Virgo Versus the Zodiac
Welcome Time Wasters!
Boy, do I have a review for you! It’s rare when I play a game that both shines and sinks at the same time. Often times it’s just one or the other. That’s not the case this week with Virgo Versus the Zodiac.
Virgo Versus the Zodiac is a game all about Virgo heading out on a quest to take out her sister zodiac signs. She seeks to bring purity to the universe and believes that killing heretics will lead it to return to the Golden Age. However, her methods are a bit questionable. Virgo is quick to jump to violence as the answer and really doesn’t come across as a sympathetic character at all. That makes sense as the game’s description says she’s a villain.
I’d go more into the story, but honestly, I didn’t beat this game. Don’t get me wrong, I put a few hours into it, but never got to the end. There are a few reasons for that, but one of them is the writing. This game is incredibly clunky and hard to understand at times. It probably doesn’t help that I’m not really into zodiac signs, horoscopes and that kind of thing. At the same time, there were plenty of other times where I was getting mixed messages over what the game was trying to tell me.
This problem also extends to the combat. Virgo Versus the Zodiac goes for more cutesy names instead of the basics for stats. The same is also true for attack elements, statuses and just about everything else in the game. To top it off, there’s also a weakness triangle to keep track of and color-coding on everything.
The game just dumps this on the player all at once while using terms they have no chance of understanding yet. It makes it hard to really get into the game and that’s only truer due to the nature of the combat.
Virgo Versus the Zodiac may be a turn-based RPG, but it will require fast reflexes. Just about every action in battle requires the player to complete a quick-time event. They aren’t easy, either. I was playing on normal and some of the prompts appeared and were gone again in the blink of an eye. Enemies don’t give off much in the way of tells before an attack and the pace of combat is just dang fast. It makes it hard to keep track of everything and is just stressful. Worst of all, it’s not fun.
To be fair to Virgo Versus the Zodiac, the game does get better the longer the player sticks with it. Gaining more gear gets players a wider array of abilities to use. There are also additional party members later on that make combat more easy to survive. However, it’s still a challenging endeavor and just a couple of mistakes can be enough for the player to lose a battle.
That difficulty is due to Virgo Versus the Zodiac being more puzzle than combat-based. It’s all about managing when to attack, when to defend, what type of attacks to use and so on. There also aren’t random encounters. Instead, every battle is its own unique event and there’s no such thing as a simple victory.
This is probably Virgo Versus the Zodiac’s biggest problem. It just doesn’t give the player time to relax. Sure, there are moments in between battles, but then the player is running around reading all that complex text I mentioned before. Adding to this is that it makes boss battles feel much less epic when every battle is hard. There were times I took down bosses easier than normal encounters. That really kills any kind of build-up there was for that boss and unintentionally diminishes their character at the same time.
So what good is there about Virgo Versus the Zodiac? The visuals are definitely one aspect of the game that stick out. It uses a more simplistic style, but it works incredibly well. There’s also a great amount of care in character designs and the animations are to die for.
The music in Virgo Versus the Zodiac is also great. The various beats throughout the game are a joy to listen to and were one of the only things that kept me playing as long as I did.
It really sucks that Virgo Versus the Zodiac is so needlessly complex. I can tell there’s a great game hiding under here, but a lack of focus stops it from shining like a star. It’s also evident that a lot of care when into the game. However, it’s flaws make it hard to recommend, even if the music and visuals are great.
Virgo Versus the Zodiac isn’t getting a review score. I didn’t beat the game and wouldn’t feel right scoring it because of that. Just understand that I love RPGs and am paid to play and review games, even if I don’t like them, but didn’t beat this one.