October 28th, 2025, marks an occasion I am stoked about. Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth trilogy comes out on PlayStation 4. Over the past month or so, it has also been released on Nintendo Switch, thanks to the Eastasiasoft import version. It is a great time to do something I have been debating for a long time: introducing you, dear reader, to Neptunia.
What Is Neptunia?
The world of Neptunia is based on the real world, but more importantly, it is based on the Game Industry. As is aptly named, the world of Gamindustri. There are four major nations in Gamindustri. Planeptune, based on Sega. Lastation, based on PlayStation. Leanbox, based on Xbox. The final nation is Lowee, based on Nintendo, which at the time of the game’s release was the Wii.
All four nations are ruled by a Goddess who represents their nation. Neptune, a lazy and laidback goddess who is always itching to eat pudding at any time of the day, rules over Planeptune. Noire, a hard-working but socially inept recluse, rules over Lastation. Vert, a hardcore online gamer with big assets, rules over Leanbox. Blanc, rounding out the four, is a busy bee who hates it when people call her childish or immature, and is the Goddess ruling over Lowee.
Generally, these four Goddesses are locked in combat above Gamindustri in a realm called Celestia as they fight in what is known as the Console Wars. The games generally take place when Gamindustri is in trouble, and the four of them have to team up together in some way to protect the world from whatever threat is trying to destroy it. You can tell who a Goddess is because they can utilize something known as HDD or Hard Drive Divinity. HDD is essentially a magical girl transformation that increases the power of the character. The people of these nations refer to the Goddesses as the CPUs or Console Patron Units.
Why Does It Have A Following?
Hyperdimension Neptunia is a series that is made with a limited budget. You can easily tell based on the reused assets and enemy designs. That doesn’t mean the series is bad, though. Many games, especially in the PlayStation 3 era, would reuse assets, maps, and designs. The Like A Dragon games are notorious for reusing animations, battle systems, maps, and character designs. It is what you do with this reuse that matters.
One of the reasons this series has a following is the fan service. The entire cast of characters you can play as are attractive girls. You eventually get to play as a boy fish, but overall, this cast is attractive girls with a good chunk of outfits. The hand-drawn art scenes can be suggestive as well, though a lot of the time, it is played more for humor than it is for any actual sexual tension.
There are lots of reused designs, but the designs that are here are very charming. The enemies are all based on other video games. The Dogoo is essentially a homage to the Dragon Quest slime. Visual novel enemies are literally 2D enemies in a 3D space, which is hilarious. You have literal green pipes that try to attack you in case you want some Mario references. You do have your more normal enemies like dragons and giant mechas, too.
Something that doesn’t get enough credit with the Neptunia games is the humor. It uses absurdist humor, and oftentimes, it is just humorous in general when it comes to the situations these characters get in. One moment, you can have a character contemplating their purpose in the world as they are about to lose everything they have ever put effort into. The next moment, you can have that same character fighting another character for a cup full of pudding.
These characters can feel exaggerated, but honestly, they are all great. In the side games, they tend to be a bit too oversimplified, but in the mainline titles, they all have some arc or character moment they have to get through. I love these characters, and it is one of the biggest reasons I follow this series. Noire and Neptune’s dynamic is one of my favorites, and I love seeing Nepgear grow a backbone as she has to stand up for herself. Blanc, being the representative of Nintendo but at the same time having the biggest potty mouth of any person ever, also makes me laugh constantly.
The art design and the character designs of the main cast are phenomenal. They have so much personality and charm in their live 2D models. They also have a lot of great facial expressions and moments to give you insight into these characters. I love looking at the art galleries in all of these games.
Gamindustri
The series is essentially a parody of the Game Industry, and it uses characters that can be fun to recognise if you are a fan of video games. The developers who make an appearance generally take a quick second to figure out, but once you do, you will notice a lot of similarities between the developers’ stand-in character and some of those game’s character designs. An example is the character Falcom. Falcom is based on the developer Nihon Falcom. The design of the character Falcom is greatly inspired by Adol Christen from the Ys games. As such, Falcom refers to herself as an adventurer who just loves traveling the world. Also, Falcom has bad luck being on boats, which is the reason why Falcom never makes it to Leanbox in the universe. At that point in time, Nihon Falcom had games on at least one console of every platform except for Xbox.
Eventually, in the series, the Goddesses get successors to their power in the realm of CPU candidates. In real game industry terms, these candidates were the handheld devices of the console makers. Nepgear was the Game Gear representing Sega. Uni was the PSP (and also the Vita) representing PlayStation. Rom and Ram represented both screens of the Nintendo DS and 3DS from Nintendo. Vert doesn’t get a candidate thanks to Xbox never getting a handheld console. (Maybe the next mainline title, Vert, maybe the next one)
What Is Neptunia?
Neptunia is a series that is a parody of the game industry. It has fun humor. It has great characters. It is an enjoyable piece of fiction. It is also a series laden with fan service that can turn one off or turn one on. Depends on the person. I think it is a great series and deserves at least a moment of your time and attention to try out the games. Luckily for you, the perfect time is going to be this month!
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.
