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Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth1
PlayStation Vita
Released On: Aug 26, 2014
69
7.8
Where to Buy
Where to Buy
All Platforms
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 16 Critic Reviews
69
38% Positive
6 Reviews
6 Reviews
63% Mixed
10 Reviews
10 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 16 Critic Reviews
69
38% Positive
6 Reviews
6 Reviews
63% Mixed
10 Reviews
10 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
RE;Birth 1 is a damned fine JRPG. It's silly, it's charming and it's irreverent, but it's also a package that's been wrapped up in a clever, rich combat system. This was the start that the Hyperdimension Neptunia franchise deserved.
Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth1 is a light hearted RPG that allows you to shut down your brain, without ever losing its challenge.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 119 User Ratings
7.8
74% Positive
88 Ratings
88 Ratings
11% Mixed
13 Ratings
13 Ratings
15% Negative
18 Ratings
18 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 119 User Ratings
7.8
74% Positive
88 Ratings
88 Ratings
11% Mixed
13 Ratings
13 Ratings
15% Negative
18 Ratings
18 Ratings
Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;birth 1 is the best place to start in the Neptunia series. This title retells the story of the original Hyperdimension Neptunia, but with a refined engine and combat system in a handheld format. Re;birth 1 offers an enjoyable game experience both to completionists and to those who just want to play through the story, and offers ample player training to explain the complexities of its battle and character customization options.
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PlayStation Vita
[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]
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PlayStation Vita
You can get away with a lot if you've got a sense of humour, and if there's one thing that Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth1 has, it's a sense of humour. Admittedly, it's a sense of humour that will appeal only to a very specific subset of the gaming population, but if you are one of those people, your game of the year isn't just here, it's available to take with you everywhere.
Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth 1 does not fix all the problems of the original release, but is surely a more compelling RPG than the one we played back in 2010.
The great news here is it is available on PS Vita, since the additions are not many. Still, it's a good game, and a great choice if it's your first game of the franchise.
It’s still enjoyable and super adorable, which makes it worth the playthrough if you’re looking for light, easy fun.
It's as though a bunch of gamers found a way to program games using gameplay alone...
The brilliance of all three HN RPGs, beyond the unbelievable good localization and charming character design, is the way their comic/critical approach to gaming carries over into the actual game. Sounds simple, but if that were true, Neptunia wouldn't be as remarkable as it is.
As just one small example:
Lots of games poke fun at the numerous gaming traditions that exist more for nostalgia or familiarity's sake than for the game's sake, and many break through the 4th wall to do it. Neptunia is so bloody cool because it doesn't just complain or joke about it, it addresses the problems in the gameplay itself, and fixes them in style.
This game fills SO many JRPG potholes, like the uselessness of characters who aren't in your frontline (not useless anymore), the empty time traveling with nothing in particular to do except walk (find that secret chest with yer chest...finder), difficulty spikes and valleys (adjustable through gameplay, NOT the options menu, in real time), slogging through places with weak enemies and having to kill tons of weakling-enemies and getting nothing in return (use symbol attacks to hear them without a fight, or make them stronger, or replace them with powerful enemies, &c. Up to you), grinding to adjust the difficulty (grinding is not for experience in this game. it's for fun and profit, and almost completely optional. :), &c, &c, &c. I could go on, but it would become spoilery...
Neptunia fixes all these problems (and many more) effortlessly, as well as letting u customize not only your appearance and skills and the immediate experience, but the entire game world. And i don't mean colors or textures, i mean specific, practical, gameplay details. (For example, if halfway through the game you decide you aren't really gamer, but rather a casual game-adjacent type. No problemo. Go pick up a few Mysterious Glow Whatevers, and lower the difficulty of the enemies. If it's too easy, make make them stronger. You can also apply this just to a dungeon, add powerful enemies, change the items available, and so on. And once these options are open, you they stay open.)
Through a hunt & gather type crafting system, where you acquire plans then use them to make stuff from dungeons and physics modifications (jumping higher, for example) you can basically adjust, change, flip, remove, add, make and improve basically everything of relevance. If you like to grind, you can, if you don't, you can check you Nepedia for the location of the item or enemy yer hunting, and have it done in a couple minutes.
And if you don't want to grind at all, you basically don't have to. For example, if you want a spiffy new sword, you can get a slightly more spiffy one by checking your plans, and making a spiffy new sword, which will then be added to the store (you also do this for healing items, accessories, armor, outfits, &c.). But you can also sell all the ingredients needed to make that sword and but a manufactured sword in the store.
Basically, if Bioware and Telltale are the inevitable future of Choose Your Own Adventure books, Nep is more like "Make your own adventure". If it wasn't all girls and vaguely sci-fi, the amount of goofing and laughter and metaphysical awareness would remind me of playing p&p rpgs in my room as an 8yr old.
Combat it strealined and colorful, (and neptune sings the FF victory song when she wins a battle sometimes). If you've ever played BoF: Dragon Quarter (a truly wonderful little ps2 rpg), and xenosaga 1-3 (arguably the best sci-fi story in gaming history), HN's fighting is like a perfect mix of these two. It's streamlined and strategic, and works perfectly well, all the time.
I can't wait to see what's new in HNRb2...
There's so much in these games that i'm leaving critical features out, but...take that as more praise from someone who's just spent 80 hrs with Nep and Compa and Iffy.
(And it's totally, subtly yuri, which i personally appreciate as a fan of the genre. I mean, c'mon, Who doesn't love chaste teenage lesbians falling into melodramatic secret romances in elaborate convent schools? Maria-sama is watching you panic, strawberry. :)
I'm just finishing pt1 and i'm downloading pt2 to my vita right now. It's been a while since i spent 80 hrs on a game and immediately started the sequel when i finished it. And to be honest, i usually don't much like funny games (or music). I think comedy is almost always dated, whereas tragedy and suspense are passion are usually timeless. Somehow, NepNep puts them all in one place, and keeps it compelling. i.e.: I really hope **** marriage is legal in Leanbox, cuz Iffy and Lady Vert would be the BEST moms.
(That kind of thing.)
Work that lily rank, Otome-chant
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PlayStation Vita
As someone who played the original version of hyperdimension neptunia - yes, the ps3 version which is considered one of the worst rpgs on the ps3 - this is definitely a welcome remake of the original with basically everything being improved: combat is the same from second onward (minus the AP bar), controls are better, story is linear but more **** the game is harder too.
However, despite loving this game a lot, I have some big gripes with it that really turns me off. The main gimmick of this remake is the...remake system, which is basically the crafting system that allows you to craft dungeons, weapons, items and etc. The system isn't too bad but what really ruins it, is a total lack of item list that could help you track it, resolving in using internet most of the time: do you need a magical stone? I'll have to look the enemy list. No enemy currently drops it? Then you need to explore each dungeon twice because of the harvest shift plan that basically changes the layout of the items. It would've been so easy, if they added an item list but alas it's all about rng and "net surfing" in order to find your items.
Another small issue is how the game is unstable (my version is the VITA oen). Surely better than the ps3 version but I constantly have lagging issues even when there's not much happening, without mentioning when exe skill or super skills are used. Also the game is way harder: even when I'm levelled properly and I got the best armor or weapon available, some enemies can still do quite a lot of damage and unfortunately spells cost a lot of sp to use. Get ready to stock items!
And last but not least, the game heavily recycles itself ad nauseam it's unbelievable: a lot of the dungeons are literally the same, maybe slightly bigger or with different enemies, and EVEN the enemies are often recycled! I think they went with quantity over quality because a lot of dungeons are literally the same, not even mirrored, and they don't look so great. Unfortunately because of a lack of item list, you'll be forced to check all of them anyway and unlock every dungeon for managing to obtain the items required for most of your content (including recruiting the candidates). This is quite a big issue and while the game is "cheap" than most jrpgs, I expected anything but this.
In all honesty, though this game is just pretty good despite the flaws, as it fixes everything that the original did (translation: EVERYTHING) and makes it a more enjoyable game to play. Neptunia games aren't masterpieces but they're generally fun games, and this one isn't any less fun that that.
However if you dislike fanservice, all-girl cast, anime tropes and all that stuff, you might just avoid it entirely.
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PlayStation Vita
Campy, grindy and full of fan service, Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth 1 is a good time if you take the game as seriously as it takes itself.
Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth 1 (HDNR;B1) is the remake to the 2010 Playstation 3 game Hyperdimension Neptunia. The first thing you'll note upon starting a new game is that the game doesn't take itself too seriously: the plot revolves around four goddesses representing different game companies attempting to best one another in a never-ending conflict known as the Console War. Each of the four nations of the world, Gamindustri, are named after game consoles and most of their citizens are personified video game developers and publishers. The game's absurdity continues in this fashion, and is chock full of Internet memes, video game references and fourth-wall breaking. Further adding to the game's campiness are regular doses of fan service. While nothing too extreme, there are quite a few panty shots and most, if not every, playable character has a swimsuit costume to unlock.
Getting into the game play of HDNR;B1: combat is solid but can get repetitive, especially with the mandatory grinding the game forces on you. While every character has special moves that draw from their respective SP pool, the main attraction is the combo system implemented for your "standard" attacks: after an initial strike, you choose from rush, power or break attacks up to three times per turn and in any combination. Rush attacks hit multiple times and fill you EXE. gage (or super meter) faster than the others, power attacks do the most damage as possible while break attacks deal heavy damage to an enemies guard. Breaking an enemy's guard will increase the damage they take until their guard partially refills on their next turn. This system keeps the player interested in combat, alleviating a common problem in most JRPGs where the player simply hammers X until they've won. In addition, your character can perform a combo finisher once certain segments of the EXE. gage are filled (this does not deplete the gage) and use EXE. Drives that are the game's super moves, dealing massive damage to enemies in its radius at the cost of some of the EXE. gage.
Almost as frequent as the combat is the game's dialogue segments. It's tempting to call this game part visual novel due to its lengthy and frequent conversations, however this also brings up another major part of the game: voice acting. Around half of the conversations are voiced, and in this game that means hours of voiced dialogue. Character voices are a bit hit and miss; some characters' voices work well, while others are kind of iffy (get it? 'cause one of the characters is ****...). The main character's voice in particular always sounds sarcastic which is odd given that she's supposed to be the clueless, ditzy heroine. Another oddity is Noire, whose voice sounds like it was recorded with a different quality than the rest of the cast.
As previously mentioned, the game forces some mandatory grinding. This is because the game's bosses are gigantic difficulty spikes, often throwing two bosses at you back to back with no time to heal or save in between. Because of this, you'd have to grind out around five levels per dungeon in order to stand a chance during the boss fight(s). During my playthrough, I found a dungeon with fairly easy enemies that gave outrageous amounts of experience (appropriately called Whales) and ground on them while watching television. This made it so I could breeze through most of the game's chapters, but still took hours of my time to do. However HDNR;B1 is not without mercy and you can unlock a way to make the game easier (or harder if you're a masochist) and gain more experience from fights fairly early in the game, easing up on both the brutal boss fights and chore of grinding somewhat.
Aside from the major issues regarding the game, its graphics are standard for the Vita (that is to say they're above average among the rest of the handheld market), load times were short and, while I did experience slow down twice in my playthrough, the game runs smoothly. Something the game lacks is replay value: there are multiple endings, however the point where those endings branch is late enough in the game that one can simply make multiple saves and progress towards each ending on each slot rather than replay the whole game.
In short, Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth 1 is fun as long as you're not looking for a deep or engrossing title. While its repetitive grinding, arduous boss fights and lack of replay value may bog it down, if you can enjoy the campy story, engaging battle system and (mostly) well done voice acting this game is well worth your time and money.
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PlayStation Vita
The combat system is nothing new or impressive and the storyline is annoying SUPAH KAWAII animu crap. I am a nerd and enjoy me some Japanese culture, but the super cutesy stuff annoys the hell out of me and that is what the game is.
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PlayStation Vita
Hate to do this to the game that got me into this series, but after completing my journey, it is painfully transparent as to how bad this game's mechanics are. They are designed to hold your hand and make it too easy. Plain and simple. Even worse, if you start by platinuming Re;Birth1 and THEN the original, you'll realize two things:
The original has a better story and they have a better OST. You cannot understand the disheartening feeling when the game that got you into their franchise, was actually a painstakingly hollow and shallow remake that guts out the good story bits and keeps in the juvenile bits. The awful parts. It actually somewhat changes the original story too.
Nope, this is sadly no longer a game I'd recommend.
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PlayStation Vita
Summary Gamindustri: One of many parallel universes protected by four goddesses known as CPUs. Long ago, these four CPUs engaged in a war for supremacy known as the War of the Guardians. However, this war weakened their protective hold on the world inhabited by their people, and in turn it was flooded by monsters under the influence of an indivi...
Rated T
for Teen
Platforms:
- PlayStation Vita
- PC
- Nintendo Switch
Initial Release Date: Aug 26, 2014
Developer:
- Felistella
Publisher: Idea Factory
Genres:
