No new challengers have stepped into the ring.
I’m a big fighting game guy. Well, Street Fighter, really. And Street Fighter V had so many issues that I kinda gave up on it within a few months…so I guess I’m not a fighting game guy anymore. Granted, I did sink a good 400 hours into Street Fighter IV back in the day, so I think I know my way around a fighting game. While I’m willing to try any game, I have never been too big on the faster, flashier style of fighters like Guilty Gear and BlazBlue. Nitroplus Blasterz is one of those games, but as I said before, I’m willing to give anything a shot.
Much like BlazBlue and Guilty Gear the game features the standard four button style – A, B, C, and D that goes into combos together with light, medium, heavy, launcher, etc. Relying on combos, then going into air combos for even more damage. Of course, there are multiple super moves to utilize as well that require a meter to initiate. It feels a lot like these typical fighting games. What sets it apart are the assist characters players take with them into battle.
Platforms: PC, PS4, PS3
MSRP: $29.99
Price I’d pay: $20
Players choose two characters to be their assist partners in a fight. These can be a special form of attack that can set up combos or even characters that buff the main fighter while in combat. While these assist characters can be “tagged in”, they can be used multiple times after a short cooldown on their side. The combinations are vast, and finding the best assist for players’ play styles feels rather rewarding when setting up combos. And since I suck hardcore at air combos, having an assist help out with extending my attacks was a nice touch.
Unfortunately, this game comes with no manual at all. It is a PC port after all. That’s all fine until players realize there is zero explanation for anything. Sure, there’s a move list in the menus, but for the actual mechanics of the game, I had to go to an outside source to get the information I needed. The lack of a tutorial mode is really rough. Going into training mode with a dummy can only get me so far.
Speaking of modes, Nitroplus is lacking a few more than what they have. There’s the standard arcade mode, along with a score attack style mode and online mode. That’s it. Meaning, after exhausting these modes through a few hours, it’s time to jump online. Only problem is, this game has been out for over a week now, and for the life of me, I have yet to get into an actual online fight with another person. I cannot comment on the online stability due to either not being able to find a game or there being so few people playing it, there’s no one to test it with, which is an unfortunate fact because the actual fighting part of this game is very well done.
While the fighting mechanics and especially the assist feature in the game are very well done, if you don’t have another person to play with, you’re going to have about three hours of fun until you’re left with nothing to do. Maybe after a Steam sale people will pick it up, which they should. It’s a very good fighting game, but until then, I would say for anyone out there a Steam sale would be the ideal time to pick up Nitroplus Blasterz.
Review copy of game provided by publisher.
