This game should be decent. It's not.
It's slow to the point of agony and attacks are a lot lamer and it just feels like a dramatic step back from the previous game. Almost all of the wild intensity of the first two games is gone.
The big issue is that he missions largely suck.
VO wasn't designed for the larger, more action game style stages, and the slower pace and worse weapons makeThis game should be decent. It's not.
It's slow to the point of agony and attacks are a lot lamer and it just feels like a dramatic step back from the previous game. Almost all of the wild intensity of the first two games is gone.
The big issue is that he missions largely suck.
VO wasn't designed for the larger, more action game style stages, and the slower pace and worse weapons make the 2v2 and 1v1 matches you encounter much, much worse.
The VR selection is a bit lame. There's like a half dozen clones of Temjin, none of them interesting.
The leader/partner system is poorly thought out, a hold over from VO:Force in the arcade, which this game takes its mechanics from.
Faster VRs like Fei-Yen are much more enjoyable to play as... except unlocking any of the machines you want is a slog, and all of the interesting units are rare.
For the most part, you have to defeat a certain amount of a given VR to obtain it. There is the hidden Guarayakha, who requires you to beat the story on hard mode.
The music is okay... except the menu tune is this lifelessly cheery thing that blares out in an almost tuneless way. It's hard to describe just how bad it is.
You're going to hear a lot of it.
There's an arcade-like mode that's basically Virtual On: Force but not quite. The nice thing is that you can pick a fast VR right out of the gate and almost enjoy yourself. The not-so-nice thing is the hideously annoying mid boss, that was originally the final boss of Force. It's pretty hard and is pretty heavy on memorization of what attacks you have hit hardest for when it's vulnerable, what attack it's going to do at the given amount of health it has, and if you try to keep it in your view, you're dramatically more likely to get hit. That last one's an issue with bosses in the series in general, but it's particularly bad here.
There are some different control options -- one more optimized for newcomers that's designed more around the larger environments and the lot. I'm not a fan. There's another other option, which is more like the previous game, Virtual On: Oratorio Tangram on the Dreamcast. It works pretty well for me, but it's not a great option for a game like this. It's not a fundamental issue, with some changes (like improving manual turning), it could work, but Marz insists on following the poor mechanics used in Force and way overextending them to missions that they don't work in.
The story is kinda dumb. At least Hatter is hilarious. A fair bit of the plot is unintentionally funny, too.
Otherwise, it's just not well written at all.
Load times are garbage. Selecting a VR to use requires the game loading the model, which takes FOREVER. Loading each match takes forever too. It's just a mess.
The graphics are nice, at least. A lot of people have complained about them, but the game is a fair bit more detailed than Oratorio Tangram. They're not amazing, but they're a solid improvement from the series' previous console outing. Shame there's no 480p mode.
I also like the mech designs a lot.
Overall, it kinda sucks. Newcomers will hate it. Series fans will be disappointed in it. It's a worse version of Virtual On: Force, and that game already has issues.… Expand
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