Sunday, April 5, 2015
GAME REVIEW:
My experience with the Neptunia franchise hasn't been the greatest: I played the first and second games in their original releases on the PS3 and would choose to describe them as “aggressively mediocre.” Even as someone who nerds out over all manner of gaming history, I found Neptunia's attempts at parody consistently fell flat, and the dull-as-dirt gameplay didn't help matters much. The announcement of a spinoff game based on the Sony-symbolic goddess Noire intrigued me, however, mainly due to the development team behind it: Sting, the creators of numerous delightfully original takes on strategy and RPG titles like Riviera, Knights in the Nightmare, and Gungnir. Perhaps this would finally be the Neptunia game that I actually had fun with.
Well, the good news is that Hyperdevotion Noire is undoubtedly the best Neptunia game I've played. The bad news is that it still isn't all that great.
Hyperdevotion Noire is something of a parallel universe story, taking place in a new world of Gamarket. The four CPU goddess units who rule over the populace – Vert, Blanc, Neptune, and Noire – are simultaneously BFFs and constantly fighting for more control of the world. They'remoe representations of various game console manufacturers, you see. Things go to hell in a handbasket when Noire has tea time with a suspicious character who promises a way to end the fighting. What could possibly go wrong? Well, everything, really, as the whole of Gamarket turns into a war-ravaged wasteland. Or it would if the various generals previously under the CPUs' command weren't engaged in a bunch of dumb squabbles with each other.
It's a great game to try out, and I recommend you do! I give this game a 8/10!
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