3 bar menu

ShangriLa Frontier Chapter 150 Part 1

Translator: Kurehashi Aiko

Editor: ryunakama

Chapter 150: Justice and Evil Running Around the City of Chaos Part 1

Because I kept on missing the timing to reveal my real face, apparently it was decided that I was going to stay like that for the whole duration of this event. Because of that I used the option of having my meal delivered to my room, and it was nothing short of delicious! Free food is great. Not only is it delicious, but it also won’t hurt my wallet.

With that unusual approach I make myself comfortable in the VR device and dive right into the world of the game that is going to be the stage of our battle in the near future…… Galaxia Heroes: Burst. Once I log in, I go to the training mode and stop at the colorful character selection screen.

「That being said, I know only so much about Galaxia as that comic book was able to tell me, and I know only the characters from the comic book……」

For starters, I decided to use the character whose visuals appealed to me the most, but I ultimately planned on using every single one of them. But for now, I chose the samurai-like looking “Ranzo”……

–– Just like that, about one hour has passed.

「Hmm, I’ve been using it for a while now, but……」

Due to the characteristics of this game you could play not only as the Heroes, but also as side characters and Villains, so getting through all of them was a rather long and tiring process. But once I did start playing, it was true that the physics of this game were much like that of ShanFro.

Before ShanFro, every Full Dive game suffered from the same downside: the feeling of uneasiness that was created by the difference in which your own body moved as compared to your virtual avatar. For example, when a tall and slim person wanted to use a short and burly character, like a Dwarf, there would be all kinds of incongruities and feelings of unrest caused by the sudden change of your physique. That is why the way to reduce that feeling of uneasiness as much as possible was the main challenge awaiting game developers, because it could be a game-breaking issue especially in the titles that required precision of movement, like any FPS out there.

Of course, there are some games out there that are not compatible with the VR technology, and that would be quite problematic to adapt into the Full Dive environment. Such games required a whole different approach to game mechanics, because what in the past could be done by merely pressing a single button was now the case of a whole bunch of different actions accompanied by the need of getting used to your new “avatar’s” move sets. As a result, you’d often be left with the final product suffering from what I like to call a “Crap” syndrome.

Also, there was a matter of body proportions, where fat or obese people stated that they were experiencing problems with enjoying the system because of seizures or nausea. So it was also advocated that in order to harness the full potential of the Full-Dive system, a healthy body was as much of a requirement as a healthy mind.

But ShanFro managed to solve all of the above issues without much of a problem. No matter your body proportion and physical condition, from the very beginning your avatar felt as though it was your own body. Needless to say, the way in which you were able to operate it was much easier than in other games.

So it was apparent from the get-go that this game was taking after ShanFro. I tried to use a whole variety of characters, from small ones to giants, from slim to fat, but every time they operated in a smooth and natural way, without any issues or difficulties.

「For now, let’s narrow down the number of the characters I can use in the match to about five…… But should I decide on the actual character today, or maybe wait until tomorrow?」

At this stage the game has around twenty characters that you can use, so I wanted to narrow down the number of potential candidates to around five, just to be on the safe side.

First is this “Ranzo” guy. His name is Arashizou Ranzo and he is a self-proclaimed Samurai (not the actual one). Just like my Sanraku from ShanFro, he favors dual wielding in battle and his special technique is the powerful Iai-jutsu strike, which also allows him to move instantaneously.

Next candidate is called “Cursed Prison”. It is a villain who is encased in a powerful armor, just like his name suggests, and he’s the arch-nemesis of Meetias. His special ability allows him to infuse various elements of the environment into his armor, like tanks and cars, but because of that you need to develop some sort of strategy to compensate for your poor mobility. This ability sounded really interesting and I could already tell that it was going to be a fun character to use.

Third candidate is called Meetias. Like Katsu said, he is the main character of Sylvia Goldberg, but if our playstyles really are similar, then I should be able to use him quite easily as well. His strong point was his speed and mobility. He was able to cover huge distances in a matter of seconds, but the downside was that he had trouble with making sharp curves. But he was ideal for closing the distance to the enemy in the blink of an eye. As a downside, his defenses are paper-thin. Sounds familiar?

Fourth candidate…… “Tinkle Pixie”. Its name could already be an indication, but it was a female character. It was a character that looked just like a fairy and it was just as cute…… that being said, it was a character that specialized in close quarters combat. The vast majority of her movements consist of things such as “gap-closers”, “movement sealing” and “distance control”.

The fifth candidate was going to be “PSY Cyborg Road”. A flying character that combines the use of psychic powers with the abilities of the cyborg. In other words it is the character that relies solely on projectile weapons and dies instantly when approached by the enemy. However, its ability to kite its enemies and slowly murder them from afar was greatly appealing to me and I could already tell that it was going to be one of my favorite characters.