So you’re probably wondering “Nana, what happened to the Steam Next Fest ramble?” Well, there’s a simple answer for that, which is I figured that I have so many blog projects I want to do that I figure that I should just not do a blog post of Steam Next Fest this time round. I did play some stuff though, so you can check it out here.
But Enough about that! It’s time to go back to this game! I initially took a look at this game during the Steam Next Fest in February. I usually just keep these things on my wishlist, but then I actually got a DM from the lead developer and Main character of the game, Aizawa Kana, promoting their Kickstarter. The Kickstarter itself was very simple, so I backed it, though the game came out a week after the Kickstarter ended, a lot of the stuff they want to add will be through patches.
That being said, what does this game have to offer as a Megaman Zero-inspired game? Let’s find out. As always, spoilers are abounding, and I’m playing the PC Version.
To start off, the story is pretty much a standard Megaman game honestly. While there’s a lot of background lore, the only real things that matter are as such; you are Aizawa Kana, an Operator equipped with a Virtual Drive system, to access the powers of the other operators, and there are 8 in total to defeat with 2 bosses in-between, one being a clone of Kana called KO2, who was made by Stor, a scientist who was helping us, but then turned bad because of course he did. the other being Stor himself, who is helping Dr D.G, a scientist who wants to destroy Neo Bablion. who Kana promptly defeats before stopping the earth from being destroyed. That’s pretty much it. I have no problems with the basic story, it’s pretty much another Megaman X story game, especially considering it’s their 1st game, but where I do have a small problem is in the characters.
I do understand what they were going for, the idea is that you watch V-Tubers and I do, but the problem here is that all of these V-Tubers are from mainland China, and mostly stream on BliiBlii, which for people that don’t know what that is, it’s basically China’s version of YouTube, which isn’t super accessible outside of mainland China.
While there are some cute moments between characters, like Shiori Hana kinda wanting to keep Kana to herself, or Memo just kinda being a jerk as soon as you meet her, I kinda wish I knew the Lore of these V-Tubers a bit, since their designs are very cool honestly, and they are brought to life super well in the pixel art honestly, it really it’s really good looking, though staring at some of the later bosses, though some designs are more clearly Megaman inspired than others.
On to the gameplay, which I think is pretty heavy on the Megaman parallels as well, but it added its own twist to things which I really like. You have all the moves of Megaman Zero, Dash, Charge Shot, and Sword attack you can charge, though you can’t do any combos with it. However, you get a nice kick move that you can use and I found it pretty useful at points, though you can mostly not use it honestly. The game itself is kinda structured like Megaman 7, as after taking down Nezumi, who is the 1st level of the game, you can take down 3 other Operators, Yan, Shiori Hana and Ji Yi. The way that the typical weaknesses work though is kinda interesting. Each Vtuber has an element that they use in their fights. Ice, Fire, Electricity and Wind. Fire is weak to Wind, Wind is weak to electricity, and so on. Instead of giving you special weapons, the bosses give you cards for the Virtual Ride system, and when you use a card of the said element, you can use special moves, under the right conditions (which is basically charging up you’re meter to 100% by killing enough enemies), you can let burst attacks. Honestly, it’s a very unique of dealing with this for me, I like it quite a bit, as it is still simple, but adds a unique spin to things.
Since the game gives you the weakness for Shiori Hana, that’s the one you will want to do 1st, though Yan is easy enough without the weakness. Ji Yi on the other hand, is near impossible without the weakness, and I learned that the hard way by getting beaten up by her mech arms dozens of times.
After that, you face KO2, a clone of Kana that clearly references Omega from Megaman Zero 3. This is also something I wish was expanded upon as bringing the clone of Kana makes for some interesting dilemmas faced by all parties, but nothing much is really done with it besides revealing Dr. D.G. and showing off Stor as a traitor because of course he’s a traitor.
After that, you get 4 more bosses, YY, Memo, ICE and Eliana. The levels become a bit more unique here, as YY gets a sorta playroom since his level is based on a theme part, Memo gets a level that reminds of Storm Eagle’s level in Megaman, and Eliana gets a level that clearly a tribute to the older Castlevania’s. It’s a joy to see, though getting through these levels is surprisingly easy, especially by Megaman standards. It is a bit harder exploring for health upgrades, weapon upgrades and R-Tanks, this game’s version of E-Tanks, but it’s not a dealbreaker if you don’t have them. I did play on normal though, so that might have something to do with it.
I will say though, there’s a menu that has a bunch of options to make the game easier when you unlock them by either getting them in the store or finding them in levels. When you get Double Jump and Air Dash, PUT THEM ON ASAP. It makes platforming so much easier in certain situations, especially if you’re going for 100% completion like I currently am.
After the other 4 bosses, you end up fighting a random robot, before going through an amalgamation of all the levels before facing Stor, and then the usual boss rush happens before facing Dr. D.G. in a climatic showdown that even has a self-destruction sequence. Neat!
Besides the main, there’s not too much to do outside of it besides looking for things to get you’re 100% save file, which involves looking for CD, which unlocks the soundtrack within the game. You can fight all the bosses again, and there’s even the EX Boss Rush which they just added yesterday at the time of writing, I haven’t fully tried it yet, but it’s fighting all the bosses non-stop with no healing outside of R-Tanks, so boy, that will be interesting when I get to it.
Virtua Unlimited Project was a very fun time, and honestly my Game of the Year so far. This team did a great job making a Megaman-inspired platformer, and adding VTubers to it, even if I feel the story is a little lacking. It’s also a big thing in my eyes, as it’s the 1st game(at least that I’ve heard of) to feature Vtubers that aren’t from Hololive, Nijisanji or Vshojo, which is kinda an important thing as mostly games that feature Vtubers that I’ve heard about feature those Vtubers, such as Holocure and Vshojo’s upcoming game with Hidden Leaf games are made by fans for fans or are trying to appeal to a broader multiplayer audience.
This game, however, feels like it’s a great in-between, a game that is be cool for fans of these Vtubers, but is very fun for the normal person to play, and is targeted to people just really like retro platforms. I really hope that this team can make more games. I would love for them to a 3D game like Megaman Legends or Kingdom Hearts if they can pull it off. So please, if you can support this game. You can get it on Steam for usually quite cheap.
Well.. that became longer than I expected. Anyway, a nice little fun detor there for me to play, and I’m glad I did.
Next time, we begin our anime doubleheader with a review of HighSpeed Etoile! I will say now, I probably like it more than most. But for now, thanks for reading, and I will see you next time.
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