Chapter 150: Justice and Evil Run Wild in the Chaotic City

Because I completely missed the timing to reveal my real face, an atmosphere of "Ah, so he's just going to keep the mask on to the bitter end" settled in, and I was forced to choose the option of having my meals delivered to my room. Well, that aside, the food was genuinely delicious... Free meals are fantastic, mostly because they don't hurt my wallet at all.

Anyway, having dived into the VR world from a completely different approach than usual, I booted up the game that would be the stage for the battle the day after tomorrow—Galaxia Heroes: Chaos. I jumped into training mode for now and was currently agonizing over the character selection screen.

"Even if you say that, the only thing I know about Galaxia Comics characters is what they look like, and I only actually know the characters from the specific comic I read on the maglev..."

At times like this, you just pick based on appearances, though I'm definitely going to test every character at least once eventually. For now, let's try out this samurai-looking character named "Ranzou"...

─── Approximately one hour later.

"Hmm... Well, I've tried them all out, but..."

Because of the nature of the game, you can play not just as heroes, but as sidekicks and villains too. Taking every character for a test drive was, well, exhausting. That said, after moving around a bit, I realized that the claim of it using ShanFro's technology was absolutely true.

Games before ShanFro were always plagued by a certain unavoidable fate: the sense of incongruity in movement caused by the difference between your real-life physique and your in-game avatar's body shape.
For example, if a tall, slender person in real life uses an avatar with a dwarven build, they will inevitably struggle with the awkwardness of adjusting their walking style, body mechanics, limb length, and overall proportions. Because of this, Full-Dive VR games fundamentally tended to reference the player's real-life physical body for their avatar. FPS games in particular—where you have a lot of freedom in setting up your "Individual"—were considered "easy to move in" for this very reason.

Conversely, fighting games had terrible synergy with Full-Dive VR. By their very nature, fighting games require you to control characters with wildly different physical traits—fat, tall, and sometimes even non-human. Unlike the archaic era of just moving a stick and pressing buttons, Full-Dive fighting gamers required a preliminary phase: "Getting used to their main character's physical body." Because of this, there were quite a few fighting games like Benpi that actually allowed you to map your real-life body proportions onto the avatar.
While I wouldn't go as far as saying they were morbidly obese, players whose body types weren't suited for fighting game avatars were destined to suffer from the disconnect between how they moved their bodies in real life versus in VR. This was also one of the reasons why people said Full-Dive VR should only be played by able-bodied, healthy individuals.
In short, traditional Full-Dive VR was extremely harsh on fat people.

But Shangri-La Frontier perfectly solved that problem, through some unknown principle. Whether you made your avatar taller, shorter, fatter, or just skin and bones, a player could perfectly control an avatar of any build or body type, as if that had been their true body from the very beginning.
And it seems that trait carried over to this game, which shares ShanFro's blood. I took a giant and a short stack out for a spin, and so far, I haven't felt any sluggishness or awkwardness in movement due to the differing body types.

"For now, I'll narrow down the candidates for the actual match to about five... I'll decide my final pick between today and tomorrow."

Even though the game hasn't officially launched yet, I could already choose my avatar from a roster of over twenty characters. From those, I picked out five that I personally found easy to use.

The first candidate: Ranzou. Apparently written as "Storm Storehouse" (Ranzou), he's a so-called samurai (though not actually a samurai) character—an old-man-type hero who dual-wields Japanese swords like Miyamoto Musashi. Partly because his combat style is close to my (Sunraku's) style in ShanFro, but mostly because his Special Move is a teleportation-like Iaido technique, which I rate very highly.

The second candidate: Cursed Prison. As the name suggests, he's a villain whose power is sealed by cursed armor, and he's the archenemy of Sylvia-whatever's Meteos. He can absorb cars, rubble, and other objects to strengthen his armor, but due to that mechanic, you have to get creative to compensate for his low mobility. He has a certain "romantic" gimmick move, and factoring that in, he's a very fun character to play.

The third candidate: Meteos. Katzo said Sylvia-whatever is the same type of gamer as me... and just as he said, her main character is extremely easy for me to use. His mobility is absolutely off the charts. If you can overlook the weakness of having to stop completely to make a sharp turn, you can seize complete control of distancing through his explosive straight-line dashes... Yeah, this is definitely the type of character who dies the moment he's forced to play defense.

The fourth candidate: Twinkle Pixie. The name already radiates a certain aura, but she's a female character. A heroine-type character focusing on fairy-like cuteness... is just a facade; her true nature is a clump of pure annoyance specialized for Infighting (Ultra Close-Quarters Combat). Her entire combo structure consists of "Get close," "Bind their movement," and "Beat them with a stick." She feels less like a fairy and more like some kind of evil demon.

And the fifth candidate: Psy-borg Lord. A character who merges psychic powers and cybernetics, armed with projectiles. Honestly, you could say the projectiles are his main body. It's an incredibly easy-to-understand character concept... meaning, "If they get close, you die." Still, if you chain his abundant step-dodges perfectly with his projectiles, you can unilaterally beat down the opponent. He requires a lot of technical skill for positioning, making him a character quite suited to my tastes.

"For now, I'll play some PvP matches with these five and make my final decision... It's 9:52 PM, huh."

We're supposed to group up online at 10:00 PM, but that doesn't mean the server is closed until exactly 10:00. I figured I might as well connect now since I'll be waiting for matchmaking anyway...

[Matchmaking with Nu2meg successful. Transitioning to Character Selection Screen.]

"Nwah!?"

Because the matchmaking popped almost instantly, I let out a stupid sound. In this game, the character you used most recently is set as your default avatar on the character select screen, so right now, an incredibly handsome, highly mechanical cyborg is showing off an idiot's expression on screen... No, that doesn't matter right now.

"This name... I see. I'm going to have to prove my skill right away, huh."

It's not Katzo. It's not Pencilgon. In that case, it's obvious who this is. This single match carries the same weight as the actual event.

(I should have asked about Natsume-shi's playstyle... Katzo already blabbed mine to her... Damn you, 'Can't-trigger-Uniques-on-my-own' Man.)

Now, what should I do? If we're going purely by ease of use, it's Meteos or Ranzou, but if I want to scout out an opponent I'm facing for the first time, Psy-borg Lord or Cursed Prison are solid choices. Twinkle Pixie is too risky unless you already know the opponent's habits to some extent, so she's a pass this time.

"...Alright."

Even the omnipotent entity Galaxeus could not foresee the emergence of the unidentified existence known as "Chaos." Desiring neither harmony nor destruction, but a chaos of endless battle, this entity absorbed heroes and villains from all worlds, trapping them in its own realm: "Chaos City."
Will heroes who uphold differing ideals join forces? Will villains who prioritize their own desires turn on each other? Or will sworn enemies, hero and villain alike, form tag teams!? In the City of Chaos, the transcendent entity laughs───!!

That's the lore for this game, but because of that setting, the combat rules differ significantly from traditional fighting games.

First, there are two victory conditions. The first is to Knock Out... in other words, defeat your opponent. This is the main objective since it's a fighting game, but for a certain reason, just beating the opponent down isn't always the answer.
The second victory condition is to secure the "Chaos Cube," which is randomly placed somewhere in the massive battlefield of "Chaos City."

Typically, the template for a fighting game is to battle within an enclosed arena-like stage. But in Galaxia Heroes: Chaos, an entire city is the battlefield, and objects are randomly rearranged every single match, meaning the landscape changes every time.
If that's the case, you'd think the optimal strategy would be to completely ignore the opponent, pick a highly mobile character—like Meteos—and secure the Chaos Cube as fast as possible. But alas, it's not that simple.

Depending on the character used, players start the match with either a "Heroic Gauge" or a "Villainic Gauge." And you cannot collect the Chaos Cube unless this gauge is filled. As for what you have to do to fill this gauge... well, it probably goes without saying.
By the way, I heard that if two Villains or two Heroes are matched against each other, NPC Heroes or Villains will spawn to compensate.

"Let's see... It looks like my opponent chose a Villain character."

When a Hero vs. Villain match occurs, the Villain player is given thirty seconds of preparation time. It's probably a rule to enforce the classic trope of the Hero arriving late to the scene, but during that time, the Villain can fill their gauge, set traps, or buff themselves.
Looking only at that, it might seem like the Villain has the advantage, but Hero characters can enlist the help of NPCs scattered throughout Chaos City. For example, they can gather eyewitness accounts to pinpoint a hiding Villain's location, or perform disaster relief to fill their Heroic Gauge.

Do you focus purely on defeating the enemy, or do you run to secure the Cube...? Even though it's a fighting game, it feels heavily slanted toward a strategy game.

"Ah, miss over there. Did you happen to see a ruffian causing a ruckus around here?"

"A-a monster is rampaging over that way... My husband might be there...!!"

"I see... By the way, are there any sweet shops around here?"

"Who cares about that right now! Shall I direct you to a nursing home instead!?"

Yeah, I knew it. Ignoring the woman glaring at the old man who suddenly asked an insane question, I realized the true nature of this game. Offline solo play... Even as a tester for actual gameplay footage, I didn't have access to the full release version, but even in the simple training mode, I could still interact with NPCs.
So naturally, I tested a few things out. I tried taking a child hostage as a Villain, repeatedly performing disaster relief as a Hero, and saying obnoxiously cheesy lines. And through this final test, I confirmed it.

The true nature of this game is a simulation game.

Author's Afterword

To be perfectly blunt, if ShanFro is a game five generations ahead of its time, Galaxia Heroes: Chaos is about 3.5 generations ahead.
While the NPC AI is certainly excellent, it is several steps inferior to ShanFro's. Their ability to answer questions is impressive, but it's the type of intelligence where the conversation loops if you talk to them five or six times.
Though, there are rumors that an absurd amount of money exchanged hands to make even that happen.