Trivia / Virtual-ON

• Acclaimed Flop: The Xbox 360 port of Oratorio Tangram was very well-received by critics overseas. Sadly, it largely went unnoticed and as a result did not meet sales expectations outside of Japan, where the 360 was already not a popular console. Unfortunately, said poor sales performance is also a likely contributing factor to the series' No Export for You reputation, as listed below.
• Bad Export for You: The English version of MARZ loses a LOT of story-related content, suffers from some "Blind Idiot" Translation, and it has shoddy English voice-overs.
• Crossdressing Voices: LDN/Leddon, one of SHBVD members in MARZ, has a male voice actor in English dub, although it shares Japanese voice actor with Sylvie Fang of Rose Sisters.
• Dummied Out: Several pieces of in-game music have gone unreleased on official soundtracks, and are only accessible by going through the game files. The arcade version of Oratorio Tangram ver. 5.66, for example, has prototype versions of a few tracks that would be used in the sequel, FORCE, as well as full rearrangements of the original versions of the credits themes from ver. 5.2 before they were rearranged for 5.4.
• Franchise Killer: MARZ was heavily criticized for changing the versus dynamic into a single player campaign with a generic storyline using FORCE's degraded physics, and bombed in sales. Ironically, characters and enemies that make cameo appearances in other series (such as the Super Robot Wars series) are based on their appearances in MARZ, and the plastic figures of MARZ Virtuaroids do sell well to an extent despite the game's failure. A new title in the series was released after 15 years...
  • ...and as said below, did horribly. Whether it completely sinks the series is yet to be determined, but things don't look favourable for it.
• No Export for You: Hoo boy, this series is practically notorious for falling under this category, especially among other Sega franchises.
  • The Sega Ages 2500 Series Vol. 31: Cyber Troopers Virtual-ON for the PlayStation 2 was released only in Japan, and it's considered the best port of the original game thus far, much to Western fans' dismay.
  • Virtual-ON: FORCE for the Xbox 360 is also a Japan-only port of the series' third installment, but thankfully the game is region-free, making the game import-friendly... if you're willing to spend a lot of money for it (depending where you're importing it from), especially the rare MEMORIAL BOX 15 premium package.
  • Operation Moongate's Model2 Collection re-release on Xbox Live Arcade and Play Station Network is also Japan-only, which has HD graphics superior to the Sega Ages 2500 Series version on PlayStation 2. Needless to say, some people are pissed about this.
  • The PlayStation Network re-release of MARZ also got this end of the stick. Thankfully for those with Japanese PSN account and access to Japanese currency can play MARZ without the laughably bad voice-overs and removed content from the English version. However, Sega has no plans to remake this game into a full overhaul at the time being.
  • This was nearly the case with the Dreamcast version of Oratorio Tangram, as Sega had no plans to release it outside Japan at the time. However, Activision stepped in and published the game in North America, although the network feature was removed, the game didn't see a release in Europe, and the 5.66 disc update was never made available.
  • A Certain Magical Cyber Trooper (Virtual-ON) has practically no chance of ever seeing an overseas release. This is due primarily to licensing issues, but another contributing factor is the game's poor reception in Japan, having low sales and either mixed or negative reviews. Some have even compared its quality to be equivalent to or worse than the likes of FORCE and MARZ. It got so bad, in fact, that Sega outright stopped selling physical copies of the game and removed it completely from the Playstation Store.
  • Given the series' track record, it is unlikely that the Masterpiece: 1995-2001 collection for PS4 will see a release anytime soon overseas.
• Portmanteau Series Nickname: "Oratan" by the fans of Virtual-ON: Oratorio Tangram.
• Recursive Adaptation: A Certain Magical Cyber Trooper (Virtual-ON) started out as a 2016 crossover novel between a light novel series and a video game series, before it was being adapted into a video game in 2018.
• Rule 34 – Creator Reactions: Because of this, Kotoki himself indulges with rather fanservicey female Virtuaroids. One example being the Playboy Bunny versions of Fei-Yen Kn and Angelan from Oratorio Tangram.
• Sequel First: If you live in Japan and have an Xbox 360. Oratorio Tangram Ver.5.66, the game's first sequel, was re-released in 2009 world-wide; Operation Moongate's Model2 Collection Japan-only re-release showed up February 13th, 2013.
• Sequel Gap: You can imagine the shock fans had when A Certain Magical Cyber Trooper (Virtual-ON) was announced for release in 2018, 15 years after 2003's Virtual-ON MARZ.

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