#2 - FATE/STAY NOIRE

In our first ever Hyperdimension shopping spree, Nep has a new sword and everyone has some super new accessories! These leather bracelets will keep us safe from the dragons! We've picked up a bunch of quests, so its off to the monster cave. As we wander about in the dark, we bump into someone new. It's a guild member here on a quest, and her name is IF. Iffy for short. She teams up with us so we can finish of that monster that was doing unspeakably CENSORED things to Compa earlier.


We beat the big bad and find some kind of disc... and monsters seem to be materialising from it! Is this where all of the monsters come from? Discs like these? Well, we're calling them Enemy Discs from now on, and if we find any more you bet your adorable D-Pad hairclips we're gonna snap 'em good! As we're dealing with the Enemy Disc, a mysterious voice speaks to us. Is this the voice that spoke to the CPUs before Nep was cast out of Celestia? It might be! The voice belongs to a scary witch lady, and she wants to fight. Well, if you think you can take Purple Heart and her buddies you be my guest!


UH OH! She's unexpectedly tsuyoi*!!! She smacks us good and takes our key fragment, but is she finished? Like heck is she finished! This greedy witch wants to copy Neptune's power! At the last minute though, Compa shoves Neptune aside, so her power gets copied instead. HAH. TAKE THAT. Now you speak funny desu! And she's been weakened, so it's time to fight back! This time we win, take back our key fragment and smashy smashy the Enemy Disc. Good times! Witch lady runs away and we head back to Planeptune.

*Editors note: "tsuyoi" = strong

You know, IF's attitude really reminds me of Tohsaka Rin from the Fate series...


Wait a minute... *googling...googling...googling...* Ah!! They're both voiced by Ueda Kana in Japanese as well. This is awesome. Well, Iffy, next time we're in a pinch I hope you'll call Archer to come help us. I could use some of those Unlimited Blade Works in some of these optional monster fights which don't give me better EXP for some reason

BTW I also met a catgirl called Broccoli but she isn't very interesting at the moment.

Back to our fragment hunt; it's time to head across to the other lands! We head to the Basilicom which seems to be some kind of city hall to get permission to travel to Lastation: home of Black Heart and, presumably, stuff we need! As we travel there's a scene of witch lady talking to Histoire. The witch's name is 'Arfoire,' and she wants Histoire to help her with something. Which is odd because it's obvious from their names that the two aren't related or connected in any meaningful way. Histoire is reluctant, even though Arfoire claims to have all the CPUs under her control! She has WHAT!? T_T


We get to Lastation which is all steampunky! We're heading to the Basilicom to see lady Black Heart, and along the way we meet a random adventurer called Falcom. With a name like that I'm looking forward to her eventually joining up. She doesn't yet though, and we're left frustrated in the Basilicom as Black Heart is out fighting varmints so that she can afford to pay for the repairs to her royal car or something.

We cut away to a scene of her lamenting how her powers have reduced since Neptune was cast out of Celestia; the CPU's get their power from the faith of the people, called 'Shares,' and those shares have been falling. There's a super evil company ("Avenir") that are throwing a spanner in the works by reducing people's faith in the goddess. How? By helping people being generally useful to society. The bastards.


Back with the party, and we've found a person called Chian. She wants us to take care of a monster around the trade route. We're gonna be on the lookout for the Enemy Disc and possible key fragments! We could have a problem though; Black Heart has found out that Neptune is here with amnesia. Could she take advantage to beat Nep-nep once and for all? While on the trade route we encountered enemies that are cardboard box birds wearing crowns. They all have crowns. This is a rubbish monarchy.


SIDE NOTE: Neptune occasionally sings a just-different-enough-to-avoid-a-lawsuit version of the FF victory theme when she levels up. Also one of her jump shouts is "Like a kangaroo!"

We beat the monster we've been sent to killify and then get attacked by Black Heart before we can recover! How dishonourable of her, but we defeat her anyway at the low low cost of basically all of my healing items. Time to beat some information out of her... but she runs away! When her Divinity Drive runs out of power, she turns back into goth lolita "Noire," and Nep doesn't realise she's actually Black Heart. She may have gotten out of telling us her secrets for now, but now that Noire's been coerced into joining the party for a while, we'll discover the truth eventually!

NEXT TIME: FOX RECOUNTS EVERY MINUTE DETAIL OF GRINDING 15 LEVELS IN RUBBISH DUNGEONS