So me and some friends made a massive list of “B-List Fighting Games” and I think it’s about time to start chipping away at it.
Blade Strangers after playing it for way too long…Is super mid to be honest. Graphically it looks like store brand Guilty Gear Xrd and that is not a compliment. Music is extremely hit or miss. It doesn’t feel as sluggish as it used to pre patch but still feels a little slower then it should and The combo system feels just as arbitrary as Strive. Like there’s stuff that feels like it should work but doesn’t for no reason like why can’t I use a special move after a sweep and why don't the different heavy attacks combo together. The light attack auto combo also feels unneeded as it just feels like it’s there to pad out the combo time.
I’m not a fan of simplified Inputs as they tend to limit the movepool a character can have (looking at you DNF Duel) but as far as simple input games go they do a pretty good job with giving the characters a bunch of tools to work with. Well at least they did with Gunvolt. The cast here is whatever. Basically carried by Cave Story and the guest characters with an overall weak crossover appeal. Basically you’re here for Swole Shovel Knight, Isaac, and Gunvolt.
The game’s tutorial is pretty bad as it explains how the game works in the blandest most surface level way possible and even leaves stuff out like I only learned that Lina has an air dash by complete accident. The combo trial mode would be okayish if it weren’t for the fact that they made the same mistake UMVC3 did of not including a sample video for each combo which can lead to quite a bit of frustration when it comes to figuring out some of the timings and the story seems like it could be somewhat interesting for about 10 seconds before it devolves into a tournament arc like always and the character interactions being pretty bland most likely due to flanderization and short interactions. There’s a couple decent moments but nothing worth writing home about.
Overall the game is the definition of a mid fighting game and to be honest I’m not sure how much better it could have been. Because it’s not terrible it’s more than functional and was occasionally fun at times during the 7 story runs I did but nothing compared to what I consider the best in the genre.
Least this makes a pretty decent baseline to go into the rest of the list with.
Blade Strangers after playing it for way too long…Is super mid to be honest. Graphically it looks like store brand Guilty Gear Xrd and that is not a compliment. Music is extremely hit or miss. It doesn’t feel as sluggish as it used to pre patch but still feels a little slower then it should and The combo system feels just as arbitrary as Strive. Like there’s stuff that feels like it should work but doesn’t for no reason like why can’t I use a special move after a sweep and why don't the different heavy attacks combo together. The light attack auto combo also feels unneeded as it just feels like it’s there to pad out the combo time.
I’m not a fan of simplified Inputs as they tend to limit the movepool a character can have (looking at you DNF Duel) but as far as simple input games go they do a pretty good job with giving the characters a bunch of tools to work with. Well at least they did with Gunvolt. The cast here is whatever. Basically carried by Cave Story and the guest characters with an overall weak crossover appeal. Basically you’re here for Swole Shovel Knight, Isaac, and Gunvolt.
The game’s tutorial is pretty bad as it explains how the game works in the blandest most surface level way possible and even leaves stuff out like I only learned that Lina has an air dash by complete accident. The combo trial mode would be okayish if it weren’t for the fact that they made the same mistake UMVC3 did of not including a sample video for each combo which can lead to quite a bit of frustration when it comes to figuring out some of the timings and the story seems like it could be somewhat interesting for about 10 seconds before it devolves into a tournament arc like always and the character interactions being pretty bland most likely due to flanderization and short interactions. There’s a couple decent moments but nothing worth writing home about.
Overall the game is the definition of a mid fighting game and to be honest I’m not sure how much better it could have been. Because it’s not terrible it’s more than functional and was occasionally fun at times during the 7 story runs I did but nothing compared to what I consider the best in the genre.
Least this makes a pretty decent baseline to go into the rest of the list with.