Vision Soft Reset is a 2D Metroidvania game by Mark Radocy. The main character is Oracle, a cyborg who can see the future. Oracle travels with her friend Wally to explore the mysterious Seudar Isle and study the Endoplanetary Shield, a device which prevents the planet's core from exploding. However, when they arrive, they discover that the shield is failing and is about to explode, requiring Oracle to use her future sight to explore different possible timelines to find a way to prevent disaster.
Oracle's ability to see the future is integrated into the gameplay in several ways. Oracle can see enemy attacks before they happen, rewind short stretches of time to undo mistakes in platforming and combat, or rewind to her last Save Point to choose a different path through the game entirely, using the information she gained from the previous timeline. Powerups (stored as information in her suit) can also be brought back this way, meaning that Oracle can find a powerup deep in the caves, then rewind time to use it at the beginning of the game.
Vision Soft Reset contains examples of the following tropes:
- Badass Adorable: It's eventually revealed that Oracle is a cute slug-like creature in human shaped armor.
- Bad Future: The post-Meltdown future is a volcanic wasteland.
- Climactic Volcano Backdrop: The final boss is fought in the Bad Future after the shield breaks, on top of a mountain peak that gives a great view of the volcanic wasteland.
- Exact Time to Failure: The Endoplanetary Shield will fail exactly 20 minutes after the main characters land on Seudar Isle.
- "Groundhog Day" Loop: The game involves trying different routes through a 20-minute timeline until you finally find a way to prevent the shield from breaking.
- Hopeless Boss Fight: The Salesman ambushes Oracle without her suit, and taunts her about how no timeline can lead to victory from there. Fortunately, Oracle already has what she came for, so you can simply rewind to your last chamber.
- Mirror Boss: The final boss can rewind time just like Oracle can. He's also limited by Focus in the same way - he'll rewind the first couple of attacks you land on him, but eventually he'll stop doing that and you can start to do damage.
- Mission Control: Wally stays in the ship and occasionally offers advice over the radio.
- Mundane Solution: The Salesman is motivated by his inability to remember the past. Oracle asks if he's tried writing things down.
- Non-Action Guy: Wally is an ordinary human.
- Ontological Mystery: Hyperebas like Oracle can see about 30 minutes into the future, but can't remember more than 30 minutes into the past. Wally will occasionally reference something that Oracle did in the past, but for the most part Oracle's origins are a mystery.
- Poison Mushroom: One powerup late in the game is actually a computer virus that causes Oracle to see floating black cubes that injure her. And since it's information rather than a physical item, the virus isn't affected by rewinds.
- Power Armor: Oracle's suit.
- Save Point: Time Chambers serve this function, although information you gather is saved as soon as you find it.
- Shout-Out: The Big Bad "Salesman" is dressed exactly like "The Merchant" from Resident Evil 4.
- Talking the Monster to Death: After Oracle defeats the final boss, she learns where he first arrived on the island and travels back to confront him before he begins his plans. When he realizes the jig is up, he abandons his plans peacefully.
- The Watson: Wally plays this role throughout the tutorial - as he can't see Oracle's visions, he asks some questions like "How did you know the code to that door?" that give Oracle a reason to explain how her time travel works.
- What the Fu Are You Doing?: Sherivice covers his eyes and attacks blindly to try and mess with Oracle's visions. The downside, of course, is that he can't aim. He ends up hitting himself in the face with his own attack.
- Wrong Time-Travel Savvy: Sherivice, after learning that you can see the future, covers his eyes and says "You can't predict my moves if even I don't know what I'm going to do!" Unfortunately, Oracle's powers don't work that way.
