Megadimension Neptunia VII

Megadimension Neptunia VII (新次元ゲイム ネプテューヌVII, Shin Jigen Game Neptune Victory II, "New Dimension Game Neptune Victory II" in Japan) is a Japanese role-playing game in the Neptunia series of role-playing games, for the PlayStation 4 and Microsoft Windows. It was released in Japan on April 23, 2015, North American territories on February 2, 2016, European territories on February 12, 2016 and the Windows version was released on July 5, 2016.

Tropes used in Megadimension Neptunia VII include:

• Apocalypse How: The Zero Dimension arc has Neptune and Nepgear visit a place that has gone through a Class Three level event, teetering on the borders of a Class Four. And unlike the events of the first three games or the anime, where the worst that could happen would a Class Two event that would still leave possible survivors, the end game has a Class X-5 level event looming over the heads of everyone, with not only the Hyperdimension under a very real threat of total Cessation of Existence, the Ultradimension, being linked to the same since the end of the third game, is also menaced, and if the ultimate villain has her way multiple dimensions will be destroyed, with the Zero Dimension forcibly imposed atop their destroyed remains.
• Apocalypse Wow: Get the WORST ending, and you get to see it in progress, not that it's anything worth going "wow" over.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: The Dark CPUs, as shown in the beginning video of the Zero Dimension arc.
• Badass: This trope is given a fair amount of focus this time round.
• Badass Crew: The CPUs and the various Makers make up one, and the Gold Third from the second arc make up another. They join forces eventually and become a mega-badass crew by the end of the second arc and the beginning of the third.
  • Brought Down to Normal: The CPUs are almost entirely stripped of most of their power, with even their CPU transformations being very costly and far less effective at the beginning of the second arc, and they have to spend most of that arc clawing their way back to their former power levels.
    • Brought Down To Badass: This still manage to make the best of things anyway. Gold Third also undergoes a De-Power voluntarily, but it doesn't really cripple them gameplay wise, but it does cripple them in the sense they sacrifice what allowed them to supplant the CPUs are leaders of Gamindustri, but they don't really care about that.
  • Took a Level In Badass: Arfoire became far less a joke this time round.
• Bribing Your Way to Victory: Some of the DLC can make the game absurdly easy if you're willing to spend money on them, even moreso than the previous games. Oddly, though, the DLC that add extra characters AVERT this trope, and in fact actually make the second arc of the game far less Nintendo Hard in spots while by no means making them too easy.
• Cap: Most regular items are capped to a limit of 30, for gameplay balance reasons.
• Darker and Edgier: While the second Neptunia game dipped into this trope with the infamous Conquest Ending, it otherwise was as cheerful as the other games. This game, however, while still retaining the optimistic tone of the series and the colorful characters, cranks up the threat level faced by several notches, and themes of genocide, murder, brainwashing, war crimes, and torture are prevalent in the second arc of the game even implied Sister-Sister Incest in one particularly disturbing point in the Noire centered portion of the second arc. Worse, the end game threat posed is of a much higher scale than all the previous games combined, and if you get the worst ending, the Conquest Ending is downright cheerful in comparison, as the CPUs get to watch their own dimension be utterly destroyed as it collides with another universe.
  • The overall tone of the game is much more scary in parts, and while most of the monsters retain a cutesy video game themed aesthetic, some of the new monsters, especially in the Zero Dimension, are of the Lovecraftian variety of creepy.
• Disc One Final Boss: Arfoire comes off as this during the end of the first arc. But in truth that version of Arfoire was created by the real villain who used her as a proxy.
• Downer Ending: It take a bit of effort to get, but if you get it, it's FAR darker the infamous "Conquest Ending". The CPUs get to watch as their own dimension is destroyed, powerless to do anything about it.
• Dummied Out: A few things were not implemented in Megadimension VII, like Uzume's Kurome colored outfit, and God Eater's English voice files are in the code but not unlocked in the Sound Test. The VR edition of the game fixes most of these issues.
• Easy Mode Mockery: Cruelly crossed with the Multiple Endings trope. If the player speedruns through the game and misses some key events in the third arc that are optional, they will get the very worst ending. They get to skip a boss fight or two, but the tradeoff is practically an insult to the player for not exerting more effort.
• Guide Dang It: It's easy to get the normal ending, but the true ending requires several events to occur that are very easy to miss. Oddly enough, the Downer Ending is just as easy to miss, albeit only slightly so, as a speedrunner would be most likely to get it.
• Hostile Show Takeover: Played for Laughs in the Zero Dimension arc when Neptune thinks Arfoire is attempting this, Arfoire actually thinks it's a good idea, and Neptune mocks her for it. Played seriously in the second arc of the game when this happens for real to all the CPUs. Though it's ultimately reversible.
• Manipulative Bastard: This trope is like a ball most of the cast passes around.
  • The good guys of the Zero Dimension arc purposely push Arfoire's buttons to trick her into losing her temper to help themselves out more than once.
  • Arfoire herself gets a little payback by doing the same thing to trick the good guys into helping her at a certain point.
  • The villains of the second arc were deliberately weaponizing this for their own gain.
  • The main villain of the entire game, Kurome Ankokuboshi, takes the crown in doing this trope. In fact, the entire game is spent with her manipulating EVERYONE, good and bad alike, to get her plans to succeed.
• Mid-Season Upgrade: Invoked towards the end of the second arc of the game when the CPUs get the NEXT evolution to their CPU powers.
  • Which is promptly parodied as utterly useless in the beginning of the third arc, when said upgrade, while still being quite powerful, does jack squat to prevent the CPUs from falling into a trap.
• New Game Plus: Like most Neptunia games, you get to keep levels and items from previous playthrougths, minus some plot related stuff. Interestingly enough, all playable characters are in the party from the start as well, even ones the plot should not allow to be present.
• Nintendo Hard: The second arc's Noire, and, fittingly, Blanc stories are very, very difficult at the start unless you are ultra careful or have bought the DLC that add Game Breakers that nullify the worst of it. To elaborate:
  • Noire starts her arc by herself, in the middle of a dungeon area, with very limited supplies and bottom tier equipment, and she must be very careful to avoid combat at all costs because she's vastly outmanned and outclassed with no easy source of healing or escape. And even once she leaves, she's still forced to play conservatively until gaining some allies and better equipment.
  • Blanc has it slightly easier, but only slightly more so than Noire in that she doesn't start in a very hard dungeon area. She, however, start off with bottom tier equipment by herself and is vastly outmanned until she gets some allies and better gear herself.
  • Neptune and Vert get off somewhat easier in their arcs, as Neptune quickly gains allies and equipment, and Vert does so as well, and Vert has the benefit of cheap healing items being frequent Randomly Drops.
• The Bus Came Back: A few features from the very first game (not the remake version) make a reappearance in an improved format, such as the shares system affecting character strength.
• The One Guy: Umio is the first and only playable MALE (via DLC) in the series. Amusingly though, he can still benefit from the Lily System like the girls.
• Translation with an Agenda: Shows up several times throughout the plot. In the first arc of the game, Nepgear finds a lot of Apocalyptic Logs that are garbled and only seem to tell fragments of a story about what caused said apocalypse, And in a dream sequence she actually gets the non garbled version from what appears to be Uzume to her, implying the logs were garbled intentionally to disguise the agenda behind the one who garbled the logs originally. In the second arc of the game all the CPUs are subjected to a Kent Brockman News twist on this trope via their own online media, specifically, the organization Affimax is using help from a third party to Orwellian Retcon away the existence of the CPUs by literally rewriting the past so as to sow strife for their own purposes, distorting what remnants of information that does remain of the CPUs via proxy agents to prevent the CPUs from being able to undo the damage.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Neptune is technically responsible for the second arc of the game because she left a rumor magazine with the information about the Golden Summits lying around that the Shas found, leading to them becoming the Gold Third. The first arc seems like this too, but it's not Neptune's fault. Specifically, it's not HYPERDIMENSION Neptune's fault.
• Viral Marketing: The villains of the second arc weaponize this trope for their own gain. And after later pulling a Heel Face Turn, they find a more benign alternative. Said weaponization is also being exploited by a third party for their own purposes, albeit more as a distraction from their own agenda.