Skullgirl Review

Skullgirls is a fast-paced 2-D fighting game that was released on the XBOX Live Market Place and Playstation Network as of April 10th.

Honestly, I didn't have too much hope for this title in the beginning. Upon first contact, it came across as an all-girl fanservice-gimmick title to get nerdy guys to fork over $15 for some female polygons. Well that's because it is an all-girl fanservice-gimmick title to get nerdy guys to fork over $15 for some female polygons. However, at it's core, the game has proved itself to be an actual hardcore fighting game. It's only been around for just over a week and has already won over a huge following over at the FGC. After hearing all the praise it was receiving, I decided to give in and try it out myself and to my surprise, I actually enjoyed it.

First off, gameplay. Skullgirls' gameplay is a blend of multiple popular fighting games, most notably Hearts of Arcania, Guilty Gear, MvC3 and BlazeBlue. Unlike some of those games, Skullgirls play with a six-button action format oposed to, say, MvC3's four-buttons. You have skills such as specials and supers that are used similarly like Street Fighter. Then there are combo-breakers that can be used at a cost of your meter when you're being overwhelmed by flurries of attack continous combos. The gameplay, however, isn't as fast as MvC because some if the movements may come off as a bit stiff. Skullgirls make up with that by making each character play in their own unique fashion/strategy and gave their own feel altogether.
For example, I usually play as Filia who is best used for anti-air and air combos soley because a lot of her specials and one of her block busters can work on airborne enemies, along with her air-dash manuever. Then you have Cerebella, who plays with a move-set mostly consisting of grapples and heavy attacks. These characters come with their share of weaknesses as well. One of my biggest gripes however is the lack of an in-game move list. So unless you look it up online, the character's specials will a mystery to a beginner.

Skullgirls allows players to select up to three characters a match. This is an intresting feature here, say you select three characters and your opponent select one. Your opponents character will be given a strength and health buff due to the 3:1 ratio. This works out with any combination of character numbers, making each possible match fair despite one player being a player short. But something that Skullgirls severly lacks is the number of playable characters. There are only eight characters to choose from and two of which most be unlocked. To be honest, there isn't much playability to the game. There's the story mode for each character. Then there's the basic things like training, arcade, and online.
Keep in mind, this is a digital download title.

Alright, Skullgirls looks great. As I observed the art more and more, it started to remind me that of Scott Pilgrim for some reason. The art is by Mike Z, who is popular for his artwork over the internet and who, coincidentally enough, made some guest comics in the Scott Pilgrim books(Brian Lee O'Malley is even given special thanks in the game's credits). Anyway, the art is lush, colorful and full of life. Mike Z's art is basically a blend of classic American art(Amerimango) and Japanese manga art.
There were times where I had a hard time keeping up with my character because too many things where happening at once, but it didn't become too much of a bother as I played the game more and more.
But when it comes down to it, part of the game's charm come from its vivid visuals.

With that said, the gameplay is solid enough to keep me hook for the time being and the game has great artwork to accompany it, especially for a $15 dollar digital download. So if you are a big fan of hardcore stylish fighting games and willing to waste some money on something, you should give this a quick look or download the demo and tell me what you think. I'm not a big fighting game person myself, but I am enjoying this.

Thank you.

It sounds like a laugh, I might check out the demo in a bit.

I didn't think you'd actually do it.

Wingman having some writing skills, who would've thought.

wow u actually did it. i'll def read this later

Opps, aside from the minor grammar/spelling errors, I mistook Mike Z with Alex Ahad.
Ahad is the popular online artist while Mike Z doubles as the popular fighting game player and lead game designer.

That sounds good, the main turnoff for me is the lack of characters, although the take on 1 on 3 fights etc. does sound pretty cool. If you are playing online how many characters do people generally choose?

Also i'm pretty sure by hearts of arcania you meant Arcana Hearts, unless it got a name change because that name you gave it sounds weird.

It depends on the characters.
Some characters are better used with the assistant of others and some can be best used alone.
I guess in some way it makes up for the cast number when you have the ability to think of multiple combination attacks with 2-3 of the characters.

I think a small number is the best unless it's a Dragonball game, in which case, it is foremost a Dragonball game.

Something else I forgot to take note of in this review:

This game is HARD AS SHIT!
This is also another part of the game that seem to lose some points by my standards.
See, there's a difference between a game being challenging and a game being straight up unfair;
Skullgirls' difficulty is like a person rocking side-to-side as they are trying remain balanced on something. At one minute it can be pretty tough but at most it just cheats.
There's no other way to put it, the computer cheats. Whether it be having the distinct ability to block everything you throw at it or just read your button commands pixel perfectly.

Take this scenario: I leave practice to take on arcade mode on the normal difficulty setting, and in less than one minute of the first match, Ms. Fortune performs a crazy 33 hit combo that left me with only half of my health.

I didn't even bother trying the game on anything higher than normal because apparently the "Normal" difficulty setting of the game expects you to at least be able to play like Justin Fucking Wong or something. See, when they said they were going to make an oldschool fighting game for veterans of the genre, I didn't think they'd also throw in the 1990's Nintendo Hard A.I.

how many difficulty settings if theres 3 thats nt too ridiculous

Cakewalk
Easy
Normal
Hard
Insane(something like that)