Hyperdimesion Neptunia Re;Birth2: Sisters Generation is a remake of Hyperdimension Neptunia mk2 for the PlayStation Vita and later on, ported to PC. It contains new scenes, characters and dungeons, as well as a reworked English translation and new voice acting. The graphics are pretty good considering the handheld hardware. The dungeons can look a bit bland in terms of textures and details, and that’s where the smaller screen can help. The game utilizes the battle system from Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory. It is a turn based battle system that actually has a fair amount of elements to it. At its core, each character has three types of attacks: one that focuses on number of hits, one that does the most damage, and one that specializes in breaking the opponent’s guard gauge. As you level up, you’ll earn new attacks within these types where you will end up chaining up to four hits each turn.
In addition, characters have SP for special moves and certain characters known as Console Patron Units (CPU) can transform into HDD for that boosts their stats. During each turn, the character can move to position themselves and then strike at the enemy. Positioning is important as striking enemies from behind will do more damage. Up to four characters can be in your party at a time.
There is an EXE Gauge where it fills as you hit enemies, or your character is hit. Once the bar is full, then there is an additional attack at the end of your attacks, as well as giving access to very powerful moves known as EXE Finishers. Despite the number of elements, the game has a helpful feature where if you hold down the shoulder button, you can skip all battle animation which speeds things up a lot more. Even later down the line, you can reap the benefits without entering the battle screen and skipping straight to the results screen…
Enemies roam the dungeons which you can avoid if you wish. You can also find yourself in a bad position if enemies manage to sneak up on you. The game is pretty hard in the beginning as enemies hit much harder than expected. It levels out as you gain party members and you can even lower the difficulty via an in-game option. One of the most annoying aspects of the game is where bosses regain an amount of health each turn. It’s frustrating when you can’t keep up the damage and require time to heal, and yet the game penalizes you for that. This causes extremely poor pacing during certain sections where you can easily overpower all the normal enemies and even the first boss, but the second boss that you fight straight after is just slightly out of reach. You may end up relying on spamming overpowered moves and that can feel a bit cheap.
The original had a low budget and unfortunately, while many aspects were improved, a lot of cost cutting measures are retained. Dungeons are small, and both dungeons and enemies quickly become palette swaps. Thus it can be a bit confusing at times when you enter a new dungeon and it feels very similar and you might even be lost for a second or two. There are no explorable towns which is a shame, towns are represented by a menu system which does have the advantage of being speedier to navigate around. Exclusive in this remake is the appropriately named Remake System where you gain materials to create Plans. Plans can change aspects to the game or give you access to new items. Examples including changing the monsters and items appear in dungeons, or unlock additional characters.
Re;Birth2 has a basic bland story that takes place in a world with four cities, each the personification of Sega, PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo. Each city has their own CPU, which serves as their mascot and the people’s belief in them gives them power. When the CPUs were battling the villain Arfoire, the CPUs were trapped and they disappeared from the public’s eyes for years. Enter their sisters, known as CPU Candidates, and it focuses on Nepgear. The world is starting to believe in Arfoire now and so Nepgear must try and claw back these “shares”. She’ll meet and befriend other CPU Candidates, and through a long and convoluted route, save the CPUs and then beat down Arfoire once and for all.
There are a lot of playable characters and it ends up being far too many. Characters are usually the personifications of several consoles and handhelds and it likes to joke around based on the subject matter. It’s a good thing that all characters earn experience whether they are in the active four member party or not. Bad news is that it costs a lot of money to keep them constantly equipped with the latest gear so you’re more than likely to just select four of your favorites to use.
The game is generally short. If you don’t grind for too much then it’ll take around 15-20 hours to get the normal ending. However, the game has multiple endings and getting those other endings will require tedious amounts of grinding. It adds at least another 10 hours or so and it can be sickening with the amount of repetition you’ll be facing. At least New Game Plus allows you to carry over everything. The strange thing is that the story has a stretched second and third chapter that lead to relatively truncated later chapters. It felt like the story got itself distracted with filler stuff in the beginning but then ran out of story to tell at the end.
If you wish to unlock most of the things including getting all the trophies, be prepared to play the game again and again and again. It is infuriating how much they lock the things to certain parts of the game forcing you to replay. It disrespects the player’s time when they could have made it more friendly to gain the additional materials you need to unlock the last few dungeons instead of locking it to the stupid text system which is full of fluff anyway.
The Stella’s Dungeon mini-game is a fairly big addition to this remake. It is more of a passive mini-game where you send Stella off to dungeons, where she will automatically battle and loot. Then you equip the loot you found and off you go to the next dungeon. It takes place in real time so it’ll take a few hours to complete a dungeon. You’re expected to leave the Vita alone with the game running in suspend mode so it isn’t too bad. It’s fairly fun except that when Stella dies, she loses all equipped items and of course the time that you waited on.
Overall Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth2: Sisters Generation is, despite its flaws, a fun game. It has a lot of competition with the other JRPGs on the Vita but it has a basic enjoyable story, solid if uninspiring gameplay, and a decent amount of content, even if it can be tedious at times.
---------------------------------------------
For other game reviews, have a look at this page.