Neptunia vs Sega Hard Girls Import Guide

The Neptunia vs Sega Hard Girls logo

Characters

IF

IF is your standard majorly overpowered Protagonist this time around (much more so than Neptune has ever been). Retaining her incredible AGI and ability to use both magic and physical attacks, she now has a buffed transformation state much like the CPUs and generally has stats well in excess of what she normally would have as a Maker.

IF’s overpoweredness may become rather annoying if you don’t like it, as either she or Segami are required to lead your party and participate in all battles.

 

Segami

Despite being a deuteragonist, Segami is not nearly as overpowered as IF. Instead of a universally buffed transformation state, she has the ability to transform into any one of the Sega Hard girls and copy their current skills. This is very situational unlike IF’s transformation, and I rarely use it, instead using Segami for her inherent traits and just bringing along whatever other party members I like.

Import Guide

Below lies the original text of my import guide. I’ll eventually move it to another page as soon as I’m done with the English one. It will always be a bit less complete than the English one.

As usual I’ve imported the latest Neptunia game and decided to make a quick guide for my fellow importers.

Welcome to Super Dimension War Neptunia VS Sega Hard Girls Dream of Coalescence Special AKA Cho Jigen Taisen Neptune VS Sega Hard Girls Yume no Gattai Special AKA 超次元 大戦 ネプテューヌVSセガ・ハード・ガールズ 夢の合体スペシャル AKA goodness referring to games only availible in another language is difficult, isn’t it. I’ma just call it Neptunia vs Sega Hard Girls.

Trophy Hunter Warning: See the Fetching Balls Master trophy section for some info you should keep in mind the whole game or you’ll make your last few steps of trophy hunting extra painful.

If you want a description of the game in general, check out my Import Impressions post. I’ll keep things clinical for the guide.

See also:

  • A Japanese wiki, not fully complete but with Google Translate you can learn a lot.

Version history:

2016-2-23: Back at it, have some trophy info.

2015-12-27: Class section, Delphi Eggplant info, some trophy info, started FAQ section for important tips

2015-12-5: Some tidbits about the final boss. Ending conditions.

2015-12-5: Added max execution count for actions under Turn Gauge. Fixed some incorrect assumptions about classes, map bosses and Vs Sega fights. Added info on how to beat Sega Saturn since its’ the first roadblock I’ve discovered.

2015-12-3: Initial Version

FAQ/Important Tips

Combat

Fever is basically your EXE drive in Victory: Horribly broken and your key to victory in any fight you have no real right to be winning. If you’re stuck on a boss, Fever could very well be your way to victory.

Classes

Seriously look up what equipped skills do and what classes do, it has very significant effects. I’ll translate these and put them in the guide soon.  For now, use Google Translate and this Japanese wiki.

A second class for each character is unlocked as part of their story route when you get the “real” them and not a copy. A third is unlocked when a character reaches max lily rank with another character.

Lily Rank

Lily Rank is back (boooo), but fortunately it maxes at 5 (phew!) but it is VERY important (booooo!), but there’s a skill to make leveling it VASTLY faster (yay!). Also note characters gain lily rank by being in lots of battles together, not by activating lily combo bonuses as you might guess.

So basically Lily is AWFUL and impossible to raise enough just by playing the game. But if you equip a certain skill, use Symbol Gain (One hit kills still drop XP/etc), and use the Formation Grid that attaches all characters in the party to all other characters you can grind up to level 5 in maybe 10-20 minutes per character? And after the first character each other character takes increasingly less time, since some people are already maxed with everyone of course.

It’s still bad and annoying, but not as bad as Neptunia U or Hyperdevotion Noire at least. If you care about completionism or seeing the full potential of your characters I’d recommend raising lily ranks once you can.

The skill you need is 愛情マシマシ,  every character will learn it (though Neptune only gets it in her 3rd class, AFTER maxing lily rank with at least one character). You should probably prioritize getting IF and Segami to a decent lily rank with others if you want classes early too, as Lily Rank unlocks hidden classes.

The second and third floors of Toyopolis (the arcade place) are great places to grind Lily Rank. Good XP/etc, tons of enemies, easy to move around.

Materials

Press Triangle on the mission select to see where materials can be found. If it says the area doesn’t exist yet (no area listed), you may need to progress the main story first. A few missions will actually unlock the area you need to go after taking the mission though, so maybe save, take them ission and see if a place spawns.

All materials are used ONLY for missions, no crafting, so feel free to complete missions immediately. Missions are never given out twice (unless you get the ending and start a true New Game Plus)

If an area but not an enemy is listed, you need to gather the item from destructible items at that map. Look for “chests” (larger items that almost always drop items) instead of the normal destructible stuff. Clear out all the chests then exit and re-enter the map until you find enough items. Note these missions are fairly uncommon, fortunately.

Dragon Seoul (Dragon Soul)

You need this for a few special missions after doing…I’m not sure what honestly, but it’s super late after being very thorough.

You can get these by fighting corrupted/Virus’d Dragon Knights in the second area of the weird ruins that you can explore more of as you go back in time (more areas are unlocked by missions).

Save before you go to collect these! Take these fights very seriously as even at near max level the dragons pose a serious threat. Consider the classic tactic of charging FEVER and spamming Super IF’s EXE drive attack. Remember that one of IF’s skills gives more item drops from defeated enemies too.

Map Movement

In order to fully explore maps you’ll need to use the new traversal methods: Swinging on ropes, crawling through crawl spaces and running and jumping across platforms. If an area seems inaccessible, look for one of these methods to get through.

Note there are minor differences in how the protagonists act on the map. Segami has a delay in her jumping animation, making her worse for platforming sections (of which there are few that are timing sensitive). Segami’s map attack has slightly better range, helping you symbol attack enemies or destroy breakable objects.

So basically use IF for trickier platforming, otherwise Segami is slightly better for symbol attacks/destructible objects.

If you’re moving when you start a symbol attack your character will slide forward a bit while doing the attack animation. This is actually very dangerous as the game will register you as bumping into the enemy while trying to symbol attack before it registers the hit, so you get surprise attacked instead of you getting the drop on them. Try to stop moving before you start a symbol attack.

Combat

The game is a turn based RPG sort of line the mainline games. Some standards return like our main stats, symbol attacks, surprise attacks if enemies bump into you from behind/while you’re trying to symbol attack, and back/side hits still deal more damage.

You can run in combat by holding R at the edge of the battle area. Oddly you can’t switch characters mid-combat, and IF or Segami are required to be in your party.

Turn Bar

While the game is turn based, the combat system is a fair bit different. You now have a turn gauge that fills with each action, instead of turns ending after any one action.

Your turn only ends once the meter is full or if you manually end it. Ending a turn without rising the gauge at all leaves the gauge at “guard”, where you’ll take less damage and your next turn will come extremely soon after.

Normal attacks increase the gauge a tiny bit, enough to hit enemies 6 times after moving once. You can actually move after performing an attack, though each attempt to move will increase your turn gauge moderately. Your circle of movement in any secondary move actions is the same as when you started your turn. Ideally you want to position yourself so you can hit multiple targets without moving if one dies before your turn ends.

You can hold the attack button to perform a Charge Attack, similar to an EXE Finisher from the mainline games. Charge Attacks add major delay and use the whole rest of your turn gauge. Despite this, they always seem to do the same amount of damage no matter how much turn is left, so if you want you can perform as many normal attacks as you can then Charge Attack with your last sliver of turn, though this will result in maximal delay of your next turn.

The Turn Gauge ties heavily into the delay-based turn system all Neptunia games have–each time you increase the turn gauge you’re also increasing your delay, so be mindful of that. You’ll see real time updates of your next turn’s order in the top left of the battle screen.

Transformations do not count against the turn gauge.

Max uses per turn

Normal attacks – 8. If you move before attacking, only 6. Each additional movement costs 2 attacks worth of Turn.

Skills – 2. Though the first skill use only uses about a third of your meter, a second SP skills, surprisingly, have no more Turn Meter usage than a normal skill. Transformations do not use Turn at all.

Items – 2. Just like skills, the first item use will use a moderate amount, then the second will consume a greater amount, forcing your turn to end.

Charge – 1. No matter how much meter you have left, Charge will do the same damage but still immediately end your turn. Using Charge early should only be done to conserve turn delay or finish off a target (since killing with Charge adds more SP than a normal hit)

Guard – 1. By it’s nature, guarding ends your turn. In addition, you can only guard if you have:

  • Done nothing but hit Guard this turn.
  • Moved, then guarded, performing no other actions.
  • Performed up to two normal attacks, without moving, then guarded.
  • More generally, as long as the turn bar is still blue, you’ll guard if you press R.

SP

SP works basically like it does in Rebirth 3/Mk2, except executing skills no longer gives you SP, and there’s no Rush attacks to tactically give you more SP per hit, you just get what you get.

Everyone has 1000 max SP and never gains more. Transformations cost 200 and characters never start battle transformed. Transformations aren’t persistent either.

Best I can tell SP healing items are never sold in stores (or if they are it’s extremely late game) so don’t waste them.

Fever

Fever is your EXE Drive replacement, and slowly fills up as a secondary gauge in combat. Once full a star spawns, which you can collect by jumping into it on your turn. Fever charges slowly but is maintained between battles. Naturally it’s meant to be saved for bosses.

During fever:

  • All stats go up 10%.
  • Enemies’ turns are completely skipped.
  • EXE Skills can be performed for ~25% of the EXE meter.
    • There’s enough Fever to perform 3 EXE attacks if you don’t use much Fever between attacks.

As a note, “map bosses” common in other Neptunia games are initially absent but will eventually start showing up midway through the story, and they’re still not a common sight. Bosses after story missions are rare too, so don’t feel too bad about using Fever if you ever feel the need, it’s not needed all that often.

Characters and Classes

Characters have at least two classes, but only “real” characters can change classes at base. So at first only Segami and IF can change classes, and as you progress in each Era’s story you’ll unlock the “real” characters and be able to change classes.

Classes level up and give characters SP/passive skills to use, and also give stat buffs. Classes max at class level 20, and should hit max well before your characters hit level cap, so try to keep them somewhat evenly leveled.

Honestly not sure what exactly all the classes are yet, I’ll translate once I have them all unlocked.

Skills

You have to manually equip your skills like in Mk2 (I think?), which can be a little annoying but it’ll be a while before you learn enough skills to max out your initial three slots. You also get one class skill, one Charge Attack, and one EXE Drive skill. EXE Drives and Charge Attacks don’t actually use SP, but can’t be used from the normal skill menu.

Skills use a large amount of your Turn Gauge and as always cause moderate/high delay. Usually you’re good for up to two skills per turn, depending on your other actions on that turn.

Some skills appear to be passive effects, haven’t translated these yet.

Lily Boosts

Don’t panic! I don’t think this game has lily ranks, but by placing your characters along a “dress sphere” like grid you make connections between characters and get some weird buff for charged attacks from the characters you’re partnered with.

Not really sure how this works or if there’s a way to increase lily levels. I’ve spammed plenty of charge moves but still see 1 in all the Lily hearts on the boards. The “dress sphere” you place your characters on also has passive effects on your characters.

Gameplay Structure

Missions

This game is a little unique in every way.  The general progression revolves almost entirely around a mission structure similar to other Neptunia games, though missions are now almost all you do. Your base “levels up” and you get access to more missions, more Chirper requests, more shop items and more Plans  as you level up the base (plans no longer require MB or crafting).

Normal Missions

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Most missions are standard fetch/kill quests, and pressing Triangle over a quest at the quest screen will tell you where to go. The yellow line is the location, the line with no icon means you can find the item in destructible objects on that map (I think) and the monster icon/name means that monster drops that thing.

Drop rate is pretty high in this game and items are only used for missions, not crafting, so fetch quests are less painful than usual.

2015-12-03-215346

The above message, with no yellow location listed, means there’s no existing area that has your target enemy/item.

Usually upon taking these quests you’ll unlock the location they can be found at, or you’ll be given some other means to locate the target. If you really can’t find the item, you can always manually abort.

Story Missions

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Missions with no monster or item icon are “story missions” and will either end with an event or story boss. It’s required to do so many of these per era to gain the two characters per era, so prioritize these. At a certain point you may get very hard story mission bosses in one era and have to go do other missions instead.

Unlike mainline games, Story missions almost never end in a boss, but a few do–and they’re occasionally real doosies.

The Time Limit

Now, the most important part of how this game works is a huge story spoiler. Basically there’s a time limit and you’ll see why it’s here for yourself not much more than 5 hours in probably, but I’ll still toss the explaination in a spoiler tag.

The best advice I can give before you reach that point is don’t stress yourself out about the countdown timers on missions at all.

Story/mechanics spoiler
So the game works in a time loop sorta like Majora’s Mask. Once the countdowns all reach 0 the Time Devourer AKA our Final Boss shows up. You WILL lose the first time…and it turns out…it doesn’t matter much.

Losing to the Time Devourer simply restarts the cycle, but all of your progress except missions you didn’t complete is kept. Your inventory, levels, and characters are kept. Completed missions stay complete, but failed missions flow back into the mission pool again.

As you fail missions (either manually abandoning them or by running out of time), the Time Devourer will gain random buffs such as new attacks, STR+200 etc. Don’t worry about these too much, as your first few Loops are going to be basically “impossible” meaning a restart will be required.

You can fight the Time Devourer any time you please after the first loop ends, much like Chrono Trigger. But it will be a long time before you can stand a chance at winning so just do missions and play the story instead. Just like in Chrono Trigger just because you CAN grind your characters to beat the final boss “early” doesn’t mean it’s reasonable…and it’ll probably take longer grinding in the early areas than it would to just play the game normally instead.

 

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This is the quest to go to fight the Time Devourer.  Ignore it unless you want to end a Time Loop early, there’s no penalty for losing this fight. If you take this quest you can’t cancel it, you just have to fight (and probably lose). Talk to IF after taking it to start the fight.

Endings

Bad Ending

I think you have to beat the Time Devourer the very first time it shows up in a new game. You can do this with a new game plus…well it’s only possible in a new game plus

Normal Ending

Look in the bucket–I mean, start the “Time Devourer” quest from Histoire and win at basically any time in the story

If you get this ending, you can choose to be dumped back into the same “cycle” you triggered the final boss from in order to continue and get the true ending or just play more of the game. Pick the top/default option to continue. If you pick the bottom option, it treats the game as over and will let you save a New Game + file (top/default selection) or exit to title screen (bottom).

True Ending

Finish the Story missions in each era and eventually Segami will show up with an Event on the Library map. She’ll then add an Event to the library map (the very first tutorial map) which will now lead to the final boss. Beat the boss here for your true ending.

Bosses

There are some events where you can pick a side between a Neptunia or SeHa character and you must fight the one you don’t side with. I’m not sure if the choice matters much story/gameplay wise. These fights appear after you get the copy of the character usually.

Don’t forget you can use the Weaken Enemy plan at any time, and it works on bosses and seems to have no negative side effects at all.

Sega Saturn Fight

Sega Saturn is the really dangerous fight–despite being a 3 star mission, she’s by far the hardest fight I’ve had that isn’t the Time Devourer. You’ll want to gather all the Copy characters and do all the other story stuff before even trying here. I recommend a full party of at least level 40 (I did it at 45), full Fever and SP meters, and the best equipment you can buy for your battle party.

The Saturn fight is basically a damage race, she will deal incredible damage (5000 per hit often to multiple targets, often multiple times per turn) and you basically need to KO her before she even acts. Try using a full Fever meter and spamming Super IF’s EXE drive, then everyone else can go all out with skills to bring her down.  She takes around 280,000 damage total to go down.

As always, keep your characters at a fair distance and immediately revive anyone who’s KO’d. Try not to let Saturn have too many turns in a row (end a character’s turn early if they have nothing important to do). She attacks with magic only so high Mental Defense stats could help, but ~900 Men didn’t seem to help much. One of Plutia’s classes has an invincibility spell with a wide AOE that’s good for a turn or two extra, it costs 500 SP and only protects from one attack per character though.

After winning the first time, you’ll get another story mission in Saturn where you have to fight her again. It’s basically the same fight but with less HP, so fill your Fever meter again and you should have an easy time. After this fight the story seems to begin a new chapter if you’ve got all the other “real” Sega Hard Girls.

As a note, you could fight Purple Heart instead, I’m not sure if the outcome or difficulty is any different. When I tried Purple Heart she didn’t seem significantly easier to beat.

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For reference, this is the mission that is the oddly difficult Saturn fight.

Dreamcast

Dreamcast will fight you at least twice, and is never any harder than one might expect compared to the resistance you’ve met before. She fights you before her copy joins you, but you shouldn’t be too worried. See the above general tips for combat and Sega Saturn if you need help with general boss fights.

Game Gear and MegaDrive don’t fight, for some reason. Perhaps they fight later, AFTER joining.

Iris Heart

In a Game Gear quest of all times, Ms Mary Sue herself (Plutia) decides to be ah asshole and attack the party. Fortunately the plutia in your party can still be used for this fight. She’s hard, but not harder than Saturn was; she takes longer to KO your party and seems to have less AOE attacks. You know the drill by now, start with Fever, keep characters alive, you should be fine. Just don’t let this fight get the drop on you and you should be fine.

Game Gear Boss Rush

(need a picture for this one)

Not actually sure what’s going on in this one, but you’ll fight 4 Chao looking monstrosities, then 4 Deoxys looking things. A Fever + Super IF’s combo will instantly waste one wave of them. The main difficulty in either fight is the number of enemies, so just work them down one by one or use AOE. I assume they’re weak to different elements, I forgot to check.

Final Boss

If you’ve beaten all other quests, the Final Boss is significantly weaker and his massive self-heal every turn is disabled. At around level 60 I was able to somewhat easily beat the final boss with a Fever to start with (I always spam Super IF’s EXE drive as often as possible).

Note that the final boss has some AOE so spreading out, as always, is a good idea. It also has an (effectively) One Hit KO move that dealt around 32k to one party member. Expect to heal/revive no matter how strong you are. Keep your whole party alive and either spam SP skills (now is the time!) or build up a second fever. If you’re around level 60 this shouldn’t be a big problem, at least if it’s turn-by-turn regen is disabled.

Delphi Eggplant

This is the hardest boss in the game by far, but honestly isn’t too hard as long as you manage your team right. This fight should be performed only after getting your whole team to level 99 and ideally get all the Ultimate Weapons for at least your chosen team. Your classes should be max level too by now. Obviously stock up on items and fully heal SP and charge Fever, this is the last real fight in the game after all!

This fight isn’t very complicated as long as your team is strong enough. Even at level 99 with ultimate weapons, physical attacks are too weak for this fight. Also use the Break Damage Limit formation grid (the last one on the list) as your magic users should easily do over 10,000 damage. Physical attackers won’t have that problem because they probably won’t be strong enough.

Make a team of magic users and make sure you can debuff STR and MEN. I used Plutia, Saturn, Mega Drive and Segami (transformed into whoever I needed at the moment).

Then buff your whole team with the AOE +INT/MEN buff item (don’t bother wasting skill slots on buffs when you have items to do it.) After she’s debuffed spam skills and EXE attacks (I recommend Plutia since she’s the only magic user with a transformation). You shouldn’t really have a problem as long as you maintain buffs/debuffs. Delphi Eggplant doesn’t actually hit that hard if you’re using the Ultimate gear, so just worry about dealing enough damage and keeping SP up. Heal if you have to of course, but a proper team should take it down before that’s necessary.

If you’re a bit weaker/dont’ have the ultimate gear, be sure to use multi-hit attacks to charge Fever as often as possible. Fever will be your key to dealing enough damage between her turns so she can’t heal over your damage.

Classes

All characters have two classes unlocked through story and one extra unlocked by getting level 5 Lily Rank with someone else (probably one of Segami or IF), and Segami and IF have an additional unlockable bonus class.

Many class upgrades will require the same items, including a drop from the plant-tentacle monster in the Dreamcast ancient ruins, and a drop from the Dragon map boss in the dead Virtua Forest in the Dreamcast Era. Farm a few while you’re at it since you’ll have to make repeat trips otherwise.

Trophies

Story Trophies

You should get the following trophies in a normal “true” ending run. If you get to the not-true ending, you can simply restart the cycle WITHOUT losing progress, so don’t actually worry what path you’re on, just don’t do NG+ and you can get all of these in one go.

Historians

Simply clearing a ton of missions should get you around this level even in a single playthrough. If not, missions completed in subsequent NG+s still add to Investigation Level

True Ending, Bad  Ending, Normal Ending

See Endings.

Unstoppable/Maximum Damage

Deal a 100 hit combo/ Deal 100,000 damage in a combo.

If you’re having trouble with these, use FEVER mode on the final boss with some high damage/high combo count attacks and you should be fine. If you can’t deal enough damage, obviously wait until you’re higher level, there’s also a trophy for level 99, you know.

Up Up !

Used FEVER 100 times. You’re not going to obtain this in a normal playthrough unless you LOVE using FEVER. To get it just build up FEVER, then find a normal enemy, symbol attack it and run away on the first turn without moving, this should leave your FEVER meter at 100% for the next battle.

This is made easier with the “escape from anywhere” plan you should already have if you’re lategame and grinding for trophies. Trust me it’s far more frustrating to re-build FEVER than to just run away over and over again.

Yuri Yuri/Harem (Lily Rank)

 

See Lily Rank

Medal Collector

A big thing to watch out for is that the “intermediary” floors of Toyopolis (the arcade) count as different floors. So you need to fully explore floor 1 of Dreamcast era BEFORE getting floor 2, then BOTH floors before getting floor 3. Otherwise, just complete missions and unlock areas and you should find everything. Same is true for baseballs.

Fetching Balls Master

Get all the Baseballs hidden on each map. There are 42 (I think?). The trick here, is unlike Medal Collector, the baseballs aren’t marked on the map list for completion. The trick is to make sure you collect the baseball before getting the last medal for a map so you can keep track of completion properly.

If you don’t properly keep track…I’m sorry, but there seems to be no better way than to play through every single map in the game looking for the baseballs. This is highly unpleasant, so try to keep track along with Medals.

Delphinus

See the Delphi Eggplant section

Counter Stop/Level MAX

Grinding

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