Best game ever!!!!! Sooooo amazing and fun!!!!!!

[affinity7799]

SQUEEEEEE! Mew mew mew!!!!!! xD Well I got to play a few hours last night! The packaging is huge! O.O I thought I was buying a console or something! ^.^; The artbook is sooooooo well done! The manual is great, and playing it has really brought back my interest in playing RPGs. ^-^ The intro movie makes you feel so pumped up for worlds of fun!

I'm just at the beginning of the story and it's already fascinating and unlike anything else! The English voice acting fits perfectly!!!!!!!!!!!! You can really identify their mood, expression, personality and more!
Histoire sounds nice and sincere and it will be very interesting to learn more about them!

Neptune is so awesome and funny! It's hard to find a leader in RPGs this likable and talks in such a way that isn't monotone. Neptune really shows there is great potential and unexplored territory with lead protagonists that aren't serious, spoiled, introverted, reluctant, sleezy, whiny, self-centered, emotionless, or the other flat one-trick pony personalities that plague other rpgs/games heroes and are recycled again and again. Neptune shines with emotion and as one advances further, she catches people by surprise with many creative ways of saying things that it almost feels like a rhythm never experienced before. It's really hard to describe Neptune's personality, simple words like spunky, puzzled and playful really don't deliver a complete clear picture. It's just something you have to learn yourself. Neptune really makes the adventure all the more fun, humorous and fascinating, even beyond the parts where certain references are brought up.

Compa is more than a adorable and polite nurse, she is her own masterpiece and the most loveable party member one can have at their side (and can you say, most powerful nurse of all time?) There is millions of things that could be said, but Compa's significance is much more than people realize that only look at the surface. There is intelligence, brilliance, reason and pure innocence that is so rare to witness anywhere in this manner. Simple minded people will think the word 'generic', but that is far from reality. It's so wonderful seeing how Compa and Neptune get along. The experience really is enhanced many times thanks to Compa. Once people get to understand Compa, they may learn how flawed they themselves are in mind and soul after staring at perfection.

IF thankfully is much more than I thought she would be. First impressions were that she would be some typical moody jerk, but IF is smarter than that, more complex than that. She is in fact a nice girl, but I'm not fancy with words so anything said about her wouldn't translate her unique personality. Someone else could probably say she's normal with a different atmosphere about her. That's what I mean by these people being more than your typical rpg protagonists, the industry has been flooded with the same basic formulas and one-track minds/attitudes/behavior for character designs. That HDN really breathes fresh air into the hearts and minds. Well I haven't met NISA and GUST yet, but I'm sure they are just as interesting, likable and natural!

And one of the things that expresses their thoughts and shows these characters are more than a pretty face, is the healthy amount of natural character interaction. And not just any character interaction, their conversations are spoken in such a way that they talk much more natural. They aren't so long that it sounds like preaching to the crowd like in other RPGs, and it isn't so short and segmented that it feels tacked on like those RPGs with dialogue choices. (be sure not to press X too fast or you'll miss out on a lot! Also I recommend not playing the cutscenes in automated mode, you can control a more natural pace of conversation with careful use of X button, while taking care to not skip any of the voiceovers. Timing X between windows of speech is almost like a minigame to let it flow naturally.)

I EXTREMELY ENJOY IT IN ENGLISH, but those that prefer Japanese, those voices are there in options too, but the English voices fit the best, especially if you have english as your first language, but they really match and everything they say is so natural and extremely well done! And the facial expressions really helps too! ^-^

The gameplay is straightforward but very fun! Dungeons avoid being a straight line, and the random encounters are welcoming (unless the HP is low!) The healing system is a good test of survival and strategy. If it was a normal item/cure system, things would be too easy, as the customizable Combo system and highly offense-based battle system gives you many advantages to eliminate enemies quickly. I play on Easy, and while the enemies are said to take longer to defeat, I still think it's safer because your HP will last longer in a dungeon, and with the combo system, R/W Disk, and transformation, Combo Link, etc. you easily win a damage race with enough HP.

After battles, bottles might sprinkle outward like a fountain (they are fun to chase and pick up!)
There are treasure chests (and hidden that IF can find). Neptune's hammer and Compa's bell add more flavor to the dungeon system.
Overall they look nice and really the graphics in general are beautiful.
Even if PS2 were able to run these graphics, I don't think it would look as polished, nor load and run as smoothly as they do on PS3 (and PS2 wouldn't be able to get DLC to expand it.) The PS3 really made it possible to look this great really (and it doesn't need to use 100% of PS3 capabilities to look great! Artistically, it already surpasses many games that have more graphic technology. More creative visuals too! And the special effects give more oomph to the action and unique flashy style!)

Everything looks really great, especially the character models in and out of battle! Their hair seems to have some physics/animation to them instead of being stiff. As well as their clothes to some extent.
Everything looks and flows so good, I think it really is running at 60 frames per second!

The world map looks gorgeous and you can shop, search, and there are sidequests (with level requirements) as well as story progression. You can press O and manually spin around the world to view it from all angles.
When cycling through dungeons, they have their own 3-D floating island. Very neat! The world map isn't a wallpaper, it is 3-D, just menu driven. You can press Start to access your menus, equip, custom, save and load just like in dungeons.

Back to battle system, the sound effects sound powerful and really great! The voices are cute and fit their personality and they are not annoying. You can use L2 to skip any attack/animation if you want more fast paced battles, but overall the pacing is very good. Like in Xenogears, you have 3 types of attacks assigned to different buttons, and can attack as fast as you press the button (and how long it takes for their startup animation).
There is a defend option, and escape option (if you have item). The command window is helpful because it always updates the current attacks/actions available to you. Switching elemental ammo is easy to understand, and the turn list is helpful to plan things out, especially in harder situations.

One thing to learn about R/W (which is one of my favorite features), is assigning images to them.
I think marketing could have drawn more attention if they always referred to that feature as "CREATE YOUR OWN SUMMON!" That would have drawn a lot more attention. The feature seem to be overlooked because there are still people who still don't realize how innovative this feature is! (yes damage wise it may not be the most powerful method sometimes, but it's flashy and fun!)

Because it's technically true you can create your own summons. Any image that meets the size/format requirements can be applied to your R/W Disk special attack (Neptune's appears to be Earth, Compa's is ice, and IF's wind.) That means you can summon ANYTHING you upload as an image. Whether it's a box of cereal or a famous heroine from a videogame!

All my 500x500 jpeg images have worked perfectly! For an easy example, go to your Triangle x3 + Circle combo. By highlighting Circle, I pressed X, then on the right of the screen, I can select an attack to assign to that 4th part of the combo, or assign R/W disk to it. All attacks cost AP, but with this combo I've found it's a good early way to have fun with summons, landing some attacks before the big finisher.)

Now to assign an image, there are two ways, but the shortcut is to highlight the button you assigned R/W to, and press Square, that will bring up the Image Edit screen where you can press Square to search your photos, then X to confirm and upload a image to add or replace the current one (I assigned one different image summon per character. Not sure if you can assign different images for a single character, but I think it's possible. If not, well you can change their summon image between battles anyways, that's what I do to keep things easy to memorize, so you basically can have 3 summons per battle, 1 unique summon per character if you want. Maybe you can assign a R/W with a different image to the same character, assigning it to a different combo, but haven't tried that yet. )

And this is just the surface of the battle system and combo system! (oh yes, you can NAME YOUR OWN COMBOS too. To the right of each combo, there is a long rectangle to type in the name.)

The Transformation is really cool and never gets tiring (just like Sailor Moon transformations are never tiring). It's recommended not using transform every battle, but it's up to you how you want to have fun with each battle (I'm summoning every battle, switching images before the next battle! lol! It's great!) But yes Neptune's transformation and her improved performance really takes things to a new level. Especially with so few rpgs with transformation abilities, it's a very very cool and exciting feature! And I have yet to get into the Processor customization. ^.^

I use SDTV but the text is pretty much readable (the cutscenes text is clear, the menus are what's a little challenging to read but overall it's possible to make out the majority of text there, that's why I was able to customize and equip stuff and know what I'm pressing, lol.) And I don't know but it seems like it's like the screen display takes up more space than most 1080p games (which is a GOOD thing!) I dunno how that works, but it's nice there are less noticable black bars on the top and bottom. If you have an HDTV I'm sure it looks even better! But even on SDTV, it still looks fantastic to me. ^-^

The music fits, I love the 8bit tutorial and battle tutorial theme and many other themes too. Custom soundtracks would have made this even better, but even with the original music, it's entirely acceptable and great! ^.^

Well this is just the beginning, Hyperdimension Neptunia is really proving to be one of the greatest experiences ever. And things will become even greater once the rest are recruited and the 4 DLC playable party members are available, they will be well worth it (having them all will increase the party selection to 10! And the DLC characters will include their own EX moves! I also heard the 3rd and 4th DLC characters, Red and 5pb come with their own sidequest too!)

Oh yes if I haven't mentioned it, you can choose who you want as playable leader in dungeon (well you have to in order to use someone's specific ability, but beyond that, it gives more freedom of choice who to play as.) , and you can see party formation and stuff!

And this is just a hands on preview I'm sharing! I'm still learning as I go along. xD

NISA did a flawless job localizing this!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you NISA and all developers/companies involved! =^^=

[Blackchaosdragon]

Ah damn you're making me want it even more ....
Its nice to hear you're opinion but was it nessesary to type so much?
Well its good to hear that the english voices are a'ok

[Emm]

I actually read all of that, and I'm glad you're really enjoying it! I can't really comment on how great this game is yet, because I haven't gotten mine.

I'm glad you said some positive words about Compa, as she seems to be the least popular out of the 3 main characters (Neptune, Compa and IF) and she's actually the one I'm liking the most (from her design and what little I've seen of her personality so far).

Do share more of your opinions when you get further into the game~

[vampko]

I actually read all of that, and I'm glad you're really enjoying it! I can't really comment on how great this game is yet, because I haven't gotten mine.

I'm glad you said some positive words about Compa, as she seems to be the least popular out of the 3 main characters (Neptune, Compa and IF) and she's actually the one I'm liking the most (from her design and what little I've seen of her personality so far).

Do share more of your opinions when you get further into the game~

Most of the Compa hate comes from her very annoying JP VA. NISA fixed that.

Also, I didn't read it. I don't want spoilers. But, I am glad you enjoy it ~

[lordryo]

If the game is that great how were you able to pull yourself away long enough to post such a huge post?

Just kidding.

I'm glad you're enjoying the game!

[Lyner Barfless]

=D
Yay! Best way to start work. Thanks!

[Suzaku]

SQUEEEEEE! Mew mew mew!!!!!! xD Well I got to play a few hours last night! The packaging is huge! O.O I thought I was buying a console or something! ^.^; The artbook is sooooooo well done! The manual is great, and playing it has really brought back my interest in playing RPGs. ^-^ The intro movie makes you feel so pumped up for worlds of fun!

I'm just at the beginning of the story and it's already fascinating and unlike anything else! The English voice acting fits perfectly!!!!!!!!!!!! You can really identify their mood, expression, personality and more!
Histoire sounds nice and sincere and it will be very interesting to learn more about them!

Neptune is so awesome and funny! It's hard to find a leader in RPGs this likable and talks in such a way that isn't monotone. Neptune really shows there is great potential and unexplored territory with lead protagonists that aren't serious, spoiled, introverted, reluctant, sleezy, whiny, self-centered, emotionless, or the other flat one-trick pony personalities that plague other rpgs/games heroes and are recycled again and again. Neptune shines with emotion and as one advances further, she catches people by surprise with many creative ways of saying things that it almost feels like a rhythm never experienced before. It's really hard to describe Neptune's personality, simple words like spunky, puzzled and playful really don't deliver a complete clear picture. It's just something you have to learn yourself. Neptune really makes the adventure all the more fun, humorous and fascinating, even beyond the parts where certain references are brought up.

Compa is more than a adorable and polite nurse, she is her own masterpiece and the most loveable party member one can have at their side (and can you say, most powerful nurse of all time?) There is millions of things that could be said, but Compa's significance is much more than people realize that only look at the surface. There is intelligence, brilliance, reason and pure innocence that is so rare to witness anywhere in this manner. Simple minded people will think the word 'generic', but that is far from reality. It's so wonderful seeing how Compa and Neptune get along. The experience really is enhanced many times thanks to Compa. Once people get to understand Compa, they may learn how flawed they themselves are in mind and soul after staring at perfection.

IF thankfully is much more than I thought she would be. First impressions were that she would be some typical moody jerk, but IF is smarter than that, more complex than that. She is in fact a nice girl, but I'm not fancy with words so anything said about her wouldn't translate her unique personality. Someone else could probably say she's normal with a different atmosphere about her. That's what I mean by these people being more than your typical rpg protagonists, the industry has been flooded with the same basic formulas and one-track minds/attitudes/behavior for character designs. That HDN really breathes fresh air into the hearts and minds. Well I haven't met NISA and GUST yet, but I'm sure they are just as interesting, likable and natural!

And one of the things that expresses their thoughts and shows these characters are more than a pretty face, is the healthy amount of natural character interaction. And not just any character interaction, their conversations are spoken in such a way that they talk much more natural. They aren't so long that it sounds like preaching to the crowd like in other RPGs, and it isn't so short and segmented that it feels tacked on like those RPGs with dialogue choices. (be sure not to press X too fast or you'll miss out on a lot! Also I recommend not playing the cutscenes in automated mode, you can control a more natural pace of conversation with careful use of X button, while taking care to not skip any of the voiceovers. Timing X between windows of speech is almost like a minigame to let it flow naturally.)

I EXTREMELY ENJOY IT IN ENGLISH, but those that prefer Japanese, those voices are there in options too, but the English voices fit the best, especially if you have english as your first language, but they really match and everything they say is so natural and extremely well done! And the facial expressions really helps too! ^-^

The gameplay is straightforward but very fun! Dungeons avoid being a straight line, and the random encounters are welcoming (unless the HP is low!) The healing system is a good test of survival and strategy. If it was a normal item/cure system, things would be too easy, as the customizable Combo system and highly offense-based battle system gives you many advantages to eliminate enemies quickly. I play on Easy, and while the enemies are said to take longer to defeat, I still think it's safer because your HP will last longer in a dungeon, and with the combo system, R/W Disk, and transformation, Combo Link, etc. you easily win a damage race with enough HP.

After battles, bottles might sprinkle outward like a fountain (they are fun to chase and pick up!)
There are treasure chests (and hidden that IF can find). Neptune's hammer and Compa's bell add more flavor to the dungeon system.
Overall they look nice and really the graphics in general are beautiful.
Even if PS2 were able to run these graphics, I don't think it would look as polished, nor load and run as smoothly as they do on PS3 (and PS2 wouldn't be able to get DLC to expand it.) The PS3 really made it possible to look this great really (and it doesn't need to use 100% of PS3 capabilities to look great! Artistically, it already surpasses many games that have more graphic technology. More creative visuals too! And the special effects give more oomph to the action and unique flashy style!)

Everything looks really great, especially the character models in and out of battle! Their hair seems to have some physics/animation to them instead of being stiff. As well as their clothes to some extent.
Everything looks and flows so good, I think it really is running at 60 frames per second!

The world map looks gorgeous and you can shop, search, and there are sidequests (with level requirements) as well as story progression. You can press O and manually spin around the world to view it from all angles.
When cycling through dungeons, they have their own 3-D floating island. Very neat! The world map isn't a wallpaper, it is 3-D, just menu driven. You can press Start to access your menus, equip, custom, save and load just like in dungeons.

Back to battle system, the sound effects sound powerful and really great! The voices are cute and fit their personality and they are not annoying. You can use L2 to skip any attack/animation if you want more fast paced battles, but overall the pacing is very good. Like in Xenogears, you have 3 types of attacks assigned to different buttons, and can attack as fast as you press the button (and how long it takes for their startup animation).
There is a defend option, and escape option (if you have item). The command window is helpful because it always updates the current attacks/actions available to you. Switching elemental ammo is easy to understand, and the turn list is helpful to plan things out, especially in harder situations.

One thing to learn about R/W (which is one of my favorite features), is assigning images to them.
I think marketing could have drawn more attention if they always referred to that feature as "CREATE YOUR OWN SUMMON!" That would have drawn a lot more attention. The feature seem to be overlooked because there are still people who still don't realize how innovative this feature is! (yes damage wise it may not be the most powerful method sometimes, but it's flashy and fun!)

Because it's technically true you can create your own summons. Any image that meets the size/format requirements can be applied to your R/W Disk special attack (Neptune's appears to be Earth, Compa's is ice, and IF's wind.) That means you can summon ANYTHING you upload as an image. Whether it's a box of cereal or a famous heroine from a videogame!

All my 500x500 jpeg images have worked perfectly! For an easy example, go to your Triangle x3 + Circle combo. By highlighting Circle, I pressed X, then on the right of the screen, I can select an attack to assign to that 4th part of the combo, or assign R/W disk to it. All attacks cost AP, but with this combo I've found it's a good early way to have fun with summons, landing some attacks before the big finisher.)

Now to assign an image, there are two ways, but the shortcut is to highlight the button you assigned R/W to, and press Square, that will bring up the Image Edit screen where you can press Square to search your photos, then X to confirm and upload a image to add or replace the current one (I assigned one different image summon per character. Not sure if you can assign different images for a single character, but I think it's possible. If not, well you can change their summon image between battles anyways, that's what I do to keep things easy to memorize, so you basically can have 3 summons per battle, 1 unique summon per character if you want. Maybe you can assign a R/W with a different image to the same character, assigning it to a different combo, but haven't tried that yet. )

And this is just the surface of the battle system and combo system! (oh yes, you can NAME YOUR OWN COMBOS too. To the right of each combo, there is a long rectangle to type in the name.)

The Transformation is really cool and never gets tiring (just like Sailor Moon transformations are never tiring). It's recommended not using transform every battle, but it's up to you how you want to have fun with each battle (I'm summoning every battle, switching images before the next battle! lol! It's great!) But yes Neptune's transformation and her improved performance really takes things to a new level. Especially with so few rpgs with transformation abilities, it's a very very cool and exciting feature! And I have yet to get into the Processor customization. ^.^

I use SDTV but the text is pretty much readable (the cutscenes text is clear, the menus are what's a little challenging to read but overall it's possible to make out the majority of text there, that's why I was able to customize and equip stuff and know what I'm pressing, lol.) And I don't know but it seems like it's like the screen display takes up more space than most 1080p games (which is a GOOD thing!) I dunno how that works, but it's nice there are less noticable black bars on the top and bottom. If you have an HDTV I'm sure it looks even better! But even on SDTV, it still looks fantastic to me. ^-^

The music fits, I love the 8bit tutorial and battle tutorial theme and many other themes too. Custom soundtracks would have made this even better, but even with the original music, it's entirely acceptable and great! ^.^

Well this is just the beginning, Hyperdimension Neptunia is really proving to be one of the greatest experiences ever. And things will become even greater once the rest are recruited and the 4 DLC playable party members are available, they will be well worth it (having them all will increase the party selection to 10! And the DLC characters will include their own EX moves! I also heard the 3rd and 4th DLC characters, Red and 5pb come with their own sidequest too!)

Oh yes if I haven't mentioned it, you can choose who you want as playable leader in dungeon (well you have to in order to use someone's specific ability, but beyond that, it gives more freedom of choice who to play as.) , and you can see party formation and stuff!

And this is just a hands on preview I'm sharing! I'm still learning as I go along. xD

NISA did a flawless job localizing this!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you NISA and all developers/companies involved! =^^=

You can give your review to IGN, they will need it xD

[Arnold Teddie Rosario]

Game is awesome.Was playing till 3:46am man that was awesome.I'm attempting to finish more of the sidequest dungeons before moving onto the next world.Still learning the mechanics.And Lulz I made one of my summons in the game the protagonist from Shin Megami Tensei Persona 4 along with Sparkster from Rocket Knight Adventures and Asuna from Negima.This game just keeps getting more interesting.

But I fear the game might be too short.Does anyone know the length of the game?

[Lyner Barfless]

Game is awesome.Was playing till 3:46am man that was awesome.I'm attempting to finish more of the sidequest dungeons before moving onto the next world.Still learning the mechanics.And Lulz I made one of my summons in the game the protagonist from Shin Megami Tensei Persona 4 along with Sparkster from Rocket Knight Adventures and Asuna from Negima.This game just keeps getting more interesting.

But I fear the game might be too short.Does anyone know the length of the game?

It depends on if you speed through the main events or do all the sidequest dungeons and get the optional characters. I think base playthrough is about 30 hours, but you can extend it to almost 80 to do everything, I imagine.

[Arnold Teddie Rosario]

Game is awesome.Was playing till 3:46am man that was awesome.I'm attempting to finish more of the sidequest dungeons before moving onto the next world.Still learning the mechanics.And Lulz I made one of my summons in the game the protagonist from Shin Megami Tensei Persona 4 along with Sparkster from Rocket Knight Adventures and Asuna from Negima.This game just keeps getting more interesting.

But I fear the game might be too short.Does anyone know the length of the game?

It depends on if you speed through the main events or do all the sidequest dungeons and get the optional characters. I think base playthrough is about 30 hours, but you can extend it to almost 80 to do everything, I imagine.

Optional Characters?

Aw man the game just keeps getting more interesting.I'm going to boot up my PS3 now.Oh yeah are there any Wallpapers for the game to set as a BG for PS3?

[ADreamyDeath]

Didn't read the wall of text so pics? I want to see the box O_O please? pic pic picccssssssss

[Neveryll]

LOL. Sounds like this one will keep you busy for a while. I loved the info on the attack modifications and such and sound like a lot of fun. Too many games and not enough time to play them all.

[LAMV]

(Sees OP's post)

Haha, wow, wall of text. Glad to see you're very excited, it just makes me want to play the game all the more... If only it would arrive in my mail.

I'm going to avoid this thread now to avoid spoilers, however minor. I already got several jokes spoiled on me I'd rather have heard/seen for myself.

[MizuMikomi]

Gah! You are making me jealous, I want my copy, and I want it now! D:

Its great to hear you are enjoying the game; I personally have been watching MasterLL's stream since it started yesterday so I can agree with most of your points, and your hands on review just made more pumped for my copy to arrive then ever before; as if I wasn't on edge already!

And I have to agree, the voices, facial expressions, and conversations flow so well. This game... I wish more JRPGs were like this, I am loving the character interactions more than I loved the cast in Tales of Vesperia (AND I AM ONLY WATCHING IT ON A STREAM FOR PETE'S SAKE!) this game... is a breath of fresh air for me, even just watching it, I know I will thoroughly enjoy this game, many many many times, one playthrough just won't do! No way, no how.

I just want this game so much, also that was an awesome wall of text, and I was glad I decided to read it. Any doubt I may have had; as if I had any in the first place, has now been shattered with Neptune's Power of Love and Justice; no one will get that until they have seen the game or played it, I!

Also...

"Surprise attacks aren't cool!" -Neptune

I love this dub, a whoooole lot~<3

[z21y79]

Poor me ! still waiting for my game!