Yeah I picked up the first two off of Amazon in a bout of "Man, I'd like to play me some Atelier/Ar Tonelico/Mana Khemia/Neptunia games" a few months back. I'm about done with the first game.
Hey, now that I have a PS3, I might as well get into the action myself! I've seen copies of MK2 around at Gamestop and Best Buy, so I guess I should snatch that up before it becomes scarce.
I picked up the first one after researching the premise on Wikipedia. I always though this game was a bullet hell shooter thing for some reason, so I avoided it. It sounded so wonderfully dumb, though I just had to pick it up once I found out it was an RPG. Compa is so damn adorable... I got halfway through the first game, and then ordered the other two.
I pretty much breezed through Neptunia until the final battle. Then it was like hitting a brick wall, but all I had to do was grind a quest dungeon with a summon boss that gave out 2,000,000 XP a few times, and that took care of the problem.
Everyone has a price. Throw enough gold around and someone will risk disintegration.
I picked up the first one after researching the premise on Wikipedia. I always though this game was a bullet hell shooter thing for some reason, so I avoided it. It sounded so wonderfully dumb, though I just had to pick it up once I found out it was an RPG. Compa is so damn adorable... I got halfway through the first game, and then ordered the other two.
I pretty much breezed through Neptunia until the final battle. Then it was like hitting a brick wall, but all I had to do was grind a quest dungeon with a summon boss that gave out 2,000,000 XP a few times, and that took care of the problem.
I did this exact thing. Well except for the fighting the final boss before grinding. I found the boss for 2 million XP and fought him six times in a row. Then I went into the final boss at 61. Protein + Neptune Break pretty much trivialized the final three fights.
Yeah if you can ignore the misogyny and borderlibne pediophilia in these games, they really do try some interesting things with the JRPG format. Sometimes they work and sometimes they fail hard but they are really interesting while you find that out.
But seriously, why is their framerate always so terrible? These are some pretty simple god dang graphics.
I don't know about 2 or 3 (have 2 in my backlog) but I was amazed that in the first one, I would run around a dungeon and have it still loading. There would be a "green wall" as I was running down the hall and then POOF more hallway. I guess they spent their budget on the very pretty character portraits and backgrounds.
If it came to the states, I'd actually consider getting the Neptunia remake. The first game looked to have the best story, and having Neptune as an MC is way more fun than Nepgear (Metaprotagonist vs. Heroic Stupid), but the battle system and dungeons were bad enough to be impossible to look past. Remaking it with Victory's battle system would be a HUGE step forward.
Mk. 2 was alright, but Nepgear's JRPG trope personality is one I personally can't stand, and the rest of the game wasn't good enough for me to overlook it either. Victory I need to try out, but even though Neptune's back as the MC, it sounds like things have changed. Chances are I'll Gamefly it and have my fill in a few weeks.
This is one of those IPs that's a little depressing. The concept of the setting itself has SO much potential, but it's bogged down by IF's entirely-too-Japanese game design mantra. The game is 'safe', and that hurts it way more in this genre than others.
I picked up the first one after researching the premise on Wikipedia. I always though this game was a bullet hell shooter thing for some reason, so I avoided it. It sounded so wonderfully dumb, though I just had to pick it up once I found out it was an RPG. Compa is so damn adorable... I got halfway through the first game, and then ordered the other two.
I pretty much breezed through Neptunia until the final battle. Then it was like hitting a brick wall, but all I had to do was grind a quest dungeon with a summon boss that gave out 2,000,000 XP a few times, and that took care of the problem.
I did this exact thing. Well except for the fighting the final boss before grinding. I found the boss for 2 million XP and fought him six times in a row. Then I went into the final boss at 61. Protein + Neptune Break pretty much trivialized the final three fights.
Neptune Break trivialized alot of fights
Non boss battles boiled down to pressing: circle and triangle x 3 and then L2 to skip the animation. Ending them in seconds. For boss battles, I added triangle x 4 to transform. Those were usually over pretty fast too. I'm probably going to start up Mk 2 tonight, I hear the battle system in the two newer games is more action oriented. I've seen it compared to Eternal Sonata (which is awesome to hear!), so that should be cool. Did they do away with the Item Skills thing? Didn't really dig that.
Everyone has a price. Throw enough gold around and someone will risk disintegration.
I've been marathoning Final Fantasy XIII on a quest to clean up my backlog. I needed a break from it, so I popped in Neptunia for the first time.
First impression : Mother of God! FFXIII's battle system is a spaz fest compared to this!
I do have a couple questions.
I got all the free DLC (which I believe are all just extra quests) before I started. I'm hoping that wasn't a mistake. I ended up having to look at a GameFAQ to pick out which quests were my level.
Also, how much grinding should I be doing? So far I've just explored the dungeon, collected the treasure, and killed the boss, fighting all the seemingly random encounters in between. Should I be trying to fight more randoms before clearing the dungeons?
I believe Quests tell you the recommended level you should be before attempting it. As far as grinding goes, I breezed through until the final boss. Once Neptune hits level 20(I think) she'll learn an attack called "Neptune Break". It's a very strong 13 hit attack that can trivialize alot of fights. I don't remember my level when I beat the game, but I did have to grind a quest boss a few times to beat the final boss.
Don't worry so much about grinding until you hit a wall. You can always go back and do any quest you want over and over if you need to. There's a late game quest with a summonable optional boss that gives you 2,000,000 XP everytime. It's pretty easy to beat too.
Everyone has a price. Throw enough gold around and someone will risk disintegration.
mk2 is a sizable improvement. They took the "stand in two lines and whack at each other" combat out and threw in a field where you can move your four characters within their movement radius per turn (reminds me of the core of Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits and Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter). When you attack, you can still hit button combos. You can edit the attacks based on the order the buttons are pressed (not unlike the first game but presented better) and depending on the button combo, you can pull off super attacks. As you level the characters, you can get more spells/attacks that cost AP and SP to cast. AP is gained per turn and SP is gained as you hit/are hit during battle and is carried over as long as you stay in the dungeon. The combat in the second game is less about grinding enemies down and more of positioning your characters to keep bosses from wailing on more than one at a time while you go to town on them. Sure, breaking their guard helps, but I tended to try to get AP and SP built up so I could combo and special attack all day long. Plus, I always kept a healer around to play field medic.
The fact that you can end up with like 13 characters pretty easily is an improvement, IMO. I finished the first game with the main three girls, two guests and didn't even both to go after the others. Of course, Protein + Neptune Break pretty much trivialized the entire second half of the first game.
Also improved is the fact that you can use items in battle without hoping for them to be cast based on what happens. It costs (either AP or SP, I forget), but the option is a nice change.
Here is a video of early combat to give you an idea (start at 8:43 for the first tutorial battle. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5BHdKiaGIw
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I'd like to play them, but they're hard to find.
PSN: Beltaine-77 | Steam: beltane77 | Battle.net BadHaggis#1433
I got all three of them rather easily from Amazon.
This looks like just the crazy japanese game I've been looking for
PSN: Beltaine-77 | Steam: beltane77 | Battle.net BadHaggis#1433
I pretty much breezed through Neptunia until the final battle. Then it was like hitting a brick wall, but all I had to do was grind a quest dungeon with a summon boss that gave out 2,000,000 XP a few times, and that took care of the problem.
But seriously, why is their framerate always so terrible? These are some pretty simple god dang graphics.
Mk. 2 was alright, but Nepgear's JRPG trope personality is one I personally can't stand, and the rest of the game wasn't good enough for me to overlook it either. Victory I need to try out, but even though Neptune's back as the MC, it sounds like things have changed. Chances are I'll Gamefly it and have my fill in a few weeks.
This is one of those IPs that's a little depressing. The concept of the setting itself has SO much potential, but it's bogged down by IF's entirely-too-Japanese game design mantra. The game is 'safe', and that hurts it way more in this genre than others.
Neptune Break trivialized alot of fights
Non boss battles boiled down to pressing: circle and triangle x 3 and then L2 to skip the animation. Ending them in seconds. For boss battles, I added triangle x 4 to transform. Those were usually over pretty fast too. I'm probably going to start up Mk 2 tonight, I hear the battle system in the two newer games is more action oriented. I've seen it compared to Eternal Sonata (which is awesome to hear!), so that should be cool. Did they do away with the Item Skills thing? Didn't really dig that.
Time to buy a Vita.
PSN: Beltaine-77 | Steam: beltane77 | Battle.net BadHaggis#1433
First impression : Mother of God! FFXIII's battle system is a spaz fest compared to this!
I do have a couple questions.
I got all the free DLC (which I believe are all just extra quests) before I started. I'm hoping that wasn't a mistake. I ended up having to look at a GameFAQ to pick out which quests were my level.
Also, how much grinding should I be doing? So far I've just explored the dungeon, collected the treasure, and killed the boss, fighting all the seemingly random encounters in between. Should I be trying to fight more randoms before clearing the dungeons?
PSN: Beltaine-77 | Steam: beltane77 | Battle.net BadHaggis#1433
Don't worry so much about grinding until you hit a wall. You can always go back and do any quest you want over and over if you need to. There's a late game quest with a summonable optional boss that gives you 2,000,000 XP everytime. It's pretty easy to beat too.
Is mk2 considered an improvement?
PSN: Beltaine-77 | Steam: beltane77 | Battle.net BadHaggis#1433
I too am struggling with the first game.
The fact that you can end up with like 13 characters pretty easily is an improvement, IMO. I finished the first game with the main three girls, two guests and didn't even both to go after the others. Of course, Protein + Neptune Break pretty much trivialized the entire second half of the first game.
Also improved is the fact that you can use items in battle without hoping for them to be cast based on what happens. It costs (either AP or SP, I forget), but the option is a nice change.
Here is a video of early combat to give you an idea (start at 8:43 for the first tutorial battle.
It already did. Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth 3: V Century was released in Japan in December.
// Switch: SW-5306-0651-6424 //