Adorkable: In the If a goddess was your wife CD Track 03 - Blanc, Blanc is pretty much this to a T. Since being a wife is new to her, she treats it about the same as Hyperdimension's relationship with her little sisters; solitary reading. When her husband calls her out on this, she desperately and awkwardly tries to find a solution - by immediately turning to a romance novel.
Badass Decay: Due to slacking off over the past few years since mk2 ended, Neptune and Nepgear have reverted back to Levels 1 and 10, respectively. Nepgear lampshades this.
While received much better in the West than she is in Japan, Plutia is a very divisive character within the game (and is one of the most divisive characters in the entire series). Fans love her for her cutesy design, being a caring person behind her ditziness who can simultaneously be quite scary and have a dark sense of humor, and being the first CPU to be a Good Is Not SoftAnti-Hero when in HDD, while others hate her for being a lazy slacker who barely contributes to the plot unless she is needed to, an Idiot Hero who is no better than Neptune, and a selfish, spoiledjerk who would deliberately terrorize friend and foe alike by threatening to transform into Iris Heart if she doesn't get what she wants. Her Iris Heart form in particular is hated even by those you like Plutia specifically, as while some like her for being a Creepy GoodHeroic Comedic Sociopath with occasional moments that show she isn't a bad person, a portion of the fan base hates her for almost torturing every character in the game without repercussions, especially since most of the time she directs her sadistic behavior to her alliesnote Torturing Noire for an hour after the latter complains too much about Lowee and nearly doing the same thing to her had Yellow Heart not arrived, infamously torturing (and implicitly raping) Nepgear after the latter lost to the other goddess, and torturing Uni, Rom and Ram in the Good Ending for the lulz. rather than just her enemies. The implication that she enjoyed her time as Iris Heart when confronting Rei near the end of the game doesn't help.
Neptune is either loved for her 4th wall breaks, or hated for her mean-spirited behavior towards Nepgear and Noire. Her treatment of the former is especially a major criticism of her character in the game, from letting Iris Heart torture her (as Purple Heart no less) after their battle with Vert to letting Nepgear get stuck in the Ultradimension for years while she and Plutia sleep in the Hyperdimension, an action Nepgear rightfully calls her out on.
And then there's Ultradimension Noire. Either you think that she's still the most popular character in the series or that her Hyperdimension counterpart's Tsundere traits got taken up to eleven at the expense of actual an personality beyond being a tsundere, especially at /vg/. 90% of the argument will always involve up the part where she treated Blanc poorly at Lowee and also backstabbing her best friend Plutia by telling her to transform into Iris Heart, knowing that she could scare away Planeptune followers.
Some character choices can count as this. Was it a good decision to completely sideline all human characters and reduce them to nothing but DLC, entirely sideline the candidates until the final level in the game, and focus entirely on the Goddesses, or should the game have done what mk2 did and focused on the humans, candidates, and Goddesses in equal measure?
Broken Base: One of the most divisive games in the franchise in terms of story. Fans like it for it's humorous and light-hearted nature as well as the funny character interactions and the return of the 4th-wall breaking, feeling that the game was a breath of fresh air when compared to the bleak and serious mk2, while detractors criticize the game for it's heavy use of comedy even in the more tense moments, the Flanderization of its returning characters (particularly Neptune herself, who goes from a lazy but well-meaning girl to an uncaring asshole, while her sister Nepgear goes from passive but competent leader to a complete Butt-Monkey), Plutia's tendency to abuse her friends as Iris Heart without repercussions made her very unlikable to some, and many story or characterization elements being underutilized or wasted (such as the concept of a world where Gamindustri is set in the 80's being squandered by the many historical inaccuracies the game gets about the 1980's Video Game industry, which the Ultradimension takes heavy inspiration from). Part of the reason why the Re;Birth trilogy and VII was made was to salvage most of the issues fans had with this game (e.g. toning down the core characters jerkass behavior, having a perfect balance between seriousness and silliness, and treating Nepgear and the other Candidates with respect); the anime was made to specifically rectify Plutia's character by making her an Adaptational Nice Guy where she genuinely cares for her friends and only directs her sadism towards the enemies.
Common Knowledge: Due to her name being derived from a much more well-known hardware, many fans mistakenly believe that Peashy represents PC gaming has a whole, when she represents the PC Engine, the TurboGrafx-16in Japan, the console where her name actually comes from. This is due to the TG16 being a complete failure in the Western market, while the PC Engine isn't was well-known outside of Japan.
Designated Hero: The CPUs in general come off as more selfish and petty in this game, making it harder to root for them. These two in particular are the worst offenders.
Plutia, especially as Iris Heart. While she was already intended to be an Anti-Hero from the start, the story failed to expand on her more positive traits, like her compassionate attitude towards her friends or her devotion to protect her adopted children. Instead, she spends the majority of the game as a spoiled, controlling megalomaniac who uses the fear that both her enemies and her allies have on her IrisHeart form as a threat to get what she wants, while also taking pleasure in intimidating, threatening, and bullying her supposed "friends" (especially Noire, who is her childhood friend) without having any moral and mental restraints or consequences on said behavior. Special mention goes to the "Good" Ending, where she straight up tortures Uni and the twins after they greet her, with Neptune actually approving her on it!
Neptune herself is significantly less heroic and more lazy than ever, constantly belittling both Noire and Nepgear, and not even caring for the latter when she's being tortured by Iris Heart. It got so bad that Nepgear chewed her out for being a horrible sister in the "Good" ending where she and Plutia leave her behind to sleep.
Designated Monkey: Nepgear being insulted and abused by everyone (including her own sister) throughout the game is seen by some people as an extremely undeserving and disrespectful portrayal of the character, even by those who otherwise dislike Nepgear, as not only does this undos her Character Development from the previous game, but said Butt-Monkey status was done in response to her initial base breaking status in mk2. The scenes where Nepgear gets tortured by Iris Heart after joining Vert's side (with Neptune not even batting an eye and thinks it is justified because Vert gave her sisterly affection), and getting stranded in the Ultradimension for a decade in the Good Ending after Plutia trips Neptune in the portal to the Hyperdimension, while Neptune doesn't even bother to save her and would rather sleep with Plutia were seen as the game's most cruelest moments.
Ensemble Dark Horse: Compared to the other CPUs, Blanc is considerably well-liked by the fandom due to being the only character to actually have a reason to act this way (not wanting to be a CPU from the start and having a Treacherous Advisor who betrays her), her angry, self-absorbed attitude being a front to hide her lonely, self-hating side as well as having trust issues, and going through actual Character Development (where she goes from a belligerent jerkass to a nicer person), making fans see her as a sympathetic Jerkass Woobie. Her Reimu-like shrine maiden outfit and having a cute side in the Drama CD out also helps her case.
Epileptic Trees: Many Western fans, namely on Reddit, have theorized that Plutia and Rei Ryghts were, at least originally, intended to be Foils to each other despite neither Idea Factory nor Compile Heart saying so, as they're both Nice Girls who truly care about their colleagues, but have a dangerously unstable Superpowered Evil Side that they try (and fail) to hide in order to not cause any more chaos to the people they care about (Iris Heart being a scaremongering sadist who inflicts pain on both enemies and allies alike, while HDD Rei is a megalomaniacal Psychopathic Womanchild who uses murder to get in her way); but whereas Plutia is an Anti-Hero who doesn't hold back when dealing with her enemies, Rei is an Anti-Villain who is too weak-willed to make any advances despite being the leader of an anti-CPU group. Many have believed that Rei being a "mirror villain" to Plutia would have been a great opportunity to develop the latter's character rather than leaving her the same as she was in the beginning.
Fan Nickname: Cyan or Blue Heart for HDD Rei, as she's the only CPU in the series not to have a name in her HDD formnote Pippih, Jagaa, and Reedio would succeed her in that a decade later.
Fridge Horror: Whenever Iris Heart punishes her victims, it's either obscured via a black screen that skips right ahead to the next scene or is replaced with an "intermission" showcasing Neptune in a construction workers outfit. While it's played for dark humor, it also creates an unsettling feeling of what Iris Heart does to her victims since we only see the victim's traumatized state afterwards; though it's stated that she "tortured" them (which is a given considering the game is rated T), some scenes veer heavily into rape territory. A notable example was what she did to Nepgear in Chapter 4. After suffering a Humiliation Conga by Iris Heart for abandoning the others for Vert (who had been bawling her eyes out after she lost to the other goddesses), Nepgear laments that she can never get married now — a line that is said by women after they get sexually assaulted. And considering that during the "Good" Ending, she does this to Rom and Ram...
The Hero Drink series of items restores a small percentage of a character's health, and a massive amount of MP. They are ludicrously cheap for such a useful effect, allowing you to just stock up a ton of them and plow through dungeons by spamming your strongest skills. They do have to be manufactured first, but they're one of the easiest recipes to obtain and produce.
Making money in this game is pretty easy as soon as you get to chapter 4. One monster plus one costume, make them in the factory, and suddenly you have a one million profit.
Possibly justified as you will need a lot of credits to buy out everything from the store and especially the scouts. Unfortunately, this doesn't work for Re;Birth 3.
Once you get Vert and Nepgear in chapter 4, you can start creating the CPU Rings which give out a lot of stat increases. While you're at it, you can also obtain Vert's Infinity -1 Sword, Dreadnaught, rather easily as well in the same chapter. Just give her a few levels till you let her learn Air Slicer, give her the godly disc above and she'll fill up that EXE gauge in no time. Given that this chapter also introduces to players (who want to get all the quests done) Gargoyle, you will need it.
Neptune, in general. To wit:
One of her skills enables her to raise most of a target character's stats at once. That, coupled with her unusually good skill compatibility with almost every other character in the game makes her arguably overpowered. Partly justified though as she's the game's protagonist. Lampshaded by the skill's own description.
On that note, Neptune's compatibility with her party. Her high stats and powerful moves make her an excellent damage dealer, and what stat-affecting moves she has are geared purely for increasing survivability. She can just as easily be made the party tank, and only Blanc tanks better than her. Coupled with being able to partner up for an EXE Drive with practically everyone, she easily fits into any party. There's hardly a practical reason to keep her out of it.
Her Victory Slash is grossly overpowered, actually being around the same level of power as some EXE Drives. The only limiting factors are its steep SP cost and that it only does two hits, but compensates by also being an Area of Effect attack. Any higher on the power or hit count number and it would have to be be made an EXE Drive by itself to balance it out.
Lastly, Neptune is required for two of the most hideously powerful Combination AttackEXE Drives in the game: Violet Buster and Guardian Force (which is the strongest attack in the game, bar none). If going for the latter, you can pair her up with Plutia to get additional access to their Coupling Drive and to Sharing Force's debuff bonanza, or instead you can pair her with Nepgear and keep the Candidates as the supports in order to switch them over for Superior Angels if you want. Either way, most versatility is maintained by having Neptune in the party. Geez, talk about Powerful Purple Protagonist Privileges! No wonder Neptune doesn't want to give the position up!
Plutia mistaking a CPU Memory for candy? Amusing. Blanc, Peashy, and Rei all making similar mistakes? One tragedy after the next. The world sucking outside of Lowee until Planeptune and Lastation came along? Interesting take on how things played out in real life. That's not the only thing taken from real life.
Being unavailable in future installments, which happened once, Nepgear didn't appear in Hyperdevotion Noire.
In Megadimension Neptunia VII, The characters exclusive to this game are made into Scouts. A special DLC set of scouts for the remake... includes the characters exclusive to the later game!
Improved Second Attempt: While it's minor, Re;Birth3 dials back Neptune's Jerkass behavior in Victory by giving her moments where she realizes how much of aBig Sister Bully she was to Nepgear, alleviating complaints from fans who hated Neptune being a giant jerk towards Nepgear and Noire.
Iron Woobie: Blanc. She never wanted to be a CPU in the first place, but when it happened she went out of her way to make Lowee and make it a decent place to live in Gamindustri (and implied to be the only one for the longest time until Planeptune and later Lastation came along). And these other countries start to indirectly make hers fall apart. Mr.Badd, who she had trusted as an advisor, more or less set her up for public humiliation and stripped her of her powers. Given the chance to just be a normal girl again, she instead chooses to give that up and takes up Iris Heart's offer to regain her power to protect the country she made. After The Reveal for Rei, this gets even worse. Had she not taken up Iris Heart's offer, despite being powerless she would never have become a normal girl again. She would've simply become a long forgotten powerless immortal whose nation would've eventually become treated as nothing more than a myth, just like Rei.
It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: Some fans were disappointed that the Ultradimension CPUs of Lastation, Lowee, and Leanbox were simply different versions of Noire, Blanc, and Vert, rather than being entirely new CPUs like with Plutia, despite the dimension they live in taking place in the 80's, back when their respective 7 gen consoles didn't exist yet. With the existence of Ultradimension Neptune, though, the reasoning may have been somewhat justified.
Memetic Badass: Gargoyle. He will give you one hell of a beating if you skimp out on equipment. Some players even say he's pretty hard even on Level 80 or with the overpowered DLC equipment. Players who've fought him shudder when his name is announced.
Memetic Mutation: Someone, somewhere out there will post about the IF President mocking the player if they don't complete the quests required for the chapter to say "Are you not -trying- to enjoy the game?"
Mr. Badd set up shop way over the line, rivalling Linda's actions from the Conquest Ending in the last game. The disgusting little monsters he uses to fight, and refers to as his "daughters"? These are children who were given CPU Memories and failed to transform, becoming Tragic Monsters that Mr. Badd considers his children and uses to fight with, and even uses them as extortion against the Goddesses in a very decent Batman Gambit. It gets even worse when you realize the kidnapped kids developed affection for him, seeing him as their father. The only thing that at least partially redeems him is the fact he genuinely cares about said daughters and even attempts to find a way to reverse their transformations.
Scrappy Mechanic: The Scout system becomes this when aiming to engage against Risky or Tough foes within a dungeon as it requires sending Scout(s) to the dungeon and praying the Random Number God allows them to return with a change in the enemy line-up. This has to be done every single time you want to face off against Risky/Tough foes in a particular dungeon. Thankfully, in the remake, the Scout System is replaced by Stella's Dungeon and the Remake System, the former no longer going to a particular place, and the latter meaning you can activate and deactivate dungeon changes freely instantly.
Sequel Difficulty Spike: Enemies hit a lot harder in this game now compared to mk2. To compensate however, you get more HP but that doesn't make things easier.
Strawman Has a Point: Though the Seven Sages are generally ruthless in their bid to oust the CPUs, their actions aren't entirely unjustified when you consider that the Ultradimension CPUs only ever use their Goddess status if it benefits them, as opposed to selflessly helping the growth of their respective nations. There's also the fact that two of the Planeptune CPUs Neptune and Plutia, the latter of which being the CPU of her dimension's nation, are generally indolent and prioritize their own habits over their CPU duties, which makes you wonder if these two are fit for being goddesses. In Neptune's case, it's been stated that Nepgear would be better at her job. It certainly doesn't help that the Sages' leader Rei is actually a CPU herself, with her objection to the CPUs simply stemming from her pathological inability to accept responsibility for her own tyrannical reign failing.
Surprise Difficulty: After Mk2, which was easy enough to beat in about a week, the Sequel Difficulty Spike this game underwent was very surprising, and the amount of grinding will make one rip their hair out.
Maxing out the Lily system for all of the girls. Unlike mk2 where you only needed to max out Nepgear's Lily Rank (because she's in the Unwanted Harem), in this game, you have to max the lily points of every single character paired with another character. It's not that hard but yes, it's as tedious as it sounds. Made more annoying by the fact that you can't get Uni, Rom, and Ram till you get at least at the Good Ending path which is at chapter 9.
The process is thankfully mitigated by the "Harem" chip that adds a significant boost to Lily Rank gain per battle. Even if all of the characters required for the trophies are at minimum Lily Ranks with everyone, fighting battles in the Colosseum with the right chip effects reduces the grind for the trophies to 3-4 hours instead of 20+.
During the story, Arfoire in chapter 5 usually pops up thanks to her being really massive. In the Quests (though they're optional really), people would be ballistic if they heard the Risky Foe "Gargoyle". To the point that some fans have exaggerated that he's Neptunia's equivalent of Matador, Shin Megami Tensei's resident Wake-Up Call Boss. Yes, he reminds us that buffs are really important in this game and that skimping out on equipment is not a good idea.
Gargoyle is really a case of either improper level scaling or just flat-out Trolling Creator; his stats are FAR beyond anything else you would fight at that stage in the game, and whereas every other enemy seems to follow a steady trend of "as game progresses, enemies stats go up", Gargoyle represents a massive outlier. But the REALLY jerkish part? HE IS COMPLETELY 100% OPTIONAL. No, it's not that he's a sidequest; normally you have to do every quest that comes available and is possible to do during a chapter in order to get a perfect score on the end of chapter review, Gargoyle's quest fits these requirements but you can skip him entirely and still get a perfect score.
Pretty much every character that was Put on a Bus or sidelined in Victory can feel this way. The Candidates, who were hyped up and advertised as the main focus of the last game are entirely sidelined and do not appear until the final chapter of the storyline, with only Nepgear getting any focus prior to this, and she's mainly there just to be made fun of. The humans from previous games, despite being your allies throughout nearly the entirety of the last two games, do not appear in this game as playable characters, and those that do are relegated to DLC only, while they introduced new humans, who are also just DLC. Compa and Iffy, who are Neptune's best friends, are just DLC and, while they appear in-story, don't contribute much in either universe. Gust, Nisa/Nippon Ichi, and 5pb., despite appearing in both of the last two games, don't appear at all in this game note There's justification for Gust and Nisa though. Gust Corporation was bought out by Koei Tecmo and is a playable character in Nights of Azure, while the bad blood between Nippon Ichi and Compile Heart resulting in a large amount of N1 employees jumping ship means Nisa is making rounds in the Disgaeaverse..
While they're still DLC, the remake gives them for free, and includes the return of everyone except Gust and Nisa. That includes a unique situation where 5pb and MAGES, who are practically the same company, appear in the same game.
Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Blanc after losing her nation to Mr. Badd. We're supposed to see Noire as cruel for rubbing it in until she breaks down crying, but it really is her own fault. She was extremely condescending toward the other CPUs, and knowingly cooperated with the Seven Sages (though she didn't know that Mr. Badd was among them at the time) to set up a publicized fight with the intent of humiliating them. Blanc would later tearfully blame Neptune, Noire and Plutia for everything going downhill afterward, but all they did was fight back. Her fall from grace was really just her own doing.
Rei, a Shrinking Violet who is constantly pushed around in her sincere attempts to see some political change. At least until her goddess persona surfaces...
Nepgear, who is treated poorly by pretty much everyone, including her own sister. She's also sadly aware that she wasn't well-received as the previous game's protagonist.
