1894: Goddess Black Heart

Finally got around to firing up the rather grandiosely titled Hyperdevotion Noire: Goddess Black Heart today, and I’m pleased to report that thus far it appears to be excellent.

For the unfamiliar, Hyperdevotion Noire is another installment in my perennial favourite game series Hyperdimension Neptunia, or more accurately, it’s one of several “spinoff” games that have broken free of the main continuity… not that Neptunia has ever been a series particularly concerned with internal continuity. In other words, it stands by itself as its own self-contained story, though naturally you’ll probably get more out of it if you’re already familiar with the characters and concepts involved.

Unlike most of the Neptunia games, Hyperdevotion Noire puts, oddly enough, PlayStation personification Noire in the leading role. Unfolding in a separate, parallel setting to the main Neptunia games (the land of “Gamarket” instead of “Gamindustri”), Hyperdevotion Noire opens with Noire dominating much of the world with her superior military might, army of generals (each of whom represents a well-known game series, such as the Metal Gear-inspired girl named “Lid” seen in the screenshot below) and overwhelming support from the people. Unfortunately, her position as top dog isn’t to last; after being tricked into releasing the power of her “Shares” — the source of a Goddess’ power in the Neptunia universe — monsters run amok in her city, people disappear and her once-trusted generals start fighting among themselves. It’s up to Noire — along with the rest of the Neptunia gang, who show up pretty near the beginning of the whole affair — to sort out the mess she had a part in creating, find out who the mysterious woman “Eno” who set these events in motion is (hint: she looks uncannily like recurring series villain Arfoire) and ultimately unite Gamarket.

It’s up to you, meanwhile, to take care of Noire and help her out as she goes about her business. Yes, like fellow spinoff Hyperdimension Neptunia: Producing Perfection, Hyperdevotion Noire puts the player in the game as a first-person protagonist rather than simply telling the story of the main cast. Recruited as Noire’s secretary shortly after meeting her, you’re tasked with managing the party, strategising in battle, renovating and decorating Noire’s headquarters and helping her make appropriate policy decisions as the citizens of Lastation come to her with requests.

The meat of the game comes in the battle sequences. Rather than being a dungeon-crawling, item-gathering/crafting RPG as the mainline Neptunia installments are, Hyperdevotion Noire is a strategy RPG, developed by Sting (of Gungnir, Knights in the Nightmare and Yggdra Union fame). Mainline Neptunia games have always had a slight element of tactics to their battle sequences thanks to positional bonuses, cleaving attacks and formation skills, but battles in those games are generally pretty short; punctuation to dungeon crawling. In Hyperdevotion Noire, a single battle represents a complete encounter and provides you with specific objectives: sometimes you’ll simply have to defeat all enemies; sometimes you’ll have to defeat a specific enemy; sometimes you’ll have to complete objectives before a specific number of turns pass.

The game does a good job of introducing concepts to you gradually, and there’s a bunch of interesting systems at play. Core to the game is the “Lily Boost” system, whereby characters can power up their relationship values with other characters, earn “Lily Points” and reduce the cost of their special moves by triggering their skills when adjacent to other characters, which causes the supporting characters to give the acting character an adorable little peck on the cheek. Chu! Although cheeky and flirtatious, the system adds an interesting dynamic to battles: you have to think very carefully about both turn order and formation when setting up attacks, especially when you’re dealing with enemies who can hit several tiles at once. It’s no good getting all set up for a four-way snog if an enemy with a massive cleave is just going to kill all of you at once when it comes to their turn, after all.

That’s not all to think about, though. Battle maps include treasure chests in awkward-to-reach locations, which you’ll need to acquire before completing your objectives if you want the goodies therein. A Final Fantasy X-style “Overkill” bonus rewards you with rare drops if you defeat an enemy with far more damage than you need to. Maps have variable elevation and environmental hazards — both of which can be conveniently bypassed if you switch the goddess characters into their flying “HDD” forms, but in order to do this you’ll need to build up the Lily Points gauge first, and then it only lasts for three turns, so you need to make the most of it. Setting a specific character as the “leader” of the squad confers special bonuses (and, sometimes, penalties) on the group as a whole. Characters each have their own array of “challenges” to complete, each of which rewards them with significant stat bonuses.

There is a hell of a lot of game here. This is nothing new for a Neptunia game — I’ve easily spent over 100 hours on the last few installments in an attempt to get the Platinum trophies and hidden goodies — but considering this is a “spinoff” game and not technically part of the main series, it’s impressive. I’m only a short way in to the overall plot so far, but I’m already enjoying both the narrative and gameplay sides; it’s shaping up to be a fine installment in a favourite series, and all the more noteworthy for doing something a little bit different.