Excellent game, lots of fun. 10/10 please play.
Two main complaints I see about this game are: (1) over sexualization; and (2) lack of gameplay depth. I will address both.
This game is not supposed to be serious, it is supposed to be funny. Maybe a little shocking. The antagonist knows that he is a creeper. He does goofy dances while babbling about fetishes. He knows he isExcellent game, lots of fun. 10/10 please play.
Two main complaints I see about this game are: (1) over sexualization; and (2) lack of gameplay depth. I will address both.
This game is not supposed to be serious, it is supposed to be funny. Maybe a little shocking. The antagonist knows that he is a creeper. He does goofy dances while babbling about fetishes. He knows he is objectifying women, the whole plot is he's trying to "collect" them and make them fight each other like super heroine barbie dolls in his pervy fantasy world. That's what makes him the villain. The plot has a bit of a fourth wall thing going on too, so he will definitely make you uncomfortable.
Also, these sorts of costumes have been normalized. They are complaining about a juvenile male fantasy in a fighting game, what did they expect? There are literally dozens of swimsuits, pajamas, revealing party dresses, leotards, and tons of cleavage and bare bottoms in Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Blazblue, other SNK, Dead or Alive, etc. I guess these critics just don't like being confronted with how it's actually lewd? Yes there is a lot of sexualization in this game. It serves a narrative purpose. Anyone complaining about it is totally missing the point, and it would be hypocritical for them to dismiss the same (perhaps even more arbitrary) issues in other fighters.
As for gameplay. The only buttons are light attack, heavy attack, special attack, throw, block, character swap, and super.
Running forward with a heavy attack will give you a dash attack that can lead to a wall bounce combo. Grabbing will beat a blocking opponent. You can grab opponents in mid air. Long strings can cause a blocking opponent to become dizzy if they block too much. You can also air dash to make your aerial approaches ambiguous. You can cancel the ending frames of your attacks into special moves by spending meter, giving you more damage. You can cancel your special moves into super, if you have enough meter. If you get blocked or miss, you can end up getting over-extended and can take a bunch of damage.
The right joystick uses items you can pick up mid-battle, which introduce some randomness. Items give your opponent another thing to manage, can be used on offense or defense.
Directional inputs can change your special attack and your throw, and depending on the character your super. Not your light or heavy. There are no motion inputs. No crouch. Block is relegated to a button instead of your joystick. That means no high-low mixups, no left-right mixups.
For defensive options, you can dodge roll in either direction, you can dodge in the air, you can back dash, if you get knocked down you can get up immediately if you have good timing, including waking up to the left, right, or middle, or you can delay wakeup. You can throw tech by hitting the throw button right after an opponent grabs you, but doing this means you won't be blocking so you will be vulnerable to attacks. If you block and you want to get out of pressure you can cancel your block-stun into a left or right dodge roll by spending a bit of meter.
You can also tag out for your team member if one of fighters is running low on meter or health, including with cancelling a successful attack into a tag.
Comeback mechanics and winning. You need to manage your meter carefully because if you spend it all on getting damage, you won't be able to close out the round. You need to KO with a super, and supers take a lot of meter. The amount of meter you have stocked is directly related to how much damage you have taken. The less life you have, the more meter you can spend. So you can be a threat to win right until the round closes out.
This game checks every box for things that FGC veterans complain about. Don't listen to those people. They don't understand how to play. They just want the game to be another street fighter clone and they're paying attention to the wrong stuff. If they say there are no mix-ups, then they forgot how to shimmy in and out of range to bait out a throw. They forgot about staggering offensive pressure to trick people into letting go of the block button. They might have even forgotten how to play footsies. All of those things are in this game.
If they say the combo system is brain-dead, then they don't realize that the low-effort plays give low-effort rewards, and they can carry high risk. If they complain that there isn't enough of a reward for good execution, they aren't taking into account that you need to actually practice to get the timing on your wall bounce combos, air chases, and your special cancels right.
This game is not about obtuse complicated commands or memorization. It is about navigating and controlling the space between the fighters. In some ways this game will teach you how to play neutral better than street fighter will.
Great game. 10/10 please play.… Expand