Nitroplus Blasterz Heroines Infinite Duel is a year old fighting game from Nitroplus and Marvelous Inc (USA) which has only recently made its way to the PC after having been out on the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 for quite some time. In this review, I have played the PC version of the game initially trying to play with a keyboard and mouse before plugging in my Xbox 360 controller (I still love it so much) and playing through the game using that.
First and foremost, with a fighting game the main thing you want to make sure is right are the controls and how the game plays; how intuitive it is; how easy they are to grasp and how balanced the enemies are that you will fight your way through against. I would love to say that Nitroplus Blasterz Heroines Infinite Duel delivers with some solid gameplay, however it’s truly lacking in this key area. The controls are pretty clunky for a fighting game, with poor responses to trying special moves and combos and whilst some opponents you’ll face are pretty standard, you’ll encounter a lot of trouble when coming up against other opponents who seem pretty overpowered and that’s before mentioning the final boss battle.
Even if you breeze through the game and wreck every opponent in your path, when you come up against the final boss – Al Azif Ex Mortis – if you’re not well prepared or make more than one or two mistakes, you’ll find yourself in a world of trouble having to “Continue”, Arcade style when she wipes the floor with you and blocks damned near everything that you throw at her. When I played through Nitroplus Blasterz Heroines Infinite Duel, the fewest attempts it took me to defeat her was 8; whether it was a mis-pressed button or a slight lack of concentration that caused me to fail I can’t be sure, but with this game you can’t be distracted by external sources. You know like children or the local Santa Claus float that comes around the village.
Whilst the end boss was very hard, there didn’t appear to be much rhyme or reason to the powers of the opponents you faced previously with some being walk-overs with one character, but being incredibly overpowered with others.
The story in the game is…bizarre to say the very least, but in keeping with what you’d expect from Nitroplus’ visual novels and various Japanese manga and anime series that they have been involved with. The story – from what I gather due to the sketchy translation – is about multiple anime and manga characters who are sucked into this strange place by a bored demon (I think) who can destroy everything (I think) and these characters, or the character that you are has to fight a succession of opponents in various locations with little meaning for reasons which are never overly clear. Apart from when I played as Super Sonico and one of the opponents wanted to eat her cats – that much I did get! I won’t spoil the end part of the story, even though you wont miss much if I did, but just know that it’s…lackluster.
The visuals within this game are absolutely spot on for a game of this nature, I doubt you could pull this game off with graphics using the Frostbite or Unreal 4 engine to be fair, and it’s a lot of little details which makes this game visually very pleasing. I mean the way the models move a little when standing pre or post fight…breathing heavily…it’s umm, very…good. Purely from a graphical point of view. Just because I had to study this game in detail doesn’t make me a bit pervy, I was just doing my job.
No I don’t think you’ll believe me on that, but I do mean it when I say that for it’s faults in gameplay and story, the game does look very good and when special moves or combos are pulled off, the look amazing. The way the screen will occasionally fill with color or even the way the menus look is all incredible and to watch, this game is a pleasure – it’s just a pity to play it isn’t as good.
I can’t fault the sound effects within the game either, with every punch, kick, swipe, gunshot or cat-used-as-a-weapon having an effective sound that makes sense. Wait, maybe I should explain as that will probably throw a lot of you. Yes it’s a fighting game, however some characters do use guns as a part of their repertoire or special moves. Oh you meant the bit about the cat? Well, when I played through as Super Sonico, she loves cats, so much so that she has a little posse of pussy’s around her which can join in the fights as well as a cat she always holds – and uses as a weapon. Which, to be honest, is hilarious and made me almost lose my voice through laughing at every “MEOWWW!” when swinging your cat against your opponent.
The big gripe I would have is that there was no attempt at translating the game well or hiring cheap actresses to replace the Japanese that were used for the game, hence why unless you can speak Japanese you’re going to be a bit stuck story-wise.
There is little replay value to Nitroplus Blasterz Heroines Infinite Duel as yes, you an complete the game with all the different characters to find out their individual stories, such as they are, and when you complete the game with the different characters you unlock their gallery… which no, it isn’t like that. So for some that will undoubtedly lower the replay value even further. But in all seriousness, once you’ve gathered what the main story is and played through a couple of times to see the different (slightly different) fighting styles, the replay value dwindles down quite significantly – although completionists will have a fair amount to do in this.
All in all, Nitroplus Blasterz Heroines Infinite Duel sure is something – it’s pretty but very poor, with some redeeming qualities but not enough to improve the game beyond its current scoring that you can see below.
Have you played Nitroplus Blasterz Heroines Infinite Duel on PC or PlayStation 3/4? What did you make of it? Let us know in the comments below, the RGM Forums or on Twitter. If you like what you’ve read then feel free to share this article on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pintrest or Reddit using the buttons available!
