Hyperdevotion Noire: Goddess Black Heart

Noire provides a different, perhaps more traditional leading lady to the game, and helps balance some of the randomness that the other characters demonstrate. It’s a fun enough ride, and franchise fans will lap it all up, but maybe it needed to go even further to demonstrate some wider appeal.

A surprisingly competent strategy RPG with solid mechanics, great stylised visuals, plenty of content and well-observed videogame parody humour. Not to mention an extraordinary amount of risqué fanservice for those who love Hyperdimension Neptunia.

Hyperdevotion Noire: Goddess Black Heart offers great gameplay with the unfortunate caveat that you’ll need to waste more time than expected waiting on enemies to enjoy it.

Hyperdevotion Noire: Goddess Black Heart is not groundbreaking in any aspect - but if you’re into fun, lighthearted RPGs with a certain depth of gameplay then look no further.

In the end, Hyperdevotion Noire is a spinoff that breaks from the gameplay norms of its predecessors, but not its overall sentiment: if you can stomach (or even embrace) the pandering amounts of moe and shower scenes, you will be treated to a fun and addicting RPG that does service to several tried-and-true gameplay mechanics while poking fun at several well-known franchises.

If you’ve got a Vita and you’re jonesing for a Final Fantasy Tactics clone that is not too deep, and incredibly silly, this is the game for you.

Even though much of Hyperdevotion Noire is indeed unoriginal, with its countless caricatures of trendy gaming icons, there's enough novelty and variety in its strategic battles to keep players, especially fans of the mainline series, interested for quite a while.

That aside, from a gameplay perspective it’s a decent first foray into the world of SRPG’s, it’s just bogged down by poor characters and story.

Fans of the franchise will love the change of pace, as well as getting up close and personal with Noire and the other generals. Everyone else, however, may not be wooed quite so easily.