First fighting game I really got into, and I sunk around 600 hours into it.
I enjoyed my time with it, but I absolutely can not recommend this game to anyone.
The game feels very rewarding to learn, with its fun combos and resets, but it also feels extremely painful to play when these fun combos and resets are being used on you. In this game, you could get hit once and watch your character get combo'd to death for a minute straight. The only openings you have is correctly guessing how your opponent is going to 'reset' you, which is genuinely a 50/50 or a 25/25/25/25 depending on the character.
The gameplay really relies on "spam assists and try to get 1 clean hit so you can combo+reset your opponent to death" and repeat. There is no real strategic depth here, it's just a glorified training mode.
Other fighting games have a bigger focus on playing 'neutral', requiring actual thoughtful gameplay. Those games require you to fight with your opponent, and actually think 'what will my opponent do?'. You're constantly adapting and adjusting based on who you are playing, making it a very intimate experience. This game lacks this feeling entirely.
It sucks that this game has so many good, loveable characters, because they'll be stuck within this game forever.
The artstyle and animation are actually wonderful, there was a lot of effort into making everything look smooth. I also love the music.
I'll avoid talking about the big controversies this game has had, but I will mention this: this game has had numerous updates where they REMOVE content, instead of adding. Imagine paying 15 bucks for a game, and then they remove stuff. Whether or not you agree with their decision is entirely up to you (again, there's reasons for this happening that I won't get into) but I can absolutely not recommend buying a game where the product unironically is losing content over time.
I enjoyed my time with it, but I absolutely can not recommend this game to anyone.
The game feels very rewarding to learn, with its fun combos and resets, but it also feels extremely painful to play when these fun combos and resets are being used on you. In this game, you could get hit once and watch your character get combo'd to death for a minute straight. The only openings you have is correctly guessing how your opponent is going to 'reset' you, which is genuinely a 50/50 or a 25/25/25/25 depending on the character.
The gameplay really relies on "spam assists and try to get 1 clean hit so you can combo+reset your opponent to death" and repeat. There is no real strategic depth here, it's just a glorified training mode.
Other fighting games have a bigger focus on playing 'neutral', requiring actual thoughtful gameplay. Those games require you to fight with your opponent, and actually think 'what will my opponent do?'. You're constantly adapting and adjusting based on who you are playing, making it a very intimate experience. This game lacks this feeling entirely.
It sucks that this game has so many good, loveable characters, because they'll be stuck within this game forever.
The artstyle and animation are actually wonderful, there was a lot of effort into making everything look smooth. I also love the music.
I'll avoid talking about the big controversies this game has had, but I will mention this: this game has had numerous updates where they REMOVE content, instead of adding. Imagine paying 15 bucks for a game, and then they remove stuff. Whether or not you agree with their decision is entirely up to you (again, there's reasons for this happening that I won't get into) but I can absolutely not recommend buying a game where the product unironically is losing content over time.