Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth1 is a remake of the original Hyperdimension Neptunia which was released on the PS3 back in 2010. Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth1, developed by Felistella exclusively for the PS Vita, promises to deliver an improved version of the original game. Is Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth1 worth an addition to your PS Vita library? Find out in our review below.
Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth1 improves upon the original by improving the game’s visuals, performance and fixing the frame rate issues as well as adding additional music and voices. The game’s plot and certain gameplay elements have also been improved after listening to criticism by the fans.
Hyperdimension Neptunia is an RPG parody of the games industry. The game takes place in the world of Gamindustri with lands like Lastation, Leanbox, and Lowee mimicking the Playstation, Xbox and Wii consoles. Rulers of these lands are called Goddesses, with one of them being the game’s titular character Neptunia who rules over Planeptune. The game starts off with the four Goddesses fighting off, out of nowhere they gang up on Neptunia and defeat her. Neptunia loses her power and ends up on Compa’s front yard as a 12-year-old without memory of her previous self. The game’s story is thinly spread out and seems more of an afterthought. Most of the conversations are off topic and cliched, so it’s needless to say that the narrative is very sub-par.
Where Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth1 shines is the battle system, which offers a lot of strategy. Players are limited to three characters at once on the battlefield and deciding where to place them is essential. Furthermore players can customize combos and attacks to get the edge over the enemy. My one major complaint is that the normal enemies are relatively easier to defeat compared to the bosses, this makes grinding rather unnecessarily forced. This requires players to grind heavily right before boss fights as enemies before them aren’t a challenge at all. Personally even though I do not enjoy grinding I’m very happy to do it if it makes sense and is worth it. Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth1’s story felt like it didn’t deserve all the grinding I did to progress in it, add in the annoying and repetitive battle chants the party does ever so often, I stopped enjoying the seemingly above average battle system.
I briefly played the PS3 release of Hyperdimension Neptunia and I have to admit that developer Felistella have put in the shift to make sure that Re;Birth1 is perfectly optimized for the PS Vita. I’ve been saying it for a while that lengthy JRPGs like Hyperdimension Neptunia are the best to play on a portable console, the statements says true with the Re;Birth1 release which feels like it was made from the ground up for the PS Vita.
Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth1 Review (PSV)
Summary
Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth1 is a very niche focused game that will appeal to a very specific crowd of people, unfortunately I'm not one of them. This certainly doesn't mean the game is bad, on the contrary the battle system and art is very enjoyable. If you can get over the mediocre narrative and annoying characters, then Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth1 might be worth a try.
