DiaborMagics: Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth 1 PC Version Review

Hello everyone, DiaborMagics here. For those who like short answers, I’ll just go ahead and answer your questions right away:

- Am I new to the Hyperdimension Neptunia series? Yes, Re;Birth 1 was the first Neptunia game I’ve ever played.
- Is the game worth your money? Yes, it is.
- Would I recommend this game to my friends? I already have.
- Would I buy it as a birthday gift? I already have.
- Does this game have any flaws? Yes, all games do.
- What rating would I give this game? I give it a 7.8/10 overall.

Now, if you’re still with me, that probably means you wish to know more. If so, I encourage you to read on. I will try to stay away from any spoilers, but since everyone has their own definition of a ‘spoiler’, this could be quite difficult to do. Therefore, I will tell you something is or could be a spoiler, if I try to explain something that begs for an example.
I will rate and explain every aspect of this game separately and at the very end, I shall give you my conclusion. Happy reading, I hope this review will prove to be useful.

Story: 6/10
Let us start with the story. Since I’m new to the series and haven’t played the original game, I cannot compare these two. As a new player, I enjoyed the story, but I also thought it was lacking.
The story in Re;Birth 1 is not to be taken seriously, as it does not even take itself seriously and characters will often break the fourth wall, just to make that fact perfectly clear. I thought there were funny moments, only slightly emotional ones and it had enough tension to keep me entertained. However, it was full of plot holes and I was left with a great many unanswered questions. That might be me taking the game too seriously, but once I was done with the story, I felt like there should’ve been more. More things should’ve been addressed and explained.

Now, possible spoilers:
The story was not boring to me, but perhaps a little standard. It was your basic good versus evil (or Gameindustri versus piracy in this case), only with a nice setup, funny characters and light-heartedness seemed to be a theme here. The game keeps throwing friendship in your face and although I don’t mind that, I know that some do, so be warned. Furthermore, it had 2 endings and with that a nice enough reason to play a bit extra; though I will cover replayability later.

Characters: 9/10
The characters are, for the most part, great. They are lovable, funny and interact well with each other. If one says something cheesy, chances are the fourth wall will be broken to tell you they know how cheesy it sounded.
I believe there to be at least one character that’s to anyone’s tastes, only you will not find any playable guys in this game. Is that a problem? Not for me, but if it is for you, you might be more interested in Fairy Fencer F instead.
Without DLC, there’s a great number of characters to choose from, should you unlock them all: 16 of them. 19 If we include the DLC. This is a big number for RPG games and for that reason, I think they’ve done an outstanding job. All characters look as unique as they need to, there are clear personality differences, combat styles, you name it.
My only real problem is how all mages are pretty much recycled versions of each other in terms of combos.

I also have to note… The main character, Neptune, does not really appeal to me as the main character. I would rather have seen any of the other CPU’s as main characters. I only like Neptune’s goddess form. Her human form is a bit TOO exaggerated, in my opinion. Funny at times, yes, but overdone. As Noire is my favorite character BY FAR, I would like her as main character a lot better.

Gameplay: 8.5
Because ‘Gameplay’ is quite the topic, I’ll split this one. The grade you can see above is the overall score the gameplay gets from me.

Gameplay – Dialogue: 10/10
As this is not really ‘gameplay’, it does have its own set of controls and I can be quick about it: the Visual Novel style suits the game perfectly and the controls are great. There’s not much else to be said about this.

Gameplay – Acessability: 10/10
The game gives players a map with dungeons, towns and marks events and other things. It’s very intuitive and easy to understand and control. No problems here. Plus, I love to have easy control over where to go and when.

Gameplay – Dungeons: 7/10
The way dungeons work is good in my opinion. You will be able to walk around and engage in fights, avoid fights, set up an advantage for fights, harvest materials, jump to higher surfaces and scan for hidden treasure. Nothing really special here.
The 3 points this loses are because of:
- The fact that continuous scanning for hidden treasure (1 hidden chest per loaded location) get really repetitive and annoying, until you finally gain the ability to see hidden treasure on the map.
- The inability to save everywhere in dungeons, nor even in all dungeons. Some dungeons you will have to get through, or exit, in order to save your progress.
- Movement in dungeons is rather slow. You never get an ability to move quicker and if you want to grind of materials and have to go in and out of dungeons numerous times, this really becomes a bother.

Gameplay – Fights: 9/10
Although the game is not particularly challenging, the fighting system is good fun. You get 3 characters to join the fight at a time, supported by another 3 characters off screen. The fights work turn-based (which I always really like), but unlike some Turn-Based games allow, you will be able to walk around over the battle field. In fact, position gets important in more difficult fights. Keep in mind, however, that characters have their own movement radius, which can be either increased or decreased with buffs/debuffs and gear.
Characters have mostly their own combos and aside from those combos, you will be able to use a variety of things. These include Transformations, Items, switching characters, Combo Finishers/EXE Finishers, EXE Assists, EXE Drive moves, Special Attacks (these include healing, buffing, debuffing, single-target attacks and Area of Effect attacks), Coupling Skills and (sadly only) one Formation skill. So there’s a lot here, also something I really like.
Some stuff that is not explained in-game but that may be worth noting: if you attack an enemy in their side, you will deal more damage and that bonus will be increased further if you can hit them in their backs, but if they hit you from your side or back, you will also receive more damage. Also, every move, items and action has a sort of hidden speed stat. If your turn accumulated to a higher number, you next turn will come up later and vice versa.

Gameplay – Combos: 8/10
The basic combos you get at the start are not set up in the best way. You get Rush, Power and Break Combos, which are all important in their own way. It is up to you to customize your party’s combos as they gain more ‘building blocks’ as I call them and more points to distribute.
I liked this system of building your own combos, but the illusion that you have many options is just that – an illusion. When you gain more powerful moves, or more points to distribute, you will often simply opt for the most powerful moves and the variety end-game is basically non-existent. At the start, don’t bother using Rush attacks. These are weak and for as long as you haven’t reached level 25 with your characters yet, you will not seriously need them. Not using them will also save you valuable points to distribute.

Rush combos are all about hit count. The more hits, the more the EXE Gauge segments fill up and the more powerful attacks can be used, once they are unlocked. Rush attacks gain a bonus to hit count, making sure they will up the aforementioned gauge segments faster than the other 2 combo types, even if the number of hits are equal.

Break combos gain a bonus to guard damage. Since some people do not know how to read guard damage: multiply the hits a move has by the guard damage and that is the total guard damage, if every hit connects. Sometimes it is valuable to break guards and sometimes it is not. Only trying this out for yourself will tell you.

Power combos obviously gain a power bonus and are used for raw damage. The power shown on a move’s stats summary is the total power of the move. If hits don’t connect, this means your move will lose power. So this must be read differently from guard damage.

Furthermore you will have options to use magical attacks, physical attacks, elements and status ailments.

Lastly, two problems I have with the combo system, which actually includes EXE Assists and Finishers, are that 1: sometimes you will have a move that costs more than another move, but both have the same stats, affinity, element and status ailment ability. In these cases, the more costly option will never be used and this is just badly thought out. 2: when you swap characters in and out of your active party, Assist attacks will be forgotten and you have to go back into the customize menu every time to set the right attacks up. Even if you simply switch a character and her partner and you had already set up their Assists to work with each other. The character pair does not change, only who is in the front line and who is assisting the other. This really gets annoying.

Gameplay – EXE Drive moves: 7/10 (skip if you do not want anything specific spoiled):
I really like the fact everyone has their own special move. I just think so much more could have been done with it. There is only 1 Formation Skill, which really is a shame and there are only Coupling Skills with the main character and the little sisters/CPU Candidates. There are plenty of Coupling skills I could think of that are not present in this game. First of all: all CPU’s become friends. I would like all of them to have Coupling Skills with each other. Especially since I hardly even use the main character. Also, quite some options make sense and are not even used. Vert/IF is a good example. But also the main character with IF or Compa.
Another thing is that most EXE moves that require more than 1 segment to use are a waste to use. They are more powerful, yes, but if you require 2 segments and you’re better off using 2 separate EXE moves instead, there is something wrong in my opinion. The moves are great to look at and can sometimes be a little more convenient to use, but that’s about it. Sadly. You will generally just use the character’s own EXE drive and then the next and then the next… and so on. Because that tends to do a lot more damage.
Also, I would have been great if the main character Neptune had a Formation skill with both IF and Compa, or with any setup with 2 other goddess characters. Or even with all 4, if 1 of the goddesses would be paired up with Neptune as a Couple and the rest would be in the front line.

Design (Visuals and Music): 8.3
Allow me to split this one as well.

Music: 8/10
I like the music, but it’s nothing special. I’ve played games with more enjoyable music and I’ve played game with less enjoyable music, but it does its job and it does it well. That is why I did not give it a lower score. And there are about 2 tracks or so that get stuck in my head – which I do not mind for these particular tracks.

Menu’s: 9/10
Standard menu design. Nothing special, but they work well. I would have given it a perfect score if something unique had been done, but then again that may be asking a bit too much.

Character design: 10/10
No complaints whatsoever here. There are characters for everyone here, at least, that’s what I expect. If you want to see my list from favorite to least favorite (which also takes combat, personality, etc into account), then go ahead and uncover the following spoiler:

From most to least favorite: Noire, Purple Sister, White sister Ram, White sister Rom, Nepgear, Purple Heart, Vert, MarvelousAQL, Iris Heart, Plutia, Falcom, Blanc, Uni, Green Heart, Histoire, MAGES., Rom, Ram, Black sister, Tekken, Black Heart, Neptune, White Heart, Yellow Heart, Compa, Cyber Connect 2, IF, Broccoli, Peashy

Dungeon design: 7/10
I understand the graphics are not perfect, but I don’t mind that, so this is not where the score comes from. It’s simply that many designs are re-used a tad too much and there was no environment that totally blew me away (design-wise, not graphics-wise). I like the Volcano design the best, but this hardly makes up for everything.

Enemy design: 7/10
The enemies never really impressed me, design-wise. Some were quite funny though, so those score points. But I really hoped for more badass-looking monsters as I progressed through the story, but the game did not deliver in that regard.

Attack visuals: 9/10
I won’t count the total number of attacks here, but I think the attacks mostly look very satisfying. Aside from some special attacks that have no special little ‘scenes’. Also, worth noting, you can skip scenes and attack animations, which is a big plus when grinding.

Voice Acting: 6.5
I’ll split this once again… therefore, it is not part of the ‘Design’ explanation.

Japanese Voice Acting: 9/10
In my opinion, the Japanese voices are the way to go. The game must be experienced at least once with the use of these voices, as they really give the characters more depth and character, even if it’s only from hearing them in the way they are intended. It should come as no surprise that I left it on Japanese 95% of the time.

English Voice Acting: 4/10
Some people are going to agree with me, other are not. Well, first of all, a huge amount of scenes have no English VA to begin with. This is really a shame. But on top of that, I’m not a fan of most of the English voices. Why not? It sounds like the English Voice Actors are trying too hard and fail because of that, for the most part. The EVA sounds forced and unnatural. And for quite some characters, including the main character Neptune, I feel the English voices actually change their personalities – and not in a good way.
Neptune is supposed to be cheerful and high-spirited; making jokes all the time, but in a cute way. In English, however, she becomes more sarcastic than anything else, her voice is not cute anymore and she doesn’t sounds high-spirited anymore, either. A 180 degree turn in her personality in my opinion.

Still, I’m afraid I may be a little bit biased. This is because my favorite character by far really changes her personality between English and Japanese and from the adorable yet serious character she really is, she becomes obnoxious, haughty and very adept at making my ears bleed. This is my most important reason to leave the voices on Japanese, because that is the way they are intended and they all sound so much better. And I adore my favorite character’s Japanese voice.

Customizability/Unlockables: 7/10
Something I like about RPG games in general, is customizing characters. It’s my addiction. And if I cannot create my own characters, then I like to have many options to change my characters’ appearance to my heart’s content. This game did deliver mostly in terms of content. There’s a lot of outfits and accessories. Only… not for all characters and getting all of these is a real bother.
Now you probably ask: do you need everything? No. But there’s no way to preview an outfit before buying it, so in a way, yes. Yes, you need everything, IF you want to make good choices. And this is where it gets on my nerves, just like in so many RPG games as well: the outfits and accessories that are purely meant for aesthetic purposes, are way too hard to obtain. You must first obtain plans for most of them, then grind for materials to develop the plans and then you still have to buy them with money, with quite some outfits and accessories actually hurting your wallet. Why?! I do not get this. It extends playtime, sure, but if I want my characters took look a certain way, then allow me to do so, if the options are there, for as long as possible! As things are, I did unlock everything. I finished the game in about 40 hours, I took my time. Only when I clocked in at around 140 hours, did I have every character looking the way I wanted them to look. And I finished playing after 150 hours. This means that for a huge chunk of the game, my characters did not look the way I wanted them to look, while customizing the characters is clearly a feature they want you to use. On top of that, many, many, many accessories will never see any use in my game. I have them purely for completion’s sake and because there’s no preview feature before going through such lengths to getting them. There is a preview… after you’ve found, developed and bought it.

I liked the way my characters eventually looked, but it was just such a hassle to get them to look that way, for such a short amount of time. A real harsh reality for me.

On another note: the 2 endings were nice ‘unlockables’ and so were the hidden characters. I especially liked they started in level 1. With proper planning before unlocking them, this allows you to experience the game again from the start, but with a different team.

Replay value: 8/10
Honestly, the score is this high because the game basically forces you to play again and again and again on new game +. After you beat the game, everything except for your party carries over. But levels, items, previously hidden things that you uncovered, items, you name it – all of that carries over. And I have no problem playing the game again. In fact, I’ve started doing so with an audience of 1 person watching me. The game is engaging enough to play multiple times.

However, an idea I even sent to Idea Factory International (which may be a naïve move, but whatever), is something more RPG’s could definitely benefit from, but especially this game. Basically I could call it a New Game -. The game already has New Game +, but that is merely meant to unlock things you haven’t yet unlocked. It does not offer much variety. Characters are sometimes obtained late in the story and I already explained the pain of unlocking outfits and such.
What I would very much like to see, is an option to start again from level 1, with any unlocked characters, outfits and accessories. Obviously, nothing that gives characters real buffs, like armors and weapons, although players could decide for themselves if and when to use that. But for unlocking purposes, New Game+ is great, but to really experience the game to its fullest with all possible characters, the New Game- would be the best solution. Players would finally have a real reason to unlock outfits, as they will be able to enjoy them for longer on new game- and that goes for the characters as well. As things are in the game now, you will only have a full roster in the last chapter of the story. This is such a shame. I wish they would be available from the start, in level 1, after unlocking them, if I chose to play something like New Game-, which sadly, does not exist. But the huge cast and the pile of outfits and accessories is perfect to use with a system like this and the replayability would become a solid 10/10 in my opinion.

Game stability: 9/10
Before everyone gets excited, I may not have had many problems at all; others have reported problems in the past. So please, take my 9 here with a grain of salt. It may help that I run this game on a Gaming Laptop. A laptop, yes, but an above average one.
So why not a 10? Well, I encountered 2 minor bugs and a slight incompatibility with my AMD Graphics Card.
Bug 1: I was unable to cure the ‘virus’ status ailment 90% of the time.
Bug 2: There were 2 points in the game, in every cycle of the game, where skipping the dialogue froze the game up so I had to reload. Menus were still available, but on an otherwise black screen with no sound. Save from time to time and you’ll be fine.

The incompatibility results in screen tearing. From not so bad, to horrible. What I had to do was set the game to windowed and tweak a few driver settings. If you wish to know more about this, feel free to message me. Still, for my 150+ hours of playing this game, I generally had no problem whatsoever.

DLC: 7/10
First of all: the DLC is cheap. No reason not to add it. But is it good? Well, the 3 characters are nice enough and 1 of them even appears in the story (maybe should have been in the base game to start with?). However, they are very Over Powered and make the game too easy. I would suggest not to use them until after your first play through (story cycle).
The free content is free content. No problem there, but it only saves you some in-game money and adds 1 fight that gives you an OP weapon.
The additional content packs are well worth it if you enjoyed the game. Level cap gets raised to 999 and the most difficult challenges in the entire game will be waiting for you once you get there. No reason not to add this DLC immediately, unless you first wish to defeat every enemy at least once before growing past the level cap. I kept it turned off in my first play through and I’m happy with that decision.
Also, in my opinion the game would have benefitted from a 20th character, namely the good Arfoire we get to see in the true ending.

Fun factor/Conclusion: 9/10
I simply had a blast playing this game. At times I was really annoyed by the grind for cosmetics, the lack of Coupling and Formation skills where I thought they made a lot of sense, plot holes and other flaws. But still, the fun I had way outclasses the annoyances and I still grant this game a 9 for fun. This is because of the nice cast, fun gameplay, nice scenes, funny dialogue, intuitive design and nice Japanese voices.