11 years ago

Miser_Reborn

I just spent an hour and a half playing Skullgirls with Christian and I barely noticed, and on account of it being absolutely fantastic I figured I'd write a love letter review on it. Though I should probably point out that when I say "review," I really mean "relative shit-upon of Marvel vs. Capcom 2." Don't get me wrong, Marvel vs. Capcom 2 is still one of the best fighting games I've ever played. That said, this is probably the best fighting game I've ever played. I don't have much experience in the genre, so that isn't exactly much of a statement, but then again that does put it in a higher regard than MvC2, Street Fighter 3, and Melee, so take from that what you will.

Let's get the obvious stuff out of the way first. Presentation-wise, it's pretty fantastic. Every frame in the game is hand-drawn, and being a fighting game, it's like the smooth animations of these:





had a beautiful love child with the PC version of Spelunky.



Here's a video of some gameplay because I'm so dang demonstrative.



Yeah, that's the first result if you Google "Skullgirls gameplay." Deal with it.

The music is also fantastic, for the most part. There's a handful of bland songs, but with forgetability comes not remembering how shitty something is. In other words, what's good is great, what's meh is ignorable.



A minor complaint is that it does suffer from a pitfall of a lot of fighters like this. The actual environment has basically no impact on the gameplay. Like, compare Smash Bros., where the environment is constantly trying to dislodge your vertebrae and forces you to be aware of it. It really helps with immersion into the stage. I have friends who disagree with this, who think that this kind of thing is a bullshit way people can get killed and that it skews the fairness of the game. They've got a fair point. However, there are others ways of making your level feel less like a stage background and more like a living, breathing thing. Remember this in Mortal Kombat?



I don't, because I never played Mortal Kombat, but that's not the point. This is kind of a problem with the entire genre of fighting games, which makes it more excusable, but at the same time, it's a problem with the entire genre of fighting games. I hope that makes sense.

Backgrounds look nice, character animations are fine, yadda yadda yadda. The game looks fine and sounds pleasant. It's on par with other fighters, like MvC2's gorgeous spritework and Smash's consistently fantastic soundtracks. Your sensory inputs will be quite satisfied with Skullgirls.

The things that really make Skullgirls shine, though, are its characters. You know how, in Marvel vs. Capcom or Street Fighter, all the characters feel really... same-y? Sure, there's a few differences. Maybe character X has a projectile, or character Y has a longer range with his sword thingy. But try to convince me that any other fighter of this caliber has this much variation between its characters. Go on. It's pretty tough to beat a character who can decapitate herself and use her head as a weapon. One of the reasons I've seen MvC2 get praised is because of its fifty-plus characters to choose from, and that's fine and well, and if we were judging by sheer numbers, it looks a hell of a lot more impressive than Skullgirls's ten (one of which is DLC). However, quality over quantity (wow I feel cliched as fuck) is rarely as evident as it is here. While there's only ten characters (one of which is DLC), they all have so much personality and creativity to them, both in design and gameplay. I implore you to find characters in another fighter that are close to being this original.

Personality-wise, the characters are great, too. They all have something interesting about them. (Except Filia, she kind of sucks now that Squiggles exists). Needless to say, my favourite character is the gigantic Bubsy the Bobcat reference who speaks in pun. There's also a ninja nurse, a dead girl who has some pretty funny banter with the parasite that controls here, a stereotyped cartoon character, and a girl with a hat that I find suspiciously reminiscent of this:



Another thing that sets Skullgirls apart from Marvel vs. Capcom 2 is that, being a modern game, there's a lot of fantastic options. If you've never played a fighter, for example, the game has an excellent tutorial in addition to a training mode that I highly recommend. Control-wise, the games control pretty much the same, but Skullgirls has a lot more depth that its spiritual precursor. You should check it out regardless of whether or not you've played MvC. The game still has the learning curve of Mount Everest, but at least this gives you a lot of base camps to acclimatize yourself at.

You can also chose 1, 2, or 3 characters regardless of how many your opponent chooses. The great thing is that they're all appropriately handicapped, so you've got a lot of options to play with depending on whether you prefer teams or a single, strong character. Also, it has online multiplayer, which automatically puts it higher on my favourite games list than MvC2.

KONTINUE IN PT. SECOND