Developer: Examu
Publisher: Nitroplus
Platform: PC, PS3, PS4
Tested on: PC
Nitroplus Blasterz: Heroines Infinite Duel (PC) – Review
‘Nitroplus Blasterz: Heroines Infinite Duel’ is a 2D fighting game originally for arcade, later for Playstation 3 and 4, and now for PC. The game features a cast of fighters which are all heroines from various Nitroplus games, manga, visual novels or anime series. Nitroplus Blasterz: Heroines Infinite Duel is developed by Examu and published by Nitroplus.
Story
Nitroplus Blasterz: Heroines Infinite Duel does indeed have a story, and next to the usual fighting game story there’s also an additional visual novel.
The story of this game is typical for fighting games: mostly an excuse to bring together characters and set up many battles. The story is that many different characters are trapped together in a false universe. Most characters lost their memories, except the character you are playing. After a fight the other characters will come to their senses again. During story mode you learn that the personification of the ancient Necronomicon is gathering energy from the fights. Eventually you will meet her as the final boss.
The characters all have a backstory references heavily to the series or visual novels they are from. You can get the gist of the backstory of the characters by their conversation, it’s not necessary to know all of them to be able to follow the story. The storytelling style is decidedly Japanese: through the dialogue you guess what’s going on, but it’s not really clear what’s happening and what all characters exact roles are in the grand story.
After completing ‘Story’ mode, ‘Another Story’ is unlocked. This is mostly a visual novel: a lot of text you click though, and some stills and short animations of the characters against a story-relevant background. The story features the characters from the game in a dark Lovecraftian setting, working together to solve a mystery.
Graphics
The characters and backgrounds are all in anime style. The girls are well drawn, and very well animated. Every character has a unique fighting style, which makes it a lot of fun to try all characters. Some fight in a very funny way, like Sonico who looks like she is constantly panicking during the fight and has her many cats fight for her instead of fighting herself. The backgrounds of the fights are animated, there are ten different ones to choose from in the game modes where you choose your opponent. The characters are in pixel-art style, which gives the game a nice retro look. It’s fitting for the type of fighting game which reminds of Street Fighter, and it works great with the anime characters. The cut scenes during special attacks and in-between fights are all in anime style, and especially the special attack animations looks really epic.
There are 14 playable characters and 20 support characters, all girls from productions where Nitroplus was involved in one way or the other. The playable characters are the ones you can choose as a fighter, and you can choose two of the support characters, which you can use at an interval for a very strong attack on your opponent. The support character will appear on screen and do their attack with a cool and flashy animation, and will usually leave after the animation finishes. Nitroplus is a Japanese company developing visual novels, games, manga and anime series. Many of these are erotic in nature. People expecting a lot of fan service in this game will be disappointed, except for the usual bouncy boobs seen in many fighting games and a few cute or sexy unlockable images of the girls, there’s not much focus on fan service in this game.
Sound
The sound is very fitting for an arcade game. It has an energetic old-fashioned-style soundtrack and of course, unique music for the boss battle. The music is upbeat and really conveys the arcade feel. The sounds during the fights are also very arcade-like typical fighting game style, with each character having unique sound effects. All the dialogue is in Japanese, but almost everything is subtitled, except for the short pre- and post-fight comments of the characters.
Gameplay
Nitroplus Blasterz: Heroines Infinite Duel is a fast 2D fighting game which reminds of street fighter 2 and Marvel vs Capcom. All characters are unlocked when you start the game, so you don’t need to play through different modes or games to get access to the full roster. However, when you do complete different parts of the game you will unlock art stills for each of the characters and some additional stills.
The game has various modes: Story mode which leads you through the main story using short cut scenes in between eight fights and an ending. The fights get more challenging as they progress, and the boss fight is not at all easy to complete! Another Story is unlocked after you kill the boss with any character. This mode will let you play through a visual novel, with some fights in between. Versus mode lets you play against your friends. Training will give you the opportunity to try out a character against a dummy, but it is not a real tutorial. Score Attack lets you set a high-score for yourself and the world, and Network will search for opponents online. Gallery contains images you will unlock during gameplay, one for each character after finishing story mode for them, and a few additional ones from the visual novel.
The fights are full of action and the movements are very fast. While it is possible to finish the story mode with button bashing, it does require a lot of luck and epic button bash skills. It’s possible to play the game with a keyboard, but like most fighting games it’s recommended to use a game pad to be able to react faster.
It’s not needed to learn difficult combos, you merely have to have good timing in executing your attacks. Combo’s are simply a lot of standard attacks in fast succession. At the bottom of the screen is a power gauge, which slowly fills during the fight and when activated unleashes a powerful Blaze attack with a cool animation or even an awesome cut scene at the highest power level, unique for each character. During the fight you can also activate a Blast which refills health and either breaks combo’s of the opponent, boosts your own combo or propels your character forward.
The two support characters you choose can each separately be activated during the fight whenever their bars fill up, when activated they appear on screen and execute their moves with a character specific animation. Each support character has an unique actions and they differ widely in how they damage the opponent and how they are to be dodged.
Conclusion
Nitroplus Blasterz: Heroines Infinite Duel is a fun casual fighting game anyone can learn and play. It’s fast and energetic, and a lot of fun to play with friends. The art and animations are great and the diversity of the characters is really awesome. The gallery gives motivation to finish the story mode on every character, and ‘another story’ is a novel addition to a fighting game, and nice to play once.
Nitroplus Blasterz: Heroines Infinite Duel (PC) - Review,
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