIC down this time.
But she doesn't have to go at it alone. Most
note everyone except RED, since the company she represents was bought out between games of the cast from the original, plus several new additions, are there to support her.
Of course, this includes the younger sisters of the other goddesses, who are based on the handheld systems on the market at the time of this game's release, much like how Nepgear is based on the
Game Gear and how the goddesses are based on the home consoles on the market and the unreleased Sega Neptune.
A remake for the
PS Vita was later released, titled
Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth2 SISTERS GENERATION (
Chō Ji Jigen Game Neptune Re;Birth2 SISTERS GENERATION). Akin to the earlier remake game for the PS Vita,
Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth1, this game also utilises the battle system from
Victory in addition to
Re;Birth1's "remake system", which unlocks special modifications to the game. The remake features an improved framerate compared to the performance of the original PS3 game, in addition to
reworked voice acting, music and visuals.
In addition to most of the original cast, the remake also features the characters representing game developer companies from
Victory, in addition to Cave, 5pb, RED, and the four Oracles of each continent;
both Gust and Nisa have been removed from the game, however.
The aforementioned remake was ported to PC and was released on May 29. A Closed Beta test for said port began on April 13th of the same year.
Visit the
Japanese
and
English websites.
This page is littered with spoilers! Please use extra caution.
Tropes in Hyperdimension Neptunia mk2:
- All Just a Dream: Noire and Kei both have dream sequences in which CFW Brave asks them for permission to marry Uni.
- Alternate Universe: Honestly, just about everything has changed outside of the central premise. Even the world's structure and how the main characters met! This Gamindustri is now officially known as the Hyper Dimension, while the previous Gamindustrie is known as the Super Dimension.
- Artistic License – Biology: Mushroom enemies are classified as plants even though they're actually fungi, a completely separate living organism from plants. Though this is probably justified and perhaps deliberate because Neptunia is based on video games, so it is likely basing the enemies off of a common mistake that most developers fall victim to when comparing fungi to plants.
- Beach Episode: In one scene, Histoire needs people to deal with octopi suddenly falling from the sky. The problem is that they're on a beach preserve where no weapons are allowed, and they can't come in with their regular clothes for risk of contamination, and must wear supplied swimsuits instead. Naturally, we get an image of the CPU Candidates in the swimsuits while an extended dialogue plays out.
- Bonus Boss: Tons in the coliseum, the hardest of them being Delphinus.
- Bragging Rights Reward: Getting the accessory that allows you to break the damage limit. Why's that? You only get this accessory as a rare drop from beating the highest leveled enemy of this game.
- Calling Your Attacks: You can't name your combos this time out, but the characters are more prone to shouting their attack names.
- Creator Cameo: When was the last time you've seen a creator of the game (or at least, have a hand in making the game aka Keiji Inafune) be there in person as a friggin summon!?
- Darker and Edgier: Definitely compared to the first. especially if you're on the Conquest Ending. The multiple cases of Assisted Dei-Suicide alone would have contributed to it's M rating.
- Darkest Hour: The absurdly disturbing Conquest Ending for the entire cast. Nepgear is forced to kill all of her CPU friends and her only living relative, all in a last-ditch attempt to prevent the end of the world. And it's heavily implied that her actions didn't prevent the tragedy, but in fact ensures it.
- Dating Sim: The
Lily system. Possible shout out to another game by Compile Heart. - Decided by One Vote: One side event has the CPUs holding an election to determine who is the most popular after Neptune and Nepgear put out an Idol Singer video that proves to be immensely popular. It appears to end in a Type 3 as Underling, who showed up just to mess with the whole thing, is pressured into voting by the bickering goddesses. She ends up fleeing with the CPUs in pursuit.
- Downer Ending: The Conquest Ending is heavily implied to be this. See Darkest Hour above and Shoot the Shaggy Dog.
- Dub Name Change to match with the similar treatment for the CPUs, any instances of "_____ the Hard" were changed to "CFW _____"
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Compile Heart was clearly experimenting with this game. Although the combat system was different from the first game, it was still different from the one used in Victory and subsequent mainline games and remakes. Also, the cutscenes used 3D models instead of 2D pictures with Limited Animation; no game since then has had this kind of cutscene.
- Equipment Spoiler: Trailers and screenshots sure love showing off Nepgear's Magic Sword in which you can only obtain after finishing with the Conquest End and start a New Game Plus.
- Fanservice: Wouldn't be Neptunia game without it.
- Fighting Your Friend: In the Conquest Ending, Nepgear, Neptune and the Makers end up fighting the other goddesses.
- Five-Man Band: Lampshaded by Nepgear and Nisa with the following party members.
- Forced Tutorial: Did you expect Compile Heart to let you off the hook in a Neptunia game?
- Fun with Acronyms:
- ASIC, which stands for Arfoire Syndicate of International Crime.
- SADOLSMD is Security and Defense Organization Leanbox Special Mission Department.
- In the English dub the organization's name is RRoD, short for Regal Regiment of Defense.
- Giant Mook: The Grandogoo.
- Gotta Kill Them All: The Conquest Ending route plot is this; you have to kill all the goddesses. It's disturbing, to say the least.
- Gratuitous English: The Ending Theme has quite a bit of it.
- Heads I Win, Tails You Lose:
- Even if you have your party pimped out with awesome equipment and doing fine against the first fight with CFW Magic, the game will still continue as if Nepgear and company are still getting owned by her.
- There's also the first battle against a Killachine; even though the damn thing fades out via the standard enemy death animation, the party's dialogue goes on to reveal that it was too powerful for them.
- Hammerspace: "Don't ask where they hide their weapons."
- Hot Springs Episode: What you will be rewarded when you get to Chapter 7. The trophy for this scene lampshades it.
- Hungry Weapon: The Malice sword, which grows more powerful as it consumes fallen CPUs until it becomes the Gehaburn. "Feeding" it and using the sword on Arfoire is the point of the Conquest Ending.
- Interface Spoiler: After beating the Underling for the first time, her respective Leitmotif will be unlocked in the music playlist in the museum. The name of said leitmotif is Warechu's Theme, which can spoil the fact that Warechu, a character that you meet a chapter later, is part of the ASIC despite his cutesy appearance. Well before the actual reveal.
- It's a Wonderful Failure: The Conquest ending. See Darkest Hour above and Shoot the Shaggy Dog.
- Jiggle Physics: Vert and Compa, mainly.
- Lethal Lava Land: Underverse is a dungeon found in a volcano, which is located south of Leanbox.
- Mirror Match: The Coliseum includes some battles against copies of the playable characters. Some of these battles are unlocked through DLC.
- Mood Whiplash: Goes through it bad during the Conquest Ending. In between all the drama and killing your friends and family to power up your weapon, the battle dialogue stays the exact same. So now it seems like Neptune is unironically cracking jokes and trash talking all her friends right before she kills them.
- Moral Event Horizon: In-universe. During the Conquest Ending path, the party considers Underling having crossed it when she ambushed and fatally wounded an already-battle worn Vert. Nepgear of all people says, "I should have done this a long time ago," after killing her once and for all.
- Mordor: The Gamindustri Graveyard. Bonus points for the ominous tower with an eye on it.
- Multiple Endings: There are a lot of them. Re;Birth2 adds one more. This gives the game the most endings in the whole franchise with a total of nine endings!
- New Powers as the Plot Demands: When the White Disc / Lowee Mascot gets a duplication ability like the Black Disc / Lastation Mascot:
IF: Hey... In Lastation, we got a bit of the Mascot's power, even though it stayed behind, so how about it?
White Disc: Unfortunately, I lack the proper technique to perform such a...huh?
[...]
Broccoli: Patchwork with genetic materials may cause some glitches in the disc, but this glitch is cool, nyu.
IF: So, like... The Mascot made a clone of itself just in case its physical body got destroyed?
Broccoli: I guess we can go with that, nyu.
- No Body Left Behind: The CPUs when sacrificed to the Malice Sword.
- Obvious Beta: The DLCs fixed this though. Even without the DLC, mk2 is still not as bad as its predecessor in terms of being an Obvious Beta.
- Panty Fighter: Aside from a couple exceptions, every girl plays this trope straight.
- Product Placement:
- One of Rom and Ram's staves outright state they're from Cardcaptor Sakura instead of the usual style of loosely describing it or using a fake, but similar sounding, name.
- Underling directly mentions the energy drink Powerthirst at one point.
- According to one of the Ramen Writer's Chirps, Noire's favorite kind of ramen is the microwaveable Cup Noodles from Nissin.
- Recursive Canon: In one of her Chirps, Vert mentions requesting for Neptunia mk2 to be released for "the Box."
- Redundant Parody: The game was supposed to be a parody of serious JRPGs with wacky characters, but thanks to Nepgear being the protagonist it actually became one.
- Rule of Symbolism: How the fans usually interpret the Conquest Ending. Ending the Console Wars by turning one of its companies into a monopoly is a horrible idea. Piracy will always continue to exist despite any effort to crack down on it. A monopolistic industry will stall without competition. And a gaming world without competition will not improve and will fall apart sooner or later. It's even lampshaded by Deity of Sin Arfoire herself in that particular ending.
- Scrappy Mechanic: In-Universe. Vert plays with this trope in one of her bonus voice tracks...
"I don't know who it was. But whoever invented the fatigue system must be judged a world-class terrorist."
- Scripted Battle: Your first boss fight in this game is against CFW Judge, and even if you unload Nepgear's most powerful attack at that point against him, it will only do zero damage. In fact, even if you're at maximum level with the DLC and could One-Hit Kill CFW Judge, you STILL do zero damage.
- Secret Expanded Epilogue: There's 5 extensions for the Normal Ending, depending on each nation's Share amount and Nepgear's Lily Rank with other characters. Each extension has Nepgear hanging out with different characters, whether the Makers, her sister Neptune, or the CPUs/candidates of another nation.
- Self-Deprecation: Keiji Inafune's cameo attacks. IF comments she only feels apathy from the sword form and remarks that she doesn't "want hipsters ironically enjoying [her] new attacks" and Nepgear herself comments that he's full of wrath and admits it's embarrassing to wield.
- Shoot the Shaggy Dog: The Conquest Ending is implied to be this. Nepgear feeds the Malice Sword by killing all of the other CPUs with it, then destroys Arfoire with the fully powered sword. Arfoire, however, seems to take being defeated quite well, all things considered... The reason why is that, by having killed the other CPUs, Nepgear has fated the world to have no competition, and therefore no progress. With no progress, Gamindustri will ultimately crumble, and Arfoire will then return to feast on the remains. The implications of this are that the CPUs all died, not to avert Gamindustri's end, but to make it inevitable. Thankfully, this is only one of Multiple Endings, so it is not strictly canon.
- Shout-Out: This series has its own page.
- Single-Stroke Battle: Done as an Anti-Frustration Feature. Attacking enemies before the battle begins will typically just give you a slight initiative bonus. Attacking enemies weaker than you before the battle begins will instead instantly kill them, permitting you to quickly work your way toward any Dangerous Species you may need for a quest or just to finish a Fetch Quest.
- Sword of Plot Advancement: The Magic Sword found only in the Conquest End. Have fun obtaining it.
- Take That!: It happens here with the four goddesses arguments over consoles.
- Turns Red: Comes in a few different ways, the most common being Viral Monsters. This change happens randomly, but will occur more often if one enemy of that type has already changed during the fight. Certain monsters may also consume each other to reach this effect, the earliest a player is likely to see is Horsebirds eating Radishers to become Horsebird Leaders, which are literally just red Horsebirds.
- The War on Straw: Straw digital pirates.
- Unexplained Recovery: The Planeptune Mascot's body was destroyed by Underling early on in the game, yet she appeared to be completely fine after the battle and later, we see her along with the other Mascots hanging out with Histoire and with her original form restored. It's really puzzling considering Lowee's Mascot also suffers the same fate and yet, she had to be repaired by the heroines with the help of the Oracle and Gust (Broccoli in Re;Birth2). Though it could've been justified by the Planeptune Mascot's part since the Lowee Mascot was already using most of her power to seal the Killachines away, while Planeptune's Mascot was just merely hanging out in the forest and therefore was not using her power at all. This could've allowed a full recovery on her own.
- Unsound Effect: A few instances such as when Nepgear and co. beat up Underling for laying waste to Leanbox (Bitch slap!) and also when Underling thrashes Nepgear and Uni at LAN Castle. (Backhand! Stars and stripes!)
- Which Me?: After White Disc clones herself, accidentally, via New Powers as the Plot Demands, and is just called "White Disc" for both instances, but we'll note them here:
White Disc (Original): This is me?
White Disc (Original): T How did this happen?
White Disc (Clone): I wish I could tell you, me.
White Disc (Clone): So you don't know either?
Compa: I'm soooo confused right now!
Tropes exclusive to Re;Birth2:
- Brainwashed and Crazy: In the Holy Sword ending, Nepgear discusses this trope when she suspects the Gehaburn inflicted this on the goddesses to make them fight each other. Considering how quickly the team reconciled and came up with a better solution after the Gehaburn's destruction, she might not be far off.
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Just like Re;Birth1, Gust and Nisa are not present. They've been absent since Victory and were outright written out of the story here and in Re;Birth1. However, 5pb. and RED return after having received this treatment previously.
- Disc-One Nuke: The DLC swords can be used in the very first chapter and give Nepgear anywhere from 1600-2500 STR when she would normally have around 200.
- Dub Name Change: Or rather, unchange. Pirachu gets his name swapped back to Warechu.
- Living Weapon: Pippin from Fairy Fencer F appears in the game as a DLC sword, and is implied to be a sentient weapon.
- Play Every Day: Stella's ☆ Dungeon works on this principle. Each adventure she takes a certain amount of real-world time, which encourages checking up on her right as she finishes each time. Luckily, there's no penalty to not engaging with the feature apart from missing items that you can collect in other ways.
- Same Content, Different Rating: A case of rating lowering from the original M to a T. Even though the game is still the same (and actually has a CG of CFW Trick licking Rom and Ram added) bar the voice acting. Meaning either the NISA inflated the rating because of the darker and edgier approach or the ESRB being more lenient.
- Self-Deprecation: A Chirper user you encounter is a kangaroo with Neptune's hairstyle, who only says "Jump!" and "I'm a kangaroo!", a playful jab at Neptune's actual jumping lines in Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory.
- Silliness Switch: Several of the plans, like Brow Mania, which makes the characters' eyebrows show through their hair to match the character art.
- Wake-Up Call Boss: Rom and Ram. Both transformed and with some ridiculous stats to boot. Going in below level 16 makes the fight nearly impossible and level 23 and up is recommended for an even fight. It doesn't help that RED and Compa's defensive stats are quite low at this point in game.
