When you haven’t observed, 2022 has far and away grow to be the yr of media conglomerates capitalizing on possession of disparate properties. You can see it clearly within the realm of video video games like MultiVersus and the ultimate boss of wacky crossovers, Fortnite. To not be disregarded, fashionable manga writer Shonen Jump has plunged into the online game pool as properly with a crossover recreation of its personal.
Captain Velvet Meteor: The Jump+ Dimensions is a 2D isometric tactical online game developed by Momo-Pi, the oldsters behind the turn-based puzzle recreation Persephone. You play as Damien, a meek child struggling along with his household’s current transfer from France to Japan. Sadly, Damien doesn’t have the chance to air out his grievances along with his dad and mom as a result of they left him dwelling alone with an inventory of chores. Fortunately for Damien, he’s bought a vivid creativeness to assist him go alongside quicker and fight his niggling anxieties about loneliness. Each time Damien will get overwhelmed, like coping with small discuss with a loud neighbor or calming down his nervous canine, he recontextualizes the situations as if he had been in a manga. Via this lens, he transforms into the manga’s fearless protagonist, Captain Velvet Meteor.
Captain Velvet Meteor’s fight is much like Stay A Stay’s tile-centric fight system, albeit way more simplified. You management Captain Meteor and a Shonen Jump character as they navigate their means by means of puzzles and turn-based battles. As a result of characters share a well being bar, their positioning performs a significant function in how battles play out. Efficiently defeating hordes of enemies rewards you with each a replenished well being bar and elevated motion factors. Whereas preliminary ranges play like a breezy recreation of anime checkers, its later ranges spice issues up by remodeling right into a difficult recreation of chess. Its climactic ultimate boss fights, which regularly embody dope designs like an enormous kaiju canine, are a blitzkrieg of frenetic fight interlaced with traps and waves of enemies.
The place Captain Velvet Meteor shines is in that it doesn’t go the straightforward route by making Damien’s machinations contain heroic workforce ups with well-established Shonen Jump protagonists like Goku from Dragon Ball Z, or Naruto Uzumaki from Naruto (they’re in all probability too busy inflicting mayhem in Fortnite). As a substitute, Damien groups up with newer and reasonably lesser-known shonen protagonists:
- Loid Forger from Spy x Household
- Kafka Hibino from Kaiju No. 8
- Gabimaru from Hell’s Paradise
- Ushio Kofune from Summer time Time Rendering
- Chloé Love and Kai Iod from Ghost Reaper Woman
- Chrome from Coronary heart Gear
- Princess and Ex from ‘Tis Time for “Torture,” Princess
- Slime from Slime Life
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Previous to enjoying Captain Velvet Meteor, I’d solely learn Spy x Household, Kaiju No.8, and Hell’s Paradise and was at a loss every time the opposite roughly 62.5 p.c of Damian’s manga favs appeared on-screen. Whereas most crossover video games ignore the premise of its contrasting properties for the novelty of its nonsensical crossovers, Captain Velvet Meteor avoids this pitfall by crafting an enthralling story that respects the supply materials of its manga with battles that seize their power and tells its personal story.
To my shock, the sport not solely efficiently achieved its not-so-subtle advertising objective of producing my curiosity in studying different manga properties by offering a tough synopsis of their tales, it additionally weaved a compelling story the place every character imparts heartwarming life recommendation to Damien. If that’s not the definition of being a hero, I don’t know what’s.
It’s not typically a online game crafts a considerate story because the baseline for its blatant fanservice crossover, however Captain Velvet Meteor has its cake and eats it too. And it’s rattling scrumptious.