Quick Look: Nitroplus Blasterz: Heroines Infinite Duel

Are you not aware of Saber's origins?

I fully support this statement. I think Rider (Medusa) is the coolest.

I am the netcode of my website unknown to viruses yet not known to firewalls.

I was kinda waiting for them to sneak in the list at the end of this. Reality just is that science requires the game to get some balance updates and stuff first.

Get Leady, FIGHT!

Err, there's totally porn in demonbane.

The fuck was that mirror match.

The last Guilty Gear game has a character who is a dude strapped to a bed named "Bedman".

Saya, aka Gen Uroboshi's Lovercraftan creature in anime lady's skin...

Saya, aka Gen Uroboshi's Lovecraftian creature under an anime lady's skin...

Might be the first fighting game I've wanted to play since SF2.

This looks really good actually, but I will probably stick to BlazBlue for my fighting games. I find I just can't play anything else anymore.

It does have me interested in some of the VNs the characters come from though.

My Little Shoggoth Can't Be This Cute

SB is full of bullshit, it's hard to see your character at time, things randomly pop over the screen for no reason, the background is a moving and frustrating thing that will probably fall/change/explode/vanish seemingly out of the blue, did I mention things/items/characters explode for no apparent reason?

SB is hard to get into, there is a lot of bizarreness to dig through and it's not at all 'lean' like a traditional fighter that works a lot more straight forward..ly? in its rockpaperscissors mechanics. Even these overly dramatic hanime fighters are way easier to understand/know whats going on than SB.

This is the kind of silly fun I can vote for.

@grandcurator: Phantom Breaker has been on Steam for ages. It even has the Kurisu DLC for sale.

I mean, I'm trying to point out the flaws in Smash, but literally none of the things you said apply. The whole thing that people make fun of competetive Melee players for is their limited selection of stages (as of last year we dropped from 6 playable stages in singles to 5 stages), and that we play with no items. That eliminates any randomness. You will always be able to see your character in a one on one fight. The ONLY time things get that kind of hectic is in doubles, and that is intentional because doubles is a fun side-event.

So when are we getting a Quick Look for Saya no Uta?

@anupsis: That'd be Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds which is a spin off of the fighting game Phantom Breaker. Both have Kurisu.

*bart simpson voice* get ready

This game seems alright!

great QL was surprised to see how on board jeff was with this,even as a anime expert at times i was questioning what the hell was going on with all the anime inanity

This looks pretty cool actually. Might give it a shot if for some reason Street Fighter V won't grab me.

If Porky's and American Pie featured hard core fucking that'd be a more reasonable comparison.

Thing is, once you know how to play street fighter and GG and similar, playing this game at the level Jeff and Jason are here is basically free. You select a character, do the motions and hit the buttons for 4 minutes, and then you can play the game.

For Smash, none of that basic knowledge transfers, so you need to spend a LOT of time to find any of the depth. For this, the only obstacle is not throwing up in your own mouth from how anime it is, you know?

It's all subjective. I have the same opinion of melee and other fighting games like MK or SF that Jeff has of SSB in general. I did not grow up on SF or MK so I think all those games are extremely stiff, limited, and boring. I did not play too much of SSB until Brawl so to me, melee is the anime fighter of SSB games. It's way too fast and technical and no fun at all on a more casual level.

In an environment were I can get 5-8 player matchs of SSB4 going on a regular basis it is the better game by a long shot. We don't do items or the more bullshit stages and sometimes get into more tight 2-4 player matches so it's somewhat competitive. Just not in that insane wave dashing melee sort of way.

Besides, melee doesn't have Rosalina and Luma so who cares? Best fighting game character all time.

Ive read half the vn in this cast. I hope the online community is healthy enough.

Okay. Just because The Brown Bunny and Blue is the Warmest Colour have explicit scenes of sex doesn't make them porn movies. By that same token just because something like Saya no Uta contains sex scenes doesn't make it a porn game.

Much like watching all fatalities for Mortal Kombat, I kind of just want to see the special over the top specials and then move on.

Why does it even fucking matter.

Does *this* game contain sex scenes?

GB did an E3 series from a bona fide porn *set*. Seems people should be more worried about that.

It doesn't matter. I just don't like it when people assume 'visual novel' means 'porn game'.

I'd really love to see this come to PC.

Strike Witches fighter when? Ooh no wait. Ooh! Strike Witches vs. Kancolle! YES Make it happen Japan.

@donchipotle: Fair. My anger was directed at those you're replying to; wasn't trying to imply you were wrong to correct them.

My Thoughts exactly!

I looked up Vampirdzhija Vjedogonia and the first thing I saw was a girl getting tentacle raped. That's more than some sexual content. :P

I did not expect to recognize multiple characters in this QL. I guess I like anime.

Psyco-Pass characters in a fighting is something I never expected to see.

A lot of something something was sacrificed to bring this title to culmination.

@donchipotle said:

I mean, visual novel doesn't mean porn game, but nitroplus is specifically known for making visual novels that are kinda heavy on the sex scenes. They are absolutely porn. Really fucking disturbing and/or well-written stories, but still porn. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that... And they have been really branching out into the mainstream lately with Touken Ranbu, Expelled from Paradise and their 5pb & type moon collabs. But on the other hand, they make a number of games with long, drawn-out, explicit sex scenes with semen and pixelated dicks. Maybe my opinion is colored because I'm more familiar with their boys' love branch...? Do we have different definitions of pornography?

My thing with stuff like Saya no Uta is, it's my understanding that these games are written with the intent that most of the target audience is going to be getting off to these games. I think that's what separates it from something that just has sex scenes in it.

@charoncaori: Why do you care that Giant Bomb are playing a game that features characters 'from a porn game company', though? What was the point of your original comment? Are you trying to imply GB are contradicting some stance they've said in the past or something?

Note: I haven't watched the QL in full, so I acknowledge you might be responding to something they said in it.

A porn game is something like Starless or Discipline or Space Pirate Sara where the sex scenes are excessive, gratuitous, and the main draw. No one is reading through Space Pirate Sara because it has an interesting plot. Starless will happily shove its own plot to the side if it means being able to push a twenty minute uncomfortable sex scene there. Something like, say, Saya no Uta isn't built around its sex scenes. Yes, there are scenes of Fuminori and Saya having sex but that isn't the draw of the story. It's not titillating, it's not arousing, it's meant to unnerve and disturb both because of Saya's young appearance and the fact that Fuminori is not fully there in the head and knows that Saya ain't exactly a human.

That the story in Saya no Uta offers an explanation as to why the sex happens in the first place (and why Saya is the one who instigates it rather than Fuminori who sees it as more the last remaining connection to sanity) actually manages to color the seemingly pornographic into a point of character development. Have people gotten off to it? I'm sure there are. But that doesn't make it a porn game, nor a game that was made explicitly to be gotten off to. Nitroplus HAS made an eroge or two, but there's a difference between eroge and adult visual novels. Not all visual novels have adult scenes and not all adult visual novels are eroge.

Maybe to some people there's no difference between a Space Pirate Sara and a Saya no Uta or between a Sagara Family and Devil on the G-String or between Starless and Kira Kira but there is to me and I'll continue to have that distinction because when a game is built around its sex scenes then yes, call it a porn game. When it's built around its narrative and characters and features said characters having sex then no, it's not a porn game. I don't consider a visual novel where at the end of a route you and a girl/boy have an often very descriptive sex scene to be a porn game. Clearly some do, and that's their right.

That mirror match was just amazing.

This game might not be for me, but there seems nothing wrong with it. Don't like the character design? Don't play it, live and let live.

@donchipotle: I would say a true porn game is more like those 3D sex simulation games, like what IllusionSoft makes, where there is almost no story to them. They actually were made to beat off to, and are where VR adult games are going.

A visual novel, where there's like 20 minutes between each H scene (aka a Jpg image) isn't quite serving the purpose of something for someone to quickly beat off to, thus not mainly for that purpose.

Al Azif (or just Al), Saya, and Saber are in this! SICK! (no really, that made me want to play this)

I wish this was available in English on PS3...I actually don't have a PS4. This seems fun!

Oh god characters with guns in anime fighters are a scourge. They really hamper the early skill climb if you're playing online because they show up so regularly and are difficult to deal with.

That's a perfectly fair opinion! I'll keep that in mind in the future.

@shtinky

I don't particularly care! I thought it would be interesting to see what viewer reactions would be. I also think many people tend to judge things based on origins or outward appearances, so the fact that jeff and jason acknowledged that this is a pretty well built game might cause one person to think that maybe games like this are worth looking into.

40 minutes? Man.

This QL was great. Be warned though, some small amounts of isolated anime did occur.

Saya no uta is one of the few VNs i ever played, and i loved it. Suck at fighting games, but I'm interested in this just because of her and Saber.