Them’s Fightin' Herds
This game will forever mean something special to me, even if I’ve had to shelve it and move on as a result of my own obsessions with victory/how I’m perceived by others. It’s almost impossible to be fully objective after everything that’s happened since I started following it closely circa late 2011, but I’ll try…and I’ll keep it to a bulleted list for brevity.
PROS:
- 6 (now 7, likely 8 at some point in the future) extremely-well-fleshed-out characters who are all viable at every skill level, and wholly unique in their movement/offensive capabilities. A small tier spread in 1.0 was noticable, but 2.0 appears to have narrowed the gaps in viability, further evening the odds across the cast.
– Real player with 2831.6 hrs in game
Read More: Best 2D Fighter Action Games.
The most fun fighting game I’ve played up to this point. While the game is still in early access, it’s got enough content for those mostly interested in the fighting game aspect of it.
Pros:
- Beginner-friendly, if you’re newer to fighting games. There’s 3 main attack buttons and a fourth “Magic” button, which is used for each character’s unique attack system. Learning to combo is as easy as A-B-C (The main buttons are literally named A, B, and C), with no crazy specific timing for a lot of basic combos. It also has a tutorial that teaches players just about every mechanic they need to know about, from basic blocking to things like framedata.
– Real player with 2176.1 hrs in game
CHAOS CODE -NEW SIGN OF CATASTROPHE-
This is honestly one of my favorite fighting games. If there’s any game I’d say it’s similar to, probably KOF or other SNK games, but it has a lot that makes it different obviously. It has great system and character balance with no one mechanic seeming overwhelming, and each character has their fair share of pros and cons that they have to work around with all of them still being on an even playing field, and especially with the extra selectable moves, this game properly avoids falling into the problem of some match ups feeling WAY too one sided, with every character having a good amount of variety to their move set without everyone being too similar. Fun character designs with cthulhu magical girls, muscly grappler chefs, edgelords and of course, my big boy Ray. There’s so much freedom to every character with combos and tech, especially with the extra selectable specials and supers. I spend many hours in training mode trying to find new tech. Matches can vary a lot in how they play out based on what hits you land, so there’s room for you to end a match in two combos (or even one in rare situations), but other matches will carry on much longer if you don’t get your harder to land combo starters and counter hits or manage your resources towards big damage, and some characters often rely on meter to help them in neutral play and set ups. I really like that there’s room for those kind of big combos to happen while also having it be very nuanced in how it’s approached so that you don’t just do the same stuff each match. Neutral plays just as big a role as learning big combos. Some characters can annihilate you through solid neutral alone if you can’t adapt, so you gotta be strong on multiple fronts. There’s many strong offensive and defensive mechanics with neither being overwhelming. No comeback mechanics or combo breakers (I personally hate that stuff). Meter is handled super well in terms of how much importance it holds and how each character interacts with it in their own way. Adds a nice bit of weight to resource management while still not being the only thing that determines who wins. I’m just kinda gushing, but god I love this game. A bit of a smaller player base, but we’re still here and we’re growing over time. Especially on discord. If you want to play this game, join Tenryo’s discord server and there’s plenty of people there to answer your questions and play you in matches, including myself. So yeah. Big glowing recommendation for this game.
– Real player with 669.0 hrs in game
Read More: Best 2D Fighter Action Games.
Depends on 3rd party software to run. This would qualify it for no reccomendation already but when the game is working, it’s mediocre at best. The translation was just ripped from the Hong Kong localization (so expect engrish text wherever humanly applicable) The online is a wasteland at this point, so don’t bother if you’re in it for that. The singleplayer is pretty mediocre, and the arcade / story mode is brought down not only by the aformentioned engrish, but also some embarrassing endings. You see that 5th picture in the gallary? Imagine that but for every female character, being explained away by something very along the lines of “oh, well I guess the battle is over now, ho hum what should I do now? Disrobing sounds like a good idea–”. I’ll add that even for a japanese fighting games, most of the female character designs are pretty shameless in their obvious intent (my personal favorite is either the essential equivelent of the daughter of c’thulu having a permanant wedgie or the cyborg ninja having her nipples protrude through metal armor). The customization options are kind of cool on the surface, but you have to unlock colors, and you’re only allowed a certain number of them. You’re better off referring to Blazblue Central Fiction’s modding community if you have a hard on for that sort of thing. The customization for the fights are a pretty okay idea, but the execution is underwhelming, and not as well balanced as one would hope. As for character balance, it’s not the absolute worst, but if there were to be an online scene, you’d probably come to expect the three characters with easy to access “technically not touch of deaths, but may as well be since they also corner carry and end with hard knockdown into 50/50”. It’s alright with friends, but frankly there are just other fighting games which do what this game does but cheaper and / or better.
– Real player with 79.1 hrs in game
Combo Babies
100% one of the most unique fighting games, if you love anime fighters like guilty gear and want a unique (and interestingly balanced) take on a lot of systems this game is a great one to look at
– Real player with 61.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best 2D Fighter Action Games.
A really fun fighting game that I highly recommend. The training mode is easy to use and have fun, rhythm game inspired combo trials. All of the characters feel really good to play as and the universal inputs for each character make picking any of them up easy. The inclusion of mechanics such as roman cancels is really cool and the movement almost feels like you’re in a platform fighter. If you have a spare $10 and like fighting games there’s no reason not to pick this game up.
– Real player with 46.4 hrs in game
SNK VS. CAPCOM: THE MATCH OF THE MILLENNIUM
SNK vs. Capcom: The Match of the Millennium was the first fighting game crossover between the eponymous giants of the genre, and although compromises were made to get it work on a two-button, 8-bit system, it does both companies' legacies justice. The game’s roster is faithfully recreated from the 16-bit games that made them famous, with their movesets and their personalities being on full display here, and it generally plays quite well. This versions also adds a rewind function and slightly improves the character unlocking process, both welcome changes.
– Real player with 8.6 hrs in game
Sadly it doesn’t have online yet but Steam Remote/Parsec is your friend. Tested on both and works nice with my friends. Of course I want native online and rollback but for now I’m pretty happy for this, this is a dream come true after 20 years because as for now this is the only option for 2 player versus/cable link emulation. Mednafen/NeoPop/MAME doesn’t have link support… yet I hope this will change in the close future.
– Real player with 7.1 hrs in game
The King of Warriors : Battle in the Three Kingdoms
It’s a very fun side-scrolling game.
The tutorial is well designed so that anyone can play easily.
In particular, I want to give points to the battle.
The sound reminds me of Street Fighter and makes me nostalgic for retro games.
아주 재미난 횡스크롤 플레이 게임이다
누구나 쉽게 플레이할 수 있게 튜토리얼도 잘 설계되어있다.
특히 나는 전투에 점수를 주고 싶다 플레이가 쉬우면서도 타격감이 뛰어나다
사운드는 스트리트파이터를 생각나게 하며 레트로 게임에 대한 그리움을 느끼게 한다.
– Real player with 0.5 hrs in game
Escaping Hell
It’s a fun indie game that mixes up its presentation and has a unique sense of style. I like the theme of being kind to yourself and how the gameplay supports that.
– Real player with 3.6 hrs in game
This is not a beautiful game but it was created with a lot of heart, is fun and I appreciate that.
– Real player with 3.0 hrs in game
Kakatte Koi Yo!
Captures cute and fun, whimsy with a competitive spirit. It’s great as a party game, but with a slight learning curve.
I love the art and the music is great! And while it seems like a simple concept, some levels feature some creatively ingenious designs.
This is definitely staying in my party game rotation
– Real player with 7.5 hrs in game
This game combines cute graphics with awesome fighting mechanics, Choose your catacter (pun intended) and get ready for battle. With the single player training and the ability to play with your friends on remote play makes it 100% better. If you have some money lying around and a friend, you can enjoy some good time with your friend.
– Real player with 1.7 hrs in game
Knight Club +
Tight controls, smooth gameplay, feels damn good when landing those combos.
The four weapons feels unique and powerful in their way:
-Dagger: Short range but the fastest weapon. Dagger mains will let you always guess which way to guard.
-Axe: Big hits with the most wide range, strongest at medium range. Powerful hits just melts the opponent HP.
-Spear: Longest range, hit them and ruin their tempo, baiting and spacing skill are essential if you don’t want to get murdered by those dagger mains. My favourite.
– Real player with 14.3 hrs in game
Really fun game, and a fantastic party game, would definitely suggest for a house party if you can get your hands on some controllers.
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Easy to learn, not too many or confusing moves.
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I love most of the characters and the weapons are all great.
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Great UI, the sound design is very satisfying and along with all the clashing weapons and combos and stuff like that makes for a very fun experience, really good work.
And don’t get me started on the soundtrack. it’s a bop :D
– Real player with 6.2 hrs in game
Weapons Knight
I found this game by stumbling across it’s trailer on the game dev side of twitter, didn’t know anything about it, but I found something pleasing about it.
Weapons Knight is a charming platformer that has a similar gameplay style to games such as Super Crate Box and Gunkid 99; Collect X amount of an object, and each object collected changes up your weapon which forces you to adapt quickly with the new chosen weapon.
I’m not about to blow the game out of proportion- it does have it’s issues regarding game balance and performance in some areas- but “Weapons Knight was an enjoyable experience for me from start to end regardless, and I’ve no qualms about it’s price point.
– Real player with 3.5 hrs in game
i lost my virginity 10 minutes after beating the game
– Real player with 1.6 hrs in game
Arcana Heart 3 LOVEMAX SIXSTARS!!!!!! XTEND
Warning: The netcode is delay based and current population of regulars is maybe 10 people max (including myself) who are pretty chill but kinda insular, who also happen to have solid connections with each other (mostly). The patch notes for Xtend are available, but the Mizuumi section for Xtend is largely barren. The game is also apparently tied to your monitor refresh and needs to be capped through external methods. The training is lackluster and does not not natively have a input display.
Turn back now if these factors are a turn off, or just plain inconvenient - which is entirely reasonable.
– Real player with 90.0 hrs in game
This has probably been my favorite surprise-release of 2017, at least in the fighting game genre, since I had no idea this game existed, let alone was going to be released.
Now, despite the fact that I am a big fan of games like Nitro+, UNIEL, Aquapazza, Melty, etc, I never really got into AH3LM. The main reason was likely because, at the time I picked it up on Steam, barely anyone played, and those who did would body someone like me before I could even confirm anything. The other problem was, while I could get my friends interested enough to try out BlazBlue, or UNIEL, or even Nitro+, for some reason, no one would give AH3LM a try for some reason. So, since I was limited to continual training for the off chance of an online match, or single player modes, I had pretty much dropped the game, except for the occasional itch for something different.
– Real player with 60.4 hrs in game