Spring Fashion Supplement

It's been about a month since I last posted news of what I'm wearing in Noah's Heart. I realise it's a topic likely to be of interest to no-one but myself but I have to consider my legacy. This is just the sort of thing that's going to help convince me my life hasn't been a waste, when I look back on it on my deathbed. Also it's my blog and, to paraphrase Lesley Gore, I'll post what I want to.

It took me a litle longer than usual to max Affection with the next Phantom on my list so I could get her to hand over the pattern I needed to craft my own version of her signature look. That was because, for the first time, I chose one of the SSR-rated phantoms, all of whom require an extra level of persuasion to part with their patterns.

As XyzzySqrl explained in the comments to a post back in September last year, there's a very straightforward hierarchy in the game that goes from R (Rare) to SR (Super Rare) to SSR (Super Super Rare). Rare phantoms max affection at Level 11, Super Rare at Level 12 and Super Super Rare at Level 13. The number of points required for each level increases markedly as you make your way from vague acquaintances to BFFs. It takes 18k to go from 11 to 12, which is where I'd always stopped before but this time I needed but another 24k to go from 12 to 13.

For this reason only, I was loathe to pick an SSR phantom for my next charm offensive but in every other way it was the obvious choice. Visually, there's a very significant change in quality between the three grades. Rare phantoms wear relatively plain outfits in very muted colors, which often include a lot of dull, battleship grey. Super Rares are much more detailed and colorful, with plenty of attractive options to choose from, but Super Super Rares are incontestably the winners in any fashion parade, their costumes more subtle and intricate than their sometimes brash inferiors.

There are plenty of SSR looks I'd love to adopt but ironically the one I've picked isn't one of them. For once, I made my choice for pragmatic, gameplay reasons rather than whimsical amusement or pure aesthetics. I needed to improve some stats and this was a way of doing it.

Other than the extra tier, raising affection with SSR phantoms is no harder than with the lesser rarities, something that very definitely does not apply to raising their all-important star ratings. I currently have all my Rare phantoms at the highest star rating and fifteen out of nineteen Super Rares maxed as well. 

Of my twenty Super Super Rares, however, only one is even close. The rest have either no stars at all or just one or two. Since the SSRs are meant to be the superior choices for combat and since combat is unavoidable if you want to follow the storyline or progress through either the narrative seasons or the seasonal arenas, you'd obviously want to do all you can to stack your team with SSR phantoms at the highest star rating possible.

Which is, of course, how the developers hope to make their money. There are plenty of ways to speed that process up by spending cash, although none that completely avoid the usual reliance on the goodwill of the RNG gods. 

Since I have no intention of spending a single cent on the game, I have to make do as best I can, which means focusing on one SSR phantom at a time, and since the first such phantom I acquired was the one everyone gets at the start, Ave, that's where I've been directing my attention. 

Ave is a fun companion but she doesn't dress remotely the way I'd ever choose to dress a character of my own. I much prefer the looks of.... well, honestly, pretty much any of the other SSRs. Unfortunately, none of them was remotely ready for action so I was stuck with Ave and her frou-frou blue and white party dress.

That said, it looks better on than I expected. I'm going to wear it for a while, just for a change, but once the novelty wears off I imagine it will go back into the wardrobe, never to be seen again. 

On the plus side, all of the outfits come as separates - top, legs and shoes - and some also have hats. It is possible to mix and match the pieces to come up with a look of your own. There's also a dye system, which I haven't yet attempted to figure out. It is conceivable I might yet find a use for something Ave's wearing. I kind of doubt it but could happen...

I now have wearable versions of the outfits of three of the four phantoms that make up my regular team. You can store several different teams and you can swap individual team members at any time, out of combat, but once again, the more phantoms you try to maintain at full combat readiness, the more its going to cost you, either in cash, time or most probably both. I prefer to stick with the same crew most of the time.

The only regular team member I haven't maxed affection with is Hughes. He has an outfit I like but he's male and although Noah's Heart is very modern in its willingness to allow you to express both the male and female (Although not the non-binary.) aspects of your personality, it's not a game that allows cross-dressing. To dress like Hughes, I'd have to bring out my "Inner Personality" and cosplay as a boy.

Hughes is a Super Rare and I have a good number of other options in that category, some of whom have very attractive outfits. It might be easier to gear one of them up and swap Hughes out, at least for a while. Or I could just gear someone up outside the team and not bother so much about the "wasted" effort and expense.

I'm thinking on it. Noah's Heart remains a very interesting, involving, thought-provoking game, especially if you don't plan on buying your way to success. It's going to be a good while before I'm done with it, I'm happy to say. Although, of course, it might be done with me first. The game does seem to have slipped into a holding pattern of late, with very little in the way of genuine new content and a lot of re-use of existing resources.

I hope it lasts a while longer. I haven't nearly finished playing dress-up yet.