Nitroplus Blasterz: Heroines Infinite Duel - yep, that's the title

Starting Nitroplus Blasterz: Heroines Infinite Duel, I thought I was in a video game inspired by Jem and the Holograms. Who wouldn't be excited about that?

However, Nitroplus Blasterz is a fighting game that has absolutely nothing to do with its musical opening credits. It was released in Japan last year and came to the US consoles only this month. I was hoping for some cool dubbing but unfortunately, it was not meant to be. The only thing you get are sparse subtitles that don't even cover the fighting banter. I suppose people who are used to playing Japanese games won't mind this, but as a pure close minded Westerner, it did place a barrier between me and the game.

Apart from that fact, I had a blast playing this title. The premise is very simple and the execution straight forward. You get to play either a story mode or individual matches. Either way, it is just basically fighting with no cut scenes, not much dialogue or any superfluous options you might find in a Mortal Kombat or Dead or Alive type game. This can be a good thing or a bad thing. What I loved about Dead or Alive and Mortal Kombat's story modes is that they had specific, beautiful cut scenes that helped the story along and gave fights meaning. However, do you really need meaning when playing a fighting game? Nitroplus Blasterz has the fighting without the fuss. This means that the game is easy to pick up to have some good old fun. And I did.

The gameplay is straight forward and even though some of the adversaries are challenging, you can quickly get better and perform really cool stylish attacks. The latter were very specific depending on your chosen character, which was neat. The characters' choice is varied but not overwhelming. You have to know that all the characters are female though, which obviously appealed to me! GIRL POWER! I only ever pick girls in fighting games so I was really happy with all the different choices I had here. I would easily play every single one of them. I am sure the characters will also appeal to boys, indeed, they are all very anime pretty! They will have great significance to fans of the genre since the girls are from various novels, manga and anime. I was happy to be able to choose between loads of different colors for my characters' costumes. This is a minor detail but I always felt frustrated when I had to win I don't know how many matches to be able to unlock Kasumi's new outfit. That's how shallow I AM!

This fighting game will very much appeal to people familiar with the genre but I wasn't and I still had a good time with it. It's easy to pick up, fast, pretty and entertaining, pretty much everything I want from a fighting title. Have you tried it? what did you think?

I give it a 4/5 cats (ignore the dude in the back)