The crossover fighting game Nitroplus Blasterz: Heroines Infinite Duel first appeared in Japanese arcades in 2015. An English version was released on PS3 and PS4 during early 2016, and that version has now made its way to Steam.
Special thanks to XSEED for the review copy.
Test System
This will be an analysis of version 1.00 using the following configuration:
CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K @ 4.6GHz GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 Ti MOBO: ASUS MAXIMUS VIII HERO Storage: Samsung 850 EVO 1TB SSD Display: ASUS ROG Swift PG279Q OS: Windows 10 64-bit
I could not test the game’s online multiplayer, since I could not find a match before release.
Resolution and Frame Rate
Blasterz has a locked internal resolution of 1280×720. This means changing the resolution will not significantly affect performance and selecting a higher resolution will not increase image quality. Ports with a locked internal resolution are typically bad news, but this game’s pixel-art style makes it much easier to forgive; a character’s sprite is going to stay the same resolution whether you’re running at 720p or 4K.
The frame rate is locked at 60FPS. Traditional fighting games are based around fighting moves that are executed after a specific number of frames. This makes them one of the few types of games that are not expected to support variable frame rates.
Graphics Options
2D games with a locked internal resolution typically do not need resolution options. Instead, they need scaling options; linear, anisotropic and nearest neighbour scaling would make an ideal selection. There are no scaling options to be found here, though.
The game’s resolution options draw from an internal set of resolutions, which is an improper implementation, but who cares? The internal resolution will be the same no matter what.
Display modes include windowed and fullscreen. Borderless windowed isn’t here, although you can force it by using an external application. In fact, if you’re using a 1440p, 4K or 5K monitor, you may want to force borderless windowed and set the game’s resolution to 1280×720. This will enable the nearest neighbour scaling I was talking about earlier. Check out these 1440p and 4K screenshot comparisons to see the difference between nearest neighbour and blurry fullscreen; mouse-over the image to switch between the two screenshots.
Rebinding and Controller Support
I hope you’re not expecting to play a fighting game with your mouse, because this game has no mouse support. However, keyboard controls work fine and are rebindable. Every key is configurable except for movement keys: WASD for player 1 and arrow keys for player 2.
I only have Xbox One controllers, so I am not able to test how well Blasterz handles DualShock controllers and fight sticks. However, I experienced no issues while using my Xbox One controllers, which are also remappable.
General Performance
Throughout my testing, everything loaded quickly and I didn’t notice any frame rate hiccups; it stayed at a consistent 60FPS the entire time.
The application’s CPU usage hangs at around 3 to 5 percent and GPU utilisation is usually about 10 percent. It’s hardly a taxing game to run. Considering it can run on a console that’s ten years old, that shouldn’t come as a surprise.
Conclusion
Most of the issues I had with the port of Blasterz were not only small but also easily fixable, so I would personally give this porting effort four stars.
Nitroplus Blasterz: Heroines Infinite Duel is available now on Steam.
Lucky the Port Reporter 