Nitroplus Blasterz Review

For me, and most people that I know, fighting games are pretty much a button mashing fest where the winner is determined by the player who manages to randomly press the correct combination of buttons the best. Nitroplus Blasterz is no different here so if you're the kind of player that likes the odd fighting game, you will manage with this game quite nicely. Yeah, sure there's a technique to playing the game properly but 'aint nobody got time fo dat. 

If you are someone that does have time for that kind of thing and you want to learn the basics all the way through to the real tricky moves, then you can go through training and also bring up a moves list. At the time of playing though, there was one flaw to this moves list that rendered it quite useless for me. I played Nitroplus on the Playstation 4, however the button layout was showing the buttons A and B. I looked all over but I couldn't find these buttons on my Dual Shock 4 controller. Maybe this can be patched out soon.

The graphics here are likely going to be the first thing that you see when you cast your eyes on this game. For the most part, everything looks nice and sharp and most importantly it resembles authentic Japanese art. Now I am not the best critic when it comes to this genre but like the good old saying "I may not know art, but I know what I like". Nitroplus looks amazing. The colours pop on the Playstation 4 and the characters all look great.

The characters themselves are all slightly over-sexualised females, once again quite typical of the subject matter here so that's no surprise. You start off being able to pick from twelve different characters, each with their own move sets with the ability to unlock two extra characters (Free DLC). On top of choosing your character, you also get to choose two of twenty different partners to support you through your fights. These partners are used during fights to assist you during special attacks.

There is a story mode that you can play through which will pitt you up against seven separate duels. Each playable character essentially has the same story along the way with respect to a couple of varying lines of dialogue. The difficulty right off the bat is set quite low for the story mode and it won't pose much of a challenge for the most part. Keep in mind though, the difficulty spikes like hell for the final duel. 

Being a Japanese styled game, like most others that are similar, all of the voice acting is done in Japanese. The voices are from the original characters, but there are English subtitles there to help find out what is going on through the story. Unfortunately there are some occasions when the subtitles don't show up, mainly for what I think are snide remarks during fights so I don't think it takes much away from the experience of a fighting game.

Nitroplus features online and local multiplayer. The local option obviously works seamless without any issues and is fun to bust out quick fights with your friends when they manage to pry themselves away from their couch and physically come and visit you. The online side of things is another story altogether. Unfortunately the online presence is pretty much nil. At the time of review, I managed to snare a couple of online matches with people that have obviously done nothing but play the hell of out this game and/or are just amazing at fighter games because they calmly took hold of my 'ass' and handed it back to me time and time again. In my experience in searching for online matches the most I was able to find was just one which had two players plus myself in the lobby. Regardless of the minimal players, it did work well when the matches started. I had no lag to note and no drop outs. Playing multiplayer with a friend was also flawless. I was able to invite a friend to a private lobby and play match after match without even a slight hiccup. So if you're keen on this game you might want to find yourself a player base with your own friends first, or hit up some online forums.



Nitroplus is a great game for existing fans to sink their teeth into with good variation on characters and fight moves. However, it's not likely to hold the attention of newcomers as it doesn't offer anything fresh that will "wow" those unfamiliar to the universe. 

Positives:

• Intuitive fighting moves are easy to execute
• Button mash friendly
• Varied fighting styles for each playable character

Negatives:

• Unbalanced difficulty throughout story mode
• Some English subtitles are missing
• On screen button layout mismatched to platform
• Multiplayer matches are non-existent

SCORE:  6 out of 10