1790: The Second Re;Birth

I was surprised and dismayed to discover that Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth2 is out in January. Or at least, it was supposed to be: the European version has apparently been delayed by a week, with the physical release (yes! Unlike the previous installment, this one is apparently getting a retail release) now coming on February 6 and the digital version coming slightly later on February 11. So says Gematsu.

I’m dismayed not because I don’t want more Hyperdimension Neptunia goodness to feast on, but rather because I didn’t know that Re;Birth2 was coming quite so soon — although in retrospect, Re;Birth1 has actually been out for quite a while already, and I just took my sweet time over finishing it. I’m also somewhat dismayed due to the fact that Hyperdevotion Goddess Noire, a spinoff strategy-RPG take on the series starring my favourite character (the eponymous Noire) is, according to a good friend, coming in February — though with Re;Birth2 being delayed a week in Europe I wonder if this will affect Noire too.

I’m actually very curious to see how Re;Birth2 is treated. Re;Birth1 was an obvious massive jump from the original Hyperdimension Neptunia, with a completely rebuilt game system based on that seen in Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory, the third game in the series on the PlayStation 3 and, until Re;Birth1 came out, the best installment by far.

Re;Birth2, meanwhile, is a game that is a remake of a title that was much better in the first place. Hyperdimension Neptunia mk2 was a lot closer in execution to what would become Victory; its battle system is similar (though not identical) and its game structure is, again, much more like what we see in Victory and Re;Birth1.

This leaves the story as the main thing that will probably be worked over. I enjoyed mk2’s original story; it was perhaps a little heavy-handed at times with its anti-piracy message — even more so than the original game — but it featured some entertaining and adorable characters getting into a variety of scrapes, including some surprising and even quite disturbing situations. (The “Conquest” ending of mk2 is particularly notorious for not only being a “bad” ending that takes significantly more effort to get than the “true” ending, but also for taking a turn for the seriously grimdark in comparison to the rest of the game’s candy-coloured shenanigans.) I find myself wondering whether it’s going to have as significant of a rewrite as Re;Birth1 did, or if it’s simply going to be revamped in terms of presentation — unlike other installments in the series, which used gorgeous 2D character art in dialogue sequences, mk2 used 3D polygonal models that looked significantly inferior to the 2D artwork.

I also find myself wondering whether or not there will be such a strong focus on Neptune’s sister and mk2’s protagonist Nepgear this time around; subsequent installments in the series have made a joke over Nepgear being “boring” in comparison to the lively, spunky Neptune and the poor girl — actually one of my favourite characters, since she’s just so adorably earnest about everything — frequently ends up the butt of everyone’s jokes.

I realise a lot of these questions are probably already answered by people who have played the Japanese version, but I’ve been doing my best to remain unspoiled and have so far succeeded. I’ll be very interested to see the new game when it arrives, and I’ll most certainly be continuing to support the series with my hard-earned money and play time. So bad luck, reader; you’ll almost certainly be hearing more about it early in the new year!