Hyperdimension Neptunia "the Player" profile

[KaiokenBlueGT]

I was waiting for the "It's just a joke" argument.

Sure you were lol, but I digress

The fact that it's a joke doesn't invalidate what's said or what's happening in any way unless you want to argue that the punchline is that they're essentially lying to people. I fail to see how Victory's "tone" discredits what's happening in any way, regardless. The "funny haha" fourth-wall breaks about plot-advancements isn't even unique to Victory anyway, they've been carrying that tone throughout the whole series. (And yes, I know the "emo affinity" bit is real, I didn't acknowledge it because it's not important to the discussion at hand.)

Of course it can. Whilst not every joke automatically means that what they're saying is invalid, a lot of jokes in the series are stuff that are exaggerated and made for the purposes of entertainment rather than having any actual significance in the story. They're not meant to be taken super seriously, and are just casual comments that aren't meant to have any significant meaning that you're suggesting they do.

You're the one taking the meanings of these jokes to their extremes and insisting that's what's happening, whilst I'm keeping it surface-level as it was most likely intended to be from a more light-hearted story-telling perspective.

You'd also have to wonder why any of the characters are even taking any sort of threat seriously at all when your extremes exist. It doesn't make any sense for them to be threatened by literally anything when Neptune or any other character can just say out loud "Oh, the player will reload the save if we stuff up, so don't sweat it if we lose!" or something like that.

The lack of interaction with the Player and their insignificance to the plot in (nearly) every single game aside from one other game - aside from these very casual dialogues and the "Thank You For Playing" corner doesn't help your case either.

I'm getting kind of tired of repeating the same circular argument over the player's importance to the overall story. To suggest that they're not important to the story is to literally ignore what the story tells you, I've already given out relevant feats as well as the in-universe explanations and statements concerning the player's overall role in the franchise and the only arguments I'm given against them so far is "It's just the series being meta" as though that's somehow a debunk.

"it's just meta lol" wasn't my full argument, so nice strawman.
You do realise:

• I brought up how the tone of some of the games, like Victory, can make some of the stuff you bring up a lot more frequent due to it trying to get a chuckle out of the playerbase rather than being actual serious statements that has any actual meaning.
• I brought up the lack of a connection between the Player and the worlds they're involved with (The Real World and the VR Dimension).
• I brought up how the Player is highly disassociated from the plot beyond casual comments and meta jokes - which you are weakly tackling by essentially stating "but they are important because that's just what the story tells you".

... Right?

Yes, that's an obvious fact, but given that the character in question follows the R>F criteria of seeing the verse as fiction while remaining separated from it and being consistently treated as a higher power, this isn't much of an issue.

The criteria also states this:

However, there are also factors that can speak against Reality-Fiction Transcendence, even if all of the above is given. Those include:

• The realities are portrayed like parallel universes or otherwise as having just a finite difference in scale or having a similar nature.

Here is a scan that might interest you, from a fresh new game of VIIR:

they are explicitly referenced as seeing the verse as fiction and are said to be higher-dimensional. Their only means of interacting with the characters is through "video games", even in the instance where characters are supposed to be meeting them up close and personal, it's through a game. Honestly, just the fact that they "hypothesize" that it's from a higher dimension which we know sees them as fiction should be a strong implication that there's qualitative superiority happening here... it's essentially the verse reaching the same conclusion on the relationship between R>F that we do, that being that it's qualitatively greater.

You said it yourself, they hypothesise that it's (the Player) from a higher dimension, not necessarily the Player themselves. Once again, you're not showing any correlation between the Player and their associated higher dimensions.

And even if I were generous and agreed with you that they're referring to the Player and not necessarily the dimension they came from, it doesn't change the fact that the whole thing is a hypothesis. There's a difference between a "proposed explanation" and fact.

Again, the hypothesis really doesn't have much going for you in your argumentation aside from estimating the higher dimensional existence of the Real World, which is validated by Histoire & Croire in their explanation of the Player's associated two dimensions and their properties. None of this is actually aimed towards the Player.

 

[Ben_CleverName]

Sure you were lol, but I digress

It's an annoyingly common response to this sort of feat discussion, so yeah I was expecting it.

You'd also have to wonder why any of the characters are even taking any sort of threat seriously at all when your extremes exist. It doesn't make any sense for them to be threatened by literally anything when Neptune or any other character can just say out loud "Oh, the player will reload the save if we stuff up, so don't sweat it if we lose!" or something like that.

Do I seriously have to bring up the multiple examples of Neptune openly taking the piss out of perceived threats due to her "main character status"? It doesn't exactly matter one way or the other as the Player isn't controlling them 24/7 but if all you want is proof that they're "not taking threats seriously" when the player is involved then literally just play any single Hyperdimension Neptunia game. It's a highly repetitive theme at this point.

"it's just meta lol" wasn't my full argument, so nice strawman.

Notice the "full" part of the sentence. It's not a strawman when you literally admit to it.

Here is a scan that might interest you, from a fresh new game of VIIR:

That does nothing at all to disprove these arguments. I even acknowledged that statement earlier on. The scans have already shown that the players create these parallel worlds as a consequence of their game activities, they're not the homes of the players in question. It's literally in the OP.

You said it yourself, they hypothesise that it's (the Player) from a higher dimension, not necessarily the Player themselves. Once again, you're not showing any correlation between the Player and their associated higher dimensions.

And even if I were generous and agreed with you that they're referring to the Player and not necessarily the dimension they came from, it doesn't change the fact that the whole thing is a hypothesis. There's a difference between a "proposed explanation" and fact.

Again, the hypothesis really doesn't have much going for you in your argumentation aside from estimating the higher dimensional existence of the Real World, which is validated by Histoire & Croire in their explanation of the Player's associated two dimensions and their properties. None of this is actually aimed towards the Player.

Is this a standard assumption that people make - that a being that is very clearly laid out as being superior in some sense to other characters, sees them as fictional, and exists in a higher-dimensional world isn't themselves higher-dimensional? Are you suggesting that we can't put two-and-two together to recognize the correlations here? In the cases where a lower-dimensional figure "exists" in a higher-dimensional setting, they aren't actually "existing" in that space in its entirety (or their dimensionality would be the same as said space), they are existing in lower-dimensional subspaces, and there is literally no reason at all to assume that is what's happening here.

 

[KaiokenBlueGT]

Do I seriously have to bring up the multiple examples of Neptune openly taking the piss out of perceived threats due to her "main character status"? It doesn't exactly matter one way or the other as the Player isn't controlling them 24/7 but if all you want is proof that they're "not taking threats seriously" when the player is involved then literally just play any single Hyperdimension Neptunia game. It's a highly repetitive theme at this point.

Just because Neptune is being cheeky and breaking the fourth wall by saying she's the main character constantly doesn't necessarily translate to her and the other characters thinking that the Player is some sort of higher power. Or at least, that's what I'm getting from you there.

Again, on the surface-level for this kind of writing, which I've also stated repeatedly, they're just aware of their existence within a game and the tropes of that kinda narrative. You're once again connecting dots that aren't there.

In addition, you still haven't provided any counter to what I said about them actually feeling geniunely threatened and emotional in high-stakes situations (like Uni thinking she's going to actually die from poison in VII, Neptune getting scared of actually aging and the consequences of that in Victory, etc.).
If they really believed that the Player is some higher power, why is there such a repeated lack of involvement from them, and reliance on them, in the plot of almost every single game in the franchise?

What you're saying simply cannot work, because if that were truly the case - there is no story to tell anywhere. There is no point in almost anything anymore, because there can't be any stakes, tension, or emotional moments if the Player was truly a higher power. Even as much as Neptune jokes about being the main character, there are several instances where she understands the gravity of situations and acts accordingly. Why isn't she pleading to the Player to, for instance, rewind their save so the cast can find another way to save Uzume instead of having to shoot at her giant Share Crystal in VII?

Again, what you're saying cannot work - and to insist it does severely undermines the story and writing of almost the entire franchise.

Notice the "full" part of the sentence. It's not a strawman when you literally admit to it.

It absolutely is a strawman, since you oversimplified my entire argument to just me exclusively talking about meta references, when I already pointed out that there are other points which supplement it... Which I find your lack of a response to here quite interesting.

That does nothing at all to disprove these arguments. I even acknowledged that statement earlier on. The scans have already shown that the players create these parallel worlds as a consequence of their game activities, they're not the homes of the players in question. It's literally in the OP.

... No you didn't?
Yeah, the words "parallel worlds" is in the OP, but only when quoting VIIR's website. You yourself did not "acknowledge that statement", because you didn't bring it up or talk about it directly whatsoever there.
You're just dismissing my argument without actually countering it, yet again.

If there are "as many parallel worlds as there are players", it would mean that every player's interaction is unique - which creates a unique parallel world. This doesn't necessarily mean there's R>F transcendence, because like I showed from that segment of the criteria earlier:

• The realities are portrayed like parallel universes or otherwise as having just a finite difference in scale or having a similar nature.

It could just be a case of multiple parallel universes rather than qualitatively superior ones. Again, I think your provided evidence is insufficient.

Is this a standard assumption that people make - that a being that is very clearly laid out as being superior in some sense to other characters, sees them as fictional, and exists in a higher-dimensional world isn't themselves higher-dimensional? Are you suggesting that we can't put two-and-two together to recognize the correlations here? In the cases where a lower-dimensional figure "exists" in a higher-dimensional setting, they aren't actually "existing" in that space in its entirety (or their dimensionality would be the same as said space), they are existing in lower-dimensional subspaces, and there is literally no reason at all to assume that is what's happening here.

The burden of proof is on you to actually show concrete evidence that the Player's existence and properties are equivalent to the higher-dimensional properties of the VR Dimension and the Real World beyond your assumptions - which you have repeatedly refused to provide, despite me pointing it out to you over and over.

Claiming that the Player is "very clearly laid out as being superior" is not an argument. If it's as "clear" as you claim, then start providing evidence for it instead of making assumptions - because I haven't seen that yet.

As for the second part of your paragraph, I am not assuming anything. You're the one making the assumption that the Player themselves is higher dimensional without providing any concrete evidence as to this actually being the case. Me claiming that the Player is not higher dimensional would be accurate, since I'm not making an assumption - the series literally doesn't show your claim.

 

[Guacamolefletcher]

Not only do I think having a profile for the Player is pointless but I'm also sure there are numerous other character's who should be on the list of profiles to make before the player. If the HDN Community here is going to work on something, I think there are better things to focus on than The Player, no offense,

Ok, any comments on the scaling?

2-C is warranted, while Low 1-C is a bit... IFfy.

Why? that's literally not even an argument

Just because the Player is deified doesn't necessarily mean the Player is a higher power. Your comparison of the Player and the Real World doesn't have any link to it other than the Player existing there. Lower dimensional beings and objects can very well exist within higher dimensional space.

IF he's R>F ing a lower realm, it should scale to his existence

If you're going to run with this point, I think more evidence is required. Otherwise, I don't think your case is strong enough to warrant going through with creating this profile.

What more evidence is required than a clear R>F and then characters in universe thinking it's an R>F.

 

[KaiokenBlueGT]

I'm a bit disappointed you're only addressing a very small portion of my overall argument and choosing to ignore everything else, but fine - I'll give what you've said a look.

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IF he's R>F ing a lower realm, it should scale to his existence

Once again, you're assuming that it even is the case, and I've already provided reasons earlier as to why that viewpoint can be challenged:

If there are "as many parallel worlds as there are players", it would mean that every player's interaction is unique - which creates a unique parallel world. This doesn't necessarily mean there's R>F transcendence, because like I showed from that segment of the criteria earlier:

• "The realities are portrayed like parallel universes or otherwise as having just a finite difference in scale or having a similar nature."

It could just be a case of multiple parallel universes rather than qualitatively superior ones. Again, I think your provided evidence is insufficient.

The burden of proof is on you to actually show concrete evidence that the Player's existence and properties are equivalent to the higher-dimensional properties of the VR Dimension and the Real World beyond your assumptions.

---

What more evidence is required than a clear R>F and then characters in universe thinking it's an R>F.

You and the OP keep saying there's evidence and that it's all "clear", but when I ask to be provided with said evidence (repeatedly might I add), I'm not getting anything.

I'm just going to say to you what I said to OP:

Claiming that the Player is "very clearly laid out as being superior" is not an argument. If it's as "clear" as you claim, then start providing evidence for it instead of making assumptions - because I haven't seen that yet.

It's also been brought to my attention that there's also this line from the R>F Criteria page:

Additionally, the showings should be reasonably clear. Vague cameos of author avatars, hints at a "player" character without further context or similar things should be disregarded. In such cases it simply can't be sufficiently ascertained that the world is viewed as true "fiction". In some cases it's not even clear if it's more than a simple nod to the audience or humorous instance of Breaking the Fourth Wall, which is not to be taken seriously.

The Player would absolutely fit within this statement because they have no bearing on literally anything within the series, and they aren't utilised within the story by any of the characters - which is even more apparent in far higher stake situations where it would have been infinitely more beneficial for the cast to recommend trying to get the Player's help.

Again, the Player cannot be a higher power, otherwise the story in every single game cannot happen because the Player can just go back a save or "skip ahead". There's no stakes, there's no tension, there's no anything anymore. I'm yet to see anything addressing this severe hole in this argument.

Any mention towards the Player have been shown, so far, to only be reserved for:

• A post-game congratulations sequence (The "Thank You For Playing" corner)
• Meta Jokes (Neptune telling the player to skip the current cutscene, reloading the save in a Nepstation broadcast - all of which have been explicitly stated to be seperate from the main canon, etc.)
• A small portion of VIIR's new additional VR Room segments - where the Player doesn't even really do much aside from meeting and listening to the four CPUs and Ultra Dimension Neptune.

This should, hopefully, go to show how much the Player fits within the "a simple nod to the audience or humorous instance of Breaking the Fourth Wall" segment of the criteria. And as I've said before, there's also the parallel worlds part of the criteria going against the Player as well.

 

[Ben_CleverName]

Just because Neptune is being cheeky and breaking the fourth wall by saying she's the main character constantly doesn't necessarily translate to her and the other characters thinking that the Player is some sort of higher power. Or at least, that's what I'm getting from you there.

Again, on the surface-level for this kind of writing, which I've also stated repeatedly, they're just aware of their existence within a game and the tropes of that kinda narrative. You're once again connecting dots that aren't there.

In addition, you still haven't provided any counter to what I said about them actually feeling geniunely threatened and emotional in high-stakes situations (like Uni thinking she's going to actually die from poison in VII, Neptune getting scared of actually aging and the consequences of that in Victory, etc.).
If they really believed that the Player is some higher power, why is there such a repeated lack of involvement from them, and reliance on them, in the plot of almost every single game in the franchise?

The Player is never portrayed as outright omnipotent and that is neither my claim nor required for these claims to work. The fact remains that Neptune is constantly aware that she is in a video game, a fact which you obviously agree with, and video games have stories to them that characters follow. This line of reasoning extends to story-driven games as well, even if a player can reload a save file and prevent themselves from losing a battle, that doesn't mean that they can (or would) do that for every single story-driven loss. Neptune herself often acknowledges certain things as being inevitable due to the plot, something which again was brought up earlier on the thread (and not even by me), but she's also quite obviously unaware of how the plot will proceed. Obviously, these acknowledgments are done in a comedic manner, but comedy is one of the main themes of the franchise, and it's an especially obvious character trait that Neptune herself has. There are numerous instances of characters going through heated events only for Neptune to pull a complete 180 and force the tone into a different direction.

What you're saying simply cannot work, because if that were truly the case - there is no story to tell anywhere. There is no point in almost anything anymore, because there can't be any stakes, tension, or emotional moments if the Player was truly a higher power. Even as much as Neptune jokes about being the main character, there are several instances where she understands the gravity of situations and acts accordingly. Why isn't she pleading to the Player to, for instance, rewind their save so the cast can find another way to save Uzume instead of having to shoot at her giant Share Crystal in VII?

For one thing, there's the obvious fact that reloading a save file wasn't needed to get the happiest ending in VII, given that such an ending already exists without the Player having to utilize such tactics... but then, at the same time, that's assuming that save files weren't being exploited in other instances where the player might have actually lost for some reason. Neptune being aware of the existence of save files does not necessarily imply that she would be aware of when they are being used. This sort of logic is shown in the manga with Neptune herself getting a "save point", in which nobody but her is aware that things were being reverted back to normal. The manga is a separate continuity from what we're discussing, of course, but it shows that this type of thing isn't unprecedented in the series.

... No you didn't?
Yeah, the words "parallel worlds" is in the OP, but only when quoting VIIR's website. You yourself did not "acknowledge that statement", because you didn't bring it up or talk about it directly whatsoever there.
You're just dismissing my argument without actually countering it, yet again.

Bit of miscommunication on my part. I wasn't talking about that statement specifically when I wrote about it being "literally in the OP". That said, I did acknowledge it beforehand, specifically in this post. But it's clearly talking about the same phenomenon, given that they are both statements are referencing the players, both statements refer to parallel worlds being created, and both are for VIIR (one is on the game's site and one is on the game's start.)

The burden of proof is on you to actually show concrete evidence that the Player's existence and properties are equivalent to the higher-dimensional properties of the VR Dimension and the Real World beyond your assumptions - which you have repeatedly refused to provide, despite me pointing it out to you over and over.

Claiming that the Player is "very clearly laid out as being superior" is not an argument. If it's as "clear" as you claim, then start providing evidence for it instead of making assumptions - because I haven't seen that yet.

I've already shown the concrete evidence, going so far as to reference the requirements for R>F transcendence which the player clearly matches. The statement about a higher dimension intervening is clearly regarding the Player themselves.

Having observed these worlds which possessed different realities than the current one, leading reserachers hypothesized a higher dimension had intervened. As a result, one scholar's thesis spread globally. It stated that the characteristics of the singularity created by the shift implied some sort of sapience behind the interference.

Afterwards, the people of Gamindustri likened the phenomenon to differing endings of a video game based on the person behind the controller. They deified this supposed person, granting names such as "The Player" or "The Guiding Hand."

The statement outright tells us that the phenomenon was being brought on by a higher dimension, and that the characteristics of it imply sapience in the form of the Player. There would be no reason for them to not be talking about a higher dimension in this context if the Player wasn't assumed to be higher-dimensional here. It doesn't even say that it came from a higher dimension, the exact wording is that a higher dimension had intervened.

As for the second part of your paragraph, I am not assuming anything. You're the one making the assumption that the Player themselves is higher dimensional without providing any concrete evidence as to this actually being the case. Me claiming that the Player is not higher dimensional would be accurate, since I'm not making an assumption - the series literally doesn't show your claim.

This is not an arbitrary assumption. I am quite literally citing what the verse itself outright says to us. Just the fact alone that it compares both the Player and the world they come from to a higher dimension/heavenly plane should be enough implication, but the fact that they're also regarded as separate from the main cosmology while also holding a strong influence over it (again, this is shown at the beginning of VIIR also, and is supported by Croire), to the point that they're literally creating parallel worlds just through their game activity and they have to use games as a medium to directly interact with the other characters should make it obvious.

 

[GlaceonGamez471]

Bump

 

[Nepu_Enthusiast]

You'd also have to wonder why any of the characters are even taking any sort of threat seriously at all when your extremes exist. It doesn't make any sense for them to be threatened by literally anything when Neptune or any other character can just say out loud "Oh, the player will reload the save if we stuff up, so don't sweat it if we lose!" or something like that.

I think threats being taken seriously can be extrapolated to them giving us a story to playthrough, instead of viewing everything as a joke and thus no story to tell, and this can be seen if you simply play any game in the franchise. The Player interfering with events that involve saving and loading doesn't have to happen every single time they outright can't win and even if it was the characters aren't aware of the resets the Player does. So, if we were to assume that the Player constantly saves and loads things the CPUs wouldn't even recall that happening so your point about them not taking threats seriously crumbles completely.

Honestly, I'm quite baffled that you aren't attacking the fact Noire and Blanc outright prevented the game from loading a boss to avoid wasting the Player's time. Or even the fact It's stated by Histoire that the reason why everything in VII/VIIR went smoothly was that Neptune is the protagonist of the series which allows her to just win and even using "non-canon" material like Re;birth 1 that outright states Neptune is scripted to always get the best results due to her status as the main character. I'm just genuinely confused.

The lack of interaction with the Player and their insignificance to the plot in (nearly) every single game aside from one other game - aside from these very casual dialogues and the "Thank You For Playing" corner doesn't help your case either.

This can easily be explained by what I said previously. Their entire purpose is to entertain us by giving us a story to playthrough and they don't need to constantly acknowledge the Player or them outright saving and loading every possible scenario 24/7 to make this probable.

I brought up how the tone of some of the games, like Victory, can make some of the stuff you bring up a lot more frequent due to it trying to get a chuckle out of the playerbase rather than being actual serious statements that has any actual meaning.

The arguments you made against Victory were quite literally "Victory as a whole is notorious for having a far lighter tone than many other entries in the series". I hope you realize that naturalistically Neptunia is a light-hearted series that has an array of 4th wall breaks and various references to the gaming industry and Victory being more light-hearted means nothing because we know how this franchise already works.

If we took the whole lighter-tone argument you could quite literally argue that most of the feats performed in Neptunia are invalidated because naturalistically they are jokes that "shouldn't be taken seriously" which makes it even more funny when there are profiles for Rei, Plutia, and Peashy who are from the same game.

Also, if you truly believe Victory is more light-hearted than most games in the franchise you should probably play Victory again.

You said it yourself, they hypothesise that it's (the Player) from a higher dimension, not necessarily the Player themselves. Once again, you're not showing any correlation between the Player and their associated higher dimensions.

And even if I were generous and agreed with you that they're referring to the Player and not necessarily the dimension they came from, it doesn't change the fact that the whole thing is a hypothesis. There's a difference between a "proposed explanation" and fact.

Again, the hypothesis really doesn't have much going for you in your argumentation aside from estimating the higher dimensional existence of the Real World, which is validated by Histoire & Croire in their explanation of the Player's associated two dimensions and their properties. None of this is actually aimed towards the Player.

Why are we still on the whole "hypothesis" deal? If the OP only provided the website as evidence, I'd understand where you're coming from. However, said hypothesis is proven by the array of things shown in the same Game such as Histoire using the historical record created from our efforts in VII and converting it into a playable game known as "Mega Dimension" for us to play through again, the VR Dimension was created by a spatial anomaly that involves the overlapping of the Game World and Real World with the effects of the Real World taking more precedence as noted by Croire being a dimension that exists on a heavenly plane and Histoire confirming the same thing and going back to the website that outright confirms the VR Dimension is a high-ranking level which in this context would be synonymous with a higher dimensional plane.

For your statement involving the Player's status as a higher-dimensional being, it's simple. The Player comes from the Real World, and the VR Dimension is a fusion of the Real World and the Game World with the former having stronger effects hence the reason why the VR Dimension is a higher plane of existence that transcends the cosmology (Game World) that serves as a means for us to directly interact with Histoire, Croire, the CPUs, and Ultra Neptune.

• A small portion of VIIR's new additional VR Room segments - where the Player doesn't even really do much aside from meeting and listening to the four CPUs and Ultra Dimension Neptune.

This should, hopefully, go to show how much the Player fits within the "a simple nod to the audience or humorous instance of Breaking the Fourth Wall" segment of the criteria. And as I've said before, there's also the parallel worlds part of the criteria going against the Player as well.

The craziest thing about this is the fact the Player has their own game in the form of VIIR (which I've cited above) and VIIR's own website confirming that the Player's the central focus in it which kills the whole idea of this being a "just for jokes 4th wall break" deal.

As far as parallel worlds go, it seems you quite misunderstand the OP's point entirely. He isn't arguing that the parallel realities are qualitative superior ones, he's simply saying their worlds that resulted in the Player(s) choices I mention the "s" because anybody that plays the game is considered a Player, and every Player has their own playthrough that differs from another. For example, there would be a multitude of Mega Dimension realities for each individual Player which is shown to be the case throughout the evidence he cited in his post.

 

[KaiokenBlueGT]

The Player is never portrayed as outright omnipotent and that is neither my claim nor required for these claims to work.

I never stated that either, so I'm not sure where you're even getting that from aside from maybe my phrasing.

What I said earlier was that the Player could very well, if they were truly a higher power, "reload a save" or "skip future events" within the actual plot itself - especially in higher-stake situations where it would've made a lot more sense for the Player to do so.

Yet, none of the characters ever take that into consideration, despite how dire and desperate some situations within the plot can get (like, again, Uni thinking she's going to die from poison, or Neptune being afraid of dying of old age when arriving in Ultra Dimension), which speaks volumes.
And again, if this becomes the case, then there is no story, like I've said around three times now iirc - which you still haven't responded to.

[...] even if a player can reload a save file and prevent themselves from losing a battle, that doesn't mean that they can (or would) do that for every single story-driven loss. Neptune herself often acknowledges certain things as being inevitable due to the plot, something which again was brought up earlier on the thread (and not even by me), but she's also quite obviously unaware of how the plot will proceed.

Obviously, these acknowledgments are done in a comedic manner, but comedy is one of the main themes of the franchise, and it's an especially obvious character trait that Neptune herself has. There are numerous instances of characters going through heated events only for Neptune to pull a complete 180 and force the tone into a different direction.

The problem I was pointing out earlier is that none of the characters, even extremely intelligent characters (like Histoire, Nepgear, or Blanc), ever bring up trying to utilise the Player's ""abilities"" as a way of trying to resolve situations, despite their shown awareness.

Why, logically speaking, would anyone ever undergo any problematic event in any of the games - when any character, at any time they're on-screen, could just ask the Player to reverse a save - or anything along those lines? Like finding another way to save Uzume instead of shooting her Share Crystal in VII, getting Neptune immediately back to Hyper Dimension when Rei BFR'd her at the beginning of Victory, when any of the Bad Endings in the series are happening, etc.

It makes absolutely no sense that they would not think up of this idea if it was possible, especially, like I've been saying repeatedly, in immensely high-stress/high-stakes situations that would tremendously benefit from doing this.

Since you seem to agree that the series and (mostly) it's characters are more geared towards comedic value, then isn't it far more likely that their awareness is meant to be taken at face-value (for a laugh) than it is to mean something more than that (like with what you're suggesting)?

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For one thing, there's the obvious fact that reloading a save file wasn't needed to get the happiest ending in VII, given that such an ending already exists without the Player having to utilize such tactics... but then, at the same time, that's assuming that save files weren't being exploited in other instances where the player might have actually lost for some reason.

Neptune being aware of the existence of save files does not necessarily imply that she would be aware of when they are being used. This sort of logic is shown in the manga with Neptune herself getting a "save point", in which nobody but her is aware that things were being reverted back to normal. The manga is a separate continuity from what we're discussing, of course, but it shows that this type of thing isn't unprecedented in the series.

You're only partially engaging with my point. Whilst it is true that, ultimately, you can still get the True Ending (in most of the games that have them, iirc) without having to rely on additional saves, this does not address why any of the characters aren't utilising the Player whatsoever in high-stake situations whilst they're at that point in time, and I've already provided examples of this earlier, and even in this post above.

For instance, when the VII cast went up against Dark Orange for the first time - they were all highly unsure that they could even win if it wasn't for Uzume trying to encourage everyone to actually give it a shot - with Uzume having to resort to destroying her and Kurome's own "lifeline" (her Share Crystal) to weaken her even further.
Hell, even in the exact same scene - Neptune exclaims that she wanted Uzume to stay alive. She's arguably the one who engages with us (the Player) the most, how is it that she's not suggesting us to reverse a save, or for us to do anything else about it - or any other character for that matter?

About the manga, it isn't canon to the games - so you shouldn't even be using that here to back up your point, it's very weak supplementation.

I get why you did it, because "this type of thing isn't unprecedented in the series", but whatever the case may be - the manga does not connect with the games whatsoever, and it is very important to note that the writers for the manga, according to Wikipedia's records, have had zero involvement with the scenarios or scripts for the games.

---

Bit of miscommunication on my part. I wasn't talking about that statement specifically when I wrote about it being "literally in the OP". That said, I did acknowledge it beforehand, specifically in this post. But it's clearly talking about the same phenomenon, given that they are both statements are referencing the players, both statements refer to parallel worlds being created, and both are for VIIR (one is on the game's site and one is on the game's start.)

---

The earlier post:

In the first place, I felt it was more likely that the "parallel worlds" are in reference to the other dimensions (like Heart Dimension) given how prominent the theme of Dimensional Travel is in that game. I also never said that the player created those parallel worlds, but now that it's been brought up, VIIR's opening statement is literally "This world was created by another world. There are as many worlds as there are games, and as many parallel worlds as there are players." so it's not out of the question that this was what the quote was referring to.

The website, Histoire, and Croire all support the notion that the player's world is separated from theirs. Also, Croire does say that the player exists on a heavenly plane that she can't travel to. Obviously, that doesn't hold the same weight as it would if she'd just outright said "higher plane" but given the aforementioned context of viewing the series as a video game (to the point that even their direct presence in front of the characters is due to them playing said game) and being hypothesized to exist on a higher dimension, I don't exactly see the issue with assuming that this is an R>F transcendence.

I still don't see how any of this is directly linked to the player being higher-dimensional as the dimensions they're associated with.
Sure, you've conclusively shown that the Player exists on a higher dimension, or "heavenly plane" as stated by Croire, but that still doesn't mean that the Player themselves are. There's no direct evidence for that outside of your own assumptions.

You keep bringing up the same stuff, and I have to keep pointing it out to you that your evidence speaks more about the characteristics of the VR Dimension and the Real World themselves rather than the actual Player.

---

I've already shown the concrete evidence, going so far as to reference the requirements for R>F transcendence which the player clearly matches. The statement about a higher dimension intervening is clearly regarding the Player themselves.

The statement outright tells us that the phenomenon was being brought on by a higher dimension, and that the characteristics of it imply sapience in the form of the Player. There would be no reason for them to not be talking about a higher dimension in this context if the Player wasn't assumed to be higher-dimensional here. It doesn't even say that it came from a higher dimension, the exact wording is that a higher dimension had intervened.

That is not concrete evidence, that is your assumption. It doesn't directly state that the Player is that higher dimension, only that a higher dimension was involved. Which, supplementing this information with Croire's statement about the Real World being on a "heavenly plane", would make it more likely that this is referring to the Player's existence coming from this higher dimension, or the real world, rather than the Player themselves having the same dimensional properties.

Besides, I've already stated before how that whole statement are just guesses (or in more specific terms from earlier, a hypothesis) from both Gamindustri's leading researchers and random citizens that diefied the Player. Their words and guesses, as well as any hypothesis in general, aren't confirmed fact - and I've said this to you before.

I also find it a bit baffling that you yourself say that "the characteristics of it imply sapience in the form of the Player".
If you have to say that something implies something else, then that means you're making an assumption that this is what it's actually referring to. Just because something seems like it's implying something, doesn't necessarily equate to that implication being exactly what it's suggesting.

About the R>F transcendence requirements, you seem to be ignoring the parts of the said criteria I brought up that go against this, so I'll make it very clear to you this time by quoting my earlier posts addressing this specifically:

"However, there are also factors that can speak against Reality-Fiction Transcendence, even if all of the above is given. Those include:

• The realities are portrayed like parallel universes or otherwise as having just a finite difference in scale or having a similar nature."

It could just be a case of multiple parallel universes rather than qualitatively superior ones. Again, I think your provided evidence is insufficient.

It's also been brought to my attention that there's also this line from the R>F Criteria page:

"Additionally, the showings should be reasonably clear. Vague cameos of author avatars, hints at a "player" character without further context or similar things should be disregarded. In such cases it simply can't be sufficiently ascertained that the world is viewed as true "fiction". In some cases it's not even clear if it's more than a simple nod to the audience or humorous instance of Breaking the Fourth Wall, which is not to be taken seriously."

The Player would absolutely fit within this statement because they have no bearing on literally anything within the series, and they aren't utilised within the story by any of the characters - which is even more apparent in far higher stake situations where it would have been infinitely more beneficial for the cast to recommend trying to get the Player's help.

Again, the Player cannot be a higher power, otherwise the story in every single game cannot happen because the Player can just go back a save or "skip ahead". There's no stakes, there's no tension, there's no anything anymore. I'm yet to see anything addressing this severe hole in this argument.

Any mention towards the Player have been shown, so far, to only be reserved for:

• A post-game congratulations sequence (The "Thank You For Playing" corner)
• Meta Jokes (Neptune telling the player to skip the current cutscene, reloading the save in a Nepstation broadcast - all of which have been explicitly stated to be seperate from the main canon, etc.)
• A small portion of VIIR's new additional VR Room segments - where the Player doesn't even really do much aside from meeting and listening to the four CPUs and Ultra Dimension Neptune.

This should, hopefully, go to show how much the Player fits within the "a simple nod to the audience or humorous instance of Breaking the Fourth Wall" segment of the criteria. And as I've said before, there's also the parallel worlds part of the criteria going against the Player as well.

I really don't understand why you either ignore or intentionally leave out a lot of my points throughout our entire discussion together overall, but it's getting a bit tiring at this point.

Unless you actually engage with me fully, this debate isn't going to be progressing anywhere, because you'll just keep on repeating the same stuff - and I'll have to keep repeating my counters to those same stuff until you give me better justification and/or evidence for your reasoning.

---

This is not an arbitrary assumption. I am quite literally citing what the verse itself outright says to us.

Just the fact alone that it compares both the Player and the world they come from to a higher dimension/heavenly plane should be enough implication, but the fact that they're also regarded as separate from the main cosmology while also holding a strong influence over it (again, this is shown at the beginning of VIIR also, and is supported by Croire), to the point that they're literally creating parallel worlds just through their game activity and they have to use games as a medium to directly interact with the other characters should make it obvious.

Yes, you are citing what the verse is saying, but what you don't understand is that you're basing your entire argument off of your own interpretations of what they mean, or guessing what they imply - which, once again, isn't concrete evidence.
If there was more evidence than what you've provided so far actually implying/suggesting this, then I'd be willing to be more accepting of the idea, but because there isn't (at least not so far) - this isn't convincing enough of an argument.

The Player being from a higher dimension, once again, doesn't mean anything. Like I've said previously, lower dimensional beings and objects can exist within higher-dimensional space.
Similarly, the Player having their ""abilities"" also doesn't mean anything in this context. It doesn't prove that this makes them higher-dimensional. As supplementing evidence? Sure, but even with this into account - your overall argument is still weak.
Me having to point out the same stuff over and over to the same stuff you keep bringing up isn't helping the strength of your argument either.

---

@Nepu_Enthusiast
You replied before I had a chance to finish this response towards the OP, so I haven't been able to read your response yet.

Give me a bit of time, and I'll look at what you've wrote and respond accordingly.

 

[Nepu_Enthusiast]

@Nepu_Enthusiast
You replied before I had a chance to finish this response towards the OP, so I haven't been able to read your response yet.

Give me a bit of time, and I'll look at what you've wrote and respond accordingly.

That's fine.

 

[Ben_CleverName]

I never stated that either, so I'm not sure where you're even getting that from aside from maybe my phrasing.

What I said earlier was that the Player could very well, if they were truly a higher power, "reload a save" or "skip future events" within the actual plot itself - especially in higher-stake situations where it would've made a lot more sense for the Player to do so.

My point was that this CRT never really put much emphasis on whether or not the Player could just up and decide to ignore the plot in its entirety. They are, quite literally, playing a game, and that game has its own set of rules and endings, a fact that the characters are very familiar with and are constantly reminding themselves of. Even if the Player is able to do those things in those given scenarios, there's no real reason to assume that they would even bother, because to them it's just a story being played out - that and there's the fact that they clearly didn't even need to do so in order for everyone to survive and win. It would obviously be more convenient for the characters for that to happen, but as you said, that doesn't make for much of a story.

The problem I was pointing out earlier is that none of the characters, even extremely intelligent characters (like Histoire, Nepgear, or Blanc), ever bring up trying to utilise the Player's ""abilities"" as a way of trying to resolve situations, despite their shown awareness.

Why, logically speaking, would anyone ever undergo any problematic event in any of the games - when any character, at any time they're on-screen, could just ask the Player to reverse a save - or anything along those lines? Like finding another way to save Uzume instead of shooting her Share Crystal in VII, getting Neptune immediately back to Hyper Dimension when Rei BFR'd her at the beginning of Victory, when any of the Bad Endings in the series are happening, etc.

Histoire outright says that communication with the Player was limited for a long time in their first encounter with the Player, which was why the "Thank You For Playing" corners were a thing in the first place. I feel as though the rest of this is sufficiently answered with what I said earlier, though. They clearly didn't need those things to happen in order to get the best outcome, but it's also worth mentioning that the times when reloading a save file is brought up it's specifically in reference to changing outcomes that the Player themselves caused and undoing potential mistakes that they themselves made.

Since you seem to agree that the series and (mostly) it's characters are more geared towards comedic value, then isn't it far more likely that their awareness is meant to be taken at face-value (for a laugh) than it is to mean something more than that (like with what you're suggesting)?

Are you asking if I believe the Fourth Wall breaks are meant to be comedic primarily? Yes, I believe that. I also believe that VIIR is hinging on those events in order to tell its story about the Player (which is why they acknowledge things like the "Thank You For Playing" corner and their previous knowledge of the Player despite their lack of face-to-face interaction with them). That's why I don't agree that these things should be discarded altogether.

You're only partially engaging with my point. Whilst it is true that, ultimately, you can still get the True Ending (in most of the games that have them, iirc) without having to rely on additional saves, this does not address why any of the characters aren't utilising the Player whatsoever in high-stake situations whilst they're at that point in time, and I've already provided examples of this earlier, and even in this post above.

For instance, when the VII cast went up against Dark Orange for the first time - they were all highly unsure that they could even win if it wasn't for Uzume trying to encourage everyone to actually give it a shot - with Uzume having to resort to destroying her and Kurome's own "lifeline" (her Share Crystal) to weaken her even further.
Hell, even in the exact same scene - Neptune exclaims that she wanted Uzume to stay alive. She's arguably the one who engages with us (the Player) the most, how is it that she's not suggesting us to reverse a save, or for us to do anything else about it - or any other character for that matter?

How exactly do you think reloading a save file would even change what's happening at that point? The Player is playing a game, they're not the ones who created the story, they're playing through it to reach the ending. Have you ever tried to reload a save file to save Aerith in Final Fantasy VII? How did that work out for you?

About the manga, it isn't canon to the games - so you shouldn't even be using that here to back up your point, it's very weak supplementation.

I get why you did it, because "this type of thing isn't unprecedented in the series", but whatever the case may be - the manga does not connect with the games whatsoever, and it is very important to note that the writers for the manga, according to Wikipedia's records, have had zero involvement with the scenarios or scripts for the games.

I literally said in my post that it was a separate continuity, I don't need to be reminded that they're not canon to each other. The point of my bringing them up was to show that the use of "reload" mechanics in such a manner isn't completely absent from the series as a whole. That was the only reason.

That is not concrete evidence, that is your assumption. It doesn't directly state that the Player is that higher dimension, only that a higher dimension was involved. Which, supplementing this information with Croire's statement about the Real World being on a "heavenly plane", would make it more likely that this is referring to the Player's existence coming from this higher dimension, or the real world, rather than the Player themselves having the same dimensional properties.

It shouldn't have to say that the Player "is that higher dimension". The quote directly says that a higher dimension had intervened and it then goes on to talk about the Player as the root cause of the interference. Exactly what part of that passage implies that this is really saying "The interference originates from something that exists in a higher dimension but it isn't itself higher dimensional"?

Also, I never once said that the parallel worlds created by the players were themselves "qualitatively superior". How can you complain about me "ignoring" your arguments when you're literally putting words into my mouth? Again, those worlds are the result of game activity of different players, they aren't the players' worlds and they aren't being argued as higher-dimensional with respect to Gamindustri.

Yes, you are citing what the verse is saying, but what you don't understand is that you're basing your entire argument off of your own interpretations of what they mean, or guessing what they imply - which, once again, isn't concrete evidence.

That is literally what you're doing here. You're outright twisting the statements that directly involve the Player and suggesting that they don't actually apply to them in any meaningful way, just the world they come from.

The Player being from a higher dimension, once again, doesn't mean anything. Like I've said previously, lower dimensional beings and objects can exist within higher-dimensional space.
Similarly, the Player having their ""abilities"" also doesn't mean anything in this context. It doesn't prove that this makes them higher-dimensional. As supplementing evidence? Sure, but even with this into account - your overall argument is still weak.
Me having to point out the same stuff over and over to the same stuff you keep bringing up isn't helping the strength of your argument either.

I feel it's only fair to mention that I feel precisely the same way. This argument is nothing if not circular, and I've been forced into having to point out the same things over and over to you as well. Those abilities are already being used only as supplementary evidence, they've never been part of my main argument. As I've said before, with regards to lower-dimensional beings inside higher-dimensional space, they would only be existing inside a lower-dimensional aspect of that space, or else their dimensionality would be the same, and there's no reason to suggest that this is what is happening here. It unironically seems like you are only assuming that is what's happening because it's the least generous powerscaling assumption to make, despite there being nothing to support the fact. You're right that they don't directly say that the player themselves is this ten-dimensional figure looking over the verse, but when you combine the references to higher-dimensionality with seeing the verse as fiction and actively toying with it on a cosmological scale you run out of room for assuming that it isn't thus. At absolute worst, you're left with something that's "technically not" higher-dimensionality but is so hilariously close to it that it might as well just be treated as such.

 

[TheKingStrategist13]

My point was that this CRT never really put much emphasis on whether or not the Player could just up and decide to ignore the plot in its entirety. They are, quite literally, playing a game, and that game has its own set of rules and endings, a fact that the characters are very familiar with and are constantly reminding themselves of. Even if the Player is able to do those things in those given scenarios, there's no real reason to assume that they would even bother, because to them it's just a story being played out - that and there's the fact that they clearly didn't even need to do so in order for everyone to survive and win. It would obviously be more convenient for the characters for that to happen, but as you said, that doesn't make for much of a story.

So, what you're saying is that all the character's understand this is a Video Game with a Pre-Determined Plot, which already has law's and rules in place. Not only would that essentially be stripping the character's of any free will of their own (As since it's a VG, reasonably it's the player controlling their action's, which would call into heavy question various skill feat's that the character's have), but again, it would invalidate the story. Even if we assume that all the good guy's would be willing to play along, why would the Villain's even try if they already know that they will lose? Why don't they just throw in the towel and go home? "Because of the plot", I take it? At that point, every single action taken is for the plot of the game. These character's would do every action they do because the plot of the game demands it. Which would once again, pull into question numerous things about the series- Especially in relation to character's and how they act, since their personalities would only be limited to what the plot needs of them. At some point, this just becomes ridiculous.

Histoire outright says that communication with the Player was limited for a long time in their first encounter with the Player, which was why the "Thank You For Playing" corners were a thing in the first place. I feel as though the rest of this is sufficiently answered with what I said earlier, though. They clearly didn't need those things to happen in order to get the best outcome, but it's also worth mentioning that the times when reloading a save file is brought up it's specifically in reference to changing outcomes that the Player themselves caused and undoing potential mistakes that they themselves made.

I suppose that every video game made with a Thank You for Playing screen has a secret player playing, then, too? The Thank You For Playing Corner's are something that should be taken for what they are at face value imo, just as much as say the Tutorial's are- Unless you wanna say that the game's Tutorial's are more than just tutorial's, too?

Are you asking if I believe the Fourth Wall breaks are meant to be comedic primarily? Yes, I believe that. I also believe that VIIR is hinging on those events in order to tell its story about the Player (which is why they acknowledge things like the "Thank You For Playing" corner and their previous knowledge of the Player despite their lack of face-to-face interaction with them). That's why I don't agree that these things should be discarded altogether.

That is what we call a interpretation. We're all still waiting to see solid proof that these Fourth Wall breaks should be taken for more than what they are at face value.

How exactly do you think reloading a save file would even change what's happening at that point? The Player is playing a game, they're not the ones who created the story, they're playing through it to reach the ending. Have you ever tried to reload a save file to save Aerith in Final Fantasy VII? How did that work out for you?

Once again, if most of the Plot is already pre-determined, why do the Villain's even try if they will lose anyways? Do you think Kurome would bother with the Dark Orange stuff if she knew the Goddess's and Co. would beat her anyway? Or would Afimojas have fought them if he knew they would crush him with their NEXT forms? The idea that it is a video game completely devalue's the plot and tear's it apart.

I know I'm not addressing your full argument, but I'm only pointing out the parts I have something to say about. The entire notion of The Neptunia Verse being a Video Game/Video Game Series in verse completely ruin's any sort of tension and plot, strip's the Character's of a significant degree of sentience, and frankly feels like a assumption.

It's OK to have your own interpretation, I do not intend to bash you for that. But when there are numerous holes in this Interpretation when you attempt to present it as fact, and attempt to add content to the Verse based off said interpretation, you will need more evidence than a Handful of Joke's, a few Thank You For Playing corner's, and maybe one or two statement's about a "character" with no story or personality, or name, or face, or generally anything to them, who appear's for a handful of small scene's in the additional content to a remake of a game. If this CRT were to go through, and the Neptunia Verse would be considered in the way you are presenting (As a Video Game with a Pre-Set Story), then that would have several ramifications on the verse as a whole.

Tl;dr, Not only would The Neptunia Verse being a VG to the Player be disastrous on several front's, but... Honestly it's just both a safer bet, and more believable, to think otherwise in my opinion. Put me down as being in firm disagreeance with this CRT in it's current state (Even if my vote doesn't matter much due to not being staff).

Which reminds me, you should make sure there's a Vote Tally section if the Staff ever get around to this

 

[GlaceonGamez471]

Been keeping an eye on this, so I'm just gonna pop in here and say I agree with Ben and this CRT.

 

[Nepu_Enthusiast]

I know I'm not addressing your full argument, but I'm only pointing out the parts I have something to say about. The entire notion of The Neptunia Verse being a Video Game/Video Game Series in verse completely ruin's any sort of tension and plot, strip's the Character's of a significant degree of sentience, and frankly feels like a assumption.

LMAO. After reading this, I don't think I can take you seriously at all, but it clearly shows me that you don't play the games, let alone even read the story for the verse you scale, because if you did, you would've never said something like this.

 

[TheKingStrategist13]

LMAO. After reading this, I don't think I can take you seriously at all, but it clearly shows me that you don't play the games, let alone even read the story for the verse you scale, because if you did, you would've never said something like this.

Friendly reminder this is only your third message on this site, and your third message on this thread coincidentally. Could you not throw a pointless Ad Hominem at me, cause I could easily say that with the blatant disregard for the verses Story remotely making sense, the argument's presented by those in favor of the thread show they don't play the games, but that would just be stupid and not provide anything to the argument.

 

[thetechmaster36]

LMAO. After reading this, I don't think I can take you seriously at all, but it clearly shows me that you don't play the games, let alone even read the story for the verse you scale, because if you did, you would've never said something like this.

How about, instead of making snarky ass comments like this, you actually address the arguments in a cohesive manner? That was a completely unnecessary remark; blatant ad hominem that doesn't serve to make this thread productive, let alone add anything whatsoever.

I don't care if your viewpoint is "oh, well, you probably didn't play the games," that doesn't give you the right to just attack them in that manner.

For the record, I'm on board with the things Kaio is saying, as I find that he makes more sense, and I still disagree with this thread. The fact that both you and Ben continuously try to sidestep arguments, such as the R>F criteria, really makes it seem as though you don't have legitimate arguments against those and overall weakens your point.

 

[KaiokenBlueGT]

I'll respond to Ben's stuff tomorrow as it's getting late where I live. I was busy with IRL stuff after I sent that last response, so I only just got to this now. Like before, I'm not going to read his response until it's time for me to respond to it, so fair warning.

---

I think threats being taken seriously can be extrapolated to them giving us a story to playthrough, instead of viewing everything as a joke and thus no story to tell, and this can be seen if you simply play any game in the franchise. The Player interfering with events that involve saving and loading doesn't have to happen every single time they outright can't win and even if it was the characters aren't aware of the resets the Player does. So, if we were to assume that the Player constantly saves and loads things the CPUs wouldn't even recall that happening so your point about them not taking threats seriously crumbles completely.

More assumptions... fantastic. I'm sorry for derailing slightly with this comment, but there's only so much of those I can take before I start losing my patience.

The whole "they're giving us a story" spiel is your interpretation, that you have provided zero evidence for.

It takes a lot more to assume that they're playing it up for the audience (or more accurately, us players) than to just think on a surface-level that these are how the characters are actually feeling within the moment, like almost any other story out there.
Saying "oh, you can see this if you just play the games" isn't evidence, and it means nothing to me or any other opponent trying to understand your viewpoint. Stop doing that.

The "characters wouldn't be aware of the resets" thing is yet again another assumption, and there is no answer to this as it hasn't been provided by the series at this point in time.

I also find it very intriguing how you wrote what you did and didn't see the problem when you were doing it - the Player not interfering on a frequent basis is EXACTLY the problem, because it shows a far higher likelihood of the Player not being a higher power due to their lack of interaction - and as stated before, this can be seen with the characters repeatedly showing awareness in casual settings, but then not utilising/weaponising said awareness whatsoever in higher-stake situations, especially when it would've made perfect sense to at least try.

Honestly, I'm quite baffled that you aren't attacking the fact Noire and Blanc outright prevented the game from loading a boss to avoid wasting the Player's time. Or even the fact It's stated by Histoire that the reason why everything in VII/VIIR went smoothly was that Neptune is the protagonist of the series which allows her to just win and even using "non-canon" material like Re;birth 1 that outright states Neptune is scripted to always get the best results due to her status as the main character. I'm just genuinely confused.

All of what you provided above is you jumping to conclusions with very loose, weak evidence - and are just instances of the series' humour. Like Ben, you're taking all of these statements way too literally and pushing them to their extremes. I don't believe that sort of interpretation should be taken over one based more around a surface-level understanding, as it takes more to assume the former than the latter.
Like I said to Ben, if you had more clear-cut evidence beyond what is commonly interpreted as the series' traditional humour - I would be more willing to consider your viewpoint, but yet again - that isn't the case.

Noire and Blanc not engaging with Linda doesn't mean they "prevented the game from loading a boss" in the sense that you're implying (which I'm guessing is them having the ability to just do this on a whim).
They just didn't encounter Linda because they deemed her too weak to bother fighting against, nothing more. By your logic, any potential fight that the cast avoids or doesn't encounter equates to them "preventing the game from triggering a fight with them" - which is baffling to think about.
So whilst, yes, they didn't trigger an encounter, this doesn't mean much - and on a surface-level, this is just a cute meta way of saying "No point fighting you, let's move on."
If what I think you're implying there isn't your reasoning for providing this, then I have no idea why you even brought this up to begin with.

Histoire stating "everything in VII went smoothly because of Neptune" is yet another logical leap. The surface-level viewpoint of the main quote in question ("Putting aside you slacking off of work, I must acquiesce that this is all thanks to your real world luck, Neptune...") is that Histoire is just making a casual comment of how much Neptune can get away with being lazy and yet coming out on top despite all the odds.

The same thing can be said about IF saying "it's like you're scripted to always get the best results" in Re;Birth 1. You're taking IF complimenting Neptune's luck and being overly literal with it's meaning. IF, or even Histoire for that matter, are not authority figures with their statements. They're both casual statements that praise Neptune's apparent luck.
And just because Neptune gets lucky on occasion, doesn't necessarily mean that her luck is something she can weaponise or that everything will turn out her way. I wouldn't exactly call being brainwashed in VII, beaten to shit and then restrained by CFW Magic for years in mk2, being trapped in a capsule for years in SvS, or any of the Bad Endings a showcase of her luck. So no, she absolutely is not "scripted to get the best results", nor is her luck the reasoning for VII, or any game for that matter, going well in the end. This has no concrete evidence beyond your overly literal interpretation of those dialogues.

---

This can easily be explained by what I said previously. Their entire purpose is to entertain us by giving us a story to playthrough and they don't need to constantly acknowledge the Player or them outright saving and loading every possible scenario 24/7 to make this probable.

Already tackled this above.
But to repeat myself rq, this is an assumption that has no weight behind it whatsoever, and I've already addressed how the idea of the Player's supposed "influence" (to give it a word) not being weaponised or taken advantage of by the characters at any point within any of the games is the problem here.

---

If we took the whole lighter-tone argument you could quite literally argue that most of the feats performed in Neptunia are invalidated because naturalistically they are jokes that "shouldn't be taken seriously" which makes it even more funny when there are profiles for Rei, Plutia, and Peashy who are from the same game.

Also, if you truly believe Victory is more light-hearted than most games in the franchise you should probably play Victory again.

This whole argument is empty, as I never said that Victory's lighter tone means that absolutely everything should be scrutinised.
It only means that we have to be more careful with Victory compared to other games in the series, as it's comparatively lighter tone makes comedic elements a lot more common, which requires a higher level of scrutiny when gauging statements than usual. This isn't a black-and-white case like you're making it out to be by stating that everything else is invalid if we don't accept a few statements.

About the "if you truly believe Victory is more light-hearted" comment, I'm seeing a lot of you telling me to provide your own evidence for you. How about you tell me what specifically makes my statements wrong, rather than giving vague comments and presenting them as some kind of evidence. It's silly, they don't mean anything to anyone but yourself, it wastes my time, and you're only weaking your own arguments.

Why are we still on the whole "hypothesis" deal? If the OP only provided the website as evidence, I'd understand where you're coming from. However, said hypothesis is proven by the array of things shown in the same Game such as Histoire using the historical record created from our efforts in VII and converting it into a playable game known as "Mega Dimension" for us to play through again, the VR Dimension was created by a spatial anomaly that involves the overlapping of the Game World and Real World with the effects of the Real World taking more precedence as noted by Croire being a dimension that exists on a heavenly plane and Histoire confirming the same thing and going back to the website that outright confirms the VR Dimension is a high-ranking level which in this context would be synonymous with a higher dimensional plane.

For your statement involving the Player's status as a higher-dimensional being, it's simple. The Player comes from the Real World, and the VR Dimension is a fusion of the Real World and the Game World with the former having stronger effects hence the reason why the VR Dimension is a higher plane of existence that transcends the cosmology (Game World) that serves as a means for us to directly interact with Histoire, Croire, the CPUs, and Ultra Neptune.

The hypothesis is only being proven if we use Ben's and your interpretation of said hypothesis. I've already pointed out earlier how this is only your interpretation, and it doesn't definitively prove that the Player themselves is higher-dimensional.
What IS being proved, on the other hand, is the higher dimensional nature of the VR Dimension and Real World itself - that much IS concrete because Croire directly states that the Real World is on a "heavenly plane" that she can't even access. The Player, however, doesn't have any of that beyond Ben's and your interpretation, which due to the nature of it being an interpretation, is NOT concrete or conclusive evidence.

I'm getting very tired of repeating this same point to both you and Ben. Your whole argument is based on an interpretation that may or may not be the original intention of the person that wrote that quote. Whilst it would certainly have more merit if we had more context on the VIIR website quote or if it were written in a clearer manner, as well as other supporting evidence elsewhere in VIIR, your interpretation alone isn't clear-cut evidence to suggest that the Player is actually higher-dimensional like the dimensions they're affiliated with.

That last segment in what I quoted from you above also still does not show any direct correlation between the Player's dimensional properties in comparison to the VR Dimension or the Real World. Again, just because the Player comes from the Real World doesn't automatically make them higher dimensional.
For the third time, lower dimensional beings and objects can exist within higher dimensional ones.

---

The craziest thing about this is the fact the Player has their own game in the form of VIIR (which I've cited above) and VIIR's own website confirming that the Player's the central focus in it which kills the whole idea of this being a "just for jokes 4th wall break" deal.

Just because the Player has a more involved role in one game out of the entire franchise, where said Player doesn't even really do anything besides getting to hang out with the 4 CPUs and Big Nep for minutes at a time anyway, doesn't make the Player more significant. You need to provide further justification as to why this is, because you haven't done so as far as I can see.

As far as parallel worlds go, it seems you quite misunderstand the OP's point entirely. He isn't arguing that the parallel realities are qualitative superior ones, he's simply saying their worlds that resulted in the Player(s) choices

I mention the "s" because anybody that plays the game is considered a Player, and every Player has their own playthrough that differs from another. For example, there would be a multitude of Mega Dimension realities for each individual Player which is shown to be the case throughout the evidence he cited in his post.

Regardless, you are completely ignoring the two sections of the R>F criteria that go against the Player having R>F transcendence, as I have outlined near the end of Post #49 in this thread. I'd ordinarily quote them here to save you time, but my browser is starting to slow down, and I'd rather not risk it crashing and losing all my progress. You can check the post number by looking on the top-right corner of our message boxes.

Been keeping an eye on this, so I'm just gonna pop in here and say I agree with Ben and this CRT.

Mind explaining what parts of your opponents' arguments (like myself) you don't agree with and why?
I don't think you should just be able to agree without stating what parts of the opponents' arguments you disagree with, especially when to a said opponent like myself, the CRT and it's reasonings for it feel incredibly flawed.

If it isn't flawed to you, then that's completely fair - but I would like some reasoning from you first.

---

LMAO. After reading this, I don't think I can take you seriously at all, but it clearly shows me that you don't play the games, let alone even read the story for the verse you scale, because if you did, you would've never said something like this.

One final thing that I'll keep brief because it's not that productive to this CRT - attacking the character of an opponent rather than engaging with the topic, especially when you're evidently new to this site, is NOT a good first impression, and can put your arguments under even further scrutiny/question both now and in the future.

I would strongly recommend not doing this again. It makes you look immature, makes your character unlikeable, and it overall does not do you any favours other than creating even more opposition against you.

Stick to the topic, or if you feel the need to venture off-course slightly like I've done a few times, keep it brief and relevant.

 

[Nepu_Enthusiast]

Friendly reminder this is only your third message on this site, and your third message on this thread coincidentally. Could you not throw a pointless Ad Hominem at me, cause I could easily say that with the blatant disregard for the verses Story remotely making sense, the argument's presented by those in favor of the thread show they don't play the games, but that would just be stupid and not provide anything to the argument.

How about, instead of making snarky ass comments like this, you actually address the arguments in a cohesive manner? That was a completely unnecessary remark; blatant ad hominem that doesn't serve to make this thread productive, let alone add anything whatsoever.

I don't care if your viewpoint is "oh, well, you probably didn't play the games," that doesn't give you the right to just attack them in that manner.

One final thing that I'll keep brief because it's not that productive to this CRT - attacking the character of an opponent rather than engaging with the topic, especially when you're evidently new to this site, is NOT a good first impression, and can put your arguments under even further scrutiny/question both now and in the future.

I would strongly recommend not doing this again. It makes you look immature, makes your character unlikeable, and it overall does not do you any favours other than creating even more opposition against you.

Stick to the topic, or if you feel the need to venture off-course slightly like I've done a few times, keep it brief and relevant.

I'm just gonna reply to all 3 of these simultaneously, as they're essentially saying the same thing. First and foremost, I didn't commit an ad hominem at all, if I were committing an ad hominem, I would've invalidated strategist's arguments based on him as a person, and for the record, I don't have any animosity towards him or anybody else in this thread, in case you're curious. As far as the comment itself goes, it was a non-serious one that was meant as a joke, however, my mistake was not further elaborating on what I meant, so for that, I'll take the responsibility and own up to that mistake. As for my role here, I only serve to help you guys and anybody else for that matter to understand why this CRT makes sense, and as soon as this ends, I'm probably gonna take my leave, but as long as I'm here, I'll refrain from saying things that can offend people.

With that said, I'll explain the reason why I said the comment in the first place. The issue I'm having is strategist stated:

The entire notion of The Neptunia Verse being a Video Game/Video Game Series in verse completely ruin's any sort of tension and plot, strip's the Character's of a significant degree of sentience, and frankly feels like a assumption.

Unless I'm misunderstanding this completely, it quite literally sounds like he's against the notion of Neptunia in-universe being a video game-based reality akin to something like Sword Art Online especially when initially he seems fine with the evidence provided for the Player however he's arguing out of necessity as in "Why do we need to have this profile? When we have others that are more prominent?"

I'd like to establish that we see the former being the case an array of times across the series so much to the point where I'd assume it's basic knowledge because of how consistent it is in the series. Regarding it ruining the stakes and plot along with affecting how sentient the characters are, to us, they may not be real, but to them they are real and everything around them very much is real an example would be how in Sword Art Online Alicization the NPCs of that world may be digital from the perspective of the ones in reality (In Neptunia's case, we can just say the Players to keep it simple) but to them, everything that's happening is real such as people being sentiment and forming their own personalities along with even things like being injured and death being as severe as it is, in reality, along with even the core aspects of both worlds being the same. Honestly, I think even the simulation theory itself can be applied here since even if our reality was a digital one and we were digital beings that wouldn't denounce us from being real people that exist in our reality, get what I'm saying?

More assumptions... fantastic. I'm sorry for derailing slightly with this comment, but there's only so much of those I can take before I start losing my patience.

The whole "they're giving us a story" spiel is your interpretation, that you have provided zero evidence for.

It takes a lot more to assume that they're playing it up for the audience (or more accurately, us players) than to just think on a surface-level that these are how the characters are actually feeling within the moment, like almost any other story out there.

You're very much right, it IS my interpretation. However, it is an interpretation based on the plethora of things stated in the series itself. To begin, let's kick things off with the good o'l Nepstation.

The Nepstation is a place separate from the main story:

• To avoid a potential misconception, in the first line that explains what the Nepstation is Nepgear and Uzume question why Neptune herself hasn't shown up during the show and Uzume jokingly avoids it. However, that isn't the case, throughout the Nepstation we have things like Uni and Nepgear outright explaining that the reason for the CPU's absence is because they've been captured in the main story (pay attention to this because it's very important), Neptune and Uzume giving their reactions to things they've done within the story itself and even narrate the episode previews of what happens next in each major point of the game's story, we see a similar thing with Neptune and Nepgear on how they were surprised them being able to suddenly gather share energy and transform was because of Uzume's daydream ability, everything after is basically a repeat of what I said involving them talking about other moments in the story.
• Neptune was surprised by the four different story routes in the 2nd arc of VII, and ask's Vert for her thoughts on it, as this is the first time she was truly a protagonist in the series. If we look at how she speaks about it especially based on what I've said previously, it's as if her role in the story was according to a script that's being followed by everyone and to make this even more supportive inside of the main story that's separated from the nepstation she still speaks as if she's an actor playing the role as protagonist in her narrative.
• We see the cast viewing all 3 campaigns as stories and commenting on it minorly such as Neptune saying it has a surprising amount of volume which can be interpreted as the script being huge.
• The characters indirectly admit to following a script, simply put, whenever they have these "Thank You for Playing" corners it's a scripted thing that they do to congratulate us on completing the game, although Neptune did this as a prank it doesn't necessarily deny this being the case especially with everything I said prior to this.
• Despite being from another dimension entirely separate from the main Hyperdimension, this still holds weight because it shows us that throughout the franchise outside of the mainline titles this rule still applies, and with everything I said up to this point, it only makes sense it would work this way.
• Even in the Thank You For Playing Corner in Re;birth 1, Re;birth 3, and VII's True Ending this is consistent.

With everything I've shown you so far, I believe my interpretation is completely valid as it's just too consistent that these characters follow a script for the sole purpose of entertaining us.

Saying "oh, you can see this if you just play the games" isn't evidence, and it means nothing to me or any other opponent trying to understand your viewpoint. Stop doing that.

The reason why I'm saying this is because some of the things said in this thread should be basic knowledge. It's like if you asked a Naruto fan whether or not Naruto is a ninja or you asked a Mario fan whether or not Luigi was Mario's brother. My issue with you or anybody else who does the same thing is that you're questioning certain things that should be something we all know although I'm not saying that the whole characters following a script thing is basic knowledge of course not.

The "characters wouldn't be aware of the resets" thing is yet again another assumption, and there is no answer to this as it hasn't been provided by the series at this point in time.

I also find it very intriguing how you wrote what you did and didn't see the problem when you were doing it - the Player not interfering on a frequent basis is EXACTLY the problem, because it shows a far higher likelihood of the Player not being a higher power due to their lack of interaction - and as stated before, this can be seen with the characters repeatedly showing awareness in casual settings, but then not utilising/weaponising said awareness whatsoever in higher-stake situations, especially when it would've made perfect sense to at least try.

To your first point, it isn't an assumption, although I should've sent evidence of what my statement was correlated to. Ben mentioned this earlier, but the reason why I'm saying this is because, in the Mangadimension, Neptune had a device known as the Save Point & Reset Button which essentially saves and resets points so Neptune can retry them. Throughout the chapter, she constantly abused it and nobody was aware of anything like that even occurring with even Neptune encountering the person she reset being unaware of who she was due to that entire scenario being reset completely as if it never happened in the first place.

The thing is despite this taking place in a storyline separate from the mainline titles, it still supports that something like this has occurred in the franchise. In SvS, we see something similar, after all of the branching timelines fused together, become one, and then reset to the beginning of the game. Nepgear and Maho are the only ones who remember the events that took place, although it is not quite the same thing, it is similar enough to be comparable and shows that something like this has happened in the mainline titles.

As for The Player themselves, they're from a higher plane above the cosmology and manipulate causality across the game world by choosing alternate endings, saving, loading, and resetting. I think it makes sense that the characters of it would be unaware of when it happens because they're unable to perceive abilities that are occurring from higher dimensions, especially when Grey Sister states that time is a concept that exists on a higher plane of reality above the world itself and everyone, but Nepgear and Maho were shown to be bounded by it.

Onto your second point, most of what you said is already answered by everything I've said previously. However, your point regarding the Player not appearing consistently, why does one need to reveal themselves every single time to prove they're a higher power? Honestly, this is comparable to questioning why God in Christianity doesn't reveal himself every time humanity is in peril.

But if you're looking for more evidence of them actually interacting with pivotal points in the story, I've got you covered. Essentially Ultra Neptune congratulates us for completing the game and reaching the True Thank You For Playing Corner. Now before I move on, I'd like to tell you that the "True Thank You For Playing Corner" is separate from the Thank You For Playing Corner because the True version's entire purpose is thanking the Player in person rather than just doing what they do normally so which already should raise some flags. Like other Thank You for Playing Corners, Ultra Neptune speaks on her role in the story which even now still supports how every character is following a script to entertain us, and most importantly she verbatim says "This Happy Ending is all thanks to you, and even though you're in another dimension, you helped us so much. You're a part of Gamindustri forever!", "I'm so thankful for everything you've done for Gamindustri. I'll always remember this.", and "Thanks for always listening to me and giving me such great advice! And thank you so much for playing this game!" It doesn't get more blatant than this as she's outright saying that we're the reason why everything in VII/VIIR went well and despite being in a different dimension we'll always be part of Gamindustri.

• The Player also has the ability to interact with other dimensions which can be viewed as the Player being able to affect and assist beings from the dimensions associated with the spinoff titles (specifically referring to Producing Perfection's Manager and Hyperdovotion's Secretary as they're both the Player although every other dimension wouldn't be exempt from the Player's assistance) that are canon within the context of their own dimensions and separate from the mainline Hyperdimension. This would make sense considering the Player across VII/VIIR had to interact with Zero Dimension, Hyper Dimension, and Heart Dimension as a multitude of huge events were taking place in all 3 Arcs.

All of what you provided above is you jumping to conclusions with very loose, weak evidence - and are just instances of the series' humour. Like Ben, you're taking all of these statements way too literally and pushing them to their extremes. I don't believe that sort of interpretation should be taken over one based more around a surface-level understanding, as it takes more to assume the former than the latter.
Like I said to Ben, if you had more clear-cut evidence beyond what is commonly interpreted as the series' traditional humour - I would be more willing to consider your viewpoint, but yet again - that isn't the case.

Noire and Blanc not engaging with Linda doesn't mean they "prevented the game from loading a boss" in the sense that you're implying (which I'm guessing is them having the ability to just do this on a whim).
They just didn't encounter Linda because they deemed her too weak to bother fighting against, nothing more. By your logic, any potential fight that the cast avoids or doesn't encounter equates to them "preventing the game from triggering a fight with them" - which is baffling to think about.
So whilst, yes, they didn't trigger an encounter, this doesn't mean much - and on a surface-level, this is just a cute meta way of saying "No point fighting you, let's move on."
If what I think you're implying there isn't your reasoning for providing this, then I have no idea why you even brought this up to begin with.

Histoire stating "everything in VII went smoothly because of Neptune" is yet another logical leap. The surface-level viewpoint of the main quote in question ("Putting aside you slacking off of work, I must acquiesce that this is all thanks to your real world luck, Neptune...") is that Histoire is just making a casual comment of how much Neptune can get away with being lazy and yet coming out on top despite all the odds.

The same thing can be said about IF saying "it's like you're scripted to always get the best results" in Re;Birth 1. You're taking IF complimenting Neptune's luck and being overly literal with it's meaning. IF, or even Histoire for that matter, are not authority figures with their statements. They're both casual statements that praise Neptune's apparent luck.
And just because Neptune gets lucky on occasion, doesn't necessarily mean that her luck is something she can weaponise or that everything will turn out her way. I wouldn't exactly call being brainwashed in VII, beaten to shit and then restrained by CFW Magic for years in mk2, being trapped in a capsule for years in SvS, or any of the Bad Endings a showcase of her luck. So no, she absolutely is not "scripted to get the best results", nor is her luck the reasoning for VII, or any game for that matter, going well in the end. This has no concrete evidence beyond your overly literal interpretation of those dialogues.

Honestly, this was the part of your comment I was waiting for the most. So from what I can understand, you're essentially saying that everything that pertains to manipulating reality as a video game is simply humor? If that's the case, I'm afraid I strongly disagree, and here's why.

Before I begin, just to refresh everyone's memory, we know that Histoire is the World's everything and everything is her and vice versa along with being a tome that records all of Gamidustri's history, as shown by the Nepedia, In-game text descriptions, and her own word in the story itself.

• Histoire has a skill called Nature/Universe it destroys enemies by controlling nature and all of existence itself.
• In Re;birth 1, we see Histoire utilizes this attack, and by what we can visually see it appears as a bunch of 0s and 1s compiled into a ball which implies that reality itself is digital, and in Re;birth 3, we see the exact same thing.
• To further support everything in existence is digital, the infamous Gamindustri statement outright states that the world was born from 0 and soon shifted to the introduction of 1 which already implies their reality is some sort of digital reality right off the bat and this becomes apparent even further where humans used to be 2D and evolved into 3D although there are remnants who still remain as 2D still images, pixelated beings, and even low-quality polygons and even using the term low-res polygon monsters to describe the appearance of certain remnants, and we even have a person called 2D Dude who is from a 2D World who is unable to return to his world hence the reason why people of Gamindustri want to find ways to return to the 2D Age.
• IF states the world is made up of information which is very consistent with everything so far especially with the notion of everything being made of 0s and 1s in a digital reality.
• Supporting IF's statement previously, everything, in reality, is made of 0's and 1's through the use of bits that stores all information inside of it. 0 refers to OFF and 1 refers to ON, these terms are used to refer to determine branches. This also applies to game scripts as well, along with a player's actions and choices which are stored as ON and OFF via the bits. The reason why is to store the player's special actions to change later outcomes. Originally, these were referred to as "bit flags", but now they're referred to as "flags" which will play an important role. These flags can refer to "progress in a relationship, an omen of disaster, and expected outcomes.". They are often connected to fate and used for predictions as well. There are also death flags that basically occur when someone dies. However, there's a way to prevent death flags and other incidents that don't go as planned. When a flag doesn't work as expected or when a person stops the outcome themselves or ignores it completely this is known as breaking the flag. People who do this consistently are known as "Flag Crushers" the usage of the word itself is diverging from its literal meaning and programmers state that "breaking" isn't the correct term, what makes this impressive is the fact Neptune herself is a Flag Crusher and was able to overturn the event of Uzume's death, not saying this is 100% but it's implied that Uzume's death was preordained to happen in the Ascension ending. Uzume and Neptune both tell the Player if they keep on playing the game they can achieve an ending/new path where Uzume doesn't die which is extremely consistent with everything I've said regarding them previously and especially the function of flag items.
• They also fight enemies that are made up of pure data.

With all that said, I believe this justifies all of the game-breaking feats I've shown especially with how consistent the evidence is. Regarding Neptune's best results thing, whether you want to view that as Plot Manipulation, Fate Manipulation, or even Probability Manipulation, I think it would be easier if we can both just agree it isn't 100% guaranteed as there are times when it doesn't do anything and a better comparison would be to how the flags are used and what Neptune does as a flag crusher.

Already tackled this above.
But to repeat myself rq, this is an assumption that has no weight behind it whatsoever, and I've already addressed how the idea of the Player's supposed "influence" (to give it a word) not being weaponised or taken advantage of by the characters at any point within any of the games is the problem here.

I've already addressed this above.

This whole argument is empty, as I never said that Victory's lighter tone means that absolutely everything should be scrutinised.
It only means that we have to be more careful with Victory compared to other games in the series, as it's comparatively lighter tone makes comedic elements a lot more common, which requires a higher level of scrutiny when gauging statements than usual. This isn't a black-and-white case like you're making it out to be by stating that everything else is invalid if we don't accept a few statements.

About the "if you truly believe Victory is more light-hearted" comment, I'm seeing a lot of you telling me to provide your own evidence for you. How about you tell me what specifically makes my statements wrong, rather than giving vague comments and presenting them as some kind of evidence. It's silly, they don't mean anything to anyone but yourself, it wastes my time, and you're only weaking your own arguments.

I've already addressed this as well.

The hypothesis is only being proven if we use Ben's and your interpretation of said hypothesis. I've already pointed out earlier how this is only your interpretation, and it doesn't definitively prove that the Player themselves is higher-dimensional.
What IS being proved, on the other hand, is the higher dimensional nature of the VR Dimension and Real World itself - that much IS concrete because Croire directly states that the Real World is on a "heavenly plane" that she can't even access. The Player, however, doesn't have any of that beyond Ben's and your interpretation, which due to the nature of it being an interpretation, is NOT concrete or conclusive evidence.

I'm getting very tired of repeating this same point to both you and Ben. Your whole argument is based on an interpretation that may or may not be the original intention of the person that wrote that quote. Whilst it would certainly have more merit if we had more context on the VIIR website quote or if it were written in a clearer manner, as well as other supporting evidence elsewhere in VIIR, your interpretation alone isn't clear-cut evidence to suggest that the Player is actually higher-dimensional like the dimensions they're affiliated with.

That last segment in what I quoted from you above also still does not show any direct correlation between the Player's dimensional properties in comparison to the VR Dimension or the Real World. Again, just because the Player comes from the Real World doesn't automatically make them higher dimensional.
For the third time, lower dimensional beings and objects can exist within higher dimensional ones.

I've addressed pretty much all of this.

Regarding your last comment, I'm aware that lower-dimensional beings can exist within higher-dimensional ones, but why is that happening here? It seems you're misinterpreting Ben's argument and my explanation of his argument. It works like this, The Player is from the Real World (The Real World and the VR Dimension are NOT the same) the VR Dimension itself is the fusion of the Real World and the Game World with the former having more precedence over it and it transcends the Game World viewing it as a game. The Player that we see in the VR Dimension is simply an avatar of the Real World Player because obviously, they cannot exist within things like the VR Dimension or Game World without the use of Avatars due to being a higher-dimensional being naturalistically. Even though I just said it, I'm still confused, from what I just explained, there's no way you can view this as a lower-dimensional being simply existing within a higher dimension. If you were referring to how the CPUs, Histoire, Croire, and Ultra Neptune just happen to visit this higher dimension frequently, I can understand. But it sounds like you're saying the Player themselves is a lower dimensional being which isn't the case at all so I'm gonna need you to elaborate or show evidence that supports this.

Just because the Player has a more involved role in one game out of the entire franchise, where said Player doesn't even really do anything besides getting to hang out with the 4 CPUs and Big Nep for minutes at a time anyway, doesn't make the Player more significant. You need to provide further justification as to why this is, because you haven't done so as far as I can see.

Regardless, you are completely ignoring the two sections of the R>F criteria that go against the Player having R>F transcendence, as I have outlined near the end of Post #49 in this thread. I'd ordinarily quote them here to save you time, but my browser is starting to slow down, and I'd rather not risk it crashing and losing all my progress. You can check the post number by looking on the top-right corner of our message boxes.

I've addressed both of these as well above.

With all that said, I think this is gonna be my last huge comment on this thread because I don't feel like constantly going in circles of repetition. At this point, I'll just wait for the staff to give their input on this thread.

 

[TheKingStrategist13]

Unless I'm misunderstanding this completely, it quite literally sounds like he's against the notion of Neptunia in-universe being a video game-based reality akin to something like Sword Art Online especially when initially he seems fine with the evidence provided for the Player however he's arguing out of necessity as in "Why do we need to have this profile? When we have others that are more prominent?"

I'd like to establish that we see the former being the case an array of times across the series so much to the point where I'd assume it's basic knowledge because of how consistent it is in the series. Regarding it ruining the stakes and plot along with affecting how sentient the characters are, to us, they may not be real, but to them they are real and everything around them very much is real an example would be how in Sword Art Online Alicization the NPCs of that world may be digital from the perspective of the ones in reality (In Neptunia's case, we can just say the Players to keep it simple) but to them, everything that's happening is real such as people being sentiment and forming their own personalities along with even things like being injured and death being as severe as it is, in reality, along with even the core aspects of both worlds being the same. Honestly, I think even the simulation theory itself can be applied here since even if our reality was a digital one and we were digital beings that wouldn't denounce us from being real people that exist in our reality, get what I'm saying?

First and foremost, the Neptunia Supporter's have already deemed Level's to inherently be Non-Canon, as they would break scaling (A example being how The First Dark Purple Boss would be weaker than some basic Fodder Enemies later on), so the Scan's you showed involving them would be rendered moot.

As for the rest of your scan's here, once again, they are all quite clearly Meta-Breaking joke's. They are all trying to get a quick chuckle out of the player by referencing thing's such as Flag's and Death Screen's. I would figure this would be obvious, no offense, and I and a few other's still find the rest of the evidence that is supposed to supposedly make these more than just jokes rather... Lacking.

Returning back to the first section of this reply, to clarify my stance, I am fine with the Player existing as a entity, but I heavily disagree with a large majority of the ratings and scan's provided. And I do still think this profile is, far from necessary at the current moment. To use a example you used, in this case Naruto, this feel's like if one were to index a character like Konohamaru before a character like Kakashi. It makes no sense to do in this order, imo, and a character like this- Who frankly, both serves no use for the Scaling Chain, as well as is unlikely to partake in any use on this wiki for thread's or other function's, would be someone to consider doing well after a lot of other character's that could use a Profile. I'm only bringing this up again because you yourself brought up my position, by the way, as at this point the Necessity argument has been long left behind, it seems.

In relation to your comparison between SAO and this case, one big problem you have is that not only are 80% of the character's in SAO player's who by default would have sentience, and that the verse explicitly and in a serious manner (as in not in the form of meta jokes) informs you that it is within a digital setting, but also the fact that to my knowledge, there is no set defined plot within the game, and if there is, then surely the NPC's lack knowledge of it (I'm only of mild SAO knowledge admittedly so apologies if I got anything wrong)

The argument about taking away a character's sentience stem's from the fact that the OP is essentially claiming that there is a mostly pre-determined plot, which a number of character's have knowledge of to a extent. If they have knowledge that they are in a Video Game and that they have a prior plot to follow, and if they cannot stray from the plot, then they still would likely inherently lack sentience, which in a sense they would cause the Plot would already dictate the order of events and they couldn't really stop it.

A good example of this would be the Character Monika from DDLC. Even though she has a limited amount of ability to break free of the Script, the inherent Script of the game still causes several issue's for her and lead's the player down a specific set of events that she can't 100% change until she quite literally break's the script itself fully. During the first act, when the Script is at it's most stable, Monika is shown to essentially have almost 0 control over things for the vast majority of the Act, as no matter what she does, the Option's for what she desire's simply don't exist, and only the player, not her, can really make choices for the most part. The game does a real good job of exploring things like sentience, sense of self, and what is and isn't reality in both subtle and not so subtle way's. And this is only exploring Monika, the one character who arguably can break the sequence of events to a extent. With Natsuki and Yuri, the other two girl's who appear in multiple Act's (Excluding Act 4), They are shown to behave essentially the same between the two Act's unless either the Player or Monika and her Tampering with the Script causes a change in them. They will always take the same action's, say the same things, and act and "feel" the same way unless one of the two entities who have a degree of control decide's to make a change. They, for all intent's and purposes, have 0 sentience, and Monika only has a degree of Sentience because the game specifically explains that her position inherently induces sentience unto her that can supersede the Script to a limited extent.

In essence, this would be the same situation for The Goddess's. If they truly are following a set script, their choices are already pre-determined, and they would know this, so it wouldn't even feel like they are making choices, cause unless the game itself explicitly offer's the choice to the player, then the alternate would not even exist as a possibility in the game's plot. There really isn't any side stepping it, cause if these Meta-Jokes used to supplement this argument were taken as more than Jokes, than the character's would know there is a set in stone plot, and if these joke's weren't anything more, then that would be a heavy blow to the stance of Neptunia being a VG.

 

[Nepu_Enthusiast]

In relation to your comparison between SAO and this case, one big problem you have is that not only are 80% of the character's in SAO player's who by default would have sentience, and that the verse explicitly and in a serious manner (as in not in the form of meta jokes) informs you that it is within a digital setting, but also the fact that to my knowledge, there is no set defined plot within the game, and if there is, then surely the NPC's lack knowledge of it (I'm only of mild SAO knowledge admittedly so apologies if I got anything wrong)

I think you've got my point mixed up with the original SAO Arc. I'm referring to the Sword Art Online Alicization Arc where Kirito meets Eugeo and Alice because in that world everything is digital but everybody existing within the world is a fully sentient being with their own unique individual personalities, etc. IIRC, I'm pretty sure the games in SAO do follow a story, although it's set up in an MMO-styled fashion.

In essence, this would be the same situation for The Goddess's. If they truly are following a set script, their choices are already pre-determined, and they would know this, so it wouldn't even feel like they are making choices, cause unless the game itself explicitly offer's the choice to the player, then the alternate would not even exist as a possibility in the game's plot. There really isn't any side stepping it, cause if these Meta-Jokes used to supplement this argument were taken as more than Jokes, than the character's would know there is a set in stone plot, and if these joke's weren't anything more, then that would be a heavy blow to the stance of Neptunia being a VG.

When it comes to the main story, I believe they'd be following a script, yeah. However, I don't believe it takes away their sentience. View it like this, when actors are shooting a Movie and acting as their designated character, they would act according to what's stated in the script. Let us say they're watching the movie they took part in and gave their commentary on their roles and individual thoughts on said film. With the Nepstation, it's honestly the exact same thing, they give their commentary during it about their roles in the story, and the only difference is we physically see them being absent during events that occur in said story case in point being the CPUs being kidnapped by Kurome and being absent from the Nepstation but that's because it's actively happening. We can also look at how our lives as human beings are preordained and no matter what choices we make it ultimately won't change the outcome of things that are already set in stone.

Even while they're aware of their nature as Video Game Characters, I don't think it would do anything that affects the script. I mean, we have characters like Neptune who seems to be aware of the alternate endings in the sense that they did happen (Conquest Ending in RB1 and the True Ending in VII's Ascension Ending) in the sense that when you hit that an ending route everything that happens from that point onward is preordained and there's also the flag items contain alternate scripts that store the player's choices (preordained scenarios that exist because of the player changing the script to achieve different outcomes) that affect reality which is why Neptune herself as a Flag Crusher has a similar power which enabled her to change a preordained fate by altering the game's script, although on a lower scale, and I believe because the Neptunia franchise is for the sake of entertainment naturalistically the script they follow could quite literally be "Entertain The Player." While still abiding by the stories they share with us. We also know that the Player isn't controlling the cast 24/7 especially when there are many off-screen or character absences that occur in the series.

First and foremost, the Neptunia Supporter's have already deemed Level's to inherently be Non-Canon, as they would break scaling (A example being how The First Dark Purple Boss would be weaker than some basic Fodder Enemies later on), so the Scan's you showed involving them would be rendered moot.

.....Just because the levels can break scaling. Why does that make it non-canon...? If you were to just say they aren't used to prevent scaling from being inconsistent, I'd understand. But saying it's non-canon because it affects scaling as in something that we as scalers are applying to the verse through a tiering system that the developers didn't even intend the franchise to be used for just makes it weird especially when it's used throughout the games, mangas, and even anime plus that's not even including the arguments myself and Ben provided for game mechanics applying to the verse.

 

[Ben_CleverName]

Be me, having to retype because I accidentally closed my browser mid-message

So, what you're saying is that all the character's understand this is a Video Game with a Pre-Determined Plot, which already has law's and rules in place. Not only would that essentially be stripping the character's of any free will of their own (As since it's a VG, reasonably it's the player controlling their action's, which would call into heavy question various skill feat's that the character's have), but again, it would invalidate the story. Even if we assume that all the good guy's would be willing to play along, why would the Villain's even try if they already know that they will lose? Why don't they just throw in the towel and go home? "Because of the plot", I take it? At that point, every single action taken is for the plot of the game. These character's would do every action they do because the plot of the game demands it. Which would once again, pull into question numerous things about the series- Especially in relation to character's and how they act, since their personalities would only be limited to what the plot needs of them. At some point, this just becomes ridiculous.

They don't necessarily know how the plot is going to end, no, but they very clearly do know that there is a plot and that they're inside a game. We have more than enough proof for that to be considered true. I'm not particularly interested in discussing whether or not these characters would/should have free will. The notion of free will is contentious even when it comes to real-life humans, but as I said previously, the Player isn't in total control 24/7... we even have that scene where a bunch of characters decide to intervene and essentially beat on Underling/Linda before the game can load in a boss battle as to "not waste the Player's time", so they clearly have some form of freedom of choice, even if it's inherently limited at times.

I suppose that every video game made with a Thank You for Playing screen has a secret player playing, then, too? The Thank You For Playing Corner's are something that should be taken for what they are at face value imo, just as much as say the Tutorial's are- Unless you wanna say that the game's Tutorial's are more than just tutorial's, too?

I mean, yeah? If a video game openly acknowledges a player in a scene inside said video game, then they obviously exist in some capacity, but that's beside the point. If the Player in this instance was limited only to the "Thank You For Playing" corner and a few fourth-wall breaks, we wouldn't be having this discussion. The reason the Thank You For Playing corners are part of this conversation is that Histoire directly references them and assigns meaning to them inside the series. The Player is similarly given meaning and a purpose in the series as well. Would they still have this sort of relevance if VIIR wasn't part of the series? You could make that argument, sure, but VIIR is part of the series, and we can even pinpoint when approximately it's taking place within the series.

That is what we call a interpretation. We're all still waiting to see solid proof that these Fourth Wall breaks should be taken for more than what they are at face value.

Powerscaling as a whole is based almost entirely on interpretation, and Neptunia definitely isn't some sort of exception to this ruling. Interpretation is literally what allows for powerscaling to happen, especially when you dive into the realm of scaling chains and "it's possibly this tier, but it could also be that tier". VIIR openly provides us with context for these Fourth Wall breaks by explaining the existence of the Player and their role in the franchise. It's applying context where there was none before. It wouldn't even be the first verse I scale that turns what was previously nothing more than a joke into something that has genuine meaning and scaling to it. Wizard101 The Old One profile when?

Once again, if most of the Plot is already pre-determined, why do the Villain's even try if they will lose anyways? Do you think Kurome would bother with the Dark Orange stuff if she knew the Goddess's and Co. would beat her anyway? Or would Afimojas have fought them if he knew they would crush him with their NEXT forms? The idea that it is a video game completely devalue's the plot and tear's it apart.

I feel that this is sufficiently addressed in my earlier statements, TLDR they don't necessarily understand how the plot will go and they're not meant to be interpreted as completely without will or agency.

I know I'm not addressing your full argument, but I'm only pointing out the parts I have something to say about. The entire notion of The Neptunia Verse being a Video Game/Video Game Series in verse completely ruin's any sort of tension and plot, strip's the Character's of a significant degree of sentience, and frankly feels like a assumption.

You don't have to address my full argument if you have nothing to say about certain parts, I won't complain about that - but we have more than enough evidence to show that this is how the verse actively chooses to treat itself. Frankly, it's surprising to hear that's even contentious, that sort of self-acknowledgment isn't exactly uncommon in the series. Ask any Neptunia fan "Does Neptune know she's in a video game?" and they'd say yes.

It's OK to have your own interpretation, I do not intend to bash you for that. But when there are numerous holes in this Interpretation when you attempt to present it as fact, and attempt to add content to the Verse based off said interpretation, you will need more evidence than a Handful of Joke's, a few Thank You For Playing corner's, and maybe one or two statement's about a "character" with no story or personality, or name, or face, or generally anything to them, who appear's for a handful of small scene's in the additional content to a remake of a game. If this CRT were to go through, and the Neptunia Verse would be considered in the way you are presenting (As a Video Game with a Pre-Set Story), then that would have several ramifications on the verse as a whole.

Something something interpretations and powerscaling, something something I've already provided explicit evidence and multiple scans supporting my stance... I do appreciate that you're trying to remain respectful despite the disagreement though.

Tl;dr, Not only would The Neptunia Verse being a VG to the Player be disastrous on several front's, but... Honestly it's just both a safer bet, and more believable, to think otherwise in my opinion. Put me down as being in firm disagreeance with this CRT in it's current state (Even if my vote doesn't matter much due to not being staff).

Which reminds me, you should make sure there's a Vote Tally section if the Staff ever get around to this

I intend to, and I've tried contacting some staff members both directly and indirectly for this, but as of now, y'know...

 

[KaiokenBlueGT]

First and foremost, I didn't commit an ad hominem at all, if I were committing an ad hominem, I would've invalidated strategist's arguments based on him as a person, and for the record, I don't have any animosity towards him or anybody else in this thread, in case you're curious. As far as the comment itself goes, it was a non-serious one that was meant as a joke, however, my mistake was not further elaborating on what I meant, so for that, I'll take the responsibility and own up to that mistake. As for my role here, I only serve to help you guys and anybody else for that matter to understand why this CRT makes sense, and as soon as this ends, I'm probably gonna take my leave, but as long as I'm here, I'll refrain from saying things that can offend people.

Even if it was unintentional, it's still an ad hominem, because you were implying that strategist's point is invalid because of what you percieve to be a lack of experience with the games, rather than focusing on what he said specifically and dismantling that.

Regardless, thank you for owning up to your mistake, but I'm still admittingly a bit baffled at how you thought anyone can look at what you wrote and think of it as a joke.
Either way, this isn't productive to the thread - so let's get back on track.

You're very much right, it IS my interpretation. However, it is an interpretation based on the plethora of things stated in the series itself. To begin, let's kick things off with the good o'l Nepstation.

The Nepstation is a place separate from the main story:

• To avoid a potential misconception, in the first line that explains what the Nepstation is Nepgear and Uzume question why Neptune herself hasn't shown up during the show and Uzume jokingly avoids it. However, that isn't the case, throughout the Nepstation we have things like Uni and Nepgear outright explaining that the reason for the CPU's absence is because they've been captured in the main story (pay attention to this because it's very important), Neptune and Uzume giving their reactions to things they've done within the story itself and even narrate the episode previews of what happens next in each major point of the game's story, we see a similar thing with Neptune and Nepgear on how they were surprised them being able to suddenly gather share energy and transform was because of Uzume's daydream ability, everything after is basically a repeat of what I said involving them talking about other moments in the story.
• Neptune was surprised by the four different story routes in the 2nd arc of VII, and ask's Vert for her thoughts on it, as this is the first time she was truly a protagonist in the series. If we look at how she speaks about it especially based on what I've said previously, it's as if her role in the story was according to a script that's being followed by everyone and to make this even more supportive inside of the main story that's separated from the nepstation she still speaks as if she's an actor playing the role as protagonist in her narrative.
• We see the cast viewing all 3 campaigns as stories and commenting on it minorly such as Neptune saying it has a surprising amount of volume which can be interpreted as the script being huge.
• The characters indirectly admit to following a script, simply put, whenever they have these "Thank You for Playing" corners it's a scripted thing that they do to congratulate us on completing the game, although Neptune did this as a prank it doesn't necessarily deny this being the case especially with everything I said prior to this.
• Despite being from another dimension entirely separate from the main Hyperdimension, this still holds weight because it shows us that throughout the franchise outside of the mainline titles this rule still applies, and with everything I said up to this point, it only makes sense it would work this way.
• Even in the Thank You For Playing Corner in Re;birth 1, Re;birth 3, and VII's True Ending this is consistent.

With everything I've shown you so far, I believe my interpretation is completely valid as it's just too consistent that these characters follow a script for the sole purpose of entertaining us.

You've already sabotaged and debunked your entire point here by acknowledging that Nepstation is seperate from the main story using that VII scan, which is also shown and stated in Victory and Re;Birth 3. I noticed you did something similar with the manga later on in your post, which I'm very baffled that you brought up again considering what I said to Ben previously, but we'll get to that soon.

Since Nepstation has stated this very explicitly in all the mainline games that have them (Victory, Re;Birth 3, VII), nothing there can be taken as evidence when it comes to the main games' stories. Besides, all of the above scans are, again, just meta references, which you are once again taking too literally.
Meta references are arguably the most significant part of Neptune's character, and other characters have been shown indulging in this as well from time to time, as you no doubt already know.

As such, none of what you provided above holds any weight. You can't just take everything that comes out of the characters' mouths literally without at least applying a bit of scrutiny to them.
This series is notorious for meta references and exaggerations, and as I said before - this doesn't mean everything is inherently invalid, but this does also mean it is almost a necessity to apply a bit of scrutiny when judging what is actually backed up by the plot, and what are just simple nods to the playerbase or just the series being cheeky with it's signature self-referential humour style.
To take your stance by viewing everything very literally breaks every single story in the entire franchise, as I've stated numerous times throughout my responses. It simply does not make any narrative sense.

The reason why I'm saying this is because some of the things said in this thread should be basic knowledge. It's like if you asked a Naruto fan whether or not Naruto is a ninja or you asked a Mario fan whether or not Luigi was Mario's brother. My issue with you or anybody else who does the same thing is that you're questioning certain things that should be something we all know although I'm not saying that the whole characters following a script thing is basic knowledge of course not.

Speaking as someone, and you can choose to believe me or not, who has played all of the mainline games, and most of the spin-offs, I think I can confidently say that if I'm having to resort to getting you to clarify something that's apparently "common sense"... Don't you think that, perhaps, what you're saying isn't common sense?

Yeah, it may make a lot more sense to you, but that's because you're obviously the original owner of your viewpoint. It's important to clarify yourself even when something might be obvious to you, because it may not end up being the case with other people.
I'm not telling you to spill out every single thought process, as that's obviously asking too much, but a bit of extra clarification here and there to ensure your point is fully understood with no room for misunderstandings or misinterpretations wouldn't hurt you.

To your first point, it isn't an assumption, although I should've sent evidence of what my statement was correlated to. Ben mentioned this earlier, but the reason why I'm saying this is because, in the Mangadimension, Neptune had a device known as the Save Point & Reset Button which essentially saves and resets points so Neptune can retry them. Throughout the chapter, she constantly abused it and nobody was aware of anything like that even occurring with even Neptune encountering the person she reset being unaware of who she was due to that entire scenario being reset completely as if it never happened in the first place.

The thing is despite this taking place in a storyline separate from the mainline titles, it still supports that something like this has occurred in the franchise. In SvS, we see something similar, after all of the branching timelines fused together, become one, and then reset to the beginning of the game. Nepgear and Maho are the only ones who remember the events that took place, although it is not quite the same thing, it is similar enough to be comparable and shows that something like this has happened in the mainline titles.

-be me
-make it very clear and show evidence that the manga's writers aren't affiliated with the scenario or script writing for any of the games (post #49 on this thread)
-also make it clear that the manga's continuity has nothing to do with the games either
-opponents still bring up the manga

Just because a concept or anything of the sort is dabbled upon or entertained somewhere else in the series, it doesn't mean it applies towards the entire franchise and every continuity that exists within it. ESPECIALLY when different writers are involved. They come up with their own unique ideas, and may discard other ones shown elsewhere (even within the same continuity) just to fit their vision - it's for this same reason that retcons exist (which I will also be getting onto later since you brought one up).

By this logic, the concept of Super Saiyan 4 in Dragon Ball GT exists and is attainable within Dragon Ball Super. Whilst it is possible that it can be the case and still be written into Super's story, there is no acknowledgement of the form or it's prerequisites in Super whatsoever for now. Hell, even if the idea was brought into Super, it could end up being a complete revamp entirely - so even in the case that ideas/concepts are brought over, there's no guarantee that the idea would even carry over fully in it's original form. To say otherwise is, once again, making another unfounded assumption.

Or if you want a more personalised example, since I can see you have a Fate pfp, this is sort of the equivalent of saying that all of the concepts established in Fate/Stay Night carry over to other places like Fate/Apocrypha or Fate/Kaleid liner Prisma Illya. Whilst they all exist within the same franchise and may have shared concepts between them, it doesn't mean all of them will adapt every single idea the exact same way across continuities, or even use the same ideas at all - like I've pointed out with Super Saiyan 4 for Dragon Ball prior.

Nonetheless, they're completely different, unrelated continuities - with different writers that may or may not want to dabble with each other's ideas, or even acknowledge them.

So no, this absolutely is still an assumption on your end - because you're guessing that because the Neptunia manga has showcased and acknowledged this, that the games therefore follow a similar pattern. Like I just said, different writers, different continuities, different visions. You need something far more direct within the game continuity itself if you want to argue this.

Even if I was, once again, feeling generous to acknowledge the manga anyway - your comparison of SvS's scenario of the timeline merge with the manga's Save Point & Reset Button doesn't even really work at all, as it isn't clear how the button even functions (at least from what you provided) beyond the surface-level of understanding of a physical manifestation of in-game save points.

Is it turning back time by affecting absolutely everything in the world? Is it only affecting Neptune herself individually (like, for example, sending her current mind back to her past self's body)? It's very important for stuff like this to have clarification before they're applied in these sort of comparisons. But from what I've seen after reading every manga panel you've provided above, the button's functionality isn't stated - so to assume it works in a similar way to the events that follow SvS' timeline merge is fallacious and unfounded.
Nonetheless, even if there were any sort of link, the manga is a seperate continuity, and cannot be used as evidence for anything regarding the mainline game continuity anyway.

Whatever the case, what you currently have to support your assumptions doesn't work.

Onto your second point, most of what you said is already answered by everything I've said previously. However, your point regarding the Player not appearing consistently, why does one need to reveal themselves every single time to prove they're a higher power? Honestly, this is comparable to questioning why God in Christianity doesn't reveal himself every time humanity is in peril.

But if you're looking for more evidence of them actually interacting with pivotal points in the story, I've got you covered. Essentially Ultra Neptune congratulates us for completing the game and reaching the True Thank You For Playing Corner. Now before I move on, I'd like to tell you that the "True Thank You For Playing Corner" is separate from the Thank You For Playing Corner because the True version's entire purpose is thanking the Player in person rather than just doing what they do normally so which already should raise some flags. Like other Thank You for Playing Corners, Ultra Neptune speaks on her role in the story which even now still supports how every character is following a script to entertain us, and most importantly she verbatim says "This Happy Ending is all thanks to you, and even though you're in another dimension, you helped us so much. You're a part of Gamindustri forever!", "I'm so thankful for everything you've done for Gamindustri. I'll always remember this.", and "Thanks for always listening to me and giving me such great advice! And thank you so much for playing this game!" It doesn't get more blatant than this as she's outright saying that we're the reason why everything in VII/VIIR went well and despite being in a different dimension we'll always be part of Gamindustri.

• The Player also has the ability to interact with other dimensions which can be viewed as the Player being able to affect and assist beings from the dimensions associated with the spinoff titles (specifically referring to Producing Perfection's Manager and Hyperdovotion's Secretary as they're both the Player although every other dimension wouldn't be exempt from the Player's assistance) that are canon within the context of their own dimensions and separate from the mainline Hyperdimension. This would make sense considering the Player across VII/VIIR had to interact with Zero Dimension, Hyper Dimension, and Heart Dimension as a multitude of huge events were taking place in all 3 Arcs.

Your analogy of Christianity's God to the Player is a very, very interesting one - one that I find a bit silly. God, in most religious texts, is mainly a being that is defined by omnipotence and omnipresence, even if not visibly so. The Player has no such characteristics, and their presence is completely defined by whether they're even playing the game or not.

Regardless, the analogy/comparison doesn't even apply, and just sidesteps the issue. I'm not saying that the Player has to be performing miracles every 2 cutscenes to be consistent, but what I am saying is that the lack of involvement or emphasis on the Player beyond meta references or post-game cutscenes overall to this low of a degree, as well as how much the mere idea would break the story of almost every game overall, should be more indicative of a likelier chance that perhaps the Player isn't this kind of "higher power".

And I guess I have to, exhaustingly, point out again how your supposed evidence is just your overly literal interpretation of the dialogue. Just because the Player is stated by the characters that they can "interact with different dimensions" once again doesn't necessarily mean they're a higher power. This is a very common feature within video games, which I feel should be a given, and the characters are just referring to the Player's ability to play various different games and explore the stories and worlds contained within, rather than hinting at some sort of higher power ability. I feel that should also be a given considering all of us here acknowledge that the characters are self-aware.

Honestly, this was the part of your comment I was waiting for the most.

Glad I was able to make you giddy I guess lol. Let's see...

So from what I can understand, you're essentially saying that everything that pertains to manipulating reality as a video game is simply humor? If that's the case, I'm afraid I strongly disagree, and here's why.

Before I begin, just to refresh everyone's memory, we know that Histoire is the World's everything and everything is her and vice versa along with being a tome that records all of Gamidustri's history, as shown by the Nepedia, In-game text descriptions, and her own word in the story itself.

• Histoire has a skill called Nature/Universe it destroys enemies by controlling nature and all of existence itself.
• In Re;birth 1, we see Histoire utilizes this attack, and by what we can visually see it appears as a bunch of 0s and 1s compiled into a ball which implies that reality itself is digital, and in Re;birth 3, we see the exact same thing.
• To further support everything in existence is digital, the infamous Gamindustri statement outright states that the world was born from 0 and soon shifted to the introduction of 1 which already implies their reality is some sort of digital reality right off the bat and this becomes apparent even further where humans used to be 2D and evolved into 3D although there are remnants who still remain as 2D still images, pixelated beings, and even low-quality polygons and even using the term low-res polygon monsters to describe the appearance of certain remnants, and we even have a person called 2D Dude who is from a 2D World who is unable to return to his world hence the reason why people of Gamindustri want to find ways to return to the 2D Age.
• IF states the world is made up of information which is very consistent with everything so far especially with the notion of everything being made of 0s and 1s in a digital reality.
• Supporting IF's statement previously, everything, in reality, is made of 0's and 1's through the use of bits that stores all information inside of it. 0 refers to OFF and 1 refers to ON, these terms are used to refer to determine branches. This also applies to game scripts as well, along with a player's actions and choices which are stored as ON and OFF via the bits. The reason why is to store the player's special actions to change later outcomes. Originally, these were referred to as "bit flags", but now they're referred to as "flags" which will play an important role. These flags can refer to "progress in a relationship, an omen of disaster, and expected outcomes.". They are often connected to fate and used for predictions as well. There are also death flags that basically occur when someone dies. However, there's a way to prevent death flags and other incidents that don't go as planned. When a flag doesn't work as expected or when a person stops the outcome themselves or ignores it completely this is known as breaking the flag. People who do this consistently are known as "Flag Crushers" the usage of the word itself is diverging from its literal meaning and programmers state that "breaking" isn't the correct term, what makes this impressive is the fact Neptune herself is a Flag Crusher and was able to overturn the event of Uzume's death, not saying this is 100% but it's implied that Uzume's death was preordained to happen in the Ascension ending. Uzume and Neptune both tell the Player if they keep on playing the game they can achieve an ending/new path where Uzume doesn't die which is extremely consistent with everything I've said regarding them previously and especially the function of flag items.
• They also fight enemies that are made up of pure data.

Hoooooooo boy, there is a lot wrong with this. Let's tackle this point by point.

• Histoire's "Nature/Universe" attack:
  • Histoire's attack has zero connection to the world supposedly being "made up of information". What you're referring to in the actual attack itself is just a visual effect and nothing more. Visual effects deliberately emphasise, enhance, or exaggerate visuals in order to create a more visually appealing attack for the audience - so taking them at face-value without stronger reasoning is flawed.
• The "infamous" mk2 Gamindustri statement:
  • This entire entry was retconned in VII with the introduction of the dimensional coordinates, and even ignoring that - this entry is completely absent from Re;Birth 2, the most up-to-date version of mk2.
  • Your mention of the "2D Dude" chirper, funnily enough, actually makes your argument weaker, since we have entities that are stated to have literally jumped out of the second dimension. To repeat, they were once part of the 2D plane that ended up in Gamindustri after jumping out of the second dimension. Nothing that proves that the world is made up of information.
• IF's statement:
  • This has been really taken out of context, and finding the original chirper dialogue reveals the full picture. When IF is stating that, what she is actually referring to is intel from her occupation as a Guild member, since she frequently has to deal with and gather information - as that's part of her job. So much so that she felt her pride sink when she heard just how much information Nepgear had gathered in the second Arc of VII.
  • In the original chirper message, after the scan you provided, she even states right after "With so much intel coming in each and every day, I can hardly keep up with it all. Oh. And here comes another email". So no, yet again - this is not evidence for the world being made up of information.
  • The fact that you didn't share the full dialogue here, in my opinion, is highly dishonest. This has singlehandedly weakened your argument by a substantial amount.
• Flags & Neptune being a "Flag Crusher":
  • The "Flag (Programming Term)", "Flag (Derivative) 1", and "Flag (Derivative) 2" Nepedia entries don't really support your argument of the world being made up of information, especially considering the fact that the "Flag (Derivative)" entries associate the term "Flag" with things such as fate, and not programming - which is where the term originated from.
  • Neptune being referred to as a "Flag Crusher" in the name of the cutscene doesn't really mean a whole lot either; it's literally just her refusing to let Uzume die, therefore she runs back and helps her out. It's just flowery language. All it does is just tie back to the "Flag (Derivative)" entries, which again, don't support your argument.
• Fighting enemies made of data:
  • This doesn't really mean much, since those properties only apply to the enemies themselves and not the world. If this is supposed to be supporting evidence, I can see why you left this here - but ultimately, as the above bullet points illustrate, this becomes less meaningful.

I've already addressed this above.

No you haven't, not fully. You didn't directly address my argument about the characters not weaponising the player's "influence" despite their awareness and, if we run with your point here, the capability of doing so, at any time they're on-screen might I add, which would require no difficulty or effort on their part whatsoever to use.

Once again, there are plenty of instances where the player's "influence" could have been used, or brought up as an idea by any of the cast that could've either weakened threats, or avoided them altogether. Some of the examples I included were:

• Uni stressing out and thinking she was actually going to die of poison in VII.
  • The Player, in this case, could just rewind a save to before she got poisoned if requested by either Uni or Noire.
• Neptune getting BFR'd by Rei into Ultra Dimension and stressing out over her falling from the sky in Victory.
  • In this case, the Player could rewind a save to before she got BFR'd as Neptune is falling from the sky and freaking out.
• The CPUs not being confident in winning against Dark Orange after she appears for the first time.
  • In this case, the Player could rewind a save to before Kurome fuses or before she acquires Rei's powers, in order to make her easier to deal with and not bother having to deal with Dark Orange.

Of course, since we're going through a lot and replying back with massive detail at a time (and this will apply to the other two comments of you saying you've "addressed this"), but if I'm misunderstanding or accidentally leaving out something - then point out where you addressed this.

I've already addressed this as well.

Not really, you didn't acknowledge what I said about Victory requiring a higher level of scrutiny compared to normal because of it's lighter tone, as well as, by extension, me stating that the series as a whole requires a certain level of analysis before accepting any implications from statements/dialogue.

And since we were on this topic earlier, I do geniunely think that Victory has a much lighter tone than the majority of the series, which as I've said - would therefore require even more scrutiny than usual - especially after the responses/reviews to the more serious/darker tone of mk2.
This is shown with the game going as far as to flanderise Neptune by making her even more selfish and lazy, ******** all over Nepgear and making her a Butt-Monkey throughout (since she wasn't popular around the time of Victory's development period, a case similar to what people thought of Raiden around the time of Metal Gear Solid 2's release where he's the Butt-Monkey of the sequel game's Secret Theater mode, so the Victory writers similarly wanted to service those that didn't like Nepgear), and bump up the negative traits/further flanderise the other 3 Ultra Dimension CPUs up to 11 (Noire is more of a tsundere and is overall more unpleasant, Blanc gets angrier a lot more frequently, and Vert's pride & sisterless insecurities are bumped up too - even leading to her brainwashing Nepgear just because she wanted a sister).

I've addressed pretty much all of this.

No you haven't. You still haven't provided anything concrete as to how the Player themselves are higher-dimensional, all you've done is reaffirm the higher dimensional nature of the VR Dimension and the Real World... again.

Sure, you have your interpretation, but as I keep saying over and over - interpretations aren't concrete, they're attempting to answer something that is, most of the time, ambigious - and as I've also stated before, I believe in taking the interpretation that requires the least amount of assumptions possible, which equates to the Player not being higher-dimensional like the dimensions they're affiliated with, even though that isn't explicitly stated either. Basically, Occam's Razor.

Regarding your last comment, I'm aware that lower-dimensional beings can exist within higher-dimensional ones, but why is that happening here? It seems you're misinterpreting Ben's argument and my explanation of his argument. It works like this, The Player is from the Real World (The Real World and the VR Dimension are NOT the same) the VR Dimension itself is the fusion of the Real World and the Game World with the former having more precedence over it and it transcends the Game World viewing it as a game. The Player that we see in the VR Dimension is simply an avatar of the Real World Player because obviously, they cannot exist within things like the VR Dimension or Game World without the use of Avatars due to being a higher-dimensional being naturalistically.

Even though I just said it, I'm still confused, from what I just explained, there's no way you can view this as a lower-dimensional being simply existing within a higher dimension. If you were referring to how the CPUs, Histoire, Croire, and Ultra Neptune just happen to visit this higher dimension frequently, I can understand. But it sounds like you're saying the Player themselves is a lower dimensional being which isn't the case at all so I'm gonna need you to elaborate or show evidence that supports this.

I never said that the Real World and the VR Dimension is the same, so I don't know why you're even saying that.

Again, yet another assumption we've got on our hands from you. Where's your definitive proof that the Player is indeed using an avatar? For all we know, the VR Room segments might be treating us as if we are actually there to give the Players more of a personal connection than before, which I believe is the whole point of these VR Room segments in the first place.
Obviously, we can't truly be there ourselves physically, but it is still an alternative interpretation of the game potentially ignoring this and pretending that we're there anyway for the sake of immersion, which I think is fair enough for me to say given that Croire even states that "it's very possible the human over there's a guide called... the Player", which gives extra substance to my interpretation, since Croire is explicitly stating that we're a human, as if she and Ultra Dimension Neptune can actually see us and determine what we are because of that.

Of course, like I said before, this is just an alternative viewpoint and isn't fact, and for me to say otherwise would be hypocritical - and you could also make another interpretation on your side that the supposed avatar just so happens to also be human in this case, but like I said before - I believe that Occam's Razor is the best approach to this, which would give me more credibility in this case.

As such, I'm not obligated to provide evidence of the Player being lower-dimensional. The burden of proof is on you to prove your claim that they're higher-dimensional, as it once again takes more to assume that they're higher-dimensional than lower.

I've addressed both of these as well above.

Nope, once again, you haven't.

Firstly, you haven't addressed my claim about the Player being largely insignificant through their inactivity within the plot of every single game aside from VIIR, meta references/jokes, and post-game sequences, and even then - the Player is mostly passive in VIIR too. For your claim to be validated, you'd have to show the Player actually having direct significance across multiple other games, rather than just VIIR.

Secondly, you haven't addressed the R>F criteria for the Player.
You might disagree, possibly bringing up what you said here:

The craziest thing about this is the fact the Player has their own game in the form of VIIR (which I've cited above) and VIIR's own website confirming that the Player's the central focus in it which kills the whole idea of this being a "just for jokes 4th wall break" deal.

Not only have I tackled this below the quote above this one, as well as before, this just sidesteps the criteria's counter-requirements, which I think I've made quite clear in presenting here.

In the context of Neptunia, for R>F transcendence to be valid - it has to be consistently shown across the mainline games' stories that the "fictional" universe is truly seen and treated like one. It simply isn't enough to say that the Player qualifies based on one single game (where the Player is still largely passive, by the way) or alternatively only being mentioned in fourth-wall breaks/jokes.

In addition, the Player also has to be shown to be qualitatively superior over said fictional universe, which still has yet to be concretely shown by anyone here - and I've already provided reasonings as to why this is less likely to be the case (such as, once again, the Player's inactivity and ultimate insignificance in the plot of almost every game).

To wrap this up, if you want to prove that the Player qualifies for R>F - we need consistent and clear evidence across the mainline games showing that the Player views the series as true fiction and maintains qualitative superiority over it. For the final time, the Player being more involved in one game whilst still remaining passive, or sporadic fourth-wall breaks and jokes are insufficient.

Just to make sure everything is all in one place for easier comprehension - I'll provide the criteria that goes against R>F for the player here one more time:

"However, there are also factors that can speak against Reality-Fiction Transcendence, even if all of the above is given. Those include:

• The realities are portrayed like parallel universes or otherwise as having just a finite difference in scale or having a similar nature."

It's also been brought to my attention that there's also this line from the R>F Criteria page:

"Additionally, the showings should be reasonably clear. Vague cameos of author avatars, hints at a "player" character without further context or similar things should be disregarded. In such cases it simply can't be sufficiently ascertained that the world is viewed as true "fiction". In some cases it's not even clear if it's more than a simple nod to the audience or humorous instance of Breaking the Fourth Wall, which is not to be taken seriously."

The Player would absolutely fit within this statement because they have no bearing on literally anything within the series, and they aren't utilised within the story by any of the characters - which is even more apparent in far higher stake situations where it would have been infinitely more beneficial for the cast to recommend trying to get the Player's help.

Again, the Player cannot be a higher power, otherwise the story in every single game cannot happen because the Player can just go back a save or "skip ahead". There's no stakes, there's no tension, there's no anything anymore. I'm yet to see anything addressing this severe hole in this argument.

Any mention towards the Player have been shown, so far, to only be reserved for:

• A post-game congratulations sequence (The "Thank You For Playing" corner)
• Meta Jokes (Neptune telling the player to skip the current cutscene, reloading the save in a Nepstation broadcast - all of which have been explicitly stated to be seperate from the main canon, etc.)
• A small portion of VIIR's new additional VR Room segments - where the Player doesn't even really do much aside from meeting and listening to the four CPUs and Ultra Dimension Neptune.

This should, hopefully, go to show how much the Player fits within the "a simple nod to the audience or humorous instance of Breaking the Fourth Wall" segment of the criteria. And as I've said before, there's also the parallel worlds part of the criteria going against the Player as well.

With all that said, I think this is gonna be my last huge comment on this thread because I don't feel like constantly going in circles of repetition. At this point, I'll just wait for the staff to give their input on this thread.

I really don't feel like writing bibles worth of text anymore either, so yeah - I'm with you there lol
I'm probably just going to wait for staff as well at this point and clarify my points to them if needed.

Until then? I'm outta here lol

 

[thetechmaster36]

Massive Kaio W, big ups to him for being able to write out that whole thing.

At this point, it's just a waiting game, since we need staff input.

 

[TheKingStrategist13]

Mmm, agreed. It looks to me that we won't get anywhere further keeping at this, so let's see the staff opinion.

 

[GlaceonGamez471]

Bump

 

[GlaceonGamez471]

Bump

 

[GlaceonGamez471]

Bump

 

[GlaceonGamez471]

Bump

 

[GlaceonGamez471]

Bump

 

[GlaceonGamez471]

Bump

 

[TheKingStrategist13]

A full week, huh

 

[GlaceonGamez471]

Bump

 

[GlaceonGamez471]

Bump

 

[TheKingStrategist13]

Gonna be so honest I don't think this will go anywhere at this point

 

[GlaceonGamez471]

Bump

 

[Guacamolefletcher]

Bump

at this point, post it in staff message walls

 

[GlaceonGamez471]

Bump

 

[TheKingStrategist13]

Gonna be so real just bumping this over and over again won't do anything

 

[GlaceonGamez471]

Bump

 

[GlaceonGamez471]

Bump