It's a good thing this is a "Noire game" and not a "Nep game", otherwise this might damage the good reputation of the Neptunia franchise! Ha, haha, haaaaaaaaaa...
I know someone who enjoyed this game because "it's a strategy game, you can't make them bad".
Are you sure about that?
I'd have to say this game's biggest flaw is the fact that it's built like a typical Neptunia RPG. Health and attack values are way larger than necessary, maps and enemy types are constantly reused. The game's big gimmick is lowering the exorbitant SP costs on your skills by keeping other units adjacent to you, represented by a yuri kiss on the cheek. This is counter-intuitive because grouping everyone together makes it absurdly easy for an enemy to stroll over and use an attack that targets your entire cluster of chibis. Sometimes you don't even need to be grouped together, some enemies just have attacks that hit like a truck and cover half the damn map. On top of that, your units can be afflicted with status effects, of which there are WAY too many to keep track of. I don't even know what half of them do!
The game is also just constantly wasting your time (and not just because I'm spending mine playing a Neptunia game, har har). Even once you cave in and turn off all attack animations and whatnot in the settings menu, it still feels like it's dragging its feet. Stop showing me that enemies aren't taking any actions, it adds up when eight or so of them aren't necessarily doing anything as I slowly approach them. So many of this game's maps revolve around shitty gimmicks, like tediously lifting and tossing wooden boxes to gradually create staircases, or avoiding floor panels that damage you and instantly end your turn, or waiting a turn for a moving platform to come back, just so you can board it and wait another turn to have it take you to your destination, and THEN you can depart it on the turn after that. Maps are reused ad nauseam, so you'll grow accustomed to groaning at the mere sight of certain locales.
The writing just rubs me the wrong way, moreso than usual for a game of this pedigree. Most of Noire's friendships just result in her getting sexually harassed in extra scenes, with the accompanying CGs having the Bad kind of voyeuristic feeling. And then there's the self-insert, with probably one of the worst examples of this trope I've ever experienced. A true self-insert comes with a certain amount of agency from the player, but you don't get any choices here. Secretary-san is effectively his own character, one you're expected to project yourself onto. Sorry Noire, our relationship fell through years ago. I've personally been sizing up Vert quite a bit lately...
The true ending of this game is locked behind Noire having a lily rank of at least 70 with every other unit by the end of the game. This mandates an endgame grind that's a total snog-I mean slogfest. I unironically think this game is on the same level of enjoyment I had with the original HDN on PS3, and that is a very low bar to cross. You are missing nothing by ignoring this, even if you're a Nep freak like me.
I know someone who enjoyed this game because "it's a strategy game, you can't make them bad".
Are you sure about that?
I'd have to say this game's biggest flaw is the fact that it's built like a typical Neptunia RPG. Health and attack values are way larger than necessary, maps and enemy types are constantly reused. The game's big gimmick is lowering the exorbitant SP costs on your skills by keeping other units adjacent to you, represented by a yuri kiss on the cheek. This is counter-intuitive because grouping everyone together makes it absurdly easy for an enemy to stroll over and use an attack that targets your entire cluster of chibis. Sometimes you don't even need to be grouped together, some enemies just have attacks that hit like a truck and cover half the damn map. On top of that, your units can be afflicted with status effects, of which there are WAY too many to keep track of. I don't even know what half of them do!
The game is also just constantly wasting your time (and not just because I'm spending mine playing a Neptunia game, har har). Even once you cave in and turn off all attack animations and whatnot in the settings menu, it still feels like it's dragging its feet. Stop showing me that enemies aren't taking any actions, it adds up when eight or so of them aren't necessarily doing anything as I slowly approach them. So many of this game's maps revolve around shitty gimmicks, like tediously lifting and tossing wooden boxes to gradually create staircases, or avoiding floor panels that damage you and instantly end your turn, or waiting a turn for a moving platform to come back, just so you can board it and wait another turn to have it take you to your destination, and THEN you can depart it on the turn after that. Maps are reused ad nauseam, so you'll grow accustomed to groaning at the mere sight of certain locales.
The writing just rubs me the wrong way, moreso than usual for a game of this pedigree. Most of Noire's friendships just result in her getting sexually harassed in extra scenes, with the accompanying CGs having the Bad kind of voyeuristic feeling. And then there's the self-insert, with probably one of the worst examples of this trope I've ever experienced. A true self-insert comes with a certain amount of agency from the player, but you don't get any choices here. Secretary-san is effectively his own character, one you're expected to project yourself onto. Sorry Noire, our relationship fell through years ago. I've personally been sizing up Vert quite a bit lately...
The true ending of this game is locked behind Noire having a lily rank of at least 70 with every other unit by the end of the game. This mandates an endgame grind that's a total snog-I mean slogfest. I unironically think this game is on the same level of enjoyment I had with the original HDN on PS3, and that is a very low bar to cross. You are missing nothing by ignoring this, even if you're a Nep freak like me.
I've played a lot of the Neptunia games but it was around this time where I started to get really burned out on them. A game dedicated to my favourite character from the series wasn't enough to keep me going sadly.
Bought from accident
(this is a repost of my Steam review. you can read the original review here: https://steamcommunity.com/id/huuishuu/recommended/415480/)
Hyperdevotion Noire is what I personally consider to be the worst Neptunia game in the whole series. Spin-off or otherwise. This game, just as a whole, is god awful. This is the one time that I just never bothered to finish a Neptunia game because I just could not stomach sitting through this messy, sloppy hack-job of a game. Hyperdevotion Noire is really the bottom of the barrel when it comes to the Neptunia series.
Even as a fan of the series I found it really difficult to enjoy this game. I'm all for the concept of giving each main Neptunia character their own game focused on them, after all - MegaTagmension Blanc + Neptune vs. Zombies was a decent side-show and Superdimension Neptune vs. Sega Hard Girls was a really good spin on the Neptunia formula, but Hyperdevotion falls flat on its face in pretty much every single aspect.
The game fails in its two most important categories, those being story and gameplay. The biggest issue with the story is the self-insert "protagonist" and how they're meant to represent you - the player. They are...unnecessary in the biggest way possible. And more often than not - they are the antithesis of what you, as a player, are thinking. Perhaps I'm an idiot and that was the whole joke, in which case - fair enough (after all, their name does get changed from "Player" to "Secretary" very early on), but even with that in mind - this game has some of the worst fanfiction-esque writing in the entire series. I'm serious, the story in this game genuinely reads like a really bad Neptunia fanfiction.
In terms of gameplay, it's an SRPG or Strategy Role Playing Game. That would be fine if the game just wasn't so ridiculously slow. Seriously, it's just so incredibly BORING and SLOW. On top of that - unfair! By that, I mean the AI can, more often than not, outright cheat. One important detail to remember is that the AI is unaffected by stage hazards. Only your party is! That, coupled with the insanely slow, tedious and monotonous gameplay, makes it frustrating. It will take you so long to get done with a single stage (I clocked up to 50 minutes on just one stage - and that was very early on!) - it's the main reason I just decided to say "screw it", dropped the game and never picked it back up. And I'm not planning to pick it back up because that was after a horrible first impression.
Just...stay away from this game. It's slow, it's boring, it's unfair and it's just not interesting in any way. This is genuinely the worst that the Neptunia series has to offer.
Hyperdevotion Noire is what I personally consider to be the worst Neptunia game in the whole series. Spin-off or otherwise. This game, just as a whole, is god awful. This is the one time that I just never bothered to finish a Neptunia game because I just could not stomach sitting through this messy, sloppy hack-job of a game. Hyperdevotion Noire is really the bottom of the barrel when it comes to the Neptunia series.
Even as a fan of the series I found it really difficult to enjoy this game. I'm all for the concept of giving each main Neptunia character their own game focused on them, after all - MegaTagmension Blanc + Neptune vs. Zombies was a decent side-show and Superdimension Neptune vs. Sega Hard Girls was a really good spin on the Neptunia formula, but Hyperdevotion falls flat on its face in pretty much every single aspect.
The game fails in its two most important categories, those being story and gameplay. The biggest issue with the story is the self-insert "protagonist" and how they're meant to represent you - the player. They are...unnecessary in the biggest way possible. And more often than not - they are the antithesis of what you, as a player, are thinking. Perhaps I'm an idiot and that was the whole joke, in which case - fair enough (after all, their name does get changed from "Player" to "Secretary" very early on), but even with that in mind - this game has some of the worst fanfiction-esque writing in the entire series. I'm serious, the story in this game genuinely reads like a really bad Neptunia fanfiction.
In terms of gameplay, it's an SRPG or Strategy Role Playing Game. That would be fine if the game just wasn't so ridiculously slow. Seriously, it's just so incredibly BORING and SLOW. On top of that - unfair! By that, I mean the AI can, more often than not, outright cheat. One important detail to remember is that the AI is unaffected by stage hazards. Only your party is! That, coupled with the insanely slow, tedious and monotonous gameplay, makes it frustrating. It will take you so long to get done with a single stage (I clocked up to 50 minutes on just one stage - and that was very early on!) - it's the main reason I just decided to say "screw it", dropped the game and never picked it back up. And I'm not planning to pick it back up because that was after a horrible first impression.
Just...stay away from this game. It's slow, it's boring, it's unfair and it's just not interesting in any way. This is genuinely the worst that the Neptunia series has to offer.
Eu gosto da gameplay e nada mais, da pra se divertir jogando
O resto i sleep
O resto i sleep
Very nice mechanics and heartwarming story, but a bit tiring.
Very good.
Very good.
One small step for Nep.
If there was a God, it must be a considerable act of mercy or spite that he let this one exist.
In all honesty, this installment of the Neptunia series didn't live up to my expectations set by its predecessors. My gameplay experience was marred by recurrent crashes, particularly during crucial moments like cutscenes before or after battles. This forced me to replay certain segments multiple times, which significantly disrupted the flow of the game.
The frustration peaked when I found myself redoing battles due to unexpected crashes. To circumvent these issues, I resorted to saving my progress whenever possible, particularly when nearing the end of a fight. While the core elements of the game showed promise, these technical setbacks significantly detracted from my overall enjoyment.
Despite these challenges, the game still retained some of the charm and features characteristic of the Neptunia series. However, the persistent crashes and subsequent replays tainted what could have been a more immersive and enjoyable gaming experience.
For those considering this title, it's essential to be aware of these technical hiccups, which might affect the overall enjoyment and fluidity of gameplay.
The frustration peaked when I found myself redoing battles due to unexpected crashes. To circumvent these issues, I resorted to saving my progress whenever possible, particularly when nearing the end of a fight. While the core elements of the game showed promise, these technical setbacks significantly detracted from my overall enjoyment.
Despite these challenges, the game still retained some of the charm and features characteristic of the Neptunia series. However, the persistent crashes and subsequent replays tainted what could have been a more immersive and enjoyable gaming experience.
For those considering this title, it's essential to be aware of these technical hiccups, which might affect the overall enjoyment and fluidity of gameplay.
Another good nep game spinoff in a different style. Alot of characters with some new Maker charas. It is unfortunately starring the more annoying version of Noire but its forgivable enough. Not a full 5 because tact rpgs are not my favorite. Again was still overall enjoyable.
More neptunia shlock but I eat that shit up like its breakfast. This one is a tactical RPG and I certainly don't have enough experience with the genre to say how it stacks up in the greater scheme of things, I'm willing to go on an educated guess and say it's probably mid. The most interesting part of this game was its characters, as they all represent different games or series and they make some pretty interesting deep cuts. Never heard of Opoona before playing this but now I wanna play it. You probably can already tell if something like this would even be your jam just by looking at it, you don't need me for that.
This is bad even for Idea Factory standards. Even for budget SRPG standards it's bad. This game is a sin. I would rather be stabbed.
The self-insert guy protagonist is a drastic misread of this series' fanbase and appeal. Honestly, I don't really know why they thought that'd go over well, and I'm glad they've never attempted anything like it since.
That said, it's my favorite game in the series, I think! My favorite spinoff, anyway. It's a Sting SRPG, and while it's a little less polished and experimental than their usual offerings, it's a smartly made game that does a lot of cool stuff. I really like the shift to characters representing individual games and series over just consoles, too. There's tons of fun designs here, and the scenes they write for all of them are really fun, honestly. I get that the reaction to this one was super mixed so they've never really brought any of those characters back, but I think that's a shame, they did some great work with them here.
For all its missteps, its the Neptunia I think about revisiting the most, and I think that counts for a lot.
That said, it's my favorite game in the series, I think! My favorite spinoff, anyway. It's a Sting SRPG, and while it's a little less polished and experimental than their usual offerings, it's a smartly made game that does a lot of cool stuff. I really like the shift to characters representing individual games and series over just consoles, too. There's tons of fun designs here, and the scenes they write for all of them are really fun, honestly. I get that the reaction to this one was super mixed so they've never really brought any of those characters back, but I think that's a shame, they did some great work with them here.
For all its missteps, its the Neptunia I think about revisiting the most, and I think that counts for a lot.
I honest to god do not get the hate for this game. Is it because there's a male MC that does practically nothing but be there for you to date Noire? Is it because it's not as good as (most) Fire Emblem games?
I found it pretty fun with its unique options from which way you are facing, your mode changes, each character's unique abilities being taken into account. I like the character designs translating franchises into girls, I like some of the banter and CG scenes, and outside the music being plain and there requiring a touch of grinding near the end it's really fun.
It's also the only nep game starring Noire, which means it has the most Asami Imai.
I wish my Playstation was voiced by Asami Imai. And maybe give this a sequel.
I found it pretty fun with its unique options from which way you are facing, your mode changes, each character's unique abilities being taken into account. I like the character designs translating franchises into girls, I like some of the banter and CG scenes, and outside the music being plain and there requiring a touch of grinding near the end it's really fun.
It's also the only nep game starring Noire, which means it has the most Asami Imai.
I wish my Playstation was voiced by Asami Imai. And maybe give this a sequel.
When the kusoge is also an eroge but also chuunige but also charage but also moege but also nakige but also otomege but also utsuge but also kamige but also.