Hyperdimension Neptunia Re Birth Trilogy

[Eugene Aubry]

In a last-minute update, Idea Factory International has announced the Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth trilogy will no longer arrive on the Switch eShop here in the West on 21st May 2024 (aka today). The game has been "postponed until further notice" and more details will be shared at a later date.

"As previously announced, the Neptunia Re;Birth series was set to release digitally on the Nintendo eShop on May 21. We regrettably announce that the digital release for Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth 1, Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth 2 Sisters Generation, and Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth3 V Generation is postponed until further notice. Further details will be provided at a later date."

The team has shared the first details about this trilogy in a PR. The same collection will also be getting a physical release on the Switch in Japan this May, but there's no mention of this being made available locally right now.

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Liam is a news writer and reviewer for Nintendo Life and Pure Xbox. He's been writing about games for more than 15 years and is a lifelong fan of Mario and Master Chief. He's also got a soft spot for Sonic the Hedgehog.

Neptunia mk2 is still my favorite in the series to this day for having my favorite gameplay (especially with the AP system feature), and while I still had some enjoyment with Re;Birth 2, the remake just wasn't as good to me.

These are 3 of my faviote video games ever. Not just that, but video games have been a big part of my life for as long as I can remember, and playing these 3 games after picking them up on a Steam sale stand as some of the most fun and raw enjoyment I've ever gotten from the media.

I would highly, highly recommend that most people ... skip them. I mean, objectively they are pretty bad! Bare-bones gameplay, repetitive, and humor you are either going to love or hate, with much higher likelihood of the latter.

But if you don't take games too seriously and can laugh at very simple, campy shots taken at the game industry, there is so much fun to be had here. The English voice cast is ... like, almost offensively good. It's better then most high budget English language anime adaptations, working with a script that makes Madam Web look like gold most of the time.

@DanijoEX-the-Pierrot it's typical generic jrpg stuff.
So so many generic games where they just re-use boring old game engines (with floaty physics and where characters don't even really interact with the environment and everything is bland) and then rely entirely on cute character art so the otakus will buy.

Nothing about these games make sense to me. They have a surprisingly big, dedicated fan base, and a pretty consistent release schedule. Yet I have heard some terrible things about these games. Someone explain!

I loved these on the Vita. Bright and breezy (mostly), and I found them to be strangely compelling and addictive at the time. Finding chips which enable you to "break" the game is fun, and it's one of those games where the damage numbers go sky high in the end. Also, the real time dungeon mini games are lovely, where you send a party out, and then come back later on to see how they did. It appears that time has not been kind in relation to how these games are perceived now, but I for one will look forward to revisiting them.

I wouldn't even say the gameplay is BAD ... it's just basic and repetitive. But the flip side of that is that it's simple and low key. Numbers go up! Lights flash! Everyone gets increasingly ridiculous powers with increasingly ridiculous animations!

I'd have loved to see the original games on the Switch, these are remakes if I recall correctly but I probably don't because there are like 9234097 remakes of remakes in this series and I don't even know what I don't know in terms of which ones to play first

Nice to see these games coming to Switch in general and even personally since I wanted to eventually give this series a try!
@HeadPirate Wouldn't be surprised if I were one of those who would enjoy them to at least some extent because of what you mentioned despite the overall basic and repetitive gameplay (and excluding the English voices, but that's just because I'd go for the Japanese ones if available).

@HeadPirate I think you're kinda underselling the series. The only thing I can truly say is awful about Neptunia is that all of the main line games, from 1 to VII, have terrible dungeons that repeat on an on. Like the exact same environmental asset lay out for the 15th time recycled under a shiny new name, and it still feels like a tutorial level 50 hours in.

As for everything else, They're no final fantasy or Secret of Mana, but combat feels fine and snappy, and writing and character designs are cute and funny enough to make you forget the dungeons are a form of reputation torture. Like, moe' diabetes level cute.
And what are you doing listening to the dub? The subs are the real meat in the visual novel segments as that's where the personality of the characters really shine and they don't skip any lines like they do in the dub.

@imadeanaccount Neptune is an incredibly fun character, I could listen to her babble all day. A lot of the humor relies on references to video games. Also the music is incredible. That's about it. They should probably just be visual novels. I really like them, but objectively they're a solid 6/10. If you don't like anime weebiness, they should probably be skipped in favor of RPGs with more to offer.

@geo-shifter Similar story here: thought the concept was great, and that it had tons of potential for a fun story and interesting environments... instead, it's just incredibly generic and repetitive, with each "planet" having the exact same levels (Generic Warehouse #1). Couldn't they have made the Wii planet colourful and kiddy, and the Xbox planet look like Gears of War or something? This should have been ripe for parody!
The difficulty is also broken, at least in the Re;Birth version. (Requires lots of grinding, unless you use the DLC characters, one of which is invincible because her stats are so much higher than the enemies'.)
I probably got about as far as you did before shelving it.

Okay, more seriously, there's a lot of silly dialogue, as well as a lot of parodies and references. The protagonist is a total goofball, and her ramblings can be considered hilarious and charming, or perhaps annoying. That's really the thing: the game lives or dies based on the humour of its writing.

Gameplay is a pretty basic turn-based JRPG, except you can move around freely during your turn, and try to line up your attacks to hit multiple enemies at once- it's kind of reminiscent of Quest 64 in that regard. But unfortunately, there are only 4 dungeons, and they keep showing up on each new planet you visit. And I don't mean 4 dungeon themes, where you keep seeing unique dungeon layouts reusing the same canyon graphics or whatever. I mean it's literally the same layout.

The Japanese cast is also great, but you would miss out on the opportunity to hear a very self aware and meta character make overtly sexualized comments in the same voice as English Hello Kitty! I mean the games might be worth it for that alone!

Although in all seriousness, this is an example of where a localization team just NAILS it. The jokes are almost all based around either gaming culture or work culture, and as someone who has lived in and worked in the gaming industry both in Japan and NA, I would say the jokes land a lot better if you've experienced the culture first hand. The English team did a great job of retooling a lot of the work culture stuff that would seem a bit off in the West while also turning the gaming culture stuff meta by making it a lampooning of "weebs" rather then gamers in general. It's a brilliant acknowledgment of how this game is pretty mainstream in it's presentation for Japan, but is extremely niche in the West ... so they can make assumptions about the type of people who likely playing it. Rather then have that hold it back, the English team uses that to make the characters even more endearing.

That's likely why I loved the games so much. As someone whos' spends most of their life not quite fitting into either culture, it really spoke to me. I didn't enjoy the game nearly as much in native Japanese, but it's still funny and better yet ... uniquely funny. They even change some of the basic characterization of the "Leanbox" nation because this came out at a time when Xbox was absolutely demolishing PlayStation in the West but still had no presence in Japan. So a lot of the time where jokes were dependent on making fun of how no one has an Xbox, they were modified to reflect that. The same with how most Westerns don't see SEGA as a gaming powerhouse because they never had their arcades.

Everything you said about the characters and whatnot seems right up my ally though, so I see no harm in trying one of them. Another question I have though, do I have to play the series in order? Because ps plus has one of them and I would try that unless they are connected like that. (The one they have is medadimension 7)

About time, none of this PS5 Remake garbage to rebirth it again. Switch sure it's a new audience but PS5 come on people that didn't play PS3/Vita versions sure I get that but even still. Just offer a few enhancements and a bunch of them not enhance the first one again. Was it worth it for their engine sure but the changes not really.

I've never played any of them but always heard about the series. Technically I only own the idol management one that stayed on Vita and I've seen the anime so I have an idea what the series is besides video reviews/other details to get an idea of the other games gameplay/story aspects.

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