The third spin-off game in the Neptunia series, Hyperdimension Neptunia U: Action Unleashed (ChÅjigen Action Neptune U) is a Hack and Slash game for the Play Station Vita and later made available on Steam and the first hack and slash entry in the series. It was developed by the same team that did Senran Kagura: Shinovi Versus.
The plot follows two Gamindustri journalists shadowing the CPUs and CPU Candidates as they complete various Quests to help out their respective nations, but the number of monsters seems to only be increasing, leading the entire group to band together to find the cause of this outbreak and, as Neptune would say, give them more time for napping and snacking.
Now Troping:
- Action Girl: All ten playable characters.
- An Ice Person: Blanc and both White Sisters' primary attacks.
- Announcer Chatter: IF and Compa provide this during Gamindustri Gauntlet battles.
- Ascended Extra: Both Dengekiko (originally named Dengeki Lass) and Famitsu were NPCs in earlier games and even usable as Scouts in Victory.
- Attack! Attack! Attack!: You can clear most of the main story quests just by mashing the square button. (difficult quests, the irregular quests, Gauntlet and Neptral tower are exceptions though.)
- Battle Strip: Inverted. Girls won't intentionally dispose of their garments during battle, they need to sustain certain amount of damage before their clothes get torn to shreds. Mashing the triangle button also has the same effect eventually, however.
- BFG: Black Sister's weapon of choice, which she fires one-handed!
- BFS: Neptune's Super Laevantein sword.
- Background Music Override: When a character transforms, the background music is replaced with their theme.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Warechu learns the hard way when it comes to going just a little too far with Compa.
- Bonus Level of Hell: IF introduces Neptral Tower as such, but it's very easy compared to the "Difficult" Downloadable Content Quest pack.
- Bragging Rights Reward: The accessory obtained from completing Neptral Tower doubles the amount of medals that enemies drop but, even on a casual playthrough, most-if-not-all of the Medal rewards will already have been unlocked upon getting that far.
- The Cameo: IF, Compa, and Warechu (until he's replaced by a cardboard cutout).
- Call-Back:
- To the first game after clearing Neptral Tower with every character and Neptune laments no one had had any amnesia-inducing falls this game.
- Vert calls Nepgear "Ge-Ge" in one point. Nepgear comments that it's "Compa exclusive."
- On Nepgear's Easy ripping clothes event, Dengikiko comments about the event if Nepugia is causing the trouble. Nepugia was a chirper user back in Re;Birth2 who looks similar to Nepgear.
- Character Shilling: The loading screens shill Noire, saying that her HDD form is the strongest of the CPUs and that the closest thing she has to a flaw is her loner nature.
- Clothing Damage: Even if a character has high enough defense to absorb damage, her clothes can still be destroyed, giving an EX meter boost but also lowering her defense.
- Conflict Ball: Defied. The girls all start out as friends this time, and when Neptune asks if competing for exposure in Dengekiko's article is supposed to drive them apart until they learn a lesson about friendship, Noire tells her not to be stupid.
- Crutch Character: Uni for many players. Her combos are essentially useless, but parking her in one corner and holding the attack button transforms her into a mass murderer; she'll start firing at anything that approaches her without stopping at all like a minigun with unlimited ammunition. Useful for defeating enemies and ramping up both the SP gauge and the combo counter quickly. Pit her against the Final Boss however and she's gonna have a hard time damaging it. Also does not work on the Hard mode Downloadable Content, where the enemies are tough enough to survive the bullet onslaught while taking almost no damage.
- Cute Bruiser: The whole cast.
- Damn You, Muscle Memory!: While developed by the same team, the control scheme for this is slightly different between this and Senran Kagura: Shinovi Versus, meaning that switching between the two games means remembering that resetting the camera uses a different button (L in this, R in SV).
- Death of a Thousand Cuts: Some enemies take a lot to drop, specially bosses.
- Didn't Think This Through: Rom brings Blanc a "giant" picture book for them to read during their final Lily Conversation. Blanc points out that she simply stuck all of her picture books together and that makes turning the pages much more difficult.
- Downloadable Content: Extra Quests, unbreakable swimsuits for all characters, and some weapons that aren't quite as powerful as the CPUs' 3rd-tier weapons but boost other stats to balance it out.
- Flash Step: The evasion move.
- Endgame+: Clearing the main story opens the final quests as well as the Gamindustri Gauntlet and Neptral Tower modes.
- Eleventh Hour Super Power: The Lily EX Attacks, which are required to even damage the final boss.
- Excuse Plot: More than anything it's there to give the journalists material to write an article about the CPUs and Candidates.
- Expressive Accessory: Dengekiko's doll changes facial expressions along with her.
- Fanservice: The basis of the game's appeal.
- Faux Affably Evil: The Next-Gen Mech isn't causing trouble because she's evil. She was just bored and wanted to face a Worthy Opponent.
- Friendly Rival: Dengekiko and Famitsu to each other.
- Generation Xerox: All of Nepgear's skill descriptions pretty much outright state she copied them from Neptune.
- Genki Girl: Dengekiko. She's even paired with Ram in a "energetic girls only" Quest.
- Gotta Catch 'Em All: Getting all of the various enemy Medals to unlock stat boosts, accessories, and weapons.
- Hypercompetent Sidekick: Nepgear is implied to be this. The game description states that when she and Neptune work together, Neptune is even lazier than usual. But it works out well for them.
- Irony: Noire is constantly shilled as the strongest CPU throughout the game. Except she's easily the weakest CPU in terms of gameplay, to the point where she's on the bottom of the tier list with Famitsu. Even her HDD version isn't that much better than her base form.
- Improbable Weapon User: Dengekiko fights with a giant pen while Famitsu uses a giant shrimp.
- Jiggle Physics: Yep. They're there.
- Katanas Are Just Better: Neptune's primary weapon choice.
- Lag Cancel: Very much needed for quick recovery after attacking enemies to attack quickly or move quickly. This makes some characters go from decent to great while Vert going from a decent Lightning Bruiser to a very powerful and fast
Game-Breaker. - Loads and Loads of Loading: Not in the main game, but the Gameindustri Gauntlet has loads of this, due to how short the fights tend to be. Thankfully defied in Neptral Tower, where levels load far faster than usual if you're continuing from a lower floor.
- Love Confession: Nepgear and Uni deliver one to each other after you max out their lily rank.
- Nepgear: You're so reliable, Uni. You're always there when I need you!Uni: W-What? B-But you do a lot for me too. I'm returning the favor, that's all.Nepgear: In any case, thank you! I'm happy we're friends! I love you, Uni!Uni: You're blowing it out of proportion! But uh, sure.. I... love you too, Nepgear.
- Mad Scientist: In a cutscene between Neptune and Nepgear, Nepgear elaborates on her plans to create a popularity increase-inator that sounds suspiciously like a Doomsday Device. Ironically, considering her character, Nep-Nep plays Straight Man and lampshades it.
- Male Gaze: The game has a feature which allows you to pause the action and oogle at the girls all you want.
- Nipple and Dimed: Played straight. When Green Heart's tightsuit gets damaged, the nearly complete lack of fabric left on her breasts should leave her nipples fully visible; they are nowhere to be found. Justified, as that would instantly score the game an AO rating from the ESRB.
- One-Hit Kill: There's a cheat you can earn which allows you to kill any enemy with 1 hit.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Played for Laughs with Blanc adopting her "Blanny-Blanny-Bii" (simply "Blan-chan" in Japanese) persona.
- Panty Fighter: Many of the girls wear very short skirts or no bottoms at all, playing this trope completely straight. (Even moreso when their clothes get damaged.)
- Playing with Fire: Ram's primary attacks until she transforms. Many of Famitsu's attacks are also fiery.
- Power Floats: All CPU's and Candidates while in HDD mode.
- Promoted to Playable: Dengekiko and Famitsu again.
- Proper Tights with a Skirt: Rom and Ram.
- Reverse Grip: How Dengekiko wields her giant pen.
- Royal Rapier: Noire's usual weapon of choice, and very illustrative of her graceful fighting style.
- Shock and Awe: Many of Dengekiko's attacks are electricity-based.
- Shout-Out: To the Neptunia anime of all things when IF laments that Neptral Tower wasn't 10,000 stories tall.
- Blanc's "Blanny-Blanny-Bii" is of course a reference to Nico Yazawa.
- Dengekiko's hair accessory is a lightning bolt which is similar to the emblem used by Dengeki Bunko: the company she represents.
- Nepgear proposes turning all of the Gamindustri nations into a giant robot. Neptune's imagined description of how it would look comes straight out of Voltron.
- At one point Nepgear considers turning herself into a cyborg, but also considers turning Uni basically into a Targetmaster.
- Nepgear plans on fusing a gear with Neptune's popularity, and ends the conversation saying she needs to bring it outside to praise the sun to supercharge it.
- Dengekiko starts up her H-Dimension Railgun skill by flipping a coin into the air. Her ultimate attack is Kirito's Starburst Stream, complete with accessing SAO's menu and Dual Wielding.note
- The Stinger: IF and Compa cameo to introduce the game's postgame content.
- Took a Level in Kindness: Noire. So much that it scares Uni and makes her think her sister is plotting something.
- Visual Pun: Present but not pointed out if Dengekiko defeats a sword user.[[note]]The pen is mightier than the sword.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Even as a "noncanon" Neptunia game.
- Histoire, despite being major to almost all Neptunia games, does not show up. The appearance of the Candidates drives the question even further.
- Histoire did show up... kind of. She is the giver of a certain quest after the mainline story is beaten.
- The Other Oracles are missing from their posts too, which can be justified as the world map being used is based on Re;Birth1.
- Despite having Warechu appearing, there is no reference to Arfoire and Linda/Underling.
- Histoire, despite being major to almost all Neptunia games, does not show up. The appearance of the Candidates drives the question even further.
- You Bastard!: Between Neptune Breaking the Fourth Wall to criticize Idea Factory for crossing the line, Uni saying people could go to jail for looking at the candidates half-naked, and the characters screaming things like "Don't look!" and "You pervert!" when undergoing Clothing Damage, the game makes it very clear what it thinks of you.
