[PS3/PSV/PC] Hyperdimension Neptunia series

[Klashikari]

I still have hard time to imagine how Rei will be, considering she is voiced by Kobayashi (and knowing CH, they will most likely ask her to go batshit insane).

[Scarletknive]

Originally Posted by Klashikari

I still have hard time to imagine how Rei will be, considering she is voiced by Kobayashi (and knowing CH, they will most likely ask her to go batshit insane).

Don't... You don't want to get "Dragonfly Cutter" in your face.

[kenjiharima]

http://news.dengeki.com/pr/neptune_v/?rside

[Ryonea]

http://gematsu.com/gallery/hyperdime...v/may-18-2012/

new screenshots, although only a handful of the new ones.

[asaqe]

Blanc sharing the same VA as Yukikaze makes you wonder the real reason why Blanc is so angry is because she has such a flat chest while her other incarnations' breasts are very big. So big that she feels sad all the time.

[Scarletknive]

Originally Posted by asaqe

Blanc sharing the same VA as Yukikaze makes you wonder the real reason why Blanc is so angry is because she has such a flat chest while her other incarnations' breasts are very big. So big that she feels sad all the time.

Blanc: "Give me a crowbar for me to whack this guy."

Me: "Yes, Your Highness."

Blanc: "I shall show you Lowee's land CQC. Now prepare yourself, asage."

*Following asage's death by Blanc using a crowbar, Uni's Sanity dropped by a lot.*

Me: (I knew this will happen... Thats what you get for telling her while she is not around but one of the people from Lowee heard it by coincidence.)

While Blanc is at it and Uni's sanity points is still decreasing now at a slower rate, Rom and Ram are playing mahjong with IF and her sister, and the rest are just looking at them playing.(Though... Rom is giving a Blanc look while just nice she looks sickly.)

[asaqe]

"Quantamizes, dodging the blow"

Come on, Blanc's other roles is so well endowed she feels puny by comparison. So in turn she is angry all the time.

[Scarletknive]

Originally Posted by asaqe

"Quantamizes, dodging the blow"

Come on, Blanc's other roles is so well endowed she feels puny by comparison. So in turn she is angry all the time.

*Anti-Quantamize system activate, All area cyclops attack*

But...Crowbars are better...

[asaqe]

I know she is secretly a cosmic horror who is trying to coax Accelerator and Touma to bring the end of the world since both of them are EXTREMELY potent devil summoners from the Goddess Records. All in the name of purging all Gundams from the GameIndustri

[Scarletknive]

Originally Posted by asaqe

I know she is secretly a cosmic horror who is trying to coax Accelerator and Touma to bring the end of the world since both of them are EXTREMELY potent devil summoners from the Goddess Records. All in the name of purging all Gundams from the GameIndustri

Erm... I go from Lastation to Planeptune and then to Lowee.(In the goddess records, all I know is that asage is also one of the NO FUN police, also he worships none of the goddess for he thinks fun is bad.)

She is one of those horror monsters we see, but meh, just ask her to transform into one of the forms we don't want to see, for I think I don't lose sanity points.(Lose sanity points if seen.) While you are at Lastation, I will be at Lowee playing mahjong with Ram and Rom.(Got OWNED badly.)

[Klashikari]

Done with MK2 plat trophy.
Overall, the game from start to finish is basically the mirror image of its predecessor, with an uncanny inversion in terms of qualities and issues.

Production wise, the game is obviously much more eye candy than HDN1, although CH still has trouble with 3D in general (with such simple models, the framerate is still lacking, while characters animations are quite stiff. It doesn't make the game unplayable, but definitely not good looking, especially for a PS3 game).
OTOH, the OST is sort of some mixed feelings: the themes are more or less much discrete, thus leaving less impressions than HDN1 (of course, it has far less mediocre tracks, which is to say, MK2 has more balanced scores than its predecessor).

The main improvement is of course the gameplay which is by far much more engaging, smooth and actually fun, instead of HDN1 Triangle + L2 spam all the way.
However, while the gameplay is definitely quite decent, the gameplay did got some shortcoming in few aspect:
Goddess mode and switch probably need some tweek: it is great they changed it so it isn't a free easy bonus like in HDN1. That said, both features have a steep cost, to the point some combination are quite difficult to pull in normal cirmcunstances (aka equal level than the monster), especially Switch which hardly becomes anything useful.
Another issue with the game balance however is the range attack based characters: aside of Uni, the "casters" are basically forced to fill their SP gauge with puny melee attacks. But since most of them are physical and not magical, the damage output from these is quite low. Also since their melee attacks aren't as SP rewarding as full fledged melee attackers, they became exposed to monsters longer than they should, which is worsened by their low MOV (really, using Rom and Ram the first time was more of a masochist practice than really playing in a comfort zone). They should have made so most their attacks scale with their INT and give a L range by default.
The other nitpicking I have with the gameplay aspect is how you still have "hidden" information kept from you: simply put, it is quite difficult to determine if an element is "weaker" or not against a certain enemy or not (simply because this time, you can't compare as the elemental bullet system disappeared, except using Neptune elemental blade attack for comparison sake).
They basically glossed over the details and gave more care on the gameplay flow (which went to great extent, including battle intro and victory pose not taking insanely long than before).

I was a bit surprised there wasn't any difficulty selection: the game is about right in its difficulty, although some portions of the game are extremely trivial, or instead, frustrating (the portions where you are fighting monsters with paralyzing effect while you do not have the immunity means by that point: a huge PITA), especially some Bosses abusing their turns, and stands like bunch of scarecrow when it isn't their turn (they really designed the bosses as bunch of burst damage dealer, instead of being a continuous strong nuisance. I think they should have decreased the amount of hits per turn, but increase a bit their turn rate. Frankly, surviving the likes of Delphinus or Fake Purple Heart isn't an easy affair, but if you happen to have some luck when they miss their attack, they are basically huge victims to your team).

The plot progression is much less messy, more straightforward (forcing a bit less needless back and forth, in contrast with the insane amount of landmasses travel in HDN1). However, I feel the plot being "too straighforward", giving little room for character interactions and developments. Sure, HDN1 and MK2 share the same themes, but the executions are clearly different: HDN1 was more like some adventure mixed with the "save the game world", leading to different horizons thrown at Neptune & co (Singe, Financier, Leanbox's aristocrates cast, Lowee's church plot, Magiquone etc), while still delivering jabs. MK2 however was more or less stuck on its "serious rail", with far less breathers between story events. It definitely flesh out things far less than before, and takes itself a tad (too much?) seriously. And I said before, I really hope they won't pull another conquest end because this was really not something the "best" for this franchise.
The lack of side events/quests aside of the few chirpers events (and still locked by lily rank/chapter requirement) don't help in such matter, while a huge chunk of these are also locked in Chapter 7 (so true end specific).
But it is definitely the characters that shine far less than in HDN1: frankly, the Goddesses candidates are vastly inferior to their older sisters. Nepgear is a responsible and cute little sister, but is a tad bland, and not exactly amusing to follow (in sharp contrast to Neptune), Uni is an horrible drama queen, and her friendship with Nepgear feels weaker than her connection with Brave. The twins are really your run-the-mill twin duo, which leave much to be desired (yes, Rom is cute, but doesn't do much besides being shy and all, while Ram is just annoying from the get go).
And since the Goddesses show up relatively late in the game, we don't have much interactions being exploitable there (especially when they made Neptune even more hyper and irresponsible than in HDN1, while toning down Noire, Vert and Blanc).
As for the villains, well... Linda and Warechu are just bad sidekicks, Team Rocket style without being any interesting aside of few references. Trick was not exactly the best otaku jab move I've seen, while Judge is... just a classic homocidal psycho. While Magic was sort of decent, Brave stole the show yet the absence of backstory for him makes you wonder how he managed to be part of Magiquone's goons. Of course, Magiquone's form and persona in MK2 can be summed into a mere "ugly hag that just wants to destroy everything".
So really, my biggest disappointment is the arguably inferior care for the characters compared to HDN1, which surely explains why CH announced more silly stuff for V.

It has to be noted that while HDN1 was a game with obvious good ideas but being very badly executed, MK2 had strong basis, but simply wasn't polished enough: while playing the game, I had often the impression the game wasn't finished entirely.
Aside of the obviously weird "2D portraits" used for few chirpers events, few things are certainly not making sense:
-Goddesses don't seem to have been added with balance in mind, considering they have quite strong stats, but an abysmal number of skills (Vert is a huge victim of that: she has an insane INT stats, but you just can't abuse it, since her spear skill is a single hit, and it is still subpar even with a damage limit breaker).
-the item synthesis part was initially interesting, but simply became a "shop item unlock" since grinding materials for your items is simply not worth your time and efforts, than simply buying them from the shop once you are done with the synth once.
-the share system could potentially do something about difficulty whatsoever, but simply was used again for sake of selecting your ending (I hardly see much difference with share effect on the respective character stats or damage output)

Finally, some good points from the first game weirdly disappeared:
-Event viewer disappeared completely (a major drawback if you want to revisit some skits and interesting tidbits. So your best option is Youtube, or saving all the time)
-World map definitely got the shaft compared to HDN1
-Lore/little info (from special items etc) were remplaced by Nepedia etc, which is... quite meager. It is even more troublesome when MK2 universe involve different stuff (such like the Goddess and their sisters in general), but fails to explain how it goes (HDN1 did hint about the 4 goddesses' origines etc, but MK2 don't help much to figure how/when they are born, how they are replaced etc. In fact, it brings question to how the candidates don't know each other, despite the Goddesses know each other quite well).
-I was sort of surprised the AP cost indicator in-battle literally disappeared. Merely memorizing a combo cost doesn't cut it (especially with backrow partner affecting AP consumption). I would have also appreciated the presence of the "total combo damage" like in the first game, to have a much easier way to compare damage output of specific combo (especially determining if X or Y skill are better, SP cost efficient or not).
-Defeating the final boss will not give the opportunity to have a save state before the boss, so it is either your previous save, or a clear save, which sucks quite a ton if you want all CG in a single save data without grinding too much (the game thus requires 7 playthrough if you want all of them).

Hence why I use the term of "mirror image": it almost looks like CH have inversed their game forte and weakness altogether, which is a shame, since combining both games strong points would definitely lead to a very good JRPG game (and not just its premises and characters). Hopefully they will do that with V.
Oh yeah, to prevent some misunderstanding: I did have fun with the game, and it was definitely a step forward for CH, but again the game sure has some issues that are definitely not what I would expect.

[Nerroth]

Another pic-fileld preview on Dengeki Online.

[Klashikari]

This is getting more and more eye candy, but I wish they would at least release a gameplay or regular PV to see it in action.

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by Scarletknive

*Anti-Quantamize system activate, All area cyclops attack*

But...Crowbars are better...

She uses Space CQC.

[Nerroth]

It seems apt that the new/old version of Lowee has more of a Kyoto-esque look to it, given the real-life location of the company it's "inspired" by. Actually, those things hanging from behind Blanc's arms, shown more clearly here, kind of remind me of that firm's original line of business; Hanafuda cards.

[Klashikari]

Well, Blanc outfit is itself heavily based on Miko garnament pattern.

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by Klashikari

Well, Blanc outfit is itself heavily based on Miko garnament pattern.

With that red and white, I propose that they do a Hakurei Reimu DLC costume for her.

[Klashikari]

Speaking of costume, I sure wish Hair color would be a seperate customization aspect: most costumes in HDN1 and MK2 give really weird or even ugly hair colors to the characters.

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by Klashikari

Speaking of costume, I sure wish Hair color would be a seperate customization aspect: most costumes in HDN1 and MK2 give really weird or even ugly hair colors to the characters.

Might depends on the copyrighters......they added a Hatsune Miku costume to Sophie in Tales of Graces as well as Idolmaster ones. Costumes and hair colour will have to come a long way.

Though it would be great if Blanc gets a scene where she shows off Space CQC.

[Klashikari]

I was actually referring to the non DLC costume, such like Black Sailor Uniform for Nepgear. I thought it would be similar to the monochrome hoodie for Neptune in HDN1, but her hair became white/grey instead of remaining purple (most likely mimicking Kei). Of course, this trend is applied to nearly everyone, to the point some combination are just... questionable I would say.
And frankly, that is what disturb me a bit, as I was expecting hair being unaffected by it in fact, and having player customizing it, outside of the DLC offer would prevent copyright issue.