picked this one up purely on a whim around release without reading much about it. a chibi magical girl beat em up with an old school 32-bitpicked this one up purely on a whim around release without reading much about it. a chibi magical girl beat em up with an old school 32-bit sega saturn vibe complete with pure FM tuneage AND online play? yes please.
i was not disappointed, in fact i was blown away. i expected a diversion for a few nights and this game has really stuck with me. right off the bat though, i'll just say that if you don't enjoy games that follow the japanese tradition of spectacle brawlers with a technical emphasis (DMC, dragon's crown, bayonetta, etc.) then this one isn't gonna do much for you.
it is a straight-up brawler with absolutely no deviation from the classic formula (why fix what ain't broken after all?) beyond the combat system bringing many of the complexities of modern fighting games into play (guard cancel, air dash, tech'ing throws and knockdowns, parries and evasive manuevers and hyper-armor "focus" attacks and combo-breakers and EX meters and... you get the point lol). this mixture of old and new feels so good and it's obvious how much of an emphasis the devs have placed on solid controls and gratuitous player feedback.
it's incredibly satisfying to parry an opponent, launch a special attack, juggle them with toss-ups and mid-air throws to build your meter back over the course of 3-4 seconds and then finish them off with your ultra. by the time your 700-hit combo is over, the individual sounds of the coins and xp blobs hitting the ground becomes so dense that they blur into one grinding tone that decays over the course of several seconds. hell yeah - this is what i came for.
the difficulty is excellent and things really do ramp up as you progress. even at max level the later difficulties are still very challenging, and while the early to mid game can certainly be mashed through by those who are uninterested in the finer details, the bosses and challenge sections will shut these players down really fast as well. some truly epic boss battles that revolve around fighting other characters primarily and will really require you to use all of the techniques. you can also just level the **** up; the leveling system acts as a good tool to let players manage their own level of challenge in an organic way.
and speaking of challenge, i have never seen so many enemies on-screen in a brawler before (the only way you will be able to pick out your character sometimes is by the flash of their strikes), but i've also never seen a brawler that gives you the tools you need to tackle that kind of density. the most complex move on an execution level is something like: => - => - HP+LP, but because of the mobile, multi-hit nature of so many of these attacks and the fluidity and synergy between them and L/H/M attack chains and dash attacks, you are dancing around the room with a range of versatility, mobility and reach that we often only see in fighting games with convoluted inputs and single-frame links.
again, it all feels GREAT. if you take one thing away from my review, know that the game just feels good to play. each character requires a certain finesse to use effectively and they've all been thought-out really well (although it could easily be argued certain characters are more than a little OP and as such you will see them dominating PvP).
and speaking of PvP, ii'd just like to say that it is almost purely prediction-based with solid netcode and a stupidly high skill-ceiling - i've fought players who i literally could not even touch and i've finished the game on it's hardest difficulty with almost every character. if that sounds appealing to you, dive right in, but just be aware of how creamed you are likely going to get.
and to end it, i'll go into the look and performance, two things that matter the least to me when it comes to a system mastery game like this. i adore the cheesy aesthetic and the animations are elastic, expressive and satisfying - they match the tone of the game perfectly and i am always noticing new little details in them even after dozens of hours of playing. there's a decent enemy variety with an emphasis on surreal japanese humor and alright-looking cel-shaded backgrounds; if anything that is my one complaint with the game, that i wish they had gone for hand-drawn backgrounds instead. i think that would've been a little bit outside of this game's budget though considering how much detail they put into the character sprites and animations and in the end, since they are the focus of the action, that was a wise decision imo. it runs at a solid 60FPS and i have never experienced a single dip in the action, even in nightmare+ mode with hundreds (yes, hundreds) of enemies on-screen at once with 3-4 local players and everyone's special attacks flying.
highly recommended to all fans of brawlers and technical action games, i can almost guarantee you will find something to love here.… Expand
