Hyperdevotion Noire: Goddess Black Heart

The world is called Gamarket. The goddess (or ‘CPU’ in the English version) of Lastation, Noire, once again has a fight with the other three goddesses and win. She comes back to Lastation and wishes Gamarket becomes united so that she no longer has to fight. A woman appears in Lastation that totally looks like the evil mastermind in the game, befriends Noire and tell her that if she wishes of Gamarket unification to the Sharicite, then it may happen. The result is that the Sharicite loses its shine and Noire loses all of her Shares which are the source of her power as a goddess.

In the midst of the confusion, a player appears in Lastation, looking for a job and meets weakened Noire. He believes in her which gives her enough power to transform into her goddess and fiends of monsters that appeared in the city. This player is the person the player impersonates. Noire decides to make him her secretary after the fight. If there is any reason, it’s because she is alone now and needs support, probably, and this player without a name really likes her for some reason.

Noire is then challenged by other goddesses that want to know what happened. They also lost their Shares. They have a fight over who is to become the party leader. Noire wins and she is now tasked with getting trust of generals that govern areas of Gamarket back again in order to join their cause and unite Gamarket for real this time. Noire is said to gained her generals’ support by force earlier. This time she tries to approach them so that they join on their own accord.

And that’s the plot of Hyperdevotion Noire. The only thing that you can say about it is that is exists. Probably when the developers had a discussion about the plot in the game someone said „Hey, you never wrote a plot before, right? What about you write one for this game?” and the person taked with writing the plot for the game was decided. You will probably remember the characters, but not because they are well-written characters. It’s because they are a parody of other game titles that you probably know. The story and characters are certainly not a good point of this game. The dialogues and events are so funny that _ never laughed. If you are looking for a well-written and deep story to follow, then _ recommend that you avoid this title.

The music and sound effects do not stand out at all. They are not bad but are not good either. All of the pieces used are forgettable. They don’t make one’s ears bleed and does their job as background music, but nothing more can be really said about them, including the opening and ending themes.

The graphics use super-deformed models of units which has its charm. They made _ think of Nendoroids. When you use a skill, an animated cut-in is played, but unfortunately the animation is these cut-ins is pretty bad. It would look way better if these animations would be played out on the field instead of switching to its own view that has no background. Oh, and the game uses a 2D motion technology on sprites at dialogues, but it is basically a standard today. These technologies spread out into products in no time in Japan.

The plot, music and graphics may not be a good part of this title, but, fortunately, the game itself is well-made and _ had a good time playing it. It is an SRPG, a tactical RPG or whatever term you call such games by. Basically, you have stages, which in this game are called ‘missions,’ that are composed of squares that you put units at and move them in turns.

The missions’ objective is generally to clear the stage of enemy units, but now and then a more sophisticated objective is given. There was some thought put into these missions. Now and then there are some gimmicks on the field like traps or moving platforms. While there is not many of them, it is enough for the missions not to feel repetitive.

There are 21 characters in this game, not counting additional DLC characters. This is a pretty high number of units. Usually, you have a set of characters you use. This makes their experience levels uneven so that when some character needs to appear on a mission, it is underleveled compared to others. This game takes that into account in that character’s level is taken into account when calculating the amount of EXP it gets for an action. An underleveled character will level up fast and get on par with others. Such elements really tell you that the developer knows what they’re doing.

_ played on Hard difficulty setting. The game didn’t really feel hard, although _ could notice that the enemies try to attack from favorable positions. Well, there’s not really much that could increase difficulty in such a game other than increasing enemy statistics and making the AI act smarter. The game seems aimed at casual players and if that is the case, then it does its job well. If you do all sub-missions the game offers as the story progresses then you should have no problems with clearing this game.

There are two item crafting systems. In both you have to craft new items from the items collected from missions. One is for crafting game disks from idea chips. There is a limited amount of disks you can burn. The other system adds a new item in the shop once crafted.

Effects the discs give are certainly important and play a role in the system, but not as much as one could think they do. The amount of discs is too low in ’s opinion and there is too much of them that has a slot open for effects that increase resistance to a certain type of enemy. did not use this system much.

There is not much to say about the other system. You first collect a recipe and then craft an item. Certainly the amount of items is enough. _ did not make all of them after clearing the story.

There is also a system called ‘Sim Noire’. You take ‘requests’ from… citizens of Lastation? to Noire. As her secretary you are tasked with providing an answer. It took _ some time to comprehend what the answers _ was presented with have to do with a request’s content. The wording is really bad here. The requests are also… wierd. Maybe they were supposed to be funny. _ didn’t laugh. If they were jokes, then they are miserable attempts at a joke. Other than answering requests, which are added with each new chapter, you improve Noire’s room by buying furniture for points you get by buying things in the shop. The idea is nice. It makes the player use the shop often in order to accumulate points.

You can save the data after clearing the game and start over on another difficulty with bonus items for clearing the story and keeping character parameters and item inventory. There is no much to do after clearing the main story, though, other than grinding achievements and collecting all items the game has to offer. _ am yet to see, but if on the second playthrough there are no additional post-game missions unlocked, then this game could use some. Otherwise there is no real reason to start the game over. (Update: No, there aren’t any.)

To sum it up, Hyperdevotion Noire: Goddess Black Heart is a well-made video game. Nothing more, nothing less. If you’re looking for an SRPG video game to play that do not pose much of a challenge, then _ recommend it. It certainly is a well-made game, even if other aspects may be lacking. It plays well.