There’s this doujin PC fighting game developed by one guy who used to work for Capcom, featuring an all-female roster and the ability to get a support unit to help you out in battle (hence why it advertises itself as a 2-on-2 fighting game). Unlike modern console games, it has no obligation to make itself beginner-friendly for people who aren’t good at fighting games in the first place.
In Vanguard Princess, a young girl developed magical powers and the government experimented on her. Said experiments triggered a shock wave that gave many other girls powers as well. Clearly, the original holder of those mystical powers is pissed and comes back to destroy the world. Each of the 10 playable girls are out to stop her, and also have their own personal stories to go with it.
That stuff is pretty much all in the manual/opening screens, since the actual unfolding of the story is through the several lines of dialog that pops up every two fights or so. I don’t think anyone who plays arcade fighters do it for the story, so I’ll leave that aside.
Gameplay-wise, there are ten characters to choose from and they all play rather differently, but should be very familiar for fighting game fans. You also get to choose from five support characters who can perform assists in battle.
In terms of difficulty balancing, Vanguard Princess is on the hard side. Even on Easy Mode, the game isn’t all that easy for those who are not well-versed in the genre. Particularly frustrating is the enormous difficulty spike of the final boss, who is ridiculously overpowered no matter what mode you’re on. Rumor has it that she was subjected to incredible AI stupidity in the original release, so the English version “re-balanced” her to make her harder. Thankfully, story mode has an unlimited amount of continues, so there is much room for learning.
The title interface is very barebones, with the only options being story mode and VS mode. Story mode is exactly what it claims to be, and VS mode is the two-player mode where you fight against your friend with both of you on the same keyboard. Clearly, you should invest in some controllers if you want to play this game for long. There’s a practice mode hidden inside VS mode, and online multiplayer can be achieved through some fiddling with external tools and software.
The config menu isn’t exactly exploding with options for customization. You can remap keyboard controls. The controller support is kind of clumsy, especially if you’re using some kind of third-party controller that the game barely recognizes with the d-pad in a weird spot. My third-party USB controller has the analog stick and d-pad positions in reversed spots (as compared to the standard PS3 controller), and what wounded up happening was that I could only use the analog stick for directional controls and not the d-pad. You don’t get to customize your controller’s directional controls. I haven’t tested joystick compatibility since I don’t own one.
There lacks an escape/game end key. Pressing ESC brings up the basic controls menu and pauses the game. Guys, how am I supposed to smoothly end the game if I play fullscreen?
The game visuals are composed of 2D-sprites on 2D backgrounds. The backgrounds look rather plain, but the character spritework is clean and detailed. Character design is rather expected of an all-girl fighter, using tried-but-true bishoujo stereotypes that are easy on the eyes.
If you suck and try to look for some help about the game, you’ll most likely come to some page stocked full of information and terminology familiar only to those involved with fighting games on a regular basis. In short, those people are who the game is for. This game isn’t beginner-friendly, but fighting game fans would probably feel very familiar with it.
