In my first article about getting introduced to Neptunia, I talked about the world and the main cast. In this one, I want to go over the gameplay. At least the Re;Birth trilogy, since it is going to be the games you should have ample access to.
Traversing Dungeons
There are a bunch of dungeons in the Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth games. They require you to go from point A to point B most of the time. Between these points are enemies that can attack you to start combat, or you can attack them to start combat with a Symbol Attack. I will get into combat later on, as there is more to dungeons than just enemies to find.
You can find items in dungeons by looking for blue question marks all around the dungeon. They appear at the same location every time you return to the dungeon. So once you find it and return, on the map, they will be shown. The map on the top left will have blue question marks that signify where they are. Another item will be the glowing blue boxes. These are one-time items in the dungeon that, once you grab will stay gone. These will have weapons, plans, or items that are more valuable than the materials or processor chips you find from the question mark items.
In case you want help understanding these two, follow the image below for a very simple guide on boxes versus question marks.
There are also hidden items in dungeons. Hidden items are different in Re;Birth 3 compared to the other games. In Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth 1 and 2, you have a scan button that scans nearby to find orange boxes that will change each time you enter the dungeon. It can change locations in the dungeon, too. A lot of the dungeons will be moving all over them, pressing the scan button, hoping you can find the orange box. The orange boxes have high-level processor chips for disc development or can even be plans for new dungeons. They are very worthwhile to find.
Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth 3 removed the scan button, and now hidden items are literally hidden boxes. They are transparent and have a very faint outline. You can jump to hit the box Mario-style to get items and credits.
The Charm Of The Overworld
When you are not in the dungeons, you will be in the overworld. This overworld is a 2D representation of the entirety of Gamindustri. You can travel to different nations by simply moving the cursor to select them. There will also be dungeons you can go to. There is text from characters throughout the overworld. There will be little text bubbles that pop up all over; you can select them with the cursor. If you don’t like the cursor, you can press a button to log all the locations in a menu that you can select, but it is more boring this way to me personally. It is a good way to see if you are missing a text bubble, though!
You can travel to disc development or in Hyperdimension Re;Birth 2, and Hyperdimension Re;Birth 3, you will be able to access Stella’s dungeon from the overworld too. This is also where you can check and create your plans. Hyperdimension Re;Birth as a trilogy introduced the Remake system to the world of Neptunia. With this system, you can find plans and remake those plans. You can find dungeons, weapons, armor, accessories, and costumes to remake. When you accomplish a plan for anything, it generally just adds that to the shop. Unless it is a dungeon or related to the game system or battle system overall. Be wary that there are limits to the plans you can have active. The plans are limited based on the size of the memory you have in-game. They are done via MB, and each plan has an MB resource that costs to create.
The overworld also has access to the Colosseum when you finally create that plan. It is also where you go to the Guild. The Guild and Colosseum will be used to help you move shares around. At the top right of the overworld, you will see the distribution of shares. For the best endings, you will want to get these shares as equal as you can get them between all four nations. Each quest you complete for the Guild will move shares from one location to another. Same with battles in the Colosseum.
Disc development is a system I would recommend getting a good grasp of, too. You can add the Idea chips you find in dungeons to a blank disc to give that disc passives for the character that equips it. You can have up to three Idea chips on a blank disc. The level of the Idea chip allowed will be shown on the left side of the screen once the disc is selected during development. These passives can be damage mitigation, an extra percentage of experience points earned, or even removing damage limits. Single hits are initially limited to only 9999 damage. You can use discs to remove the limit, or you can find a plan to remove it for all characters.
Fighting For Gamindustri
That brings us to the bread and butter of the Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth trilogy, the combat. This system is addictive once you get used to it. It is a turn-based combat system. If you attacked the enemy in the overworld and had a Symbol attack, then your characters get to go first. On your turn, you can move around the battlefield based on the character’s movement range. You get full rein to move around in the circle, and you have many options at your disposal. You can launch a normal attack string, which we will get into shortly. You can also use a SP skill or an EXE skill. You can guard to mitigate damage headed your way instead of doing an action. You can use a skill or switch places with the character you are partnered up with. A party consists of three or four playable characters, depending on Re;Birth 1 or not. Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth 1 only lets you use three characters in the front line. The other two games in the trilogy let you use four. Each character in your front line can be partnered with a character in the back line.
In front of the character you are controlling is a box that goes in front of them that is translucent. This is that character’s normal attack range. A normal attack string has three attacks you can combo. You have a break attack, a rush attack, and a power attack. Break attacks do a bit of damage, but they mainly deal guard damage. Power attacks do little guard damage but a lot of normal damage. Rush attacks don’t do a lot of damage, but it does multiple hits to help you gain SP gauge or EXE gauge.
The SP gauge had an interesting redesign in Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth 3. In the first two games, it is almost the same as other turn-based games, where it works like an MP gauge. You have max gauge when you first start a dungeon, and when you use an SP skill, it depletes the gauge and can only be refilled with items. In Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth 3, you start with a small amount of SP. Generally not enough to use an SP Skill. Though if you do attacks or get attacked, the SP gauge fills up.
Enemies have a guard gauge and an HP gauge. When the guard gauge is broken, you deal more damage to the enemy and also increase the critical hit rate. If you position yourself behind the enemy, you can also increase the critical hit rate. When the enemy gets back to their turn, they get a bit of their guard gauge back.
The EXE gauge is an interesting addition to the balance of combat. As you dish out damage and do a bunch of attack hits, you slowly build up the EXE gauge. At the beginning of the game, the maximum the EXE gauge can reach is one. You get more segments of the gauge as you continue the story of the game. It can reach up to four. At certain points of the gauge, you get access to EXE skills that dish out a ton more damage than the SP skills, but it takes EXE gauge from everyone. Every character shares the EXE gauge. If you keep the gauge high, the characters can add additional attacks to their normal attack string. You can also edit your attack strings in the commands menu.
DLC
If you are getting either the Nintendo Switch Eastasiasoft imports or the PlayStation 4 versions of the Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth trilogy, then you will get access to a lot of DLC. In Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth 1 plus it will differ a bit in what you get. Instead of baby IF and baby Compa, you will get Falcom to join your ranks earlier on. Anyway, a lot of the DLC are plans for new dungeons, level limits, new characters, and more. To activate the DLC, you have to go to the extra menu and turn it on from the title screen. If you are getting the game on Steam, you will have to buy DLC to activate it in the menu. It doesn’t come with the game automatically.
The equipment and accessories you get with the DLC are generally really good at the beginning of the game. They will help you mitigate having to grind a lot. The Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth games normally require a lot of grinding materials, and fighting enemies for experience points to get farther in the game. The DLC items and equipment let you go to the higher DLC dungeons, which let you get a ton of experience points. Also, some DLC characters have amazing base gear on them that can carry you through harder sections of the game. A lot of gear is character-specific, so you can’t take the gear off them to use on someone else.
The World Of Hyperdimension Neptunia
Overall, there is a lot to the world of Hyperdimension Neptunia. You can see it in the many forms of gameplay you will experience in the game. It is one aspect I love when I return to play the Re;Birth trilogy. Combat is fun and addictive. There is a lot of things to do in these games. You look for materials to make plans, accomplish guild quests and ultimately level up your characters to insane degrees. With the DLC the Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth games allow you to go all the way to level 999. You don’t need to do that as the base game capped you at level 100 and you could beat the game just fine at level 100, but it makes it so fun to see how big your numbers can be once the damage cap is removed. In that regard, it reminds me of the Disgaea games.
You can pre-order the PlayStation 4 physical copies of the game on the Idea Factory International Online website.
Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth Trilogy is now available for pre-order and will be released on PlayStation 4 on October 28th, 2025.
You can currently buy the trilogy on PC.
You can also buy the trilogy on Play-Asia for Nintendo Switch.
