When you’re sick and scared, who’s going to save you from those pesky bacteria? Vita-Boy and Mina-Girl, if you guessed it, are coming to the rescue! WayForward is back at it again along with co-developer Limited Run with their latest title, Vitamin Connection, coming straight into the palms of your hands through the means of the Nintendo Switch.
Please welcome the stars of the show, Vita-Boy and Mina-Girl!
The game’s main story follows the adventures of these two lovable characters saving the world and a family saturated with nasty bacteria hindering people from doing whatever they please. Their acts ranging from curing a little boy who wishes to go onto a field trip with his classmates, to preventing a bacterial meteor strike threatening to take over the world.
Vitamin Connection can be played either together with a friend by using two joy-cons or by yourself through the means of a Pro Controller, handheld mode, or the joy-con grip controller, though you don’t necessarily need the grip as you can just play with two joy-cons in both hands perfectly fine.
The controls are all generally the same when it comes to either using a controller or handheld mode. The controls are quite intuitive, as they utilize all of the primary buttons and the motion sensor of the controller you are using. You generally move around and shoot enemies with the analog sticks, and rotate the Capsule Ship with the trigger buttons. You can also change the speed of your ship throughout the levels, and finally, you use the motion sensor to control tools such as your Claw Module by activating it with the D-pad. They’re quite simple to get used to and they are fun to use once you learn how to play. You typically won’t forget how to play even after not playing for a few days.
The game shows what different control schemes can be used for single-player mode.
The two-player joy-con controls are just as simple, as player one has to move the ship around with one joy-con, while the other player has to use the claw module and shoot enemies with the other joy-con, so it’s like playing one player mode, but you each have to use one part of the controls of the ships.
The gameplay mainly consists of traversing an organism to clear out the bacterial infections or viruses that plague it and reach the infected part of the organism to cleanse of the bacteria there in a fun minigame. The game’s “bosses” are mainly met through these points, for example, one of them could be at the brain, where you would defeat them, while the other infected body parts include the ears and eyes and you play mini-games to clear them of the pesky bacteria making their insides all filthy.
The vita-duo stops at the eye to rid it of its irritations by cleansing the bacteria all away through the means of a mini-game.
There is an abundance of mini-games in this game.
This game goes from “hilariously easy” to “why is this so HARD?” from start to finish. The game never bores you, even if the game is a bit repetitive, as you go from point A to point B almost the entire time, doing the same mini-games repeatedly, the only difference being that they get a bit more challenging the further you get in the game, therefore if you’re looking for a decently hard indie game that isn’t too crazy, this could be the one for you.
To answer the question, surprisingly, not enough for a $20 game. There are other games that get your money’s worth out of the $20 category, but by all means, the game isn’t lacking in content. There are about roughly 6 chapters in the main story, along with 5 bonus chapters that you can play together cooperatively as well. It also has a “New Game Pro” mode, where you play as Pro-Biotic, who has a significant role in the game’s story, which speaking of story, is really nice as there is a full voice-acting cast for the game (except Vita-Boy and Mina-Girl surprisingly), and you get cutscenes while you play the game! The game typically lasts for about 3-6 hours, which only includes the campaign, and along with the bonus campaign, however, if you’re an experienced player, you may be able to finish the game in about 2-3 hours if you put the time and effort into doing so.
The main menu of the game allows you to directly select the story mode on the top, and the mini-games on the bottom, which are the same for both of the single-player and multiplayer modes.
Aside from the sort of repetitive gameplay, nice control scheme, and short campaign, which lasts for about 3-6 hours including the main campaign along with the bonus chapters (stories), the actual presentation of the game is outstanding. The cartoony visuals of the game are quite detailed, from the way the enemies look, to the backgrounds of the areas that you go through being filled to the brim with detail.
Even in the mini-games, the detail of both what is in the foreground and background look mina-mazing!
It’s time to talk about the elephant in the room here, the soundtrack. Props must be given to the team behind the game for giving it a full-soundtrack with a lot of amazing songs, but wow, does it get annoying after a short while. You will constantly hear someone singing different lyrics, but hitting what sounds the same yet different high notes for about the majority of the game, as you mainly listen to the annoying part of the soundtrack as you traverse the aforementioned organisms until you get to a cutscene of course, then the game shuts up for a moment to give that beautiful voice-acting and cool background music some time to shine in the spotlight!
Oh boy, this is where Vitamin Connection begins to show the money you spent on the game’s worth because there are many mini-games which you can play either with a friend or alone. The game has separate save files for the coop-mode and single-player mode, so if you’re looking to split your saves and play the game together with someone and keep your single-player separate, it’ll allow you to split progress if that’s what you desire, though some people might not want this. Additionally, there is also a New Game Pro mode in the game once you beat the main campaign and the Bonus campaign which you will end up completing quickly if you’re an experienced player.
Vitamin Connection, despite its several flaws, is a fun and forgiving indie title. It may have its moments where it invokes absolute rage inside of you, but that rage slowly drifts away once you look past how fun the gameplay is even when playing it alone or with a friend, and when you appreciate the sheer effort the developers and voice actors placed into the actual story and gameplay of the game, it sure is vita-enjoyable to run through the game, even in its challenging New Game Pro mode! All-in-all, looking past its annoying soundtrack, and its weird save file issue when it comes to multiplayer and single-player modes, Vitamin Connection is worth the money you spend on it.
And that’s all folks!
Vitamin Connection gets a score of 7/10.
