Hildegarde Valentine

"Pretty girls have thorns."

- Hildegarde Valentine

Hildegarde Valentine, often simply called Hilda, is a heroine in the video game Shadow Hearts From the New World. Hilda is a vampire mage and sister to Keith and Joachim Valentine, heroes from previous installments of the series. Hilda's primary function in battle changes depending on her form, which alters based on what sort of blood type she feeds on. Along with her stats her personality changes from form to form but no matter what the form she is always both courageous if extremely air-headed.

Shadow Hearts: Covenant
Hilda is first encountered in the game Shadow Hearts: Covenant, appearing to challenge her brother Joachim, one of the game's main party members for accidentally destroying the sword of their brother Keith, a main party member from the previous game Shadow Hearts. Hilda appears in a similar capacity that Joachim himself had appeared to fight Keith in Shadow Hearts, and like Joachim, Hilda appears only in bat form but eventually reveals her humanoid form in the next game. In Shadow Hearts: Covenant Hilda was simply called Pink Bat and came to fight Joachim to make him pay for shaming the family by breaking their sacred family blade which Keith had inherited. Joachim must beat Hilda in only a few turns or suffer a massive counter attack by Hilda which will kill him in a single turn. When Joachim beats her, Hilda flies off content that her brother was strong enough be excused from being physically disciplined but still left to report Joachim's location to Keith, who arrives later, if only to catch up with his friend Yuri.

Shadow Hearts: From the New World
In Shadow Hearts: From the New World Hilda is encountered along with Roger Bacon, a constant friend of Yuri, Joachim and Keith. Roger had been taking a flight in his experimental jet, the Bacon Jet, and using it to see see America, a trip which Hilda had expressed a desire to join to see the sights. Unfortunately Roger's jet suffered a critical malfunction and crashed in New-Mexico, furthermore the jet was mistaken for an alien space-craft by local officials. With the assumption that the Bacon Jet was a U.F.O. the U.S. military quarantined the area, confiscated the wreckage and imprisoned Roger and Hilda, believing the strange old creature and talking bat were aliens. Hilda, both out of frustrations with the situation and due several days' worth of hunger eventually sates her thirst by sucking Roger's blood which causes Roger to temporarily lose consciousness and Hilda to transform in to her Curvy form.

When the game's main protagonist Johnny Garland, follows-up on a tip that the villain Professor Gilbert had an alternative laboratory in Area 51 he finds Roger and Hilda in a cage during his infiltration of the base. Johnny and his friends agree to help get the two out, beliving their story about not being aliens and certain the two meant no one any harm. In gratitude Hilda agrees to help Johnny and the others look for any sign of Gilbert and then help them escape the base.