Virtua Unlimited Project

A love letter to the Mega Man Zero series with some flair from Gunvolt/iX thrown in? A game released in 2024 that only installs a single executable file? An actual hidden gem? I'm genuinely impressed at the mechanics here, they're solid and fun. I was never good at the MMZ series in the technical sense, but even I managed to use some of the old combos here, such as midair saber spinning with left/right input double jump spam against bosses. I got to 101%+ on Hard after over 10 hours, and that's about as far as I'm willing to grind. There are a lot of hidden items that require returning to levels with double jumps, air dashes, block breaking to access, as well as secret rooms that are extremely well hidden but actually have some kind of tells on the background layer. Some are only a couple of lines of pixels for a false floor you can drop through... I wish there was some kind of system to show if you're missing an item in a level/level completion %. There are no guides on Steam, but I found one on YouTube for the items I couldn't find myself. The English translation is definitely rough, a direct translation rather than a localization, so characters don't really feel genuine at all. Most of the personalities are basic cute vtuber stereotypes. It's passable though and the plot makes basic sci-fi sense. Recommended for fans of Mega Man Zero, Inti Creates, or combo/speed focused platformers & metroidvania.

This game is "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery" incarnate. If you took everything great about the Mega Man Zero/ZX games but the main character and 8 bosses were Vtubers (non that I've heard of to be quite honest), you'd get this game. That can be a good or a bad thing depending on how much you love those specific, challenging Mega Man games. Sometimes it's a simple reference that leaves me saying "oh cute, I recognize that thing!" to other times things are more blatant leaving me asking "Did they not just trace over official game assets?" The story is pretty mid and tries its best to be philosophical, but again comes across as parroting the games that inspired this. Fortunately with the gameplay, they managed to copy/cover all the things that made those games play great. - Kana is straight up a Zero clone with the movement physics feeling as tight as the original. - Kana's EX-Moves don't require some bs to unlock like they did in the Zero games, allowing you to play her how you want - The summons mechanic is incredibly cool (probably the one of the few original things I liked from this game) - The most important thing to me in these type of games are the boss fights. Thankefully, they're all fun and challenging. However, the "Final Attack" they do can sometimes be a little much with the bullet hell spam. If you can get past how shameless this copy can get, there is a genuinely fun game to be played here.

A SEVERELY underrated gem. If you like the Megaman Zero series, you owe it to try this; this game is about as close as you can get in the BEST possible way. 10/10 best MMZ-like. Hope this dev makes more games in the future.

感觉.......不如......重力回路.....有意思.....

I played this game because I love Megaman Zero. Highlights of this game are getting V-Ranks on every stage, gameplay, pixel art, and the OST. I didn’t expect to enjoy Virtua Unlimited Project as much as I did. But after coming back to beat the last 4 stages, I grew much more fond of it. Unlocking the ‘Gemstone’ and Gunvolt color schemes alongside Master Mode only furthered my enjoyment. As prior to those color schemes, I didn’t particularly like any. Though it’s not without its flaws, which I’ll get into later. But for now, I’ll mention my gripe with the game not having Master Mode unlocked from the start like in the demo and not being able to start a New Game+ from a hard mode save and play it in Master, as I had to rebuy equipment in my Master Mode save, and my Gunvolt color schemes were not unlocked.. One other small issue is that it does not let you replay stages with their bosses and be ranked afterwards once you clear them once on a save. And the game does not ever force the player to do anything outside of playing missions, so if someone just binged the game without exploring, they could miss out on the entirety of the town area above the base (like me on my first playthrough (-_-)). The main gameplay is very similar to the Megaman Zero games, not much different, but it does add a new element and a similar but different combo system. Extenders are like Copen’s Subroutines from Azure Striker Gunvolt 2, but are instead very simple effects, like reduced CC, faster weapon charge, and no slipping on ice. The only really good one (that I found) was the double jump. Boss battles were very well done, but they all at least have something annoying about them; like ICE and Memo’s fights have continuous phases of invincibility that last about 11 seconds, which have no cooldown. So it can screw up V-Rank runs and just feel overall unfair. SP skills are another new addition to the gameplay, they are very similar to Gunvolt’s of the same name, but instead of multiple charges that recharge with time, it’s one skill that recharges through dealing damage to enemies. Most are flashy attacks, but my personal favorite is Nezumi’s, the (funnily enough) only ‘supportive’ support skill. It makes you invincible for about 15 seconds. Paired with the SP you get from attacking bosses, this makes Nezumi’s skill chainable against bosses, and the best option for going for V-Ranks since you want to avoid damage. The EX-skills you learn from bosses are like the ones from MMZ, but it does add some cool unique ones or improve the ones from MMZ. Like a fire charge shot that goes through walls, and the uppercut being chargeable. The main character also has a dropkick which lets you bounce off enemies and is really fun to use if you have a stage memorized. The games ranking system is similar to MMZ’s except there are point allocations to Support Skill usage and combo. Getting 120 points and a V-Rank is where this games replay value comes from and is a ton of fun to achieve. You also have different color schemes to collect, so there is fun to be had collecting those. I have basically no issues with the game's controls. Most times I had a problem I just misinput and got mad. Now we have reached the worst scoring part of the game, the story. The beginning is average to decent with Kana’s friends being infected by the riot and the intriguing setting of a virtual world. But the story has too many characters whom the player does not care about, but it tries to make them important and fails (Especially with Little Alice at the end of the game). And the plotlines of Kana healing riot infection, K-02, and Stor’s betrayal go unexplained. The story completely fails to execute any of these concepts and is lackluster. The boss rush was also unexplained, why are there clones of her friends? The only moral you can really interpret from the story is “Don't resent the new because it replaced the old, it is just as real and genuine as the original". The thing Dr. DG brings up about the world is not explained despite being a big twist to the character world. So if the game doesn’t care about its world and story, then why should I? I can't tell if this game's story is ahh or if the translation is ahh, either way probably the worst aspect of the game. The world is cool, being all virtual, and the twist that comes later, but the characters are uninteresting, and the story barely makes sense. Virtua Unlimited Project’s music on the other hand is great, not much else to say. Strong rock inspiration with synths and fast paced drums. Fun to listen to even while not playing. In terms of value, for $11 it’s pretty good, though for me that might be because I value things like ranking systems for replay value. Though I’m sure for people who don’t replay stages for ranks, they could still find enjoyment in this game. A point against this game’s value is the fact that nearly no English speaker knows the Vtubers featured in this game. I got a fun and satisfying 16 hours out of this game despite its short story, so I think it's good value for $11. Lastly, the visuals of this game are very impressive, good pixel art, every NPC you can speak is unique, and all the effects on weapons are uniquely animated (fire on sword, electricity on sword depending on card equipped). My only issue with the visuals is that with the variety of Vtubers + the cyberpunk esthetic to the technology, it feels like the game lacks a solid art direction or theme because it’s so varied. And there is an issue with enemies blending into the background; because an enemy will be brown, gray, and orange, and the background will be those same colors, so since you go so fast in stages, sometimes the two blend in your eyes. Aside from that I was very impressed, especially in the town area. Overall, a very good indie game, better than Gravity Circuit/10. Overall 7.5/10, give it a shot. Gameplay: 18/20 Controls: 10/10 Story: 7/20 Audio (OST and Sound Design): 18/20 Value: 14/20 Visuals: 8/10

我说情怀就该是拿来卖的 致敬元素拉满了，我喜欢 [spoiler] [strike] 饿Z大大我喜欢你 [/strike] [/spoiler]

As a veteran MMZ player, ABSOLUTE PEAK 100/100, I wish that the game will get a sequel.