Thirty-first GOTW finished for 2023. It was interesting to play a fighting game that's arguably considered a piece of history for weapon-based 3D fighting games. The bones of games to come can easily be seen here, in a "Toshinden crawled so Soul Blade could run" sort of way. I didn't really have a handle on the special moves, but the dodge mechanic was mostly good, and each character felt pretty unique to play. Opponents being able to super out of lying down with basically no frames was hella annoying, as were some unclear hitboxes and wildly differing damage values between player and CPU. This one also suffers from a crazily overpowered final boss that is at least mercifully very slow. Fighting games aren't really my jam, but it was fun to visit this piece of it's history.