Video Game Vintage Title: Cyber Troopers Virtual-On Force

Cyber Troopers Virtual-On Force

Cyber Troopers Virtual-On Force is a 3D Mecha fighting game developed by Sega AM3 and published by Sega. It was released in Japanese arcades only on the Sega Hikaru arcade system board in 2001. Following its initial release, there was initially no home console port of the game due to the Hikaru's superior graphical capabilities. A region free home port of the game was announced and released on the Xbox 360 on December 22, 2010.

The logo reads "Virtual On 4 Force," even though Force is the third Virtual On title to be released in arcades. The "4" possibly refers to the fact that four players can compete simultaneously.

Cyber Troopers Virtual-On Force Gameplay

Force differs from previous versions of the series in that it features 4-players, 2-on-2 team matches. The battle system is heavily simplified from the incredibly fast and complex Oratorio Tangram system to balance the increase in number of players. The left-turbo function is removed, and the speed is significantly slower. The game website states this as a side-effect of the V-converters being less efficient than the Mars crystals. The machine uses a magnetic card system to record player data, with the cards being called a "VO4 Pilot's License". Players start by choosing a base virtuariod, which will open up other variants in its family tree as the player plays more of the game. Because of this design, a large number of Virtuaroid variants exist, and the game has the largest VR roster of any game in the series name so far.

The VO4 Pilot's License can be used with the VO4 Terminal, which lets players view records, set the pilot name, swap color schemes or use another available Virtuaroid. During the lifespan of the game, an upgraded version named Virtual On Force M.S.B.S. Ver7.7, with new Virtuaroids, new stages and new magnetic card face designs.

Virtual-On Marz can be considered the spiritual home console version of Force, since Marz took its rules, stages and the Virtuaroids from Force, though without support for 4-player matches and only taking a select few Virtuaroids, while leaving most of the variants out due to storage constraints of the game.