FINALLY finished Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth 2. I've had the game beaten for a while now, but I finally got the last damn Achievement.
So, the game has something like eight or ten different endings, each of which depends on how each of the four nations are doing politically (Basically, just shuffle Share values around through side-quests) as well as the main character's relationship values with each of the other party members (Set the desired party member in the main character's Back-Row slot and fight enemies, or watch the optional cutscenes for a free rank-up). Getting those wasn't too bad. As long as you know where the cut-off point is, you can set a separate save file near the end of the game so that you only have one or two story missions to do before getting an ending.
There are Achievements for the typical things. Get everybody to the level cap. Get 100,000,000 Credits, Craft 100 different Plans. Those aren't too bad either. The worst is the Plan one, but the others all have ways to manipulate the system and get them quickly. For example, this game has a mechanic like Paper Mario where you can get the first turn by hitting an enemy outside of battle. Use the Remake System, and you can craft the ability for that pre-emptive strike to kill enemies out-right. Craft another ability, and you can kill those enemies outside of battle, but still get the items and experience you would have gotten normally. Once you have that setup, you can just go out hunting what would normally be optional boss fights.
There was an Achievement for killing the strongest optional boss in the game. That one isn't too bad either if you've fully learned how to manipulate the battle system and use delay attacks so the enemy never gets its turn.
The bane of this entire playthrough was something called "Stella's Dungeon". It's harmless at first glance. Send an AI controlled character into a dungeon, and she'll look for stuff for you while you play the rest of the game. If she dies, you lose the things you equipped her with. The final Achievement is to beat this minigame.
Every level in the game unlocks a matching Dungeon, so you need to unlock every single optional level. Later dungeons will require about fifteen to thirty minutes of waiting per-floor, with Dungeons that approach 100 floors. Special Dungeons that are still required need enemy drops to craft. These enemies only spawn after crafting matching Plans that change what enemies populate certain levels. Some of these crafting plans are hidden in invisible treasures that are randomly generated and randomly placed within certain levels. Some of these crafting materials are only dropped by optional bosses that are about on-par with the ultimate boss, but move faster so that your delay strategy doesn't always work, so you need to gather more material to craft even better accessories to keep up. I ended up having to download a special program that automatically fiddles with my computer's System Time just so that each Dungeon attempt wouldn't take over a day of waiting for each one, and save-scummed to prevent losing gear because these Dungeons also get Super-Bosses that will obliterate poor Stella. There is no strategy here, just praying to the Random Number God...
