Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth1 - PlayStation Vita

To preface, I've not played the original Hyperdimension Neptunia that was released for the PS3, but I've read on all accounts this game is superior to the original in all aspects. For a better comparison on my part, if you've played Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory, the last release for the PS3 then this game will feel very familiar. Having put in 40+ hours and completed it, I can say that it mirrors HNV on many aspects, both the good and (unfortunately) the bad.As noted, this game is a big satire of the gaming industry, from the world name being an amalgamation of the words "Game Industry", to each CPU representing one of the big 3 gaming consoles (PS, Xbox, Nintendo), and then Neptune. I believe Neptune is based off an old Sega console that either was scrapped, or sold poorly, but another take of irony if you think about it considering she's the main character. I think this also ties into part of the plot, as the game's opening scene has the other CPUs trying to kill Neptune, which results in Neptune getting amnesia. Though the overall plot is lacking as I mentioned, I'll refrain from anything else about the story, except to say that the character interactions from beginning to end are hilarious, and you'll find them routinely breaking the "fourth wall", even directly mentioning that it's a remake.Though it's been some time since I've finished HDN (I bought it on release and finished it over a year ago), the battle system is a direct copy of HDN's. There's the same Symbol (preemptive) and Suprise (ambush) attacks, and the same premise of the Rush/Power/Break attacks. It's still turn based, and each character has a specified range they can move around the field (which ties to the Move stat). In this manner you can split the girls up to prevent area of effect attacks, or position them so they can hit more than one enemy during their attack phase. Weapons have varying attack ranges, so positioning is a large part of strategy as you'll often find yourself always trying to put yourself in position to attack all the enemies at once. There is that balance of wanting to hit as many enemies at once, but also the consideration that doing so will put the girls close and can in turn lead to them getting slapped by the larger area attacks.As part of the cons, I did find that the battles can get quite repetitive, much as HDN ended up. Of course this is just me, but upon entering the dungeon I found myself spamming the Rush attacks to build the EXE gauge (which allows for "finishing moves" after attack sequences, or allows for significantly more powerful attacks that can be used to expend the EXE gauge). After building it up, the battles then turned into spamming the Break attacks (to remove the enemy Guard Gauge), and then pummeling with Power attacks (which are the strongest moves and shine when the enemy has gotten their Guard broken). You can mix it up with special attacks, but at the beginning of the game you'll find the special attacks take a considerable chunk of your SP, and the items to replenish are rather expensive, so due to this I didn't find them useful until late game where I could have Game Discs supplement recovery, or during boss battles.I will say at least that the game's initial difficulty is quite high. Between the costly recovery items to the lack of SP and some of the later battle features unavailable I found myself being wiped out more than I remember from HDN. I found myself saving before entering every dungeon, not only to account for the boss battles, but because even some of the enemies would be strong enough to kill me. And this isn't even taking into account the Risky/Tough/Dangerous enemies, which are considerably tougher. But they don't aggro on the field, and as such you can easily avoid them, but what RPG player doesn't find themselves tackling these guys way underleveled just to see if they can win? Needless to say, save often.Regarding the environments, again much like HDN, are very repetitive, and some dungeons are downright duplicates of previous ones, just with a different palate of enemies and treasure locations, and sometimes a different entrance/exit. They're vibrant, but it's disappointing that they opted to also use this same design logic in the remake. For what it's worth though, most RPGs suffer from repetition problems of sorts, due to the repetitive nature of the battle, and the possibility to grind to make yourself overpowered to plow through anything. Overpowering probably won't be a huge issue on this game though, unless you're farming the Tough enemies it'll take a long time to reach the level cap naturally. So that's a plus for this game.This game does also keep the Game Disc creation system, which allows you to create accessories that bestow various enhancements on your character to aid with the difficulty of the game. There's a plethora of choices, from damage reduction to HP/SP recovery, negative status negation, the list goes on. You can find these via completing quests, from enemies or even from dungeon treasures so this will add some variety to each character.One positive feature to the game is the Plan system, which takes the place of the Scout System HDN had. With the right combination of materials, you can find the Plans scattered through the world to create better items, accessories, weapons, etc. You can also tweak some of the mechanics of the game, to make enemies stronger or weaker on the fly, change what you get from dungeon treasures and other things. Some of these Plans are tough to find as well, which will also add the enjoyment factor.I also found the voice acting to be superb as well. Compa in particular I thought was done perfectly, and found myself replaying her parts because of how well they were done. I actually often found myself replaying alot of the scenes, and I didn't find myself skipping any voice scenes, and like HDN, I'm playing through the story again because of how great the voice acting is. Unfortunately not all the scenes have voices, but the ones that do are a real treat.Overall, if you're a fan of RPGs, you would be disservicing yourself to not play this game. Even on the Vita where there's plenty of RPGs, this is a standout title in my opinion.

While I have not played the original PS3 game, I watched a full playthrough of it on YouTube and could easily tell how bad it was. Watching the battles became so tedious and boring that I started to skip through most of them. Not to mention, the overuse of the "silly" music in cut-scenes...This was my first Hyperdimension Neptunia game, and my only previous experience with the series was the anime, what I watched of the original PS3 game, and what little I've seen of the rest of the series.Character-wise, the cast is quite diverse. There's definitely a character for everybody. Just keep in mind that it's an all-female cast, with only a few male NPCs.The music is good, but frankly, I'm a bit disappointed that some of the better themes from the original lost their way to this remake. The Lowee snowfield music ("White Time", I think it was called) is one of them. It seems like some of the music was rearranged from the first game, while other tracks were recycled from later games. I don't have too much of a problem with this, but I wish there were more battle themes, especially for normal enemies.The voice work is also quite good, and right off the bat, we got three reputable voice actresses: Melissa Fahn (Neptune), Christina Vee (Compa) and Kate Higgins (IF). My only problem is that only about half of the cut-scenes have English voice acting. If you choose to use the Japanese voices (which aren't bad either), you'll find that practically all the cut-scenes are voiced. Plus, the Japanese voice option has one more clip for everybody's jump, if you care about that.The story by itself isn't anything to write home about, but the whole atmosphere it creates with all the references to games, anime and manga change this. The story is set in Gamindustry with four lands ruled by the goddesses who essentially represent major game companies. At the very beginning of the story, Neptune, whose name comes from the unreleased Sega console, Sega Neptune, is knocked out of the Console War by the other three goddesses, Noire (Playstation/Sony), Blanc (Wii/Nintendo), and Vert (Xbox/Microsoft). She loses her memories (yet strangely knows a whoooole lot...), and is rescued by Compa (Compile Heart's representative). From here, Compa and Neptune set out to attempt to recover her memories and unseal the tome, Histoire.The dialogue is comedic and throws references and almost any chance it gets.The graphics aren't bad, but aren't great either. Put simply, they get the job done, they represent what they are trying to.That said, the artwork in the cut-scenes is great. Not only is it beautifully drawn, but the characters are animated, despite being in a visual novel style. The characters are even animated to show breathing and subtle head movements. It's really incredible to look at, and it's awesome that the artist had so much attention to tiny details like that. It's not choppy either; it's practically butter-smooth. It's something you have to see to believe, but trust me, it's awesome.The gameplay is great, and definitely one of the best things about this game. While the battles are turn based, you are able to move around and position yourself to attack enemies. You can customize your attack combos as well. In these combos, you can set up to nine attacks (3 rush, 3 power, 3 break), and up to four EX attacks that you obtain as your level increases. Naturally, there are also special moves you can utilize. You can only bring three party members into battle, but you can also pair them up with three more members and switch out as needed (it takes a turn, though).The dungeons, on the other hand... you'll probably be disappointed in. While at first, it may seem like you are encountering a fresh, new dungeon all the time, you will soon find that the designs get recycled frequently. The only things that change in these recycled dungeons are the items and enemies you encounter. Had this one issue not been present, I would have given this game a higher rating. They really went for quantity over quality here.The "Plan" system is worth noting. It functions not only as an item crafting system, but also as a way to modify how the game works, to a certain extent. For example, you can change the enemies and items that appear in dungeons, weaken or strengthen the enemies, or reveal all hidden treasures.There is some DLC for this game, but on the bright side, it is very cheap. It only cost me $6 to get all of it. There are three packs that increase your level cap by 300 (each) and add new dungeons, as well as three characters: Plutia, Peashy, and Histoire.The DLC characters are all pretty useful, especially Plutia and Histoire. Peashy, not as much, but she still has her use early on if you need her.Something to note is that initially, there were bugs with the voices of Plutia and Peashy. Plutia had the jumping voice clips from Noire, and Peashy and the battle voice clips from Nepgear. This has recently been fixed as of the 1.01 update.To conclude, this is a great game to add to your Vita library. The fun gameplay and dialogue really add to this game, and it's worth going through multiple times to tackle all of the challenges it has to offer. If this game had a unique design for every dungeon, I would have given this five stars, but since they are recycled too frequently, I just can't give it that many.

So far I haven't gotten extremely far into the game only about ~2 hours of playtime total, and I usually spend the time to read the story and do side quests if there is any or level up my characters. The game looks beautiful on the PS Vita and that came as a pleasant surprise while I explored the game and saw cut scenes. They were very crisp and the colors were fantastic. The story line has quite a bit of stupid-funny gags that pop up every so often to keep you entertained and the battle system is great. I like the tutorials, only con I could think of so far was that I felt the characters in the beginning were very weak and they didn't really explain how to get stronger equipment so I actually ended up dying and had to replay a portion of the game because save points in the middle of dungeons are almost non-existent, as in, there's only 1 I've seen in any dungeons so far which is usually near the very end of the dungeon. So if you die you're pretty much back to before the dungeon if you'd remembered to save.So a tip for a newcomer is save very often so you don't get screwed, because in the middle of a dungeon the only way to save is at a save point.

It was a bit pricey but what can you do at a time like this. Just glad I found a seller that was legit & straight. It came in a like new condition, like who ever had it was a clean & responsible gamer, greatly appreciated 💛👍✨. So I tested it and everything seems aok with no worries in sight. Now I can finally relax knowing that my set is completed for my PlayStation Vita's nep nep material 🙂 thx again & God bless ✌️✨ *I will most definitely buy from this vendor again in the future for my Vita needs*

Quite fun to play and hard to master. Didn't expect this one to have so much comic relief. But it was still a good buy and will pose a good challenge.

Granddaughter is very pleased

Very good, exactly as described.

A completely under-rated gem of a game, Re;Birth1 takes everything I loved about videogames in the 80s and 90s (non-sensical, fun, laughable story and characters) and brought it to a 21st Century RPG which is beautiful to look at and tremendously fun to play.The combat system is amazing, the crafting system is deep (as is the armoring and items system), the story is fun and makes little sense. The game doesn't take itself too seriously, making constant references to the fact that it's a remake, and that they are indeed in a video game.A lot of the negativity in the specialized press was due to fan-service (when female characters pander to men, showing scantily clad women and sexual innuendo in the dialogue), but really, that's a very rare instance. I've been playing this game for 17 game-hours (so around 20 hours with deaths included), and there have been about 5 instances of fan service. I really think that the person who reviewed this at IGN didn't even really get that far into the game.All in all, if you like a fun RPG with a light-hearted approach to an often too-serious genre, and in a world of definitely-too-serious video games, then Re;Birth1 is definitely for you.

Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth1 - PlayStation Vita amazing game looks great its funny and the console war story is great as this is my first time with the series , plus great service i ordered it on the 23rd at 5pm and got it on the 24th . Games like these are what make the vita the best handheld around but be warned this game does not work with the PSTV i sent a message to the devs and they said that rebirth 2 and 3 do & will but there are no plans of going back and making this game work so in the US & Canada only the vita plays it . love it