1768: Four Goddesses

Having beaten Senran Kagura Burst recently at last, I’ve been turning my attention back to Vita title Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth1, the “remake” of the original Hyperdimension Neptunia — a series that I first discovered in January of last year and promptly fell head-over-heels in love with.

I put the word “remake” in inverted commas because to call Re;Birth1 a remake is to do it something of an injustice. This is a complete and total overhaul of the game from top to bottom — graphics, gameplay, mechanics, story, characters, music, everything. In essence, it’s a completely new game that even those who played and enjoyed the original — I know there’s some of you out there, even though it was the weakest in the series by a very long shot indeed — can get a huge kick out of.

All of the above said, Re;Birth1 does also recycle a whole ton of material from previous two games Hyperdimension Neptunia mk2 and Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory — principally dungeon aesthetics and layouts, monsters and music. Consequently, those of you who played mk2 and/or Victory will probably find a lot of familiar material in Re;Birth1 but that’s not actually a bad thing; the comfortable familiarity of the recycled material gives the game a feeling of consistency with its predecessors (for obvious reasons) while the new stuff that is included — no, it’s not identical to its predecessors — stands out all the more for being a big contrast to the material that’s been used in three games now. In essence, the game represents a refinement of the Hyperdimension Neptunia formula that developer Compile Heart has been experimenting with over the course of the previous installments and, while not completely perfect — a couple of minor elements from the previous games that I really liked have been ditched for Re;Birth1 — it is, by far, the definitive Neptunia experience, and a game that is beautifully designed for portable play.

Neptunia games have always been about two things: a silly, enjoyable, well-written and witty story coupled with some surprisingly compelling, grind-and-farm-heavy dungeon crawling. Re;Birth1 is no exception; its narrative retells the story of the original Hyperdimension Neptunia with a few twists here and there as well as a host of new characters, while there’s plenty of incentive to dungeon crawl thanks to its quest system and one of the main mechanical highlights: the sprawling Remake system.

Remake allows you to craft various things. So far so conventional, but unlike many other crafting systems, Remake allows you to craft game mechanics as well as items, weapons and armour. Finding the game a bit challenging? Dig up a programmer’s plan to weaken all the enemies and hack it into the game to make things a bit easier for yourself. Want to find the hidden treasures more easily? Build your own treasure scanner to enhance the minimap. Annoyed at that age-old RPG problem, “You Failed to Escape”? Craft yourself the ability to escape from battle with a 100% success rate.

Of course, all this makes it sound a lot easier than it actually is; to complete these plans you’ll have to first of all find the plan in the first place — they can be anywhere from inside treasure cubes in dungeons to held by various NPCs around the world map that pop up after every major story beat — and then collect all the ingredients, most of which tend to come from monsters. The game doesn’t hold your hand with this; if you want to craft a plan, you’ll have to figure out where on Earth you’re going to get all the bits from, though thankfully a straightforward dungeon and monster encyclopedia in the menu allows you to see which enemies haunt which areas, and what they might drop when you kill them — assuming they’ve already dropped it for you at least once. Through this system, you’re encouraged to explore the various dungeons and fight as many different enemy types as possible in order to fill out that monster guide — the more complete it is, the less you’ll have to look up on the Internet later.

The nice thing, though, is that it’s all completely optional. There’s no obligation to go fiddling around with plans at all — though your life will be significantly easier if you do — so if you simply want to plough through the main story as quickly as you can, that option is always open to you. Likewise, there’s no obligation to complete quests, unlock optional dungeons or kill boss monsters — though failing to do so may well leave you a bit underlevelled come story boss time, at least on your first playthrough.

As with previous installments of the Neptunia series, the game is absolutely dripping with personality. Each character is a clearly-defined — though often (deliberately) tropetacular — person in their own right, with many of them poking fun at established video game and anime characters. Indeed, a number of the new characters for Re;Birth1 are direct references to game series and developers such as Steins;Gate creator MAGES., Senran Kagura publisher Marvelous AQL and legendary fighting game series Tekken. Each of these characters is beautifully designed to encapsulate the very essence of the thing they’re supposed to be referencing; MAGES. wouldn’t look out of place in Steins;Gate herself, for example, and even has alternate colour schemes that directly reference the characters Mayushii and Faris, while Marvelous AQL has costumes based on the Senran Kagura girls’ iconic outfits.

It’s a cliché to describe something as a “love letter” to something else, but I’m going to do it anyway. Hyperdimension Neptunia has always been a love letter to fans of Japanese video games and anime, being packed full of references both obvious and incredibly subtle, and Re;Birth1 very much continues that. It’s a game that celebrates the joy of having fun with interactive entertainment, and I defy you to play through it with anything other than a huge smile on your face.

Except, of course, when Killachine flattens your party for the fifth time in a row because you didn’t prepare properly and ended up with everyone stunned and clustered together, just waiting to be cleaved. You don’t have to keep smiling then. But you’ll probably try again rather than flinging your Vita across the room.

My only trouble with it is that I don’t really want it to end. Although when those end credits do eventually roll, I can console myself with the fact that there are three new Neptunia games out there that I haven’t played yet — strategy RPG Hyperdevotion Noire: Goddess Black Heart, the rather Senran Kagura-esque brawler Hyperdimension Neptunia U and probably the most exciting offering: PS4 title Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory II, a game that, if I don’t own a PlayStation 4 by then, will almost certainly make me go out and buy one immediately the moment it is released.

Yes, I’m a fan. And unashamed of that fact. It’s a series that consistently makes me smile; given how much I love it now, it’s rather odd to (re)discover today that I’ve only been playing these games since January of last year. But I hope I’ll be able to continue enjoying them for many years to come yet.