GAME CLEAR No. 195 -- Space Channel 5 VR: Kinda Funky News Flash!

Space Channel 5 VR: Kinda Funky News Flash! (2020, Multiplatform)

Developer: Grounding Inc
Publisher: Grounding Inc
Clear Version: PSVR, PS4
Clear Platform: PSVR, PS4 Pro
Clear Date: 10/18/24

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Why should I care?
Ulala’s long-awaited return won’t satisfy fans looking for a fully realized third entry, but this VR effort is at least a fun bit of exercise.

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Toyota, Honda, Toyota, Honda

This GAME CLEAR is gonna be nearly as brief as this game. Space Channel 5 VR has a runtime under an hour and features the series’s least ambitious and least interesting plot yet. Somehow that doesn’t matter because dancing along to the great tunes with your PlayStation Move controllers feels great and is a genuinely fun excuse to get up and move around. I feared its dance move detection would be finicky and irritating, but it was in fact super responsive and never once annoying! How nice.

Having said that, I’m not sure this is a game that benefits much from being a VR product. The same effect could probably have been achieved with a regular old TV screen and the Move controllers — or dare I say a Kinect. But perhaps dropping it on VR platforms was the only way SEGA would greenlight the licensure of something like this.

If you want to get a little more mileage out of this tiny, tiny game, you can try to get perfect scores on each stage and the endurance mode. They even track how many calories you’re burning as you play. I have no idea how accurate that count is, but I can at least say I worked up an ample sweat while playing through the game.

A delightful morsel of Space Channel 5 action and no more. If you go in with reasonable expectations, you may find something here.