RE-REVIEW: Hyperdevotion Noire: Goddess Black Heart


Title	Hyperdevotion Noire: Goddess Black Heart
Developer	Compile Heart/Sting
Publisher	Idea Factory International
Release Date	04/26/2016
Genre	Strategy RPG
Platform	PS Vita, PC (reviewed)
Age Rating	ESRB T/PEGI 16
Official Website

Note: This is a review of the PC (Steam) version of Hyperdevotion Noire. You can find the Vita version review here.

A little over a year after its initial release on the PS Vita, Idea Factory International have released a port of strategy RPG Hyperdevotion Noire: Goddess Black Heart on the PC as they continue to bring the Neptunia series to a wider audience alongside many of their other titles. Although this is my first time playing a PC port of a console game by Idea Factory, I am happy to report that there are mostly no issues with the port during the 75 hours I sunk into this game.

The graphics provided from the port themselves are fine – they look faithful to the Vita version and look rather cute. Tsunako’s artwork also compliments the atmosphere well, and it comes to life rather well on PC. The framerate runs rather well for the most part. Sometimes it slows down when there is a lot on screen or a YouTube video is playing but nothing too jarring. There is the option to resize the game window, allowing players to do what I sometimes did and watch a video or listen to different music in the background, as you will be listening to the same tunes within the game a lot. The OST consists of the same tunes from the mainline series (with a few exceptions), so longtime fans would have heard many of these songs before and it gets very repetitive.

It also runs smoothly and rarely falters, with a couple of exceptions. The game only unexpectedly crashed once (near the beginning) which is a good thing. However the only other notable issue I found is that sometimes when I have pressed “end phase” on a few occasions it doesn’t always start the enemy phase, and while I can move around the battlefield with the camera, there are no menus so I am unable to continue the game, so I have to restart it. I don’t know what the cause of this is, however the fact that this has only happened a couple of times suggests the port has received good quality control for the most part. Hopefully in the future there will be further updates to the game to patch this out.

That said, I personally found the underlying strategy RPG to be a well-made product. Although I passed on the initial Vita release, I found this game to be enjoyable, if a bit simple. You get through most battles simply by spamming skills, and if you find a battle too difficult, have the option to make the battle easier upon your death. This usually involves lowering the stats of the enemies, including max HP. The interactions between the characters are your typical Neptunia flair, even if the writing does have its questionable moments, particularly Neptune. It’s also worth noting the font used is far better than the one I saw in screenshots of the Vita version, so that is a plus. Despite this, the visual novel cutscenes were enjoyable to read, and made me laugh, which is a typical feature of the Neptunia series.

The other glaring issue I could find with this game is that there was a missed opportunity to bundle in all the DLC that would make this a more complete package. At £22.99 for the base game and the DLC bundle at £16.51 as a 33% discount if bought as a bundle, that is a lot of cut content that arguably should have been included within the base game, like with Senran Kagura Shinovi Versus on PC. Although this isn’t factored in the final score, it’s worth pointing out for those that were hoping that the DLC would be included in the PC version. There are also 51 Steam achievements within the game, so if completionists fancy maxing out all the Lily Ranks and other achievements, they have these options.

To summarize – this is a well done port. This is definitely worth a purchase, even moreso if you are fan of Compile Heart. If you aren’t a fan of the Neptunia series or Compile Heart, Hyperdevotion Noire will do nothing to change your mind. If you are a fan and you haven’t picked this up this yet, it’s definitely worth the price. If you want to play the game without the risk of any technical hiccups though, the PS Vita version would be the way to go.