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Video Game / Neptunia

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https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Compa_IF_and_Neptune_2207.jpg
Neptune and her friends, Compa (left) and IF (right)

Neptunia (Neptune in Japan) is a series of JRPGs about the Console Wars that were developed by Compile Heart, and published by Sega in Japan for the first game, Idea Factory for all later titles in Japan, NIS America worldwide until Producing Perfection (including the mobile app), and Idea Factory International as of Re;Birth1 worldwide.

Yes, you read that correctly. The Console Wars AS A VIDEO GAME SERIES! No, we have no idea what brought Sega, Compile Heart and Idea Factory to do this.

The series started with Hyperdimension Neptunia, a game notorious for its gameplay, which is generally seen as bad (and can be blamed on having No Budget), with the highlight being the story between the gameplay, which mainly contained meta-level video game jokes and interactions between its small cast of Moe Anthropomorphisms of game consoles. Despite this, it nevertheless managed to get a quite big and devoted fandom. In fact, it became Compile Heart's top-selling title, and sold so well to Western audiences (for a niche title) that NISAmerica was not hesitant in the slightest to bring the second installment overseas.

The continuity was rebooted in its second installment (thus the title Hyperdimension Neptunia mk2), both in order to not force people to play the first game to understand the story, and because the first game's true ending left no room for a continuation without a complete cast change. The story in that installment focused more on piracy throughout the game, whereas it wasn't as big a force in the first game's plot until near the end. This, as well as further games in the series, use the same premise, but improved greatly upon things that caused complaints in the first game. In fact, the first game was later remade to correct these complaints further.

The series and all of its spin-offs and supporting media tends to not follow a specific continuity, but the general setting is the same. In a world on another plane of existence from humanity, there is Gamindustri (or whatever name other continuities give their variant). Here, there are four nations inhabited by characters based on several game series, companies and characters. These countries are based on various game console companies, each led by an immortal goddess (or CPU), who may have younger siblings (CPU candidates) who are also immortal. They compete for supremacy, but the leaders eventually become friends (many works within the series even start them off as friends). Conflicts within the series mostly come from third... err, fifth, parties, while the competition between nations is quickly relegated to Friendly Rivalry status.

Despite starting in the second half of 2010, due to its popularity and being Compile Heart's flagship series, the series already has a great many games and spin-offs in other mediums.

Main Games:

Remakes:

Spin-Offs:

Other Media:

  • Chōjigen Game Neptune ~Megami Tsūshin~ [manga, Famitsu Comic Clear]note 
  • Hyperdimension Neptunia The App / Neptunia & Friends (Kami Jigen App Neptune) [iOS and Android app, Compile Heart]note 
  • Chōjigen Game Neptune: TGS Hono no Futsukakan [light novel, MF Bunko J]note 
  • Hyperdimension Neptunia The Animation: Hello New World [manga, Dengeki Maoh]note 
  • Hyperdimension Neptunia [anime, David Production]

There are also several Drama CDs based on the series.

For further background, see the Console Wars, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii, Sega Genesis,note , Sega Dreamcast, Other Sega Systems,note  Super Nintendo Entertainment System, TurboGrafx-16, Nintendo 64, PlayStationnote , SNES CD-ROM, Nintendo DS, and PlayStation Portable pages.

See Hi-sCoool! SeHa Girls, except that it involves Sega consoles. Also see World War Blue for a similar take on the Console Wars.

Tropes common between all games:

  • Absurdly High Level Cap: With the exception of mk2, the main series have sets of three DLC that allowed the characters to reach level 999. It doesn't serve much purpose in the first game, given levels past 99 only give one point per stat, no AP or HP, and is only useful for item points.
    • Especially apparent in VII, where due to the way the story is divided into three Story Arcs where the characters often separate into teams or groups, it ends up having one of, if not the, lowest endgame-level requirements of the franchise. This is partly balanced by the changes to the battle mechanics and adjustments of values.
  • Action Girl: Every. Single. Playable. Character. Except Umio in VII.
  • All Periods Are PMS: IF assumes Arfoire is menstruating the first time they fight.
  • The Anime of the Game: Released for the summer 2013 anime season. There's also a manga, but only in Japan, and only the first two chapters were scanlated. The rest can be found online, but in Japanese.
  • Annoying Younger Sibling: In Blanc's case, it's annoying younger siblings. Ram and Rom tend to give her quite a lot of hell. Vert is notable for being the only one of the main CPU without one, and it really bothers her.
  • Ape Shall Never Kill Ape: In the first game during the events on Leanbox where the group agrees to help the Parliament with the Basilicom, IF specifically states the party will not get involved in missions attacking other humans.
  • Arbitrary Headcount Limit: Only three can fight at a time, with three others that can be rotated.
    • This is increased to 4 from the second game onward.
  • Arc Symbol: The D-Pad.
  • Arc Word: Bifrost. The first game's opening was named "Shooting Star/Meteor of Bifrost". The second game's opening has a line that can be roughly translated as "return to the place marked by the meteor of Bifrost". The anime's opening randomly flashes the word Bifrost on the screen for a full second (right before the line "Ping→link!!"). One of the anime's ending themes has the word appear in the lyrics for seemingly no reason.
    • This can refer to only two things in the entire series, and both are somewhat of a stretch. The Other Wiki states that Bifrost is a burning rainbow bridge in Norse mythology that connects the world of man to the world of the gods. In the first game, towards the end you unlock a path to the world of the goddesses that was previously seen in flashbacks and the opening cutscene to face the final boss. In Victory, depending on your ending routes, several characters go through portals between dimensions a few times, with the true ending creating what appears to be a permanent link between both dimensions that were playable in the game.
    • Re;Birth1 makes it clear by quoting the name of the original's opening as soon as the road to Celestia opens.
  • Ascended Extra: Notably, the goddesses in Re;Birth1 are now available much earlier and interact much more with the other characters than in the original game. In Re;Birth2, the Oracles also get Promoted to Playable, while former DLC characters Falcom and RED both get larger parts in the main story.
  • Author Avatar: Compa and IF are named for the developers of the games, Compile Heart and Idea Factory.
  • Badass Adorable: Every playable character.
  • BFG: The guns that Uni likes to use are considerably larger than she is, and when she activates HDD, her weapon increases to a ludicrous size. Then NEXT White puts it to shame with her Blast Controller EXE Drive in VII.
  • BFS: Neptune has blades such as the Bastard Sword and Claiomh Solais, and Noire has Elysdeon; this is also applicable when they activate HDD, no matter what sword they initially had. Blanc has her variant in giant hammers, and axes when she's White Heart.
  • Bishoujo Series: Every single important character is a woman and the guys at best get a portrait with a silhouette. And mk2 is no exception except for the three male characters that are the villains.
    • Lampshaded in one mission where Compa says they can recognize the boy/girl they're going to save because he/she is simply an NPC silhouette.
    • Subverted from Victory on, where NPCs at least get little portraits for themselves, including men, even if over 90% of the major characters are still female.
  • Bland-Name Product: The "Dunglemaps" and "AMAZOO.NEP" sites in the first game, plus Chirper in the second.
    • Underling also mentions YourTube in mk2.
    • VII finally established the existence of N-chan.
  • Blank White Eyes: Used frequently when characters are surprised by something. Nepgear in particular has a variant with hers inside white ellipses, which is the perpetual expression on Nepgya.
  • Bratty Half-Pint: Ram and Rom to Blanc, given that the former two are the latter's younger sisters. Ram is worse though, considering the fact that she antagonizes both Blanc and Nepgear in mk2, even after joining forces with Planeptune's CPU Candidate.
  • Breaking the Fourth Wall: Many instances can be found throughout the games. Neptune, Compa and IF thank you for playing in the ending of the first game, although everyone gets into this at one point or another. The absolute queen of doing this is indisputably Neptune, however, to the point that the other characters actually have to request her to stop doing it in Victory.
    • Neptunia VIIR just plain gives up on the fourth wall, the VR segments being Neptune opening a door INTO a comfortable area seemingly almost backstage to the ENTIRE GAME. Yes, She didn't just break the fourth wall, she opened a door past it!
  • Break Meter: It only last about ten seconds in the first game, making animation skipping a must to get the most out of it. It lasts much longer in the second game and they finally found a balance in Victory. Removed in VII to further encourage use of the Combo Effects system.
  • Breast Expansion: Applies in one way or another to all of the goddesses when they power up, but is most noticeable with Neptune and Vert, the latter because her breasts grow up one letter in cup size, and the former because she goes from flat-chested to generous E-cup breasts by virtue of her true body being much older-looking than her avatar. Plutia from the third game goes through the same change as Neptune.
    • It's notable that the inverse happens with Uni, prompting Nepgear to ask if she was "stuffing them".
  • Bribing Your Way to Victory: It's Idea Factory and Compile Heart, the two companies who bring out a lot of DLC content. This is constant with their games.
    • Several of the games add an option to turn off the DLC you've bought, in order to make your own challenge.
  • Broad Strokes: The first game (and its remake Re;Birth1) to the rest of the franchise. As stated before, the second game rebooted the series and has been in that continuity since (same with Re;Birth2 going to Re;Birth3 and then converging back to VII). Neptune still fell from the sky, lost her memories, met Compa and IF, made friends with the other CPUs, met Histoire, and a few other things. However, the ending left no room for a sequel without a complete recast (Re;Birth1 also had a pretty definitive ending, though it changed the original's Bittersweet ending to a Happy ending). Later games would even fill in some of the blanks such as how Nep met IF. In the original, she and Compa met her in a cave while it is explained in VII it is explained that Neptune fell off a tower on her (not the fall that made her lose her memories, after Compa helped her).
  • Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Every goddess is this. Strangely, no one complains about it, although in mk2 the party is rather surprised when they see what the goddesses really look and act like.
    • Come Victory, and a girl, Rei, is trying to start a group to get rid of the goddesses and change the government system.
      Rei: If you were truly exemplary, I wouldn't have to do what I'm doing...
    • Which is ironic when you consider how she has absolutely no room to talk once you learn Ultradimension Rei is a goddess too, and what her "quirks" are. Then doubled up when Hyperdimension Rei hops on the train.
  • Calling Your Attacks: In the first game, you can even name them! Can't add new spaces, though...
    • Nisa is especially prone to this. She even does this for her regular attacks and lampshades it in her introductory cutscene when she did it as a warning to avoid hitting someone, only for Nep to miss hearing it and take that attack to the face.
  • The Cameo: In the first title Macaroon from Trinity Universe surprisingly appears as a boss to a couple of the sidequests.
  • Canon Immigrant: After a fashion. Few people, especially outside Japan, realize this, but Gust-chan is the one anthropomorphic character who pre-dates the franchise - she began as the mascot for Gust's online store. When Gust was invited to participate in the crossover, they just had Compile Heart use the existing Gust-chan design instead of coming up with a new character.
  • Captain Obvious: Now and then Compa will exclaim "I don't like getting hurt!" upon damage. It's cute and funny the first time you hear it...
  • Character Blog: All three goddesses have one in the first game. They're mostly just Seinfeldian Conversation material.
    White Heart: Tangerines kick ass.
  • Cheerful Child: Ram and Peashy, respectively.
    • Rom is also made into this too.
  • Child Mage: Lowee's twin CPU Candidates, Ram and Rom. Gust as well, albeit only in appearance.
  • Childish Older Sibling: Neptune is the older of the two Planeptune sisters; but not only does she look younger than Nepgear, she even behaves more childishly than her. This, however, only applies to her human form; her goddess form is a completely different story altogether.
  • Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: A common trope in this series due to the nature of the Maker characters. Companies are bought out by other companies, among other things, causing characters to suddenly disappear from the series and maybe reappear in a later entry.
    • RED disappeared from the franchise as a whole after the first game until Re;Birth2, where she replaces Nisa's role in the story. Her absence was likely due to the company she references being bought out by a Chinese firm between games.
    • Nisa not appearing in Victory makes sense (logically, she wouldn't have been born yet), but she was completely absent from either of the two remakes and any other entries in the series after mk2 - it simply took longer to notice than RED for the aforementioned reason.
      • This is likely due to the previously-good relations between NIS and Compile Heart turning sour after a falling-out that resulted in a large amount of staff leaving NIS for Compile Heart. When asked about Nisa in interviews, though, the question tends to be dodged.
      • Whatever the case, Nisa is currently making rounds as a recurring DLC character in the Disgaea series, where, unlike every other DLC cameo character, she doesn't state her home series in her description - it merely says she's a Moe Anthropomorphism of NIS.
    • Gust has been absent from the series starting from Victory, as the developer of the same name was subsequently bought and absorbed by Koei-Tecmo. Brocolli took over her role in the plot of Re;Birth2, much like RED did for Nisa.
      • Gust may also be going the same route as Nisa, as she is playable in the Gust RPG Yoru no Nai Kuni as a Servan for first-print copies. (Funnily enough, this would be the character coming full circle, since Gust-chan actually existed prior to Neptunia - she began "life" as the mascot for Gust's online store back when they were an independent company! And she still shows up in one or two places there.)
  • Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Each girl wears clothes that match the company she represents. Their colors are also matched by their HDD forms.
  • Comical Angry Face: Whenever Blanc gets very angry (which is often), her face will be shadowed over with a single glowing red eye.
  • Continuity Reboot: For mk2, thus the title.
  • Cool Ship: Neptune has the ability to transform into one for one of her special attacks.
  • Cosmetic Award: Seems to be mocking the trophy and the achievements systems since doing something will already get you a trophy right off the bat. Start a New Game? You already got your first trophy! Finished the tutorial stage? You get a trophy!
    • Indeed, except for a few trophies one must actively pursue, the majority of them are earned just playing the game without any extraneous effort.
    • Exaggerated in mk2 where before you even have your first fight against CFW Judge, you already get three trophies.
    • Then they just outright play it for laughs in Victory when Nepgear gets affinities that do nothing while a cutscene happens. Not helped by the fact that a self-aware tutorial pops up while this happens the first time.
  • Crossover: The whole concept behind Hyperdimension Great War Neptunia vs. Sega Hard Girls: Dream Union Special, where Neptunia crosses with the Sega Hard Girls.
  • Cut and Paste Environments: A major flaw of the first game. One can see backgrounds from Record of Agarest War, Trinity Universe, and Ar tonelico: Melody of Elemia. You also see monsters that were seen in Cross Edge and Trinity Universe. Fortunately this is changing with each installment.
  • Cute Bruiser: Practically all playable characters. Take pity in those who are foolish enough to underestimate them just because of their looks, especially Compa with that giant syringe.
  • Cute Little Fangs: Nisa in the first two games, Peashy in the third.
  • Damn You, Muscle Memory!: If you played mk2 first, the Square is for Symbol Attack, and Circle is for Searching. If you then play V, you'll find out that Square is for searching items, X is for symbol attack, and Circle is for jumping (which wasn't present in mk2).
  • Death as Comedy:
    Jade: I'm a member of the Guild. I live on Leanbox, but I don't follow Lady Green Heart...
    Neptune: ...Why're you telling me now? What's up with this?
    Jade: I... I'm into girls... like... Lady White Heart.
    *grack*
    IF: ...And that's that. You finished him off.
    Neptune: Oops. Well, that was for ruining the moment.
  • Design-It-Yourself Equipment: You get to decide what image appears for some attacks in the first game - you get to supply them yourself.
    • In the second game, you can edit your character's outfits and the goddesses' processor units for some stat adjustments.
      • This is continued in the third game, however instead of just being able to edit Nepgear's canvas, you can edit all the CPU's. There is also a disc system that lets you add passive abilities to a character.
  • Disc-One Nuke: Get Neptune's Neptune Break and you'll be killing all enemies in one hit. Subverted as subsequent games Nerf it.
    • It's almost painfully easy to get access to stupidly overpowered equipment by taking advantage of the Scout system to unlock endgame and post-game dungeons, allowing you to obtain plans and items for the plans. For example, in Victory you can make Vert's Infinity -1 Spear less than halfway into the game through this method.
    • In VII, Save Scumming can let the player obtain Infinity Minus One Swords from the mystery boxes sold once-per-playthrough in the Nepstation shop segments of each city. They're stronger than most things you can get until the last Story Arc. The shop events themselves are very easy to unlock. Lastly, due to the way Drive is gained in this game, if any character is in possession of an AOE EXE Drive, one-round clears are very feasible if the player fights smartly.
  • Digital Piracy Is EVIL!: Well, if your Big Bad is the personification of piracy (known as Arfoire), then this trope definitely applies.
    • The DLC 5pb recruitment story in this first game takes this to Anvilicious levels. A few naming schemes in the series even take this into a more forced "Homebrew is Evil" level.
    • Many of the mooks throughout the games are named after flash carts for the Nintendo DS, like R4, M3, and DSTT. Arfoire herself is also named for the former flash cart, though in a more phonetic sense.
  • Don't Try This at Home: Said by Gust in a scene from the first game where she mixes a bunch of different energy drinks together.
  • Downloadable Content: About $100 worth of it for each game.
    • Amusingly, the spin-offs and remakes have little-to-none.
  • Dub Name Change: The games localized by NIS America (The original trilogy and Producing Perfection) have numerous changes to in-game names and terminology, most of which are carried over into the Idea Factory International localizations.
    • For starters, the Goddesses are called "Console Patron Unit" or "CPU" instead. Likewise, Goddess Candidates are referred to as "CPU Candidates".
    • The structures known as Basilicoms are simply called Churches in the original Japanese. The localized term is a portmanteau of "Basilica" and "Computer".
    • Magiquone and Nippon Ichi, who are named Arfoire and Nisa, respectively. Magiquone is a play on Magicon, the name of a flash cart sold in Japan, whereas in America, the most popular flash cart is the R4 (so they changed the name of the boss so people would get the anti-piracy overtones). NISA is an acronym for the aforementioned NIS America.
    • Neptune's nickname for IF goes from Ai(I)-chan to Iffy.
    • In the second game, the villains that are named [Blank] the Hard are renamed as CFW [Blank]. In this case, CFW stands for Criminal of the Free World, and is meant to make people think of Custom Firmware. This is to mimic a similar localization for [Blank] the Hard used for the goddesses, CPU.
    • Pururut's name was changed to Plutia, possibly to clash well with Neptune's name. The original name could have been thought to be a pun on the colour purple, but listening to the dialogue in game, it's pronounced "Pururuto", meaning the Pluto pun was there to begin with.
  • Duel Boss: Neptune vs. Arfoire later in the first game, as well as when you try to recruit the other goddesses.
    • In fact, a Neptune vs Arfoire duel is basically a mandatory event due to their status as archenemies. However, Arfoire's increasingly Butt-Monkey status means the duel in Victory is used for extraordinary mockery, while in VII it's completely absent. Justified as in that game Arfoire is not actually the real Arfoire.
    • In VII, all four main goddesses have some of these due to the way the story is structured. Genuine duels, however, include Noire vs K-Sha and the True Final Boss fight of Uzume vs Kurome.
  • Egopolis: Planeptune. So much so, that it's still called Planeptune in a dimension where Neptune isn't even a CPU! So much so that it was still called Planeptune even before Neptune was born!
  • Emoticon: Histoire seems to really like using this in her fairy mode. Although she drops this in later games, Ultradimension Histoire (running an earlier version) does use this constantly. VII shows that Hyperdimension Histoire is prone to falling back into this if she's dazed. In Re-Birth, she notes with some pride that she's the first character in the series to use them. Also in VII, Ran-Pigs use one emoticon consistently to differentiate between them whenever they talk.
  • End Game Plus: Only in the first game, with the option to go to a New Game Plus.
  • Exotic Eye Designs: CPUs in HDD feature glowing white power symbols for pupils. NEXT Forms turn the power symbols into plus signs.
  • Exponential Potential: You get so many attack choices that you will lose track of around one-fourth of them.
  • Face Ship: Neptunia Victory has one with Keiji Inafune's face on an airplane.
  • Fanservice: Both games have this from the start. The first one starts with Compa wrapping bandages around Neptune's naked body because... because. mk2, overall the raunchier, starts with the CPUs getting ravaged by cable tentacles because... because. Of course, both games have buttloads of non-sexual fanservice as they are, after all, about the console wars.
    • VII is quite a bit more risque at nearly every available opportunity in relation to previous entries.
  • Fiery Redhead: RED, Falcom, and Cave, but since her personality is cool as ice, Cave is a subversion. VII introduces Uzume Tennoboushi, who ranks really up there among hot-blooded types in the series. Uzume is actually a play on this because she's basically enforcing this trope on herself, when her actual personality is that of an extremely girly Valley Girl.
  • Forced Tutorial: The 8-bit dungeon at the beginning of the first game. Later games adopt the "Help me, Histoire!" segments to explain new features as they pop up.
  • Friendlessness Insult: Neptune has a tendency to call Noire a "loner" due to her pompous Tsundere attitude. However, most of Neptune's comments come off as playful teasing and Noire herself actually does have friends, she just isn't really open about it.
  • Genki Girl: Neptune, and how. Nisa too, and Ram as well, albeit both are to a lesser extent than Neptune.
    • Big Neptune proves that no matter the origin or the circumstances, Neptune will always turn out this way.
  • Genre Savvy:
    Neptune: Oh, yep. Death flag triggered. I kinda guessed he was one of those gonna-die-NPCs when I met him. Is he okay?
    IF: H-How can you act like that when someone is dying? Compa, can't you do something?
    Compa: I wish I could, but I can't do anything about a triggered flag or a bad ending route he chose...
    • All characters are plenty savvy, this being a game with basically No Fourth Wall, but Neptune in particular exemplifies it. Her degree of savvy is probably best displayed in Victory, where she can use it to predict plot developments and then lampshade them.
  • Girly Run: Most characters capable of moving around in the overworld run like this.
  • Glacier Waif: CPU of Lowee, Blanc, whose weapon of choice is a giant hammer. The hammer becomes an axe when she transforms into White Heart. In Victory, Peashy, which is maybe an even better example on account of the fact that she's just a little kid.
  • The Glomp: Neptune is fond of this.
  • Gondor Calls for Aid: In the original Neptune wants the other goddesses to help, but they don't want to. She has to beat the crap out of them again to make them help.
    • A minor example occurs in VII when Neptune needs to find an obscure and borderline mythical item to heal Histoire. She stumbles upon Noire and Uni, and the other two CPUs soon follow into helping her out, this time with no petty infighting.
  • The Gods Must Be Lazy: The goddesses spend more time on their personal affairs and bonking heads than actually running their lands. Vert averts this later in the first game by going out and actively fighting monsters.
    • Taken to hilarious effect in the manga, where Neptune's laziness has made her level down and not even be able to take out a common mook. Of course, she's ends up having to leech the XP from the others while she stays in the back.
      Neptune: Ooh, I didn't do anything, yet the level up jingle doesn't stop!
    • VII eventually demonstrates that CPUs are absolutely vital to Gamindustri's survival. On top of a Reality Warper messing around with everyone's memories, it's basically the goddesses losing their positions that drives most of Gamindustri into varying states of dystopia during the G arc.
  • Gods Need Prayer Badly: Goddesses gain power with belief. Arfoire uses this to gain power again by spreading false overlord rumors and harvesting their fear in the first game. In the second game, ASIC buys support by giving out modchips.
    • This is actually a gameplay mechanic in the form of shares. More shares translates to more faith and power in a goddess. A certain amount is needed in order to recruit the goddess of each land. In the case of mk2, shares allow you to recruit the CPUs and affect the ending.
    • In Victory, it turns out there used to be a certain CPU a long time ago, but she ended up destroying her believers' faith (and by extension, her nation) through her tyranny. She's still around, and once she gets her power back ultimately becomes the True Final Boss.
    • The overall Nerf imposed over most of everything in VII is justified in-game by the fact that for most of the game, you play when the goddesses have access to only minuscule amounts of faith compared to the usual. The moment they get a huge Share boost thanks to the Hyper Crystal gifted by Gold Third, they get their NEXT Forms.
  • Gratuitous French: The CPUs that aren't Neptune have French names (Noire, Vert, Blanc).
    • Further subverted with the conception of new CPUs that do not follow this naming convention: Plutia, Uranus, SG, Peashy, Rei, Uzume.
  • Gratuitous German: Quite a bit, actually, mostly with Blanc whose attacks have garbled names such as "Todlichschlag" (if they were going for "deadly strike", it would have to be "tödlicher Schlag"), but other characters also get in on it, like Neptune's and Nepgear's Combination Attack in the reboot, "Violet Schwestern" ("violet sisters" or "purple sisters" would be "Violette Schwestern").
  • Guide Dang It!: It's an Idea Factory game, which means an incredibly obscure undocumented system must be used to reach the Golden Ending.
    • The first game fails to mention that Neptune dying in battle has a hidden penalty and that if she dies too many times it can permanently lock you out of events — including the events to reach said ending!
    • Victory suffers from this quite a lot when it comes to the optional content, especially where Scouts and Risky/Tough Foes are involved.
    • Though it's usually much better about it than the previous games, even VII doesn't escape this in regards to how a Scout's stats affect his or her exploration of a dungeon. And of course, it's noteworthy for having several time-sensitive requirements that can and will lock with no warning, even from the very first chapter of the game, that must be all achieved in order to reach the Golden Ending.
  • Hair Intakes: Vert gains these as Green Heart.
  • Have You Seen My God?: The first game sees Planeptune's Basilicom understandably upset when Purple Heart doesn't show up when the goddesses start arriving. And in the Golden Ending, all four goddesses call it quits and leave Historie to create a new goddess to rule in their place.
    • Planeptune goes through this again when Neptune gets sent into Ultradimension in Victory. It eventually leads to it being overrun by Rei's rebellion.
    • And in VII, the same situation repeats itself, but worse because this time Nepgear also gets sucked into Zerodimension with Neptune from the start. And after that is over with, all of Gamindustri suffers through this when the G Arc rolls around. Granted, the goddesses are still around, but most of the citizens just don't remember a thing about them.
  • Healing Herb: Plant based healing items recover a fixed number of HP.
  • Healing Potion: Nep Bull and its other variants recovers a fixed percentage of the user's maximum health.
  • Hospital Hottie: Compa, complete with a giant syringe and some alternate◊ costumes◊ to help her fit the bill even more.
  • Hotblooded: Blanc, (more so when she's White Heart), Nisa, 5pb. in concert (averted otherwise, as she is a major Shrinking Violet) and RED when it comes to wife-seeking.
    • Uzume whenever she's projecting her Lad-ette persona, otherwise subverted whenever her real personality starts surfacing, which is that of a very girly and very cheerful Valley Girl, then Double Subverted when said personality pumps herself up for a fight. It ends up balancing out.
    • Copypaste becomes less grouchy and more this once he gets repaired and Anonydeath decides to mess with his settings.
    • Also in VII are General Affimojas and Steamax—more so the later due to his Undying Loyalty towards the former, although both get pretty fired up under the right circumstance.
  • Idol Singer: The blue-haired, midriff-baring 5pb. Neptune and Nepgear get featured as Idol Singers as well courtesy of an in-game event in mk2 where the aforementioned Planeptune sisters actually do this, with this video being the result.note 
    • The first game has an event where Neptune, Compa and IF try out at an idol audition. They fail.
    • And now they've made an entire game centered around this trope.
  • Immortal Immaturity: All of the goddesses tend to act this way.
  • Improbable Weapon User: The worst offender has to be Compa who uses a syringe that shoots bullets! This is even Lampshaded by IF at one point in the first game, and Nepgear in the second. 5pb. isn't off the hook due to her weapon of choice being a guitar. She'll either whack enemies with it, or kill them softly by playing some music. Uzume fights by yelling into her megaphone.
  • Improbably Female Cast: No guys except as unnamed, silhouetted NPCs.
  • Informed Equipment: Semi-averted. The rings and bracelets merely give a description of what the item would look like and change a character's stats, but the hats/hair accessories and dresses actually show up on the character's person and are most likely there for the sake of customization since those items tend to not affect stats very significantly.
  • Instrument of Murder: 5pb uses a guitar as her weapon. If she uses a special attack, she will play it. But in normal hits, she will smack the target with it.
  • Japanese Sibling Terminology: All the Candidates call their sisters "Onee-chan" in the Japanese version, but simply use their names in the English version.
  • Jerkass: Ganache. He assigns the task of finding a rare ore to the party, and confines them in an abandoned building set to explode. Afterwards it turns out that was only a diversion, as stated by IF when Chian's factory is being sieged by Avenir robots.
    • Azna=Leb in VII. He (ostensibly) helped establish the dystopian society that ails G-Arc Lowee, continually tries to pit Blanc and C-Sha against each other and briefly succeeds, manipulates everyone and everything behind the scenes for his own benefit (including drumming up false charges and slandering), and when push comes to shove, abandons a city that is being charged by monsters, insisting that his life is more important than any number of helpless citizens that are depending on him to protect them. He actually goes as far as claiming that everyone else needs to be controlled by him in order to be happy. Blanc slugging him right in the face is very much cathartic.
    • Another example from the same game is the Mercenary Leader in Noire's arc, and the group as a whole. They're basically making war for profit to make more war—they're literally trying to start a slaughter for the sake of the slaughter, and have even taken over the Basilicom to do it. That same leader also almost gets Uni killed, which only adds fuel to the fire.
  • Kiai: Neptune: CHESTO! (Chest buster!)
  • Lady Swears-a-Lot:
  • Lampshade Hanging: It's an RPG that knows it's a video game and pokes fun at video games. There's a lot of this.
    • One of the notable bits of Lampshade Hanging is over their enemy in Neptunia and Neptunia mk2, Arfoire, who is known as Magiquone in Japan, her name based off two brands of flash cartridge which are used with ROM images cloned off the consoles to play illegally owned games, which in the real world cuts into the market share of the games companies all the time.
    • Better than a Bare Bulb:
  • Large Ham: Nisa, the self-proclaimed justice loving super heroine of Gamindustri. Chika as well, especially when vocalizing her... "admiration" for her "sister" Vert. She even comes off as a Large Ham when first introduced to the player when Nepgear and co. find her in Underverse faking death.
    • Uzume really likes hamming it up in order to better show her tough personality. She'll still do it as Orange Heart though, just in a fairly, ah, unique manner.
  • Late-Arrival Spoiler: Damn near anything involving Histoire. She can only appear through telepathic messages in the first game until the end, and the opening obscures your view of her as much as humanly possible, but every other game in the series has her show up almost right away, being completely unobscured in every other opening, and referencing all of her jokes from the first game immediately.
  • Lazy Backup: If your three frontline characters die, it's a game over with no explanation whatsoever when you have eight (ten if you include 5pb and RED) characters in your party. The second game also has this problem except you have fifteen characters to choose from and yet when the four on the frontlines die, it's a game over.
    • The above example of the second game gets even worse when you remember you can equip characters to each other to produce secondary effects. It would make sense that when the character dies, the equipped character takes over. Sadly, this isn't the case.
  • Leotard of Power: HDD generally comes with a high-tech version of this.
  • Limit Break: Everyone gets one in the form of EXE Drives. Some characters (chiefly the CPUs and their Candidates) get two, while Neptune achieves the distinction of being the only one with three in VII. They also exist in two different types of Combination Attack variants: Formation and Coupling. Coupling is always a two-girl team-up skill that requires one to be the Coupling partner of the frontliner, while Formation may feature anywhere between two and four characters teaming up. Said characters must always be active in the field. VII further adds the requirement of the characters having to surround their prospective target in order to use it, as well as being on the same transformation tier. Regardless, depending on the characters and the characteristics of the skill, these fall anywhere between Awesome, but Impractical to full-on Game-Breaker.
    • If a character uses her regular EXE Drive on a boss-type enemy, the EXE Drive will change to a longer version that deals more hits and more damage.
  • Little Miss Almighty: Among the main four CPUs, only Vert looks like an adult (though age is meaningless for them).
  • Lost in Translation: The joke about Neptune's name being hard to say. This makes much more sense in the original Japanese, where it is honestly harder to say.
  • Mascot Mook: The Dogoos, which are themselves a parody and a Shout-Out to the Slimes from Dragon Quest.
  • Mascot Villain: Pirachu claims to be a mascot and the third most popular one of the mouse world (after who I wonder? That said he does work for the villains in mk2 and Victory.
  • Meaningful Name: The names of the goddesses (except Neptune) in their normal forms are the names of colors in French. Later-appearing goddesses do not follow this naming convention, but retain meaningful names.
  • Minimalist Cast: Only playable characters, villains, and oracles are ever shown. Everyone else either never appears physically or is a generic NPC silhouette.
    • The first game lampshades this when someone's lost their child and you're told that you'll know it's him because he's a generic NPC silhouette.
    • Averted from Re;Birth1 on, where even NPCs get little portraits for themselves.
  • Mirror Match: Any of the CPUs versus their doppelgangers in the "Versus Fake * Heart" Quests from the original.
  • Moe Anthropomorphism: The point of the game. Let's just start with the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii and the (unreleased) Sega Neptune. Aside from goddesses representing consoles, the "Makers" (that is, the humans) are representations of companies and video game series. You need look no further than IF and Compa to see where this is going.
  • Mood Whiplash: Jade's final moments are filled with this.
    Neptune: What's up? A favor? Ask me anything! Oh, but no touching. Got it? No touching!
    Jade: Don't treat me like a pervert when I'm about to die.
    • The series likes to do this when a confrontation with a villain is nigh. This is largely a result of shenanigans occurring to anybody for anything. Not even VII escapes it.
  • Motive Decay: By the end of the first game, Arfoire goes from trying to remake the world to simply destroying it. It's explained that her fear-derived power basically eroded away her mental stability to cause this.
  • Ms. Fanservice: Damn near all the characters.
  • Multiple Endings: It's a staple of the series that there will be at least three endings.
  • The Multiverse: There's a lot of dimensions involved in the series. Each new installment tends to add on a new dimension (since all of the spin-offs take place in a new dimension, e.g. Hyperdevotion's Gamarket) and a few even add an additional one just for kicks (e.g. the anime's Ultradimension or Producing Perfection's Earth dimension).
    • Given all of the changes involved in the remakes, it is entirely possible that those are in additional universes as well, or are meant to Retcon the existing counterparts, which only serves to make things more confusing.
    • One of mk2's Nepedia entries mentions that events that happen in a Hyperdimension filter down into other dimensions, commenting that if ASIC managed to completely take over, the connected dimensions would have piracy overrun and destroy their gaming industry.
    • Probably the easiest way to sort out the Mind Screw is this: Each name is associated with a cast of characters. There are multiple dimensions with the same name. The name is in the Japanese title. If it's not in the title, then it probably doesn't take place in the same dimension.
    • Victory features two counterpart dimensions in its plot, although Alternate World Map only really comes into effect at the end. Then VII takes it up another notch by featuring no less than three different dimensions in one game! Although one of those exists inside of another, and both of them are actually dreams, so as some of Ultradimension elements have plot relevance, it's more like "two and a half-dimensions".
  • Never Trust a Trailer: The first game advertises that you get to play as the goddesses in the middle part (or at the very least, early-middle part) of the game. You only get to play with them in the final dungeon and possibly post-game.
  • New Game Plus: Present in all games, although the first game gives you the option of playing in an End Game Plus, which is convenient for getting all of the endings.
    • Notably, VII's New Game Plus is the first to let you pick what you want to bring over, allowing the player to customize their next playthrough to their tastes.
  • New Work, Recycled Graphics: Neptunia is notoriously bad for this, with the developers reusing EVERYTHING they can constantly, with the enemies, attack animations, voice clips and sometimes even portions of the songs being reused liberally. This was understandable with the first game, but when a particular map is recognisable in practically every game, right down to where enemies spawn in the MOST RECENT game?
  • Nice Girls: Nepgear, Uni, Rom and Compa are this in spades.
    • Neptune herself can also be one too, same with Noire.
  • Nobody Poops: Averted in one instance where Nep-Nep nearly misses out on Nisa's introduction by spending most of the preceding battle on the toilet.
    • Averted in another cutscene where Neppermint admits to being a little too excited about a visitor.
    • Face a foe who's a significant number of levels above you and Nep-Nep might start the fight by requesting a change of underwear.
    • Nepgear had to use the bathroom during her first visit to Lowee. When she helped Rom out on her way back to the group, she took so long that IF assumed she either fell into the toilet or was having fun by herself, depending on if the second game or its remake.
  • No Fourth Wall: It's a Console Wars game; it's to be expected that they'll smash the fourth wall.
  • Obvious Beta: The first game, due to having run out of funds.
  • Obviously Evil: Arfoire, lampshaded by Ganache in the first game.
  • Odd Name Out: Neptune is the only one of the main 4 CPUs to not have a French, color-themed name.
    • The original 4 landmasses? Lastation, Leanbox, Lowee and... Planeptune.
    • Both cases could represent either Neptune's protagonist status or the fact that SEGA left the Console Wars before the Wii, PS3 and 360 were released.
    • However, CPUs conceptualized later do not follow the French color theme; instead, their names and/or their quirks and related circumstances and tropes define the console they represent. When seen from a macro-perspective, the three French-named CPUs are actually the odd ones out.
    • Even with all this in mind, VII's Uzume Tennoboushi stands out on account of having a full name in a series where no main character has one. It even makes it a point to have it as her display name in her dialogue boxes.
  • One-Steve Limit: The dimension that the original game and its remake take place in, as well as the dimension that the reboot and subsequent mainline titles take place in, are all called 超次元 (Chou Jigen, roughly translated as "Super Dimension"). NIS America translated 超次元 as Hyperdimension (Yes, ONE word). To differentiate between the 超次元 of the first game and the 超次元 of the later mainline titles, the former dimension is referred to by fans as the Super Dimension, while the latter is still called the Hyper Dimension.
    • The waters have been muddied since then. Superdimension Neptune VS Sega Hard Girls has Superdimension (one word) in the title, despite its maps being based on the 1980s version of the Hyperdimension, and not being set in the Supderdimension in the first place. Neptunia reVerse clouds it even more, as despite being touted as a "definitive remake" of Re;Birth1, which as mentioned is set in the same Super Dimension as the original game, the term "Hyper Dimension" can be in the opening video.
  • One-Time Dungeon: All dungeons that are part of a story scenario in the original.
  • One-Winged Angel: Arfoire. And she's actually got two forms.
    • In Victory, her HDD form is basically this for the Big Bad—although the party only fights the Big Bad in that one form.
    • In VII, the Big Bad achieves this by fusing with all the Dark CPUs after absorbing Tari CPU's powers, dwarfing the previous two entries on several levels.
  • Only One Name: None of the characters in the game have a last name until mk2, where the oracles who aren't Histoire each get one. VII introduces Uzume, the first main character to have a last name.
  • Our Fairies Are Different: Histoire. For one, she's an artificial being. The current continuity establishes she was created by one of Neptune's predecessors, and she functions similarly to a computer (she may talk with emoticons, and there's plenty of gags about her specs). VII even has her running a patch program via a cartridge inserted into her mouth!
  • Palette Swap: Many of the monsters use this, especially in the first game.
    • Actually important in VII, as the Big Bad turns out to be the original version of the playable pallete swap known as Uzume.
  • Panacea: This item cures every status ailments at once and heals 30% health of maximum health. The Super Panacea can heal up to 50%.
  • Party in My Pocket: Well, obviously! Then again, you can switch out the on-screen avatar, which is actually important in the first game because different characters have different functions on the map screen. For instance, Neptune pulls out a hammer to smash obstacles, Compa rings a bell to attract monsters, and IF uses her search mode to uncover invisible chests.
  • Permanently Missable Content: The first game. Anything that only appears in a story dungeon, including monsters.
  • Post Endgame Content: Most games open up new areas to explore upon reaching an ending.
  • Power Floats: Whenever a CPU activates HDD to transform into her goddess form, she always floats in the air.
  • Power Makes Your Voice Deep: Most noticeable with girls like Neptune and Noire, whose voices drop to contralto when they activate their HDD forms.
    • Inverted with Uzume, who's voice instead rises to a sweeter, higher pitch. Although it's more like that is her natural voice, and she speaks with a lower tone due to feeling embarrassed by it.
  • Plot Tunnel: On the few occasions where Neptune leaves the party in the original, you cannot leave that landmass until she returns. Justified in that she's the one who registered for permission to travel to begin with, and you'd need her for cutscenes in other landmasses anyway.
  • Pure Magic Being: Hyperdimension CPUs aren't just powered by Share Energy, but born from it in the first place.
  • Put on a Bus: The Oracles aside from Histoire disappear from the main series after mk2, ostensibly busy with other things.
  • Rainbow Pimp Gear: Generally averted with the outfits and accessories you normally get for the characters, but you make some truly outrageous processor combinations for the goddesses.
  • Rank Inflation: Timed dungeons. The faster you finish the dungeon via beating the boss, finding the secret treasure, or getting lucky with item drops from random encounters, the better your rank will be. This always often leads to a Bragging Rights Reward when you beat the record times of other players.
  • Really 700 Years Old: All of the goddesses.
    • Subverted in Victory, where the Ultradimension CPUs are more or less the age they appear to be, with Blanc only being a few decades older than she looks at most, making Neptune and Nepgear The Older Immortals. Then double subverted when Rei is revealed to be the CPU of a nation that fell an ungodly amount of time into the past...
  • Restored My Faith in Humanity: Nisa spends one series of events from the original chasing down a pair of bandit brothers. When she saves them from a monster, the duo realize it's not such a Crapsack World out there, pull a Heel–Face Turn and decide to help others for a change.
  • Ridiculously Human Robots: Histoire is an artificial lifeform created by Planeptune's first CPU to record history, and seems to be somewhat mechanical in origin. A plot point in VII's Z Arc is her overheating from warping Neptune back from the Zerodimension and needing to consume a patch for an update.
  • Rule 34: For an Idea Factory game, this is perhaps the most popular choice as Cross Edge and Record of Agarest War, despite being much more ecchi, had little to no Rule 34. For example, there are official NSFW dakimakura covers of Noire. That's all we need to say.
  • Rule of Three: Only 3 landmasses (Planeptune, Lowee and Lastation) have CPU Candidates.
    • The three CPUs of Planeptune that we've seen have shown themselves to be highly eccentric individuals.
  • Stellar Name: Besides Neptune and Plutia, a couple of the Bonus Bosses in mk2 and Victory are named after stars, with a certain one being named for the Dolphin constellation. These bosses are named, Antares, Sirius, Procyon, Deneb (all Killachines), Pollux (Palette Swap of Trick), Regulus (Palette Swap of Brave), Alnair, Alkaid, Aldebaran (all use Judge's model), Fomalhaut (CPU Breaker's exact model, not even a Palette Swap) Phoenix (by coincidence) and Delphinus (A Palette Swap of Arfoire, and needed for a special trophy in mk2)
  • Saving the World: Both figuratively and literally (figuratively being Histoire who is the "Tome of the World" and literally being "kill Arfoire and all of piracy").
    • You end up saving both versions of Gamindustri in Victory.
    • In VII, the sheer scale of events means you not only save Hyperdimension Gamindustri, but also Ultradimension Gamindustri due to the portal, and stop Zerodimension and Heartdimension from disappearing.
  • Scripted Battle: The first "battle" in the series is Purple Heart vs. the three other CPUs.
    • Gets parodied at the beginning of Victory. It's really a video game.
  • Self-Deprecation: The weakest and least versatile characters in the first game are IF and Compa. They don't even get any sort of Limit Break, something even the DLC characters were given.
  • Shout-Out: It has its own page.
  • Shrinking Violet: 5pb. when offstage. You wouldn't believe it at first since she's radically different when she's performing.
    • Rom, the middle sibling of the Lowee goddesses, is also by far the shiest of the main characters.
    • E-Sha, who can only say "Yes" or "No" if she's not comfortable with who she's talking to.
  • Skinship Grope: All over the place. Vert is notoriously fond of being on the giving and receiving end of this.
  • Sliding Scale of Continuity: The second game takes place in an Alternate Universe from the first and Victory involves the protagonist and her sister from the second game Trapped In Another Alternate Universe. Despite having the same characters, the games taking place in AU versions of the same world and with AU versions of the cast make this a level 0 (Non-Linear Installments).
    • The continuity continues with VII, which features mk2s cast dealing with a new crisis and new characters in their home world, as well as Neptune and Nepgear ending up in another Alternate Universe that isn't actually one. Victory's Ultradimension is not mentioned, for the most part, although a couple of elements from there do have considerable plot relevance. Namely, Croire, the power of Tari's CPU, and Ultradimension Neptune.
  • So Long, and Thanks for All the Gear: Zigzagged. Averted in the original, which unequipped Neptune each time she left the party (which required re-equipping her later). Played straight in mk2, Victory, Re;Birth1, and Re;Birth2; the Lastation CPUs leave the party temporarily partway through due to plot reasons. Though the extent of the loss tends to only be any Game Discs (in all but mk2) you may have equipped on them, given the nature of most equips being character-specific.
    • Played with in VII. In the Z Arc, although there is a point where Neptune is separated from Nepgear and Uzume, each separate party retains access to all their items. In the G Arc, only Neptune retains all items; the other goddesses start empty-handed and it's up to you to correct that. If you have equipped Game Discs on anyone and they leave, though, those do stay on them until they rejoin you.
  • Stripperific: When in HDD, all of the goddesses. All of them. Of significant note is Green Heart. CFW Magic ups the ante.
  • Strongly Worded Letter: Played straight in the original when Neptune and her friends send a series of threatening letters as a tactic to lure out Arfoire, Overlord Momus' messenger and separate her from a group of extremists she's leading. The plan actually works, but for a reason none of them expected - because Neptune misspelled Momus' name as "Overlord Moron".
  • Super Mode: Hard Drive Divinity. In the original game, it lasts until the battle ends or the user is incapacitated, while in mk2, HDD lasts as long as the user still has Skill Points to spare, unless of course, the user is incapacitated. Subsequent games revert to the original game's model (no SP upkeep), but there's a series of processor units in VII that greatly increase the effectiveness of HDD at the cost of introducing SP upkeep. Per unit. Meaning that fully equipping the set gives you great boosts, but will almost certainly drain you fully of SP the following turn and keep you there.
    • Among its effects include the CPU in question assuming their true form, receiving boosts to all their stats, and depending on the character, some of their skills may change.
    • VII introduces the Gold Third and their Gold Forms. They are functionally similar to HDD, although all four have less SP Skills than the CPUs, like regular Maker characters. A difference is that their EXE Drives do not extend like the other characters; instead, the version they use depends on their current form.
    • VII also takes it to the next level with the NEXT Forms. Only achievable by the main 4 CPUs, their new transformations give them stronger processor units and armor. The main draws of the transformations is the increased emphasis on skill usage, as all skills cost 60% less SP, deal 1.3 times more damage, and have maximum range on all AOE Skills. They also gain access to a new EXE Drive that deals massive damage but costs you the transformation.
  • Superpowered Evil Side: The Chaos Forms from NepNep Connect: Chaos Chanpuru are augmented forms that characters undertake after corruption by "chaos energy". Alongside an Inverse-esque Darker and Edgier/Hotter and Sexier design, they also cause a personality shift that tends to turn the recipient against the heroes... though what exactly said personality shift is is pure Canon Fodder due to Chaos Chanpuru getting terminated.
  • The Syndicate: The Guild. Divided into two groups; Moderatists, who are criminal only in that they don't worship the goddess of their world but are otherwise completely normal people, and Extremists who are willing to resort to violence over pretty much anything.
  • Take That!: Unsurprisingly, there are a few zingers in here, but it's mostly gentle poking instead of straight-up insulting and no company really gets it worse than the others.
  • Thanking the Viewer: In both endings of the original, the main trio directly thanks you for getting them through the game.
  • Transformation Sequence: Upon activation of Hard Drive Divinity, the user switches into a Stripperific bodysuit, her hair grows (or changes to drill hair in Uni's case), her eyes glow and sport power switch shaped pupils, and her weapon will increase in size or at least change how it looks to fit the appearance of the user. They also tend to experience some shifts in their personality. The most extreme examples are Neptune and Plutia, who go from immature flat-chested little girls to voluptuous adult women possessed of serious personalities (Neptune) or domineering seductiveness (Plutia). Peashy also has a ridiculous transformation, and Uzume goes from suppressing her Valley Girl persona to fully unleashing all that repressed girliness. The Transformation Sequence is very Sailor Moon-esque in the first game and rather lengthy at that, but can fortunately be skipped with the press of a button. Arfoire likewise gets a transformation in the first game as well; into a colossal and powerful dragon, that is.
  • Transforming Mecha: Neptune's ship ability. Plutia in Victory shows the ability to turn into a stealth bomber.
  • True Final Boss: The first game's Arfoire becomes significantly stronger if you face her after recruiting all the goddesses.
    • In VII, although the last big fight is against Dark Orange, the actual final battle is a Mirror Duel Boss with Kurome.
  • Tsundere: Noire and Uni, and it's painfully obvious, too. Mercilessly exploited by Neptune, who can't resist teasing them for it.
  • 20 Bear Asses: There are two types of quests, Mass Monster-Slaughter Sidequest and this trope.
  • Useless Useful Spell: Aside from direct Attack, Defense, and Agility buffs and debuffs, physical attacks and Vitality quickly dominate the rest of a party's abilities.
  • Victory Pose: Present in every single game.
  • Video Game Perversity Potential: The first game allows players to use pictures stored in their PlayStation 3 units for "R/W disc" special attacks — even pornographic ones. The second game allows Nepgear's CPU outfit to be customized via the Costume Canvas system, and "nude mods" have been made. The third game extends the Costume Canvas system to the other CPUs and the CPU Candidates, allowing even more perverted potential. Have fun.
  • Visual Novel: With some H-game references.
  • Visual Pun: The size of the girl's breasts are relative to the size of the console they're based on. So it would make sense that Vert would be XBOX HUEG.
  • Vitriolic Best Buds: The four goddesses. Even more so in the reboot.
    • IF's relation to Neptune and Compa.
  • Vocal Evolution:
    • Histoire has a high-pitched voice in the first game, but a softer and more mature tone later on, with the original tone resurfacing for her even more diminutive Ultradimension counterpart.
    • Black Heart sounds about the same as Noire, if not even higher-pitched with her more unbridled personality, up until Victory. Afterward, she has a throatier tone. A similar change can be observed with Black Sister.
    • The Deity of Sin had an ominously low voice in mk2, but the Holy Sword Ending in Re;Birth 2 puts it more in line with other portrayals of Arfoire, despite retaining the original low voice in the rest of the game.
  • Weapon Specialization: Playable characters generally have a certain weapon class, with their customization allowing for different versions of that weapon. Among the main cast, Neptune uses single-bladed swords, Noire uses double-edged swords, Blanc uses hammers (axes while transformed), Vert uses spears, Nepgear uses beam swords, Uni uses rifles, and Ram and Rom use staffs.
  • Widget Series: This series is basically Console Wars represented by Moe Anthropomorphisms of the consoles fighting Anthropomorphic Personifications of various forms of piracy.
  • Wooden Katanas Are Even Better: You can equip a wooden katana for Neptune which is pretty strong during the early parts of the first game.
    • She starts with it in mk2 and Victory. The joke is that she found it in a dumpster, but as the game itself puts it, "she loves it for some reason."
  • World of Technicolor Hair: Let's see, we've got: purple, blonde, green, light blue, black, white, brown, pink, blue, and red. And this is just from the main cast.
  • Yuri Genre: The franchise has a lot of Ship Tease and Homoerotic Subtext, but it usually with some exceptions()stops here. Examples that fall squarely into this trope include the character Red who openly declares she's looking for a cute girl to make her wife, Iris Heart in Victory who has a very obvious sadistic streak toward her allies, Neptune and Noire's relationship in Re;Birth1 (though the text implies it to be in an If It's You, It's Okay sense), and in the same game IF and Vert's very, very close companionship is all but outright stated to be romantic.
    • While it depends on the continuity, some of the characters have shown at least some interest in men. For example, in most continuities Vert is portrayed as a devoted Yaoi Fangirl while also interested in finding a cute sister; in VII Neptune as Purple Heart flirts with Steamax, Uni shows some reciprocation of Steamax's crush, and Uzume considers Umio's fish body as handsome as his voice. Some other sources would subvert or avert this trope: The Noire spinoff actually portrays Noire as most likely straight and makes her 'practise' confession to the self-insert male character; the Drama CDsnote , event DLCs, and VR content involve interacting with the goddesses with romantic implications, or even wooing the goddesses.
    • VII has a lot of fun with this one: Nepgear can't stop thinking Uzume is adorable and gets very attached to her, Vert all-but petitions Nepgear while taking a bath, Uni pulls heavy-duty emotional support for Nepgear, K-Sha is Yandere for Noire and outright confesses while Noire is very emotionally invested in their friendship, C-Sha and Blanc's banter goes from playful ribbing to awfully suggestive on both accounts as they get closer (with Rom and Ram almost coming across as Shipper on Deck), Big Nep shamelessly calls herself "an ally of cute girls everywhere" and bluntly asks Vert for permission to fondle her (and gets it!), Million Arthur just barely hides that she wants a harem of girls as much as she wants to be King, openly enjoys the the Stripperific nature of HDD, and Neptune and Uzume connect with each other as fellow CPUs on such a level that Big Nep has to cut their reunion short even as she remarks that she "loves these lesbian-esque vibes" they've got going.
    • Sisters vs Sisters is essentially driven by Nepgear and Maho's relationship.
    • A lot of games in the main series are actually lampshading this trope in the gameplay itself with the Lily Ranks mechanic. As the trope page explains in its first note, "yuri" is the japanese word for "lily".

 
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Welcome to Leanbox Harbor

In "Super Neptunia RPG," upon arrival your party is greeted by a woman who tells them "Welcome to Leanbox Harbor." Neptune predicts that if she speaks to the woman again, she'll just say the same thing. She's... not wrong.

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Welcome to Leanbox Harbor

In "Super Neptunia RPG," upon arrival your party is greeted by a woman who tells them "Welcome to Leanbox Harbor." Neptune predicts that if she speaks to the woman again, she'll just say the same thing. She's... not wrong.

How well does it match the trope?

5 (6 votes)

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Main / WelcomeToCorneria

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