[b]Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth3: V Generation[/b], more like Peak Generation. Out of 13 Neptunia games I’ve played earlier, this is the best one.
The biggest contributor to my engagement was the story. This time, Neptune finds herself in trouble for being too lazy, some things happen, and she gets transported to a different dimension, paralleling real world gaming industry progression, from the days of Nintendo VS Sega, up to 6th generation and even beyond. There, we see old characters like Noire and Blanc who are similar, yet different from home dimension counterparts, along with new characters like the infamous Plutia (citation needed). The story is very fun, there’s a lot of good humor moments, and a bit of intrigue, how can Neptune return to her home universe? There are The Seven Sages of this universe, acting as the entertaining bunch of villains, and something is brewing in the home universe. There’s even a few emotional moments, showing that the game can be sincere when it needs to be. I can’t help but smile thinking about the reunion between Neptune and Nepgear, her young sister who loves her lots, even if it’s a bit silly in context. Besides the usual 2D cutscenes, there are now ones rendered in 3D in real time, and I think they are a fun inclusion. I can’t stress enough how joyful the journey is.
The gameplay is essentially the most polished version of mechanics reused since [b]Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory[/b] for the PlayStation 3, which was reused for all three of these remakes. The combat is practically the same – you’re placed in a circular arena, and can utilize attacks and skill that have certain ranges, and you have to finagle your position for best results, but enemies can also hit multiple people, so it plays a role, and there’s an attack combo system that allows you to customize your moveset with a mix of Rush, Break and Power attacks. Otherwise, the gameplay mechanics aren’t too different from a standard JRPG.
The biggest change to the formula is the rework of the EXE Drive Gauge. In previous games, you would slowly build up an EXE Drive Gauge by hitting enemies and getting hit, the more hits you do, the quicker it feels, which is where Rush attacks are useful. You use this meter to unleash powerful attacks or be able to perform combo finishers – an extra attack at the end of a combo, with different attacks requiring the meter be at a certain level. The gauge is gone as a separate entity, but its spirit lives on in the form of SP. Now, instead of SP being a separate counter for Special Skills, it fills both shoes. The SP Max is now 1000, every 250 SP being 1 level of EXE Drive. That means each character has their own EXE Drive meter, allowing you to potentially unleash multiple of these at once, however, for most of the game you’ll only have EXE Drives that require multiple characters, depleting their SP counts. What this change means is that rush attacks are even more useful, since SP is useful for more than just EXE Drive moves, and makes SP restoring items even more useful. There were no items in previous games that would give you EXE Drive, and it would reset once you left the dungeon, but SP does not.
Another new addition is character challenges. Each character has a set of challenges, like walking, jumping, hitting enemies, escaping battles and so on. Fulfilling them gives that character a stat boost or unlocks a new plan to craft, it can be… a stat boost, again. Sure, all the challenges are the same for all characters, and these could’ve been tuned better, because some of them would require absurd [i]boring[/i] grinding, but I like this system, it also returns in [b]Hyperdevotion Noire: Goddess Black Heart[/b], and one of the few aspects I liked about that game. This system reminds me of [b]Rune Factory[/b] games, where most things you do, even as mundane as walking and sleeping, contribute to your character’s growth, which is unique and interesting.
After the dire side content situation of [b]Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth2: Sisters Generation[/b], this game feels like it double and triple downs on that. There’s once again a lot of side dungeons to unlock with the game’s Plan system – a crafting system where you craft dungeon permits and even game alterations, which I think is pretty cool. I know getting excited over dungeons that tend to reuse the same layouts is a bit odd, but well… it’s one of the aspects I liked about [b]Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth1[/b], there’s still a sense of discovery when crafting a dungeon unlock or a dungeon modifier. There’s also a hefty post-game.
The dungeon exploration is slightly improved. Instead of utilizing a stupid treasure finder, you can find transparent blocks that float in the air that contain credits and maybe items, and you have to utilize jumping for that. [b]Re;Birth2[/b] forgot that jumping is a mechanic that can be used, and this game corrects that, the layouts have you jump a bit more. Admittedly, there’s still potential for better dungeon exploration. There’s a whole axis to explore!
I should warn you about this PC version. There’s a widely reported crashing problem, like in in one of the cutscenes where you get introduced to Plutia’s transformation. I encountered it too, and had to use an external program to allow the game to use a bit more memory, which solved the problem. I was actually quite scared, I was enjoying the game, it would’ve been a shame if I had to abandon it. Idea Factory did release a patch as recent as 2020, to, quote, “Fix to minor issues in DLC content” and “Improved overall optimization”, but they didn’t seem to think this common major issue was worth fixing. Thanks Idea Factory, very cool.
I don’t have very many complaints about the game. A few complaints about gameplay are things that weren’t fixed from previous entries, like viral enemies or lacking dungeon/monster info. On the story side, one thing I didn’t like is how they wrote Nepgear to be sad about her reception from the previous game. I would agree that [b]Re;Birth2[/b] didn’t do a good job with Nepgear as the lead, but it feels a bit mean to her. Nepgear is a good character and deserves better treatment. Thankfully they corrected this with [b]Neptunia: Sisters VS Sisters[/b], which in my opinion does justice to CPU candidates, so there’s that.
Overall, [b]Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth3: V Generation[/b] is a great game. The writing is fun all around, and the gameplay is solid. The visuals are the sharpest out of all [b]Re;Birth[/b] games, particularly the new stylish UI and the music is as good as ever. One of the highlights of the franchise for me personally.
