Alternative Character Interpretation: Neptune in the Conquest Ending. Is she asking Nepgear to strike her down out of a genuine belief that it will help her defeat Arfoire, or is she simply so weighted down by guilt that she can't take it anymore and just wants to be put out of her own misery?
Americans Hate Tingle: Western Neptunia fans have nothing nice to say about CFW Trick, due to his creepy obsession towards younger girls (namely Rom and Ram) as well as lacking the any sympathetic qualities — both in and out-of-universe — that made the other villains well-liked. So it's surprising that the Japanese popularity pole of the game ranks him higher than the Oracles.
Angst? What Angst?: As soon as the CPUs get rescued from the Gamindustri Graveyard, the fact that they've essentially been held as POWs for three years while their nations were being run into the ground by an international crime syndicate gets reduced to being treated like a minor annoyance, with the characters making jokes about mundane things, like Vert's obsession with video games, almost immediately, and as soon as this game is over, it is never mentioned again.
True Final Boss DOS Arfoire is this compared to what you've been fighting throughout the game. Justified because Nepgear has the combined powers of all the other goddesses that Compile Heart had to find a way to scale True Arfoire's health. And it's a Duel Boss too.
Considering the grief that CFW Magic put Nepgear and the CPUs through as well as the high and mighty talking she does whenever she encounters Nepgear and co., one would think she would put up a good, if not great fight when engaged in combat at Planeptune. It turns out that she's actually kind of a pushover compared to her compatriots Judge and Brave.
Resurrected CFW Brave. While he sports a new color scheme, it would seem as though he's lost his combat luster, if one compares him in this battle to his previous ones.
Anvilicious: The overall storyline of the game focuses on how piracy hurts the game industry, which would make it a simple Aesop if it stuck to that. It becomes Anvilicious with the strawmen used in the "Chirps" and when Uni is trying to convince CFW Brave that Piracy Is Wrong towards the end of Chapter 5.
Nisa's theme is a Toku-esque theme song that perfectly describes her personality. (N! I! S!)
Solid Park (the normal battle theme) would also fit this category due to how iconic it is.
The battle against Uni can also be enjoyable to listen to.
The True Final Boss fight against CFW Arfoire, as well as the fight with Delphinus, would definitely fit in this category for the sheer reason that when that music starts, you're pretty screwed.
Base-Breaking Character: Nepgear, she's either the series most pure and beloved character or the series most hated character for replacing Neptune and being too plain compared to her, and there is the Conquest Ending that really must not be mentioned in any discussion regarding Nepgear. Thankfully, this has all but completely died down as the series went on; nowadays, she's loved as much as her sister.
Complacent Gaming Syndrome: Sure, you could play the game normally, upgrading your party members' gear, buying and unlocking items in the shops, and doing sidequests to grind. Or you could just go nuts with Nepgear's DLC weapon, slaying all in your path without so much as seeing your party's animations until halfway through the game, not that they can remotely compare to Nepgear's absurd damage.
Only Neptune can make a line like, "Dammit! It hurts a lot more than I thought it was gonna!" sound funny even though the situation revolves around her having just asked Nepgear to kill her.
Re;Birth2 gives Nepgear a line when using an item about how it's wasteful, but she'll use it anyway. This is obviously meant to be used when she uses items on herself because of her low self-esteem early on in the game, but it's used when using items on other characters as well, even revival items.
CFW Brave, for being a sympathetic Anti-Villain who doesn't go out of his way to be terrible to the protagonists, unlike the rest of the CFW team.
Underling, AKA Linda is remembered fondly for her working girl appeal among the antagonists and more often than not just seems to be doing her job. She also gets some of the best snarky lines in the game and the occasional Pet the Dog moment. A lot of fans still want to see her make a return.
Franchise Original Sin: A lot of the problems with the series originate from this game. The biggest ones are the series being unable to take place in a single universenote The first game's true ending had the CPUs relinquish their immortality and left no room for a sequel, the endlessly reused enemies and musicnote The first game was darker in tone and had music that fit this, which meant it had to be redone to fit the game's lighter tone, and Warechu, who admittedly had no reason to stay. There's also Lily Ranks for trophy hunters, which weren't a big deal here because there weren't any trophies tied to them.
Nepgear in support position can let anyone break the Damage Cap to deal damage beyond 9999. Works best with Uni, Neptune, Nisa, 5pb, or Vert seeing as she has a Combination Attack with each of them.
5pb. paired up with anyone who either increases SP gain or reduces SP cost turns into a Game-Breaker as well. Her first skill, Heavenly Sound, hits 10 times, each with a chance at paralyzing her target. As long as she has either of those two effects, she will never run out of SP, so she can use it every turn making it so the enemy never gets a turn. This works for some bosses.
Like Re;Birth1, both Neptune and Uni's EXE Drive in Re;birth 2 can delay the enemy's turn. Additionally, 5pb's Slow Speed Break Skill can do the same without needing to use the EXE Gauge. Just throw in a 4th character to fill the gauge and the three can delay the enemy near-indefinitely.
The Holy Sword from the anime that comes free with the game on all modern releases is disgustingly powerful. Not only do you get the Infinity +1 Sword right away in Nepgear's inventory, it's several times more powerful than anything you'll find in the game all the way up to the finale. It's so strong in fact, that Nepgear can solo bosses on her own, with a single combo, and often with just one slash, no upgraded gear needed.
Harsher in Hindsight: Noire's comments in the LAN Party scene; she states that Online Services for Lastation's Console are free (Implied in the original game, outright stated in the Re;Birth version). While this still remains true at least for online gameplay for the PS3 (Sony's main console at the time and the console that Mk2 came out for), with a paid PSPlus subscription being completely optional (For the PS3, the primary perks are simply automatic trophy syncing and automatic scheduled updating), PSPlus is mandatory to play the majority of online multiplayer games for the PS4. As of July 2018, PSPlus now costs more than Xbox Live, meaning the comments look even worse in the current day.
It Was His Sled: The Conquest ending is not only the most well known alternate ending in the series, it's almost always the first thing anyone hears about the game thanks to its infamy.
Memetic Badass: Thanks to the Conquest Ending, the fact that she has much stronger attacks compared to her sister, and her studiousness, several fans have hyped up Nepgear to be the most effective goddess among the cast.
Memetic Mutation: "Neptune left the party" Explaination The Gut Punch message that displays after Nepgear cuts her sister down.
Moral Event Horizon: Linda has done a lot of horrible stuff throughout the game, like terrorizing Nepgear and co. into fighting her, but she definitely crosses this in the Conquest Ending, where she beats the shit out of a weakened Vert and mortally wounds her until she stops breathing and collapses. In other words, she flat-out killed one of the main characters without remorse. Her Karmic Death by the hands of Nepgear was pretty cathartic.
Never Live It Down: Nepgear is one of the nicer characters in the franchise, but the Conquest Ending having her rule the world as a Well-Intentioned Extremist after undergoing Demonic Possession, and the rest of the Goddesses sacrificing themselves to save Gameindustri was so infamous that both in-series and out of it, nothing has let her hear the end of it all. Even years later, fans of her have had to deal with snide remarks from other parts of the fandom about it, and for many, this is how they know her best. Incidentally, this eventually flipped on its head to turn Nepgear into a top-tier Memetic Badass by misinformation about how the events proceeded.
Nightmare Fuel: The Conquest Ending. In this ending, the largely light-hearted and goofy game is suddenly turned into a horrifying Gotta Kill 'Em All route, as you watch Nepgear (reluctantly) kill all of her friends and family with the Gehaburn until their is no one left but herself. It's especially unsettling to see the silly characters you've watched for the whole take everything that's happening in a deadly serious manner.
Polished Port: The PC version of Re;Birth2 sports 1080p resolution support, and is capable of running at 60 FPS.
Replacement Scrappy: A weird case with RED. Though some disliked her for replacing the fan favourite Nisa note Whose absence was the result of bad blood between Idea Factory and Nippon Ichi Software that led to her removal from the Neptunia series altogether, though she was lucky enough to become a DLC character in Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten, which was created by her company namesake., most of the hatred towards her actually stems from how poorly said replacement was handled; a good chunk of RED's dialogue comes off as annoying and repetitive as it was only written for the sake of filling in Nisa's lines, and she gets zero events to help flesh her character out, which made her into a Flat Character.
Salvaged Gameplay Mechanic: Part of the free DLC for the Re;Birth version is the anime version of the Gehaburn, negating the need to do a Conquest Mode playthrough purely to get it. note The only reason for even considering working for the Conquest Ending is for 100% Completion. It even has stats much higher than the normal Conquest Ending version, more similar to the sword unlocked by the Holy Sword ending.
Salvaged Story: The Holy Sword Ending starts off exactly like the Conquest Ending that everyone dreads, but it has the characters realize how out of character they're acting by turning on each other so easily, almost as if it was addressing the issues of the Downer Ending. And Nepgear, who is remembered for the bad ending, is the one to break the cursed sword.
The fact that CFW Trick is a canonical lolicon is already a red flag, but the way he acts is absolutely appalling. Just about every character who's seen him has been put off by his lecherous nature, and it was even enough to anger Gust, who is not the type to be angry. Ram and Rom unfortunately experience the worst of Trick's trickery, as he slathers the Loweean CPU Candidates in his slobber in order to "heal" their wounds.
And then Nina, the girls' caretaker, learns about what he did and likes it. Even if they managed to avoid PTSD, Nina is still sexually abusing two girls that look six years old.
Strawman Has a Point: A lot of fans interpreted this with Brave's big speech, even if Nepgear and Uni just brushed it off. Should children who are poor be denied happiness simply because they were born into poverty?
Surprisingly Improved Sequel: Compared to the first game, there's plethora of new characters, the original goddesses are still playable and will join you earlier, the battle system has been completely revamped and is now more interactive, you don't need to execute a particular attack combo to have the goddesses enter their power up modes, you can use healing items without having to adjust a bunch of gauges and cross your fingers, AND you can use healing items outside of battle. It is a vast improvement, at least. When the first game was remade, these features were implemented.
CFW Brave puts up one hell of a fight. The first fight with him is the worst though, mainly because you only fight him with Nepgear and Uni. What's worse is that Uni is pitifully underlevelled for this fight having not been recruited before this point, and unless Nepgear is more than powerful enough to make up for it, Brave will take you out like a bug. Fortunately he isn't so bad when you fight him for the third and final time.
Deneb, the final floor boss in the World Labyrinth dungeon in Stella's Dungeon mini-game. If you don't defeat it within 4 turns, it always does a crit hit for 9999 damage on its 5th attack. You may have to end up skipping it to get better gear in later dungeons first.
Blanc, Rom, and Ram from the Conquest Ending route. Three boss-level enemies at once who spam AOE attacks, one of which can heal the others, and one of which has really high HP and defense stats.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: CFW Magic. She gets the least amount of screentime compared with the other ASIC members. Even as the protagonists are advancing on their plans and are successfully defeating their members, Magic remains confident she can beat them. She's taken out without much trouble, is killed off rather quickly outside of the true ending to try and revive Arfoire, and we don't know that much about her. According to supplemental materials, she's a CPU for ASIC, something only vaguely hinted at in her design. The concept of an anti-gaming CPU would have made for a cool villain, but her role is relatively minor, all things considered.
CFW Trick is the perfect example of this. He's a pedophile that's played for laughs, which is seen as mostly harmless by Japanese standards. As such behavior is considerd a crime by overseas standards, Western fans are understandably disgusted by his creepy obsession towards little girls and hate him for that fact alone.
A somewhat... unusual example happens with the game's GOG release. The Neptunia series as a whole has a strong anti-piracy / pro-DRM stance when it comes to gaming, with this entry being by far the most overt of them all. GOG, and by extension its customers, meanwhile hold a much stronger anti-DRM ideology and with people being much more critical of anti-piracy arguments. Those factors combined can make the game's appearance on that storefront somewhat jarring.
Viewer Gender Confusion: Linda talks like a delinquent, has an androgynous voice courtesy of her seiyuu, and her feminine name can be easily forgotten with everyone calling her "Underling".
Linda is pretty popular nowadays. Back in the days of mk2, she was pretty disliked and was low on the overall popularity poll. Not as much as Warechu or Mina, but she was still really low on the list.
While still divisive, people have warmed up a bit to the Conquest ending with some hoping for a spinoff or similar that expands on that timeline.
is a Toku-esque theme song that perfectly describes her personality. (N! I! S!)