clickbliss

Hyperdemension Neptunia Re;Birth 1 Review

By RJ (@rga_02)

• Hyperdemension Neptunia Re;Birth 1
• Developer - Compile Heart
• Publisher - Idea Factory
• PlayStation Vita
• Rating - T

Remember those days back in elementary school? Where you would defend your favorite multinational corporation to the death? Be it either Nintendo, Sony or SEGA you would defend one of those entities like it was your newborn child. Now it’s 2014 and here you are in your twenties. Still bickering at one another about consoles….but instead of throwing generic schoolyard insults at each other, you’re a little girl who on a mission in the magical land of Gamindustri.

After all, who doesn’t want to play an adorable personification of their favorite 7th generation console in an RPG?

Re;Birth

follows the tale of Neptune (based on the unreleased console, SEGA Neptune), one of the four goddess based in Celestia watching over the land of Gamindustri. As tensions began to reach a high point, the other 3 goddess, Noire, Blanc, and Vert (based on the PS3, Wii, and X360 respectively) decided to team up against poor ol’ adorable Neptune and beats her senselessly into the human world of Gamindustri. Hurt, devoid of her past memories, and now in some foreign land (sounds straight out of aYs opener) she is discovered by a nurse by the name of Compa (based on the developer Compile Heart). She quickly fixes up Neptune and right away tells here that there are evil monsters out roaming the world and Neptune should do something about it. Which she wholeheartedly agrees to do. Thus begins her journey throughout the land of Gamindustri.

Now, like I said in my preview of this game. The story is your typical nonsensical JRPG plot, but the references to the gaming industry in this game are simply fantastic. Lot’s of  jabs and puns from game franchises like Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy & Super Mario are littered across the game. It’s really such a delight to see them if you are well versed in the gaming industry. Some references are cleverly disguised that few will probably only pick up (such as my favorite, when Neptune hums a tune similar the Final Fantasy victory fanfare) while others aren’t so subtle (such as “SoulSac Mountain” or “Halo Mountain”). The dialog is filled with humor and wit and I applaud Idea Factory for a fantastic localization. Unfortunately, such humor and wit aren’t backed up with good voice acting. The English voice acting in this game is just painful. At times, it would just be better off hearing nails scratching a chalkboard. While the characters are meant to be cute and adorable their voice actors fail to replicate that. A majority of the time, they are trying way too hard to fulfill such a role. They just end up sounding like some girl from elementary school who passed Choir solely because of attendance. While the game’s intended audience will most likely play with Japanese voices on, those who always play with the English voice option should probably follow their route, as the voices presented there are actually done fantastically. 

The battle system is based after Hyperdemension Neptunia Victory which is a much needed upgrade compared to the original Hyperdemsion Neptunia but still falls flat compared to other JRPGs out in the market. It lacks the depth that I always look forward to whenever I play a JRPG. That however, can be a good thing for some who are mainly just interested in the story of Re;Birth and just want to breeze through the battling. The whole game is very player friendly and will help you along the way. Introduced in this title is the Remake system. The Remake system allows you to basically “configure” the game to your needs. If you don’t want to face stronger enemies, then you can set them to appear at a weaker state. You can also configure the many dungeons in the game by having them spawn new items and enemies. 

Speaking of the many dungeons you will traverse throughout the land of Gamindustri, they are some of the blandest environments out there. To put it in perspective, they are just a step above Tartarus from Persona 3. Almost every dungeon in their respective location in the game (be it Leanbox, Lowee, etc) are just carbon copies of each other, but with just a different layout. It feels incredibly lazy and depressing having to see the same environment after you just completed the prior dungeon. That feel of laziness is also carried to the monster designs. Some monster designs are inspired from games such as Pac-Man, Dragon Quest and Space Invaders which is cute to see at first, but they decided to, once again, copy and paste the monsters, slap em with a different color pallete and call it a day. It’s borderline insulting really. Character designs however, are very well drawn and just filled with life. Tsunako has done a wonderful job once again.

Sadly, the music department also fails. From a personal standpoint, it is probably the most disappointing aspect of the game. I love my videogame music, especially those from JRPGs, but a majority of the sounds presented in this game are uninspired. While there are some tunes that make me smile a bit (such as Planeptune theme) most of the time, it just made me want to completely turn off the soundtrack in general. 

The premise of Hyperdemsion Neptunia and it’s sequels is still interesting me. Where else can you wage out a console war but through as a goddess of your favorite console manufacturer? Not to mention it has some of the cheekiest writing out there in a videogame. Sadly, the core gameplay and the world it presents doesn’t back up the charm and wit that makes the game stand out from other JRPGs. It would of have probably been better off to present this game as a visual novel. I still have hope in the future of this series. Perhaps one day in Neptune Returns: Hyperdemension Neptunia VIII-2.5 ReMix, Compile Heart will combine the wonderful dialog and mix it with deep gameplay, a beautiful world with a wonderful soundtrack to top it all off. But for the time being, let’s just go get some pudding.