- Skull Girls
Skull Girls seems to be a true and sad rarity in the world of fighting games, what it promised! SkullGirls is a 2D fighting game, the first title from Reverge Labs and has quite the pedigree despite being the first game from the studio. Skullgirls started out as a game made to be a wakeup call to all of those fighting games being released that strike at your wallet with over priced games and Downloadable content, no reason to play single player and game mechanics so bad, they make the Mario party series look competitively viable.
Skull Girls was made by a tournament level Fighting game veteran Mike “Mike Z” Ziamont in regards to gameplay. This shows as every single issue plaguing the fighting game genre since the return to form that Street Fighter 4 brought forth. Easy button config, great character balance, GGPO netcode to make the game run amazingly online and many other great ideas.
Skull Girls is a 1-3 character fighter, you select one, two or three characters to be on your team.
One Character teams receive a major power boost.
Two Character teams are average in strength and have access to assist moves from the resting partner as well as the ability to chain the blockbuster attack (hyper combo) of one character, into a blockbuster of their partner.
Three character teams are overall weaker, have access to two assists, can chain up to three blockbuster attacks as well as gain more meter overall for use of additional blockbuster attacks.
Two Character teams are average in strength and have access to assist moves from the resting partner as well as the ability to chain the blockbuster attack (hyper combo) of one character, into a blockbuster of their partner.
Three character teams are overall weaker, have access to two assists, can chain up to three blockbuster attacks as well as gain more meter overall for use of additional blockbuster attacks.
Each team format have strengths and weaknesses, not to mention each member of the roster has a skill set that is aimed toward a certain team size, not to say playing them on something else will break the character into uselessness.
The game’s presentation is beyond top notch, the game play of skullgirls is all hand drawn and animated by Alex Ahad who also created every character in the fairly populated universe of the game. While the over the top visuals and relatively fan service filled animations may not be for everyone, they are a great treat to the eye, very active, very alive and incredibly fluid. This game is pretty much a controllable cartoon. While this is something impressive in a game, it is made greater by Michiko Naruke, The composer of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night has created a beautiful, jazzy score for this game on top of it.
Skull Girls was made for everyone with an interest for fighting games, or even those who just like the cast of characters. The fighting engine even includes an infinite detection program. If the game detects a loop, you can press a button and burst from the combo and reset the situation. This game also includes the best in game Tutorial in fighting game history. While most trial and tutorial modes in fighting games teach you a bit about characters and the game engine, Skull Girls is different. The tutorial mode in Skull Girls teaches you how to play fighting games in general. Basic offense like what your six buttons do and how to link them. Basic defense like blocking attacks and how to break throws. Advanced offense on how to use your special and blockbuster attacks, and how to mix them up. Advanced defense like how to block high/low mixups, throw mix ups and dealing with cross ups. There is more as well, but just let it be known, this tutorial is undoubtedly the best I have ever seen in a fighting game.
Of course, no game is perfect, and some of the things this game has going for it does backfire in some senses. The Advanced AI of computer opponents mixed with the stunning animation make single player Loading times a little bit excessive at times, especially when facing 3 opponents. The story mode, while much better than expected for fighting games in general is still not as good as it can be. While every character gets a plot behind them, for the player to learn about them and their goals. Sadly, gameplay wise, this is essentially arcade mode, which is also in this game. Regardless, it is fun to see what makes these characters tick.
The biggest issue I have seen people bringing up is that there is a roster of 8 characters. This is set to be remedied soon with DLC of the first two additional characters, however I bring up this point, is an 8 character roster really a let down when the game has nothing immediately broken? 8 characters on launch is perfectly fine for a game that has promised more, and when they are so even in terms of power I would say.
I will note however, this game does not as of April 14 2012 have in game move lists, however the first thing you see when you load this game is a url leading to free downloadable movelists in the form of pdf’s from the Skullgirls site. This is an issue for sure, but will be fixed in a future patch already confirmed.
This game is a complete steal, on PSN for 15 dollars and XBLA for 1400 points with a PC release down the line this game is available to a lot of people. This game is also appealing to a lot of people, fighting game fan? Cartoon fan? Fan of some over the top, lovable characters? Well this game has you covered with only more content forthcoming this game will hopefully be getting content for a long time.
This game has completely refreshed my opinion of fighters, This game could be double the price and still be a steal. With roster, art, stage and music updates forthcoming I can not recommend this game enough, especially if you’re jaded by the genre.
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