Vanguard Princess is a new 2D fighting game developed by Suge9, rumored to be a former Capcom employee. With a unique system and vibrant graphics, it challenges the shackles of restraint imposed upon it by Fighter Maker, blazing a higher standard for doujin fighting games everywhere!
Government experiments on a young girl triggered a cosmic shock wave that gifted many young girls with mystical powers. She re-emerges into the world and vows to destroy all of mankind in an act of revenge. A brave group of girls who embraced their powers head to the battlefield to confront her; not just for the sake of the world, but to pursue their own personal motives and dreams.
So, a few weeks ago i tried to do a review of this game but encountered problems, which i posted about. Since then I’ve been trying different things and finally got the game to install and run. However after all that work I’m not so sure the game was worth all the hassle. Before i get into my post though i want to be very clear on something, i suck at these types of games, i always have. While i can and do enjoy them, I’m no expert on them, if anything I’m a casual gamer. So, lets get going.
The first thing i noticed was that the game was ridiculously low resolution, running at a terribly low 640*480 resolution. Since I’ve got a full HD monitor the game gets off to a bad start by looking terrible, blurry, pixelated and just not very good.
The above picture was taken at the games native resolution, without the need to reduce it.
I try to keep in mind that the game was created as a free game by a single person, but i do wonder why he made things at such a low resolution.
Despite being a low resolution the art for the game is pretty decent, if a bit bland. There’s not really a lot of change in scenery for the fights and the ‘audience’ doesn’t really feel alive or as though they’re watching, they’re just there.
The characters, although well designed and look good, do suffer from the low resolution, as you can see in the above picture.
What i found really annoying was the way the game is set up, it has no options menu of any description. The Title page gives you two options, Story mode and Versus Mode. the first being the story of the game, and the second supposedly for ‘learning’ the combat moves and stuff.
That being the case i went into Versus Mode first to try and get a feel for the combat, unfortunately it’s not easy to set up. There’s no explanation on how to pick the second character pair, in fact i ended up having to randomly press keyboard buttons to get into the fight. Very annoying.
Once in the combat is not explained, there’s no hints or tutorials to help you learn how things go. The only way to get any sort of help is the escape button which gives you an overview of the keys on the controller:
Which i have to admit, since it tells you to configure the controls for keyboard at the menu bar, only there is no menu bar. Also the buttons to end a game just don’t work. I found i was having to alt+tab to get out of the game, never good.
Finally i gave up on the Versus Mode and went into the story mode, and frankly i still don’t understand what’s going on. Most games like this are weak on stories, and frankly they don’t need stories, but they are nice to have.
The combat for the game was sluggish however. I was using a 360 controller and moving back and forth, jumping, ducking, all worked fairly well. however actual combat moves such as attacks or using your support, were noticeably slow to go off after a button press. What’s really frustrating is if you’re new to this style of fighter game, you’re going to be struggling to use your friend assist properly, since there’s no explanation on how or when your supposed to use it.
The thing is, if this game was being given away free, as the original Japanese version was, I’d be here saying it’s an okay game. It’s got problems but it’s got loli’s waving big swords around, so even if you suck at it it’s got appeal. However the game isn’t been given away free, rather it’s being sold for £4.50 in the UK. Frankly I don’t see where the money’s going. The ‘localisation’ for this game seems to be negligible at best with only a few lines of translated text and that’s about it. Granted there could be some long story sections later in the game, but even with those I find it hard to see a justification for the price tag. I’ve recently bought quite a few j-rpg’s from steam at full price that were around this price and frankly had more to them to justify the price tag.
If the game was at a higher resolution, say 720, i think it would be worth buying, since it would at least look nice. As it stands now though, I’d say give this a miss. Put your money towards something like SkullGirls, which will be coming to PC shortly.
I had high hopes for this game, so much so i spent weeks trying to get it to run, only to be greatly disappointed.
