146.7 hours played
Written 20 days ago
Fantastic game. The inputs are very simple and easy to approach for new players. despite the homogeneous inputs and relatively small move lists, each character feels unique and has their own identity to bring to the table.
The game is free, with a weekly rotating cast of 5 characters you can play, with Gran always being available. Every character is *technically* available to buy with earnable in-game currency, but this would take literaly years on constant grinding to do and is not a realistic option for F2P players. Of course you can buy the full game to gain access to every base-game character instantly.
Once you have a grasp of the basic controls, you can pretty much work out ~90% optimal combos for most of the cast. For some people this is a plus, for some this is a minus. There is less combo variety compared to other fighters, but there is room for some combo expression for optimals or due to screen position, or your current cooldown / meter.
Graphics are simple, but do their job well. The game isn't bursting with style, but it's readable and the characters themselves are all distinct and interesting.
Great variety of music, with every character having their own theme, plus unlockable music tracks through the in-game store (purchasble with earnable in-game currency), and battle pass rewards. The sound design in match is good, with consistent sounds across characters for supers / ultimate skills to make certain attacks reactable. You have the option of either English or Japanese voices, both are fine, though personally I lean towards Japanese due to some annoying English battle chatter (Cagliostro, Charlotta).
I have no trouble finding matches online in ranked or in lobbys (NA). Though I've heard this is region dependant, with OCE and EU having trouble in off-peak hours. Though the game generally feels very good even with high ping (max ~200) so changing region can be an option to help find matches.
The training mode is robust, with frame data, combo trials, recordable dummys, punish training all available. You can't, however, train with or against characters that you don't own, so no labbing against characters unless you own them.
Arcade mode is pretty standard, there are a few secret bosses to fight if certain requirements are fulfilled during your run. ArcSys added a pretty fun survival mode, you have 100 total rounds to beat with unlockable random perks every 5 rounds to help you through the trial.
Grand Bruise is an interesting Fall Guys clone, I only played it once but it's a fun option for those that are interested. I've heard that games can be very hard to find and you may need to join the Discord to find the specific time that people agreeed to play to find a good match.
Lobby mode is cute, you control a small chibi avatar, with chat abd arcade machines to find matches against anyone regardless of rank. There's a little bit of exploration to be done in the lobby, but it's mostly just a place to chill between matches.
I haven't touched the single player, so I will not comment on this.
Overall it's my current favourite fighting game with good balance between characters, frequent patches to change things up, good variety of things to do, high quality gameplay and netcode. Low skill floor but still has a relatively high skill ceiling for those willing to put in the work.
8.5/10