Expand your arsenal of deadly ninja weapons with this expansion pack containing the Kusarigama, Kigiri, and the Slugger. The Kusarigama acts like a kama in close quarters combat, but can be extended into a sickle and chain and used as a flailing weapon. Three new weapons make their debut in this DLC pack, and at $4 I say this is worth it for fans of the game. Credit: Mixed Realms.

You know that bit in The Matrix when Keanu Reeves goes, 'I know Kung Fu!'? Well I had a few moments of realisation just like that during my first hands-on session with the PSVR port of Sairento VR.

In this week's episode of Ian's VR Corner, you can watch me go from complete beginner to something resembling a Cyber-Ninja and best of all, you'll be able to hear my uncontrollable giggles of excitement when I do!

Sairento VR released on PC platforms in January last year to rave reviews and I've been looking forward to its PSVR release ever since I watched a launch trailer for it way back when.

It showed players effortlessly leaping around levels, decapitating enemies with a cyber-sword and blowing them to bits with dual-wielded weapons. All in glorious, super-cool, Matrix-style slow-motion.

That's the stuff VR dreams are made of sure, but how does the gameplay in a flashy trailer compare to the gameplay in the PSVR release?

Well for a start, don't go into Sairento VR expecting to be a badass from the off. There's an incredibly steep learning curve here and there's a lot of things you'll need to learn in order to feel comfortable when navigating the levels. Movement is teleportation based, but there's a reason for that as it allows you to double jump, bounce off or run along walls and scale great heights.

The dual Move control scheme makes this feel super awkward at first, but after about 15 minutes I started to get the hang of it and that's when the fun really began. The first couple of levels really ease you into things, but by the third, the action is relentless and enemies come at you rapidly, shooting and hitting you from all angles.

This onslaught is terribly frustrating at first but it forces you to learn quickly and it wasn't long before I was chaining leaps and bounds together with slow-motion headshots and slick, slide kills with my blade. A word of warning though, (and this could have been down to how hot my room was at the time of recording) all this fast-paced fighting does turn into a bit of a physical work out. Toca after school apk. A combination of that and the adrenaline rush from performing some awesome kills definitely worked me up into a bit of a sweat!

When everything does start to click though, the combat becomes so absorbing that it's easy to forget about the normal world that exists outside of your headset. That's why it's well worth putting in the hours to practice your skills because when everything is going your way and you're flowing through the levels, Sairento VR is one hell of an experience.

Sairento VR sits on the 'incredibly intense' side of the VR comfort scale though, so bare that in mind if you're new to the medium as I can imagine all that flipping, floating and falling causing some extreme nausea. For me, everything was fine and I felt no discomfort at all so if you're experienced with VR and want to live out your Kill Bill, gun-fu fantasies, I couldn't recommend this more.

Sairento VR releases digitally and physically for PSVR in Europe on the 5th of July

If you enjoyed this episode of Ian's VR Corner, you can catch up with my previous adventures over on YouTube in our VR playlist, where I've covered Asgard's Wrath, Ghost Giant and Five Nights at Freddy's VR. You can also read our list of best PSVR games.

Sairento VR is a first-person shooter and free combat virtual realityvideo game developed by Singapore-based Mixed Realms and Swag Soft and released for the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift platforms on February 6, 2018.^[1] The game was release for the PlayStation VR on July 5, 2019, and an Oculus Quest version titled Sairento Untethered was released on June 27, 2019.^[2][3][4][5]

Plot[edit]

Sairento VR takes players on a journey into the darkest possibilities of humanity's high-tech future in the megacity of the Tokyo Cluster, 2066 AD.Players step into the shoes of Chieko Hatsuri, an experienced cyber ninja agent with the clandestine Sairento Organisation. For over ten years, Chieko has helped conduct political espionage and combat operations across the globe to ensure stability and security for Japan. However, in January 2066, a series of terrorist attacks in the Tokyo Cluster push Chieko and her handler Broke past breaking point, ultimately destroying Sairento from within and destabilising the entire developed world. The attacks that take place plunge Chieko and Broke into the fray of an urban warzone, leaving them without support while they try to find the attacks’ perpetrators. They discover that their enemy's strategy includes hacking the in-brain computers of countless Japanese civilians, toying with their senses and forcing them to enact the hackers’ wills. The conspiracy goes deeper: Chieko and Broke find evidence that the Sairento Organisation itself has been compromised by the hackers. Many of the ‘soldiers’ Chieko has been dispatching during gameplay have been either Chieko's colleagues or average civilians, manipulated unwittingly into being soldiers for a mysterious cause.In the game's climax, players will discover that the Sairento Organisation's historic nemesis, the Nenshu Group, gained access to the firmware behind mind-computer interface systems. Nenshu's ultimate plan of anarchic technological revolution has succeeded.^[6]

Gameplay[edit]

Players take on the identity of a futuristic cyber ninja warrior and are given a range of missions to complete. Each mission offers a unique location filled with enemies the player must eliminate using a variety of skills and weapons closely associated with ninjas. Examples of moves players can make are wall-runs, power slides, triple jumps and a special ability to slow time down. Examples of weapons players can use range from modern weapons like guns to traditional ones like the bow and arrow, kunai, shuriken, katana and glaive. Players can upgrade their skills and weapons by discovering relics while playing the missions and deploying them to a skill tree.^[7]

Reception[edit]

On Steam, it is one of the highest rated VR games with a 94% overall rating. The game was also covered by Youtubers such as Node, Nathie and JoshDub and also websites like RoadtoVR, UploadVR and Mogura VR. Sairento VR was featured in Pax East 2017 in Boston by the Hardlight VR haptic suit manufacturer as their showcase game and was very popular with the visitors. Sairento VR was also specially covered in Singapore's national newspaper Straits Times on Singapore's National Day.^{[8][9][10][11]}

Development[edit]

Sairento VR was jointly developed by Mixed Realms Pte Ltd and its parent company Swag Soft Holdings Pte Ltd, a mobile app development company from Singapore. It was spearheaded by VR and Game Lead Chalit Noonchoo, Creative Director Edrienne Torres, Executive Producers Ngo Chee Yong and Aldric Chang.^[12]

Sources[edit]

• 'Camera, lights, action .. and all made in Singapore'. Straitstimes.com. 9 August 2017. Retrieved 8 January 2018.
• 'ST reviews the best made-in-Singapore games'. Straitstimes.com. 13 December 2017. Retrieved 8 January 2018.
• 'Sairento VR review: Fast-paced ninja action with a shuriken serving of role-play - Pocket-lint'. Pocket-lint.com. Retrieved 8 January 2018.
• 'Sairento VR Game Review'. Vrbeginnersguide.com. Retrieved 8 January 2018.
• Arguinbaev, Marat. 'Sairento VR Review – Gory Samurai Action With Fun Controls - thevrbase'. The VR Base. Retrieved 8 January 2018.

References[edit]

1. ^ ^ab'We Are Out Of Early Access!'. Steam. Retrieved 16 October 2019.
2. ^ ^abGraham, Peter (26 June 2019). 'Sairento Untethered Coming to Oculus Quest This Week'. VR Focus. Retrieved 16 October 2019.
3. ^'『Sairento VR』はあっという間にリクープ成功'. SocialVRinfo. June 2, 2017. Retrieved June 25, 2017.
4. ^Chok, Lionel (March 8, 2017). 'This Is Where You'll Find Some Of The Most Cutting Edge VR Arcades In Asia'. Forbes. Retrieved March 19, 2017.
5. ^'Sairento VR's Full Release Date Confirmed'. December 14, 2017. Retrieved January 10, 2017.
6. ^'《默者VR》评测:伤害爆炸,近战骑脸怎么输!'. 17178. May 18, 2017. Retrieved June 11, 2017.
7. ^'Sairento VR – PC/VR Preview'. CGR. May 16, 2017. Retrieved May 28, 2017.
8. ^'PAX East 2017: A beacon of light in a city of ice'. HAOGamers. March 19, 2017. Retrieved June 9, 2017.
9. ^'Sairento VR Is Like The Matrix Mixed With Kill Bill Sword-Fighting'. UploadVR. May 5, 2017. Retrieved June 2, 2017.
10. ^'Hardlight VR $499 Haptic Suit Kickstarter Passes $80k Target'. RoadtoVR. February 24, 2017. Retrieved March 18, 2017.
11. ^Bear, Autumn (January 3, 2017). 'シンガポール発の忍者VRゲーム『Sairento VR』高評価が相次ぐ'. MoguraVR. Retrieved March 25, 2017.
12. ^Logarta, Michael (March 16, 2017). 'Pinay's Creative Vision Helps Shape VR Game'. GMA News. Retrieved March 28, 2017.

External links[edit]