As a fan of turn-based RPGs, I never understood the criticism that a game could be “grindy.” If there’s a boss you can’t beat, surely there’s something you’re not doing right. After all, the thing that makes these kinds of games fun is figuring out what strategy is needed to be victorious; without that, the game would just devolve into another “hit the attack button to win” RPG, and that would just be boring. Plus, these games go through a lot of testing and tweaking before release, so what could possibly make an RPG grindy?

Now I understand.

• Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth1
  

  47 hours playtime

  21 of 45 achievements

This game, as you might have figured out by the intro, is a turn-based RPG. However, unlike traditional turn-based RPGs where everyone gets 1 move per turn with speed merely determining order per turn, turns are on a per-unit basis, with speed determining how soon until that unit moves again (it’s possible for an enemy to move after two of your three party members move, then get another move after the third and first party member move, etc.). There’s a bar on the upper-right during battles which shows whose turn it is, who will move next, and in what order, kinda like Mega Man X Command Mission. However, it’s unreliable at best. It could show all three of your party members as having two moves before the enemy’s turn, but performing a basic attack will have the unit’s second move shift to be after the enemy’s move. I don’t think I ever fully understood the mechanics behind it, and honestly, it’s better to interpret it as a suggestion instead of something to plan your moves around (it’s really only useful if it shows that the enemy will move right after the current unit’s turn, etc.).

The battle mechanics go much deeper than that, though. For one, battles are fought in a circular arena, and you have to move your character next to the enemy to attack it, á la Quest 64 (although the border of the arena, that you need to be against to run away, is invisible until you’re right up against it. Come on, even Quest 64 knew to keep it visible!). However, your weapons have a range, and it’s possible to attack multiple enemies on the same turn (this is where some of the strategy comes into play: you have to figure out how get as many enemies in range as possible and kill them before they can attack you). Also, rather than have basic attacks be a single attack, the game has a combo system: Power attacks are more powerful (obviously), Rush attacks will fill up the EXE meter faster, and Break attacks will lower the enemy’s Guard Points faster. You can choose a combination of three of them per attack (it’s usually best to choose the same one three times). As you progress through the game, you’ll earn different attacks that you can swap out for your combos. If the enemy’s Guard Points drop to zero, its guard is broken and attacks deal about twice the normal amount of damage, but as soon as that enemy gets another turn, it gets about 10% of its Guard Points back (and if you don’t attack the enemy before its next move, like if you need to heal your team or something silly like that, it gets another 10% back).

That’s about it as far as unique mechanics go. The rest is standard RPG fare: You have a limited amount of SP that can be used to perform special attacks; SP doesn’t regenerate until you exit the dungeon or use an item. Exiting a dungeon will also regenerate HP and revive KO’d party members. You also have an EXE gauge that fills up as you perform attacks (I seem to remember the game saying that it fills as you get attacked, but if it does, it’s negligible); if it’s filled up enough, you can perform one extra attack in your basic attack’s combo (although the game kinda hides how you can equip the attacks) or you can spend it to perform a super special awesome attack for massive damage. No items will fill up the EXE gague (although some equipable items will make it fill up faster), and it drops to zero when you exit a dungeon.

EDIT: Also, rather than having traditional random encounters, enemies wander around the dungeon map and can be fought/avoided. They can also be ambushed or ambush you.

Something else about this game that’s different from other RPGs: there’s no towns or exploration (at least, not in the traditional sense). Moving from one location to another is done on the overworld, where you move the cursor from one icon to another and select it to enter the dungeon or town. If you push the D-pad left or right, a list of all the locations comes up and you can just scroll through them to select where you want to go. If you go to town, another list appears where you can to to the shop, the guild, etc. Although there are technically four towns in the game, they’re all exactly the same, and since the overworld has everything in list format anyway, they might as well just be another slot in the pause menu. NPCs also exist, but again, they’re in list format on the overworld and provide no world-building whatsoever, choosing instead to be tongue-in-cheek references to other franchises. Not even jokes: just references. Oh, there’s an NPC named “Player 2” who’s a mustached guy wearing a green cap and he talks about how he’s not as famous as his brother. Oh, there’s an NPC named “Spelunker” who warns that even short falls can be deadly and is considered the weakest spelunker in the world. There’s no set-up, no punchline, they just kinda exist and say “hey, I’m supposed to be this character!” It kinda reminds me of this comic. I will say that one NPC got a laugh out of me: “Home Security” is a child in a SWAT uniform, except it says “NEET” on it instead. If you know what NEET stands for, you’ll get the joke.

Oh, the game also has one more unique feature: its crafting system. Unlike other RPGs, where you craft items and weapons, this game has you crafting augments to the game. In other words, getting all the items for that plan for a new item and making the plan won’t give you the item; it will give you the option to buy the item in the stores. The game also takes this concept pretty far: you can craft the ability to get new items in dungeons, new monsters to spawn in the dungeons, or even new dungeons entirely. It’s an interesting concept, but most of the game’s problems stem from it. First of all, the game gives no indication which enemies will drop what items until after they’ve been defeated and you’ve gotten the item (and even then, it’s on you to remember which enemies drop what). In other words, unless you cheat and look up the information online like I did, the only way to find the items you’re looking for is to grind. Is the game too easy for you? Don’t worry, there’s a plan that will make enemies tougher, but you need to find the materials for it first! That means fighting all the same boring enemies you wanted to avoid just so you can find the ones that give you the items you need to create the plan that strengthens enemies. However, what if you think the game is too hard and the random encounters are too tough to beat? Well, there’s a plan that will weaken enemies across the board, but you need materials to create the plan, and you have to fight enemies to get the items (unless you get lucky and find it on the dungeon map). It reminds me of that I can’t defeat Airman song in that if it’s an issue in the first place, it seems like it would trap you in a loop: you need the items to make the plan that makes enemies easier, but the only way to get the items is to beat enemies, but the enemies are too tough to beat, so you go to make the game easier, but you need the items to make the plan that makes enemies easier, and WHY CAN’T THIS GAME JUST HAVE A NORMAL DIFFICULTY SELECTION LIKE ALL THE OTHERS????

The game’s difficulty can get a bit wonky as well. Throughout the game, there were times where I was tempted to use one of the aforementioned plans and times where I was tempted to use the other (I refrained, with one exception I’ll get to later). Plus, the game will take away certain party members (sometimes without warning, and often right after boss battles) and their equipped items are taken with them, so if they had your best equipment, you’ll just have to kiss it goodbye for the next couple chapters.

It gets worse, too. You know how some games will have palette-swaps of the same enemy to save space? Well, this game has those, too, but it also goes a step lazier and straight up reuses the exact same model and color to represent a different enemy. As an example, Wolf Cubs, Wolves, and Coyotes all have the exact same model. BUT WAIT, THERE’S LESS! You remember all those “extra” dungeons that you can get plans for? Well, it turns out that this game will copy-paste one dungeon and try to pass it off as a different one, and the majority of the craftable dungeons are copy-pastes of previous dungeons (I think only one was unique, and even that one got copy-pasted for a future craftable dungeon). Heck, even some of the required dungeons are copy-pastes of previous dungeons (all of Lowee’s snowfields are EXACTLY THE SAME)! Seriously, the only thing different about the dungeons is what enemies will spawn in them. Come on, game, the only thing we can do in dungeons outside of battle is look for items and look at the new scenery; don’t take that last one away from us! At least give us palette swaps of the dungeons!

EDIT 2: Plus, there are literally only two songs for all the dungeons (technically there’s a third, but it only plays in three dungeons [read: one map]). The songs are fairly lengthy, but since the music resets whenever you get into a battle, you’ll be hearing the first few seconds of both of those songs throughout the entire game unless you actively skip enemy encounters.

I should also bring up the story, or rather, how the story is told. You see, all cut-scenes are in Visual-Novel style, with 2D art of the characters against a 2D drawing of wherever they are at the time, and characters will disappear and reappear depending on who’s talking. Honestly, this type of cut-scene doesn’t really work for an RPG. You see, Visual Novels don’t really have that much going on and tend to focus on character interactions (with the occasional splash image if something important happens), so that type of cut-scene works for those types of games. However, RPGs tend to have things going on in their cut-scenes, and since Visual-Novel-style cut-scenes aren’t meant to show things happening, you’ll just hear some sound effects with characters having to narrate what’s going on (sometimes it doesn’t even make sense, like when it uses wooshing sounds to represent someone being attacked and hit; shouldn’t the sound effect actually be a hit noise?). Not only do you have to deal with the awkward tell-don’t-show approach to cut-scenes, but personally, I think it makes the cut-scenes less engaging as well (I found myself zoning out during cut-scenes and having to check the in-game dialogue history to refresh myself on what was said one or two lines ago). Say what you will about RPG-Maker and early 3D animation; at least it is animation!

Fun fact: during the staff roll, it shows some of the game’s cut-scenes redone in top-down sprite form, and yeah, I kinda prefer that over what the game actually has.

EDIT 3: The actual dialogue can get repetitive as well. I lost count of how many times it reused the “protagonists get the NPC’s name wrong” or “Neptune is addicted to pudding” “jokes.” Like I said earlier, there isn’t much world-building in this game despite all the self-described “text walls.”

Despite all the aforementioned flaws, the game is rather solid at first. It might seem to become grindy around when you get your third party member, but if you check the shop, there’s an item called the “life ring” which will increase your max HP by 2,500; get one of these for everyone and you should be fine for a while. It might seem to become grindy around chapter 3 or 4, but not only do these chapters give you a powerful ally who can tank attacks for the rest of the team, you should get your first EXE-consuming attack around here (not that the game draws much attention to it, though). In fact, EXE-consuming attacks are so powerful at this point that the only thing the game can think of to challenge you at the end of chapter 4 is to take those powers away…along with your ability to use items and SP moves. Basically, the game introduces two drone enemies: one won’t let you use items while it’s alive, and the other won’t let you use SP/EXE moves while it’s alive. This is also the only point in the game they ever appear in. This fight was quite tough at first, but as long as you remember to update your attack combos, exploit their elemental weaknesses, and focus on killing the skillseal drone first, you’ll be fine. But wait, chapter 7 introduces bosses that heal ~9,200 HP each turn! Surely the game becomes grindy here, right? Well, hang on, let’s think about this for a moment: you bought and equipped the best gear and have discovered the “spam EXE moves while its guard is broken” strategy, but the strategy only requires that you use Rush and Break attacks (Power attacks are kinda useless since it heals more than the damage caused with that 9,200). Therefore, you just need to remove your Power attacks and put all your points into Rush and Break attacks, try out that strategy again, and presto! The bosses have fallen!

But wait! Now we’re at the final boss’s second form (its first form is laughably pathetic)! Not only does it heal ~27,000 HP per turn, but it can sometimes one-hit-kill a party member! Okay, that 27,000 is pretty ridiculous, but let’s not jump to conclusions, here. Let’s go back to the shop and really make sure we have the best equipment…well, equipped. Look: a few of the accessories will actually affect stats! Oh, and let’s not forget about the Disc Dev feature: throughout the game, you’ll get a few “discs” and can burn “idea chips” into them; the idea chips have different attributes to them, like “physical defense +1” or “increase the speed the EXE gague fills.” You have to burn the idea chips into the discs (because DVD-RW technology doesn’t exist, and neither does flash memory), and after this is done, the disc can be equipped to a character and said character gains the idea chips’ attributes. You can reformat the disc and burn it again, but it will delete the idea chips you used in it, so until this point, I only used them for extra exp gain. Okay, so we have our discs equipped, we’ve broken the boss’s guard, and we’ve spammed our entire EXE bar before it could regain its 10%, now we just need to keep up the pressure! Use rush attacks to get back up to a level that let’s us use an EXE-consuming attack, then break its guard again, and–it just healed back to full health.

sigh

Okay, okay, fine. Let’s grind, but I don’t wanna go through the same dungeons I’ve already been in (well, the ones with the same enemy encounters, at least). I should still have some plans for new dungeons. Let’s see, I need “Magical Reactor 3”; where can I find that? Oh, I need to beat a boss that only appears when I activate the “add enemies” plan for this one dungeon. Well, the NPCs always give me those plans right after I create the dungeon, so I should have them…wait, they’re not here. What’s going on? Well, it turns out that if you don’t create the dungeon on the same chapter you’re allowed to get the plan for said dungeon, the NPCs who give you the “add enemies” and “new items” plans won’t appear. Why?? Why does the game do this? It’s not like there isn’t an easy work around given how the game is set up; they’re literally just text on a list! Do you see how every problem in the game can be traced back to this crafting system?

Okay, that plan is shot; what else can we do?

So, you may remember that I said the game has a guild. Basically, it is a list of quests that you can do, from hunting monsters to gathering materials to…that’s it. It’s a good idea to accept all the quests since there’s no penalty for not completing a quest, and if you do complete one, you get items and money. New quests appear each time a new dungeon appears (even if the “new” dungeon is really just a copy-paste of a previous one), so it’s a good idea to check back whenever a new dungeon appears. At first, I would fight all the enemies in a dungeon I came across, but when that stopped being viable, I would only fight the enemies that would let me complete quests, then I’d skip the rest. Around chapter 7, I started to skip doing quests as well since they started to become kinda tedious (kill 8 of an enemy type that only appears twice in the dungeon so you have to keep exiting and reentering!). However, I wasn’t getting anywhere with that boss, so I finished all of my “hunt” quests. I tried the boss again, and I was finally able to damage it more than it could heal! I was finally going to win, and then it used a move called “Dragon Raid,” which one-hit-KO’d my entire party.

sigh

Game, if you’re going to have a B.S. move like that, at least give some kind of conveyance. Skyborn had the “energize” move, and if the boss was debuffed, it would lose that energy (granted, sometimes the speed increase would let it move again right afterward, but at least it tried). Heck, even Final Fantasy XIII-2 had a red box appear in front of the red background before its boss used its super powerful attack! This game has nothing!

Okay, I’ll give this game one more chance. I’ll form a team based around vitality and healing. I’ll prioritize keeping everyone at max HP instead of focusing on damaging the boss and…yes! One of my team members survived the attack! Oh wait, the move paralyzed the team member and the boss killed me on its next move? Okay, now I have paralysis immunity equipped! Going through the same strategy, hit by the same attack, and now I have time to heal my team! Okay, I use the item that revives and heals 80% of the team member’s health and the boss is using that same attack again, twice in a row? My other team member didn’t get a chance to do anything, and now I got game over again?

sigh

That’s it, I’m activating the “Weaken Enemies” plan. I just want to see this boss die!! Maybe there’s something I’m doing wrong, but at this point, I don’t care. I gave this game plenty of chances, but if it doesn’t want to redeem itself, so be it.

In conclusion:
I don’t recommend this game.
No matter how I try to rationalize its flaws,
it just screws up again,
and even though its mechanics are sound,
its no use.
The final boss’s AI is B.S. in the end.
I think as hard as I can,
but when I have to go against the fact it’s grindy,
I’m discouraged again.
I beat the game, of course, but this is my plan:
I’ll refrain from buying the sequels for as long as I can.

P.S. If you’re wondering why I didn’t talk about the Shares, it’s because, from what I could tell, they had no impact on game-play whatsoever. Lowee was at 0% when Blanc joined my party, and she was still my strongest team member at the time.

P.P.S. For a game world being inspired by video game companies, it seems to have as much to do with its source as when a Hollywood movie claims that it’s “inspired by a true story.” Where is the Town of FM? What became of the rivalry between the Amigos and the Esties? How is Lastation NOT the result of a failed partnership between Blanc and Noire?