The 20 VR Missions contained within the base game were a genuine blocker for many people, due to their unforgiving nature and steep difficulty curve, and this expansion brings more of the same kind of pain.
The expansion adds 30 fresh VR Missions, and comes with just 2 additional trophies to cover them. It's a straight-forward concept, and there really isn't much further context to provide in terms of depth here - Take what you already had from the base game and just add more. Pretty simple.
The Missions include a variety of different tasks, but they're the same tasks that made up the foundations of the original missions. Reaching a specific waypoint within a certain amount of time, clearing the stage of all enemies, defeating all enemies using a specific method etc.
There are some interesting tweaks - Some of the missions now have you playing them from a side-scrolling perspective, rather than third person, some of the stages are littered with insta-kill explosive mines, which is my least favourite tweak, and some are played within the dark. You don't really see enough of these changes to make this feel like a completely fresh experience, and most of the things that do feel familiar centre around the agonising feelings of frustration that came with overcoming the VR Missions from the main game.
Despite there only being 2 trophies, one of which is awarded for just simply beating each of the 30 missions to any requirement, this a gentle reminder that the VR Missions are not exactly light work;
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| Hero of the Metaverse - Set the highest score on every DL-VR Mission. |
The "Hero of the Metaverse" trophy, awarded for Setting the highest score on every DL-VR Mission, requires you to achieve the first place time requirement on each of the 30 new VR Missions. This is exactly the same experience as the "Virtually Flawless" trophy from the base list.
I flew through the first 18 missions with little to no trouble whatsoever, and then suddenly hit the wall. The same wall that I was dreading from the original set of missions. I wasn't lured into any false sense of security here - I fully expected this to happen. It began on mission 19, and continued on and off right through to mission 30.
Everything that was said about the "Virtually Flawless" trophy from the Platinum Difficulty Rating review is applicable here. Strict time limit requirements with almost no margin for error? Check. Tough enemies that come at you in waves? Check. Loads of trial and error? Check. I fully expected more of the same and that's exactly what you get.
I actually think this set of VR Missions is collectively more difficult than those in the base game, and that's saying something given the steepness of that particular challenge. It also contains the toughest VR challenge out of the entire set in VR-DLC Mission 27, which I spent a total of 10-12 hours on alone, which is insane for just a single VR mission. Just for reassurance, this also seems to be the general consensus, so it's just not me and my own personal shortcomings at play here.
Just to add the relevant context, it requires you to defeat all enemies using Zandatsu with a completion time of less than 8 minutes required for first place. Outside of the fact me and the Zandatsu game mechanic just don't really get along - I've always found it to be wildly inconsistent and awkward - there are so many other nuances that contributed to the pain experienced within attempting to beat this mission.
Enemies can suicidally launch themselves off the edge of the map, which will count as a Non-Zandutsu kill and end the mission - an unfortunate circumstance completely outside of your control, and when you get past the tough part, and this happens to you near the end, that's a hard pill to swallow. The volume of enemies attacking you at once within each wave can also interrupt you from completing a Zandutsu kill, which will also prematurely end the mission. The 8 minute time requirement is tight and it's also very easy to get stun locked in situations that you simply can't recover from as you try to withstand combo attacks from facing enemies simultaneously.
I also mentioned above that one of the tweaks to these new set of VR Missions included playing some levels in the dark, which seriously limits visibility and judgement, especially when attempting to block and parry enemy attacks, making any level with this condition much more difficult, and this applies to VR-DLC Mission 27.
I do also want to reiterate how terrible the camera is in this game, and it can't be understated how much it works against you within these VR Missions. It was something I highlighted during the Platinum Difficulty Review, and it's a shame they didn't take the opportunity within this expansion to address something that quite clearly needed fixing - Particularly because you have to block and parry so often within these standout Missions, it makes the design flaw even more critical to success. There is enough working against you here without long-standing, buggy game design playing it's part.
VR-DLC Mission 30 also deserves a mention. I spent a fair few hours trying to beat that too. It requires you to defeat all enemies by any means within a 15 minute time limit for first place, but it pales in comparison to VR-DLC Mission 27.
Despite this matching every expectation I had based on recent prior experience of VR Missions, it didn't make it any less daunting. To spend 15-20 total hours on a DLC package where around 60-70% of that time is spent attempting to beat a single mission is a real test of determination to succeed. Many people would, and probably have, given up the ghost on this under the belief that it just isn't worth the hassle when a Platinum trophy isn't at stake.
I don't necessarily blame them, but then again, I've always been glutton for punishment, and I'll take the greatest solace in the fact that these VR Missions are finally behind me.
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