Developed by: Examu
Published by: Marvelous USA (XSEED)
Reviewed on: PlayStation 4 (also available on PlayStation 3)
Anime Fighter To The Next Level
It’s no secret that the fighting game genre is my favorite for video games. The sense of competition, the technical aspects, and the rush of going one on one almost never fails to get me going. One very interesting sub-genre of fighting game is the cross over style game. What is a cross over you ask? A cross over is taking characters from different universes and mashing them together to fight. One of the best examples is the Marvel vs Capcom series. I’m very familiar with both franchises and the characters they both offer….but this title was uncharted territory for me. I saw this as a good thing. It meant I had a chance to explore some new franchises, and even better, a chance to learn a new game.
Nitroplus Blasterz: Heroines Infinite Duel is an anime fighter through and through. Your standard elements like health gauges, energy bars, and burst are all here. Mechanics like air dashing, rolling, and advanced guard are present as well. As someone who has played games like Guilty Gear, BlazBlue, and Melty Blood these concepts were familiar. For those who are newer to fighting games, they may seem a bit daunting. I find it a bit unfortunate that there isn’t a tutorial mode to help explain these mechanics. Some experimentation and research may be necessary. Aside from not knowing anything about the characters I was forced to face, I was pleased to find the game isn’t overly complicated. The game is basically a one on one fight with each player being able to choose two assist characters. The player controls the primary character and, when they are ready, they can summon their assist characters. Some have an offensive role to play, some can be used for defense, and others provide bonuses like healing or granting stronger attack power. There are hundreds of combinations that can be made and that can only be a good thing in my book.
When I start a fighting game, the first thing I always do is look for are characters that I may want to play. When I fired up Nitroplus Blasterz, I witnessed a totally foreign group to me. Almost, because I did find some familiar faces. Of the initial cast, I recognized Saber from Fate/stay night, Sonico from the Super Sonico rhythm games, and Akane, the female lead from Psycho Pass. Everyone is from Nitroplus titles or works that the company’s writers have worked on in the past. The variety of characters is staggering, both in design and variety. There was one common thread here, however: they’re all waifu material. I tend to dislike these games because they lack gender diversity as some of the personalities tend to overlap as well. Still, I had to start somewhere. I took a deep breath and jumped into training mode with Saber and two random assist characters.
The game uses a five button layout for the main character and two buttons for assists. The layout can be a tad cumbersome for sticks as you need to use seven buttons, but it works fairly well on a standard controller. There are three main attacks: Light, Medium, and Heavy. There’s also an Evasive Action button for rolling, one for advanced guarding, and a Heavy Actions button that performs a launcher type move. A few of the advanced characters have some tricky inputs but for the most parts the game is responsive and I had very few issues with actually playing the game.
One of the big draws for a fighting game are the visuals. Nitroplus Blasterz struggles a bit here. The characters and their animations look pretty good for hand drawn sprites. The problem is with how bland the stages look. Most of them are your typical empty location. The menus are similarly bland. I think a rework might be in order for the menus because while they are simple to navigate they are not interesting in the slightest. I can honestly also say the sound in this game is kinda average. Not on a production level, but there was nothing I heard that really motivated me. The voice acting for each of the characters is well done, but the music and sound effects fall by the wayside.
Lastly I want to briefly touch on the game modes. They run the general fighting game gamut. Story mode is arcade mode with an attempt at story. I say attempt because it doesn’t clear many hurdles when trying to tell a story. It rehashes the familiar “a multi-dimensional being making us fight because” scenario. There’s nothing to really gain from it honestly. There is a Another Story that can be unlocked. Then of course you have a training mode and an online mode. The training mode for this game is robust and lets you swap characters on the fly. The online mode is decent. I was only able to play a couple of matches as the game hadn’t gone live at the time of this review, but there was little to no lag issues.
All in all if you’re looking for a fun fighter with not too many frills (but with free character DLC until March) then give this a go!
