A young pianist named Noel competes for a chance to perform in LaPlace’s (or uh, whatever the translation of the Season calls it) upcoming ceremony run by the loved and respected Mayor Burrows. However, her friend Lillian gets chosen over her. Burrows claims that Noel was supposed to win, but a sponsor manipulated the decision. So, he sets Noel up with his assistant Cybilla up to do something about it: summon a devil to kill the sponsor’s CEO.

The world of Noel: The Mortal Fate is haunted by devils, and those that deal with devils are labeled as demons. Noel allows herself to become a demon to kill the CEO… but the devil Caron ends up taking her arms and legs as the price. Cybilla misled Noel about the price of the contract, and it turned out, Burrows completely lied about the reason why he chose Lillian – Burrows just needed a patsy to contract with a devil in his place to kill someone he hates. And so, to tie up the demon loose end, Cybilla tosses Noel into the sea.

However, Noel gets rescued and given replacement legs… by Caron. Caron may be a devil, but he’s a devil with standards and morals, and he’s outraged that Burrows used Noel to cheat on contracts and lied to her about the cost. In fact, Caron has long unresolved beef with Burrows for cheating contracts. So, Caron offers a whole new contract to Noel that’s mutually beneficial: get revenge on Burrows to get back what she lost.

The lead developer of Noel: The Mortal Fate is KANAWO, made under the Vaka Game Magazine publisher. Noel was an episodic game that I mentioned years ago. At the time, the game series was still under development. However, the series properly wrapped up in 2023, and as of this year, all of Noel is compiled into a complete package.

Now, I was originally going to play the whole collection before writing about it because I didn’t want to do another book club thing. However! After Season 7, the goals of the characters and the stakes take a dramatic shift and a whole bunch of new characters are thrown in to upset the pre-existing dynamic. I actually wished that the game didn’t call its parts seasons, because everything pre-Season 7 feels like the first season of a tv show – with Season 7 feeling like a proper season finale – while the rest of Noel feels like the second season of a tv show.

As such, these ramblings will be on the “first season” of Noel: The Mortal Fate, while I’ll ramble on the “second season” later.

First, I want to talk about the visuals. Characters and portraits have a cutesy anime style that looks nice, while big climactic moments have more striking drawings. Environments are interesting in their own way. Most of the environment is actually drawn up with default RPG Maker assets, and I think it uses some stuff from asset packs. It’s interesting because the use of default assets are typically seen as lazy, but I think it actually blends well with Noel’s original art. Playing Noel feels like a fond reminder to consider the default assets as just another tool and not something to just be immediately discarded. Beyond the artwork, Noel: The Mortal Fate furthers visual flair with its usage of the camera. The game’s camera will shift around and do close-ups when appopriate for the moment. It adds to the cinematic vibes and truly makes Noel feel anime.

So, anime? Noel: The Mortal Fate is anime as fuck, and I mean that in a complimentary sense. To me, Noel: The Mortal Fate feels like people had an idea for an anime but could only make the dream real through RPG Maker. There’s serious drama, some humor, and there’s fast-paced action. Well actually, I kinda think some of the humor’s cringe, it’s off-putting when Noel’s maturity suddenly drops for gags after she talks about assassination. There’s also a lot of character monologuing, which I’d hate in other games, but with the vibes of this game, I just imagine the sudden monologues as dramatic character voice-overs in an anime.

Speaking of action! Noel: The Mortal Fate has a fun take on gameplay. Usually, more adventure forward RPG Maker games has incredibly mid-RPG combat if it were to have combat. However, Noel has an active form of combat. Bump into an enemy on screen and you do damage to them – but bumping into them when they’re glowing red and rushing at you damages you instead. Meanwhile, bosses can fight through lobbing projectiles or doing area-of-effect attacks that reminds me of Final Fantasy XIV, and you’re dodging and weaving through attacks until enemies are vulnerable. It’s fast-paced combat and it feels perfectly in line with the anime stylings that Noel: The Mortal Fate tries to achieve.

You can equip stances to help Caron’s performance… but also, I think it’s a really extraneous addition, especially when some of the bosses fight in really specific ways that prevents you from using them. They’re more or less puzzle pieces to just kinda slot into certain situations. And speaking of puzzles, there’s plenty of puzzles that’s more the norm of stuff in Noel’s genre. You earn P from puzzle and fight performance that you can spend on healing items for the fights, so you at least have a safety net if you’re just here for the story.

So, the story! Each season of Noel feels like an anime arc, telling the story of Noel and Caron advancing toward one goal and often fighting an episodic enemy. Many of their enemies are demons under the employ of Burrows, making for true even ground fights. And like some shows, Noel gradually builds up a team consisting of former enemies. Everyone loves ragtag teams.

Fugo is a reckless brute who has the blessing to set fires, a result of him owning his childhood trauma with fire. He hardly sees himself as a hero, but he fostered a community of societal rejects and people that commit crime for the sake of stability that he looks out for. After being humbled by Noel, learning that he was made into a tool by Burrows, and seeing how based Noel is, he wholeheartedly flips to becoming a proper hero. I was unsure of how to take him at first, but he’s the local caring jerk that every team needs.

He’s also followed by his gang of Slug, Toad and Python who have more minor roles. Python has a bit of a working relationship with Caron, which makes sense seeing as they’re the only actual adults in the line-up, while Slug and Toad do anime hijinks as minions often do. I will say that while they feel weak in the first half of Noel, they actually get proper development in Season 9 later on that really makes me appreciate them. You always gotta love a group of gooners that stand of business.

Another enemy that Noel manages to recruit is Oscar (who has the demon nickname of Ripper here), a demon that works for the police that turns out to be Fugo’s brother. In contrast with Fugo who wishes for power, Oscar wished for defense by turning his body to steel when he follows his brand of justice. Whereas Fugo is morally gray, Oscar has a black-and-white view toward morality – it just happens that that morality is skewed by lies from the police chief and Burrows. But of course, Oscar flips when he realizes that his justice was misdirected.

I kinda vibe with Oscar as he used to be a terminally ill child that wound up powering through that, which is something I feel for with my health issues. It’s just that I honestly don’t think he’s as interesting as Fugo. Oscar shines some more when he’s fighting with Fugo and interesting things do happen with him in bits of the latter half of Noel that I played so far, but Fugo honestly outshines him.

Noel herself starts out as a scared girl with idealistic views, but as she adjusts to the state of things and learns how bad Burrows really is, she commits herself to her revenge contract with Caron. In Season 1, Caron’s doing most of the work since Noel’s incapable of fighting. But when Caron is at a standstill against Fugo, she pushes through her problems and incapacitates Fugo by kicking a pillar on top of him. After trading an eye for a new arm, Noel becomes a more active character. She even shoots the shit out of Cybillia, which even concerns Caron. I worried that she’d just be a perspective character while Caron did all the action, but I was happy that she proved me wrong, especially when she manifests her own demon powers.

As for Caron, he’s your local otherworldly threat that becomes more of a friend. In spite of his nature as a devil, he proves to be an empathetic being. He starts out begrudgingly helping Noel to do things she’s unable to do, but he comes to view the both of them as equals in their crusade against Burrows. Ironically, Burrows betrayal of Caron when Burrows contracted with him is part of why Caron grows to be a caring individual; Caron originally had more of a classical devil mindset of wanting to corrupt contractors, but Burrows winds up being a worse asshole than him, opening the way for Caron to change his own mindset. To demonstrate, Past Caron was absolutely all for Burrows’ plan to kill whoever he can for the sake of power, but when Present Caron witnessed Noel nearly killing Cybilla, he stops her. He keeps Noel focused and doesn’t want her to become a worse person.

All together, they’re a proper team. No, not just a team, but friends. You may cringe at the idea of the power of friendship, but be real – that’s anime as fuck. Noel: The Mortal Fate truly is an anime game.

Also, Noel and Caron actually get an anime filler arc in the form of Season 3.5. Noel is strongly focused on its story – so strongly that characters don’t really have time to relax. Season 3.5 was actually made after the story finished and is all about Caron encouraging Noel to take a little vacation after the big stuff in Season 3, which also demonstrates how empathetic he’s become toward her. I actually think it’s neat that the developers went back to make something non-plot focused.

Besides, it’s hard for Noel to find time to relax with her constantly investigating weak points in Burrows’ shell and dealing with his gooners. Fugo and Oscar were demons made to be used as Burrows’ tools that wound up joining Noel, but there’s a bunch of other enemies to give episode of the week fights.

Cybilla is Burrow’s first gooner, and she feels like a reflection of who Noel used to be with regards to Burrows. Both of them had bought into the image of Burrows being a great and kind mayor. However, upon learning of Caron’s past dealings with Burrows, Cybilla comes to believe that Caron corrupted him, which is in sharp contrast to the reality of Burrows making Caron a better person. So in turn, Burrows winds up making her a worse person in his service. Really, Cybilla’s a walking example of how much this guy sucks.

A more recurring minion of Burrows is the police administrator Jino. Jino is the guy responsible for crafting Oscar’s mindset, and in contrast with the power of friendship theme, he’s all about individual strength. He is also really flamboyant in a way that felt homophobic, to me. Looking stuff up, other versions of the game when Noel was still getting released episodically had Fugo calling Jino the t-slur, which sucks.

Part of what balances Jino out for me though is the fact that he’s just completely busted. He’s not a demon, he’s just naturally strong and could rival Fugo and Oscar teaming up against him. True to his ethos of finding strength in yourself, he didn’t need a devil to get strong. He’s a pre-Stand era Jojo character, he kinda fucks. Homophobic/transphobic? Yeah. Cool? Also yeah.

But my favorite of Burrows’ gooners has to be Madame Coffin of Season 6. She runs the casino that Burrows launders his crime money through, and her power is to empower somebody’s luck. Noel and her team are trying to seize control of the casino through rigging the games and Noel’s stuck trying to figure out how to overcome Madame Coffin buffing her own luck when they’re doing one-on-one blackjack.

Season 6 is honestly my favorite part of Noel: The Mortal Fate because it feels like a Kaiji episode that also has some shounen action mixed in. Noel’s whole gang is doing stuff, Madame Coffin a chill cool lady that just loves the thrill of gambling outside of her crimes, there’s a cool fight with Jino, there’s gambling. I loved this season. Never stop gambling.

But there’s one particular recurring enemy that needs to be addressed: Noel’s close friend, Jillian. Do you like yuri? This game’s got yuri.

With Burrows having successfully manipulated Noel into advancing his goals, Burrows goes on to manipulate Jillian to tie up that loose end – or at least, keep Noel at bay. But it’s a manipulation that Jillian completely embraces. Knowing that Noel’s viewed as a terrorist, Jillian wants to rescue Noel from that image by preventing her from assassinating Burrows. She looks up to Noel, and wants to protect her idealized image of her.

So what if she has to contract with a devil stronger than Caron? So what if she knows she’s being used and she hates Burrows? Jillian wants Noel to be pure, to not be a murderer, and she’d be willing to kill the people around Noel that’s supporting her on her revenge quest to make Noel stop. Do you call this toxic yuri? Doomed yuri? It’s some kind of yuri, and I fucking love it. I was worried that Jillian would have just been a plot device to motivate Noel, but she became something more.

Shipping Noel with Fugo? Fuck that; besides, Fugo’s got something gay going on in Episode 9. Shipping Noel with Caron? Honestly, that’s weird to me, Caron feels like Noel’s otherworld dad; same thing with shipping Jillian with her devil partner Caesar. But Noel and Jillian? I stan them.

And Burrows? …I’d actually like to save talking about him in the second half, because the bits of the latter half I played shows there’s more to the guy.

The first half of Noel ends in a really great place, with Noel resolving things with Jillian and Burrows being properly confronted. What happens? I’ll leave that to you to see, at least until I cover the second half. As for the second half of Noel: The Mortal Fate, I’ve played a few episodes and… I actually feel a bit mixed. But maybe I need to play more to form a better opinion on it that I’ll hopefully share soon!