Enter into a world of colorful characters with some interesting stories. A world where you will have to fight to survive and to protect the ones you love. This world is colorful, vibrant, and just different enough to be interesting. Akin to other fighting games like Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter, you will want to buckle up and take this ride in our review for Fantasy Strike.
From Developer and Producer, Sirlin Games comes the next iteration of this fighting franchise, now available on Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4. Originally released to Steam Early Access in 2017, this fighting game introduces us to some bright new characters who fight to be the best. They are set in a fantasy world and have some very interesting ways of fighting. Include many different game modes and you have yourself the formula for a quality fighting game.
Fantasy Strike has a few different modes once you get through the lengthy tutorial. You can play online in casual, ranked, and friend matches. You can entertain yourself in solo with modes like arcade, daily challenges, survival, boss rush, and single matches. Arcade mode is one of my favorites because they include story modes for each of the characters. If you have friends who want to play then you can use local play and fight in a standard mode or team battle. Finally, practice mode is also available for you to try out each character to learn how they move, and what attacks they will employ in battle.
There are different types of characters that you will be able to choose from as well, and they all have their different skills. You have zoners, rushdown, grapplers, and wild cards that will help you in your fight for survival. Ten total characters offer their skills, and the animations for each character are very well done. Combat is a little odd to me. The game claims that the combat has been broken down to the most basic elements, including a dedicated jump button. Throughout the tutorial, I was constantly confused when the tutorial told me to hit A and when I did it wasn’t the correct A. They wanted you to hit the button that corresponded with a different A in the game. Learning the combos is fine after you figure those specific buttons out. Aside from the attack controls, the damage inflicted upon each attack is not balanced very well. Some rounds lasted less than 15 seconds due to the combos doing so much damage all at once. Having a damage system this heavily skewed towards a combo attack makes for very short matches. That is probably why some modes have a total possible 10 rounds within each fight.
Beyond the combat and the graphics, each of the stories told in arcade mode is something you want to take a look at. The stories give you more in-depth knowledge about what each of the characters is going through. The struggles they go through feel real to the characters and makes them more realistic in terms of a story.
Fantasy Strike is available now on PC, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Mac, and Linux. You can find out mmore on the official website.
Note: Our copy was reviewed on Nintendo Switch with a code provided by PR.
