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Hello everyone, AnimeFanFTW here, with another game review, and today, I reviewed the indie fighting game sensation, Skullgirls!
After taking a break from Rocket League (there's only so much car football I can play, before I feel a bit burned out), I recently got into Skullgirls, and I got to say, I'm glad I did.
Also, SAO II review still in progress...
Anyway, let's begin!
THIS REVIEW MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
_____________________________________________________________
Introduction and Facts
Fighting Games
I've never been into the Fighting genre. Not because I think it's bad, but because it's not really my cup of tea. Regardless, fighting games have been a massively popular genre for ages. Back when gaming was popular in the arcades, you would see people line up just to play a round or two. Game series like Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Killer Instinct and so on have heavily dedicated fanbases. And in 2012 (2013 for PC), Skullgirls was released, bringing to the table cute girls fighting each other. It quickly gained a dedicated fanbase, and is still played alot 2 years later. The developers behind the game are Lab Zero Games, and apon the release of their game, Skullgirls got generally very positive reviews, with people praising the animation and addicitive gameplay. Not only that, but many people praise the amount of references this game has when it comes to what the characters say, to what colour palette they have. Some examples are superheroes, like Spiderman and Batman, to video games like Street Fighter, Team Fortress 2, Mario and Touhou, and even anime, like Madoka Magica, Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, Kill la Kill, and even Panty and Stocking. Like, seriously, there's a ton of references to alot of things.
Story - 8/10
In terms of the story, it's a little hard to explain. See, like most fighting games with a single player story, you take control of whatever fighter you picked, basically follow their story, fighting guys along the way, to ultimately reach the goal of being the best fighter. Skullgirls bascially does this, but structured a bit differently. Basically, the entire plot of all the characters is to defeat the "Skullgirl", a girl taken over by the "Skull Heart", an unknown entity, bent on destroying the world. The Skullgirl basically acts like a vessel. The role of each story is to guide these characters through fights, to ultimately fight the Skullgirl, so that they can either destroy the Skull Heart, or make a wish, and become the next Skullgirl. In terms of each story, all of them are generally well-written and handled well. All of the characters stories actually do not overlap each other, all the stories are seperate stories. You get to know about the characters, their motivations, if they're good or evil, and all of it is handled great. Only complaints I have is that they I wish they could have gone more into detail about the characters. I mean, yes, the Skullgirls wiki tells you alot, but the game goes a little too fast with the stories. All the characters are incredibly interesting, but the stories felt like it needed to end quickly. I get that this game is more of an online game (which I will talk about in a minute), but a little bit more time with the characters would have been great. Ah well. The wiki does tell you alot, I guess.
Characters - 8/10
This game has some of the most interesting characters I've seen in a long time. Pretty much, Skullgirls has 14 playable characters (some are DLC) and all of them are really interesting. You have characters like Peacock, a girl straight out of a 1920's cartoon, Filia, a girl with a spiky tentacle hat that speaks, Ms Fortune, a cat girl who can detach her limbs (cause why not?), Celebella, a circus girl with the strongest punching hat you will ever see, Parasoul, a government spy...I think, Painwheel, a girl with a scary mask and GIANT SHURIKEN ON HER BACK, Squigly, a zombie girl with a dragon/worm buddy, Big Band, the giant walking musical, Beowolf, a retired male wrestler, Eliza, the Egyptian girl who looks like Cleopatra, Robo-Fortune, a robot version of Ms Fortune, Double, a nun that looks like A COMPLETE MONSTROSITY, Fukua, a joke character that looks exactly like Filia, and Valentine, the...lewd looking nurse ninja. Every single character is really interesting, unique, and seeing them trying to pursue their goals and interact with each other was always a treat. Not to mention that the non-playable characters are also interesting, like Marie, the current Skullgirl, Samson, Filia's hat parasite thing, and Minette, the cutest fish girl ever. All the characters were well written, likeable in some way, and were a blast to play as. Only problems is, again, the stories of each character are too short, and not only that, the character list is really small for a fighting game. Only 14, and about 4 of them are each locked away from a $5 pay wall. That's a tiny amount of characters for a fighting games, compared to games like Street Fighter, that can have over 20+, or even the Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm series, which are known to have 70+ characters. A bit of a bigger roster of playable characters would be nice...
Gameplay - 7/10
In terms of gameplay, this game shines...kinda. When in fights, it's structured like any other fighting game. You have a health bar, a special meter, you have your different attacks like light, medium and heavy punches and kicks, grabs, blocks, and special moves you can perform. And honestly, the fight system works really well. You have a sizeable health meter, meaning fights don't last too quickly, there's alot of special moves that deal good chucks of damage, and planning when to attack, or when to block correctly gives this game more of a strategic feel. Knowing what type of block to do, to what type of punch or special move you need to do can mean the difference between victory and defeat. So, with this amount of praise, why a 7/10? Well, it's because it's not beginner friendly. The Steam page of this game says it's "enjoyable and accessible to newcomers". And while I agree it's enjoyable, it is NOT easily accessible. When you first start out, you find out that chaining attacks is more difficult then most fighting games, with a button layout that is confusing for newcomers, and can really only be executed well if you are using a Xbox or Playstation controller. Using a keyboard is a BIG no-no. The tutorials, although helpful, can get really confusing and difficult. I mean, heck, I spent 30 minutes in the "Blocking" Tutorial because the game never told me how to block, and expected me to perfectly block mulitple waves of attacks 3 times in a row, 3 times. Then you have the special moves...oh god. I spent almost an hour just trying to execute one special move, looking at the movesets, and after trying to execute it, but I could not do it, maybe because I was too slow (meaning the speed required to perform the moves is ridiculous) or maybe because I was pressing the wrong buttons (which is horrible, because the move set lists basically almost tells you nothing about what buttons to press). In the end, I was only able to use a special move because I spam the buttons on my controller, and hope it works. (Which is just stupid. Having the player of any fighter game resort to spamming buttons because the movesets are hard to perform speaks volumes on how flawed it can be). But even with these setbacks, when Skullgirls gets fun, it gets REALLY fun. It always feels satsifying pulling off an insane combo, or special move, not to mention all characters play differently, from Peacock's ranged attacks, to Ms Fortune's quick strikes, to Celebella's insanely strong attacks. So at least it does that right.
EXTRA: Online
WHATEVER YOU DO, UNLESS YOU ARE A MASTER AT THIS GAME, DO NOT GO ONLINE, YOU WILL NEVER WIN. I'm not even kidding, the online community is absolutly absurd. It's famous for a reason. While the fighting system is well done, people are able to perform almost-endless combos, resulting in a fight finishing in just under 20 seconds. Any online match can basically be boiled down to this: Land the first attack, and don't stop attacking. You make one slip-up, one mistake, a millisecond to take a break, and the online players will take advantage of you, and perform a 999-hit combo. And with almost no way to deal a c-c-c-c-combo breaker, you are basically trapped in an endless attack, until the opponent themselves makes a mistake, which never happens. I played online for an hour and a half, and I didn't win a single match. NOT ONE. The only upside about the hard as nails difficulty of the online community is that watching fights like that take place is truly a sight to witness. Just search Skullgirls on Youtube, and you'll see why.
Graphics - 9/10
This is easily the best thing about the game. In terms of cutscenes, they look nice, but are a bit too distorted for my taste. But the gameplay parts are so smooth and detailed. True Fact: In 2013, Skullgirls won the Guinness World Record (Gamer's Edition) for most frames of animation per character. Back when it had 8 characters, all the character sprites had a total of 11,515 frames, averaging to 1,439 frames per character. And those frames certainly show, all the character frames are animated PERFECTLY. It's so smooth and detailed. The backgrounds look detailed, and overall, the game looks gorgeous.
Sound - 9/10
The sound is just brillient. In terms of both the English and Japanese dubs, both are fantastic. Although I think the English version is goddamn perfect. All the dubbing work for the characters is beautifully well-done. But where this game's sound truly shines is the music. Skullgirl's main songs of choice is smooth, soft jazz. And I LOVE jazz. There are different types of songs, like use different genres, but Skullgirls runs with jazz most of the time. The jazz itself is brillient. Just...just listen to it.
Enjoyment - 8/10
This game, despite some flaws, can be incredably enjoyable. And although I could talk more about this game, like how much "fanservice" this game has, to what this game needs to do to fix its issues, at the end of the day, this game is definatly worth your time. It's only for $15 (all DLC's add $25 to the total), and if you have the patience to slowly learn, and slowly master this game, if you're fine with the fanservice, and you're fine with your spirit as a gamer be destroyed by the online community, then Skullgirls is 100% recommended. To everyone else, at least give it a try. If you don't like it, there's always the option to refund it. So get the game, and remember: Attack first.
Final Verdict - 8/10 - Awesome!
______________________________________________________
Skullgirls Wiki: http://skullgirls.wikia.com/wiki/Skullgirls_Wiki
Buy Skullgirls here: http://store.steampowered.com/app/245170/
Oh, and also:
Cutest girl in Skullgirls is:
The character I mainly use is:
And best girl is:
Until the next review...
This is AnimeFanFTW, over and out!
After taking a break from Rocket League (there's only so much car football I can play, before I feel a bit burned out), I recently got into Skullgirls, and I got to say, I'm glad I did.
Also, SAO II review still in progress...
Anyway, let's begin!
THIS REVIEW MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
_____________________________________________________________
Introduction and Facts
Fighting Games
I've never been into the Fighting genre. Not because I think it's bad, but because it's not really my cup of tea. Regardless, fighting games have been a massively popular genre for ages. Back when gaming was popular in the arcades, you would see people line up just to play a round or two. Game series like Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Killer Instinct and so on have heavily dedicated fanbases. And in 2012 (2013 for PC), Skullgirls was released, bringing to the table cute girls fighting each other. It quickly gained a dedicated fanbase, and is still played alot 2 years later. The developers behind the game are Lab Zero Games, and apon the release of their game, Skullgirls got generally very positive reviews, with people praising the animation and addicitive gameplay. Not only that, but many people praise the amount of references this game has when it comes to what the characters say, to what colour palette they have. Some examples are superheroes, like Spiderman and Batman, to video games like Street Fighter, Team Fortress 2, Mario and Touhou, and even anime, like Madoka Magica, Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, Kill la Kill, and even Panty and Stocking. Like, seriously, there's a ton of references to alot of things.
Story - 8/10
In terms of the story, it's a little hard to explain. See, like most fighting games with a single player story, you take control of whatever fighter you picked, basically follow their story, fighting guys along the way, to ultimately reach the goal of being the best fighter. Skullgirls bascially does this, but structured a bit differently. Basically, the entire plot of all the characters is to defeat the "Skullgirl", a girl taken over by the "Skull Heart", an unknown entity, bent on destroying the world. The Skullgirl basically acts like a vessel. The role of each story is to guide these characters through fights, to ultimately fight the Skullgirl, so that they can either destroy the Skull Heart, or make a wish, and become the next Skullgirl. In terms of each story, all of them are generally well-written and handled well. All of the characters stories actually do not overlap each other, all the stories are seperate stories. You get to know about the characters, their motivations, if they're good or evil, and all of it is handled great. Only complaints I have is that they I wish they could have gone more into detail about the characters. I mean, yes, the Skullgirls wiki tells you alot, but the game goes a little too fast with the stories. All the characters are incredibly interesting, but the stories felt like it needed to end quickly. I get that this game is more of an online game (which I will talk about in a minute), but a little bit more time with the characters would have been great. Ah well. The wiki does tell you alot, I guess.
Characters - 8/10
This game has some of the most interesting characters I've seen in a long time. Pretty much, Skullgirls has 14 playable characters (some are DLC) and all of them are really interesting. You have characters like Peacock, a girl straight out of a 1920's cartoon, Filia, a girl with a spiky tentacle hat that speaks, Ms Fortune, a cat girl who can detach her limbs (cause why not?), Celebella, a circus girl with the strongest punching hat you will ever see, Parasoul, a government spy...I think, Painwheel, a girl with a scary mask and GIANT SHURIKEN ON HER BACK, Squigly, a zombie girl with a dragon/worm buddy, Big Band, the giant walking musical, Beowolf, a retired male wrestler, Eliza, the Egyptian girl who looks like Cleopatra, Robo-Fortune, a robot version of Ms Fortune, Double, a nun that looks like A COMPLETE MONSTROSITY, Fukua, a joke character that looks exactly like Filia, and Valentine, the...lewd looking nurse ninja. Every single character is really interesting, unique, and seeing them trying to pursue their goals and interact with each other was always a treat. Not to mention that the non-playable characters are also interesting, like Marie, the current Skullgirl, Samson, Filia's hat parasite thing, and Minette, the cutest fish girl ever. All the characters were well written, likeable in some way, and were a blast to play as. Only problems is, again, the stories of each character are too short, and not only that, the character list is really small for a fighting game. Only 14, and about 4 of them are each locked away from a $5 pay wall. That's a tiny amount of characters for a fighting games, compared to games like Street Fighter, that can have over 20+, or even the Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm series, which are known to have 70+ characters. A bit of a bigger roster of playable characters would be nice...
Gameplay - 7/10
In terms of gameplay, this game shines...kinda. When in fights, it's structured like any other fighting game. You have a health bar, a special meter, you have your different attacks like light, medium and heavy punches and kicks, grabs, blocks, and special moves you can perform. And honestly, the fight system works really well. You have a sizeable health meter, meaning fights don't last too quickly, there's alot of special moves that deal good chucks of damage, and planning when to attack, or when to block correctly gives this game more of a strategic feel. Knowing what type of block to do, to what type of punch or special move you need to do can mean the difference between victory and defeat. So, with this amount of praise, why a 7/10? Well, it's because it's not beginner friendly. The Steam page of this game says it's "enjoyable and accessible to newcomers". And while I agree it's enjoyable, it is NOT easily accessible. When you first start out, you find out that chaining attacks is more difficult then most fighting games, with a button layout that is confusing for newcomers, and can really only be executed well if you are using a Xbox or Playstation controller. Using a keyboard is a BIG no-no. The tutorials, although helpful, can get really confusing and difficult. I mean, heck, I spent 30 minutes in the "Blocking" Tutorial because the game never told me how to block, and expected me to perfectly block mulitple waves of attacks 3 times in a row, 3 times. Then you have the special moves...oh god. I spent almost an hour just trying to execute one special move, looking at the movesets, and after trying to execute it, but I could not do it, maybe because I was too slow (meaning the speed required to perform the moves is ridiculous) or maybe because I was pressing the wrong buttons (which is horrible, because the move set lists basically almost tells you nothing about what buttons to press). In the end, I was only able to use a special move because I spam the buttons on my controller, and hope it works. (Which is just stupid. Having the player of any fighter game resort to spamming buttons because the movesets are hard to perform speaks volumes on how flawed it can be). But even with these setbacks, when Skullgirls gets fun, it gets REALLY fun. It always feels satsifying pulling off an insane combo, or special move, not to mention all characters play differently, from Peacock's ranged attacks, to Ms Fortune's quick strikes, to Celebella's insanely strong attacks. So at least it does that right.
EXTRA: Online
WHATEVER YOU DO, UNLESS YOU ARE A MASTER AT THIS GAME, DO NOT GO ONLINE, YOU WILL NEVER WIN. I'm not even kidding, the online community is absolutly absurd. It's famous for a reason. While the fighting system is well done, people are able to perform almost-endless combos, resulting in a fight finishing in just under 20 seconds. Any online match can basically be boiled down to this: Land the first attack, and don't stop attacking. You make one slip-up, one mistake, a millisecond to take a break, and the online players will take advantage of you, and perform a 999-hit combo. And with almost no way to deal a c-c-c-c-combo breaker, you are basically trapped in an endless attack, until the opponent themselves makes a mistake, which never happens. I played online for an hour and a half, and I didn't win a single match. NOT ONE. The only upside about the hard as nails difficulty of the online community is that watching fights like that take place is truly a sight to witness. Just search Skullgirls on Youtube, and you'll see why.
Graphics - 9/10
This is easily the best thing about the game. In terms of cutscenes, they look nice, but are a bit too distorted for my taste. But the gameplay parts are so smooth and detailed. True Fact: In 2013, Skullgirls won the Guinness World Record (Gamer's Edition) for most frames of animation per character. Back when it had 8 characters, all the character sprites had a total of 11,515 frames, averaging to 1,439 frames per character. And those frames certainly show, all the character frames are animated PERFECTLY. It's so smooth and detailed. The backgrounds look detailed, and overall, the game looks gorgeous.
Sound - 9/10
The sound is just brillient. In terms of both the English and Japanese dubs, both are fantastic. Although I think the English version is goddamn perfect. All the dubbing work for the characters is beautifully well-done. But where this game's sound truly shines is the music. Skullgirl's main songs of choice is smooth, soft jazz. And I LOVE jazz. There are different types of songs, like use different genres, but Skullgirls runs with jazz most of the time. The jazz itself is brillient. Just...just listen to it.
Enjoyment - 8/10
This game, despite some flaws, can be incredably enjoyable. And although I could talk more about this game, like how much "fanservice" this game has, to what this game needs to do to fix its issues, at the end of the day, this game is definatly worth your time. It's only for $15 (all DLC's add $25 to the total), and if you have the patience to slowly learn, and slowly master this game, if you're fine with the fanservice, and you're fine with your spirit as a gamer be destroyed by the online community, then Skullgirls is 100% recommended. To everyone else, at least give it a try. If you don't like it, there's always the option to refund it. So get the game, and remember: Attack first.
Final Verdict - 8/10 - Awesome!
______________________________________________________
Skullgirls Wiki: http://skullgirls.wikia.com/wiki/Skullgirls_Wiki
Buy Skullgirls here: http://store.steampowered.com/app/245170/
Oh, and also:
Cutest girl in Skullgirls is:
-
The character I mainly use is:
-
And best girl is:
-
Until the next review...
This is AnimeFanFTW, over and out!
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You're review is fine. Correct me if I'm wrong, but are you new to fighting games? I'm judging based off how you said you had a hard time blocking and doing the motions for splecial moves, which is standard stuff in the genre. Although if you were trying to do combos or whatever, then I would understand that since they generally have strict timing. And yes, the online for this game is ridiculous. I don't know which was worse, this or Marvel where you get Vergil'd to death. It's still a fun game though.
And yeah, still a fun game, even with the faults. :D
And the characters just look so cute, and the art is like Don't Starve meets Anime, it's actually quite brilliant!, however, I might lose my long extent of patience if I go on online xD, but definitely worth a try.
I would definatly recommend. The game runs smoothly, even on my crap computer.
Also, ikr? All the girls are so cute! Filia is bae. <3
And if it runs smoothly on crap computers, than it would work fine for me xD.
And yes, Filia looks very bae <3
Didn't know Skullgirls had a canceled playable character...