Video Game Review: Noel – The Mortal Fate

The way that Western players support Japanese indie devs is always an interesting one. Usually, for the most part, the developers will decide to go ahead and change up their release style: they migrate to border storefronts, invest in some PR people and localizers, and now the game is for the world, not just for Japan. There are, however, some that take a wildly different approach. PLAYISM, the publisher behind such titles as La-Mulana and the recent Bright Memory Infinite, has a history of taking Japanese games that are available for free, translating them and then putting them out for a cost. Li-Eat is probably the best example, and also one of the strangest, since fan patches of the game existed long before the indie trilogy hit Steam. Nevertheless, it was a success, and that may have led to a decision to bring about Noel: The Mortal Fate to consoles and PC everywhere. Granted, Kawano has already seen massive success with Angels of Death, so it could be a coincidence.

Noel: The Mortal Fate is a series of episodic stories that talk about Noel Cerquetti, an upperclass woman who is mildly spurned from a piano title and sets in motion a bananas series of events. Encouraged by someone who claims to have her best interest at heart, Noel decides that a deal with the devil is the only way to set things right, and if you think that was a great decision then you need to seriously analyze your life. Noel is now teamed up with the crow-like demon Charon, a by-the-book style devil who doesn’t like people abusing the system, as, you guessed it, Noel was tricked into this infernal pact. Through a series of amazing events, Noel will learn more about her city, the demon world below, and about what it truly means to decide “right” and “wrong.”

As a result of the way Noel: The Mortal Fate is constructed, players may be a bit confused about a lot of both the play style and the future of game. It’s a top down RPG of sorts, though some of the elements that makes the game more interesting don’t begin to develop till the later chapters. For the most part, it’s a series of room-to-room puzzles with interactions to drive the story forward. In the beginning, Noel has no arms and a pair of prosthetic legs (per her devil contract), so she is a bit limited in what she can do. In several scenes, you’ll control Charon, whose job it is to keep Noel alive in order to fulfill his end of the demonic agreement. The game will give you the option to save constantly, which I suppose is both a nod to the frequent crashing of indie PC games and also the fact that the game is designed to be played in bite sized pieces as you see fit. 

Truth be told, Noel: The Mortal Fate has the serious potential to be a boring title. It’s a bit closer to a visual novel than anything else, simply because a majority of what’s happening is reading and watching the characters react to lies being exposed, facts being learned and exchanges that can go from chilling to hilariously spicy. This is one of those rare moments where we remember that RPG Maker churned out a series of games in the 90s that are remembered in varying degrees of fondness, but the overall quality/tone are the same. Thankfully, Vaka Game Studio has some serious chops with character design and development, which I’ve already seen in Angels of Death. As a comparison for players familiar, I did prefer Angels of Death simply because it’s a neatly wrapped package and Noel: The Mortal Fate is a SPRAWL.

Having said that, this game is seriously delightful. The way everything is paced out makes it clear that Kawano loves to craft characters and situations that lend themselves to the game-style as a storytelling mechanic. From watching Noel develop into a person with real depth and understanding to seeing Charon slowly accept the gravity of humanity’s burden, the game is incredible to behold, and I kept finding myself wanting to play more, to learn more about the world of LaPlace, and also what is the real understanding of the demonic world that seems to exist symbiotically with our own.  It helps that the sprites and portraits are detailed and drawn in a way to evoke different feelings and reactions even when the dialogue can sometimes be a bit flat. This is one of those instances where voice acting could either be a great thing or a terrible thing, but it’s hard to say which.

The puzzles themselves fluctuate wildly in terms of satisfaction and understanding. There are times where Noel: The Mortal Fate sets it up correctly, letting the player feel out how to best survive in a combination of movement and combat, the latter being reactionary instead of aggressive. On the other, the 2D nature of things can make puzzles that approach 3D space be clunky and obtuse. A very early puzzle has Charon moving both a box and Noel into specific spots to trigger advancement, and I needed to restart the puzzle about seven times before I finally understood where the box needed to be. Since Charon is touted as being able to leap certain distances and spaces but the exact parameters are never clarified, this sort of frustration happened multiple times across the chapters of the game.

Additionally, the episodic nature can leave players feeling high and dry, particularly if you visit Kawano’s site. As of this writing, the Switch version has the first seven chapters only. The Steam version is seven chapters with the additional DLC that covers up to nine. Kawano has finished up to chapter 12 on their website, and, as a kicker, each and every chapter is free to play if you own a PC and can read Japanese. I get that the release windows will be different for each medium, but players who can consume this game quickly might be a bit dissatisfied waiting for more. Thankfully, Noel: The Mortal Fate does a solid job of ending each chapter with a cliffhanger that is also still satisfactory. You want more, but you’re not always upset about that (I’m sincerely glad that we had up to seven, however, as the wait between 3 and 4 would have been unbearable).

Noel: The Mortal Fate is an attractive package and a great amount of storytelling that covers plenty to keep players engaged and leave them wanting more. It’s funny, it’s dramatic, it’s got depth and complexity but also is simple enough for everyone to dive in. If you’ve heard great things or heard nothing at all, come make a pact with this game: it’s a devilishly good time.