Skullgirls

1. Themself

   Feb 11, 2014

   10

   Skullgirls is a great game. Like, a REALLY great game. I’d honestly say one of the best games I’ve ever played. But, that’s not an objectiveSkullgirls is a great game. Like, a REALLY great game. I’d honestly say one of the best games I’ve ever played. But, that’s not an objective fact. That’s how I view it. Sure, it’s got some problems, but otherwise, it was a very enjoyable experience.
   
   First off is the music. When you begin the game, you get haunting opera. Then, there’s an electronic guitar riff with game footage in the background. Then once you’re on the main menu, you get a snazzy jazz number. And as you play the game, you have a unique song for each map that matches the general aesthetic. But one of the best pieces is “The Lives We Tried to Reclaim”, the song used for more emotional scenes. And then, during the credits, you get another jazz number, but this one is more chippy and happy. This one is called “In a Moment’s Time”, and is my favorite song in the soundtrack. The soundtrack was made mainly by Michiru Yamane, the woman who composed for the Castlevania games, before leaving Konami to work on Skullgirls. If you like her music, it’s safe to say you’ll like her work in Skullgirls. The rest of the soundtrack was composed by Vincent Diamante.
   
   What is personally my favorite part of the game are the wonderful character designs. All the characters are unique, creative, and very expressive. But it’s funny, because the lead animator of Frozen, a movie with a budget of millions backed by Disney, said that animating women is so hard that apparently they had to revise the entire movie’s storyline while this indie game had an entire cast of women, all with amazing character designs. But, what makes them so good? Well, for one, they allow for expression. They are very stylized, and the range of emotions the characters can convey is very wide. Second, is that they’re just cool to look at. Although not everyone might agree, a good chunk of these characters are rather cute.
   
   As for the backgrounds, they are also excellent. You can just imagine the day-to-day goings-on in some of them, and a lot of them already have things like conversing students at school, a preacher at the church when it’s full, people just hanging out at Little Innsmouth (which I might add is just one big reference to Lovecraft), and burning buildings in a mid-battle city. Although you might not be looking at the backgrounds as you’re in the middle of a fight, they’re still simply wonderful.
   
   Another great part is the dialogue. It’s nothing award-worthy, but it’s certainly something. Each of the characters has not only their own personality, which is a standard among good characters, but they even have their own speaking quirks. Squigly, an opera singer, is very polite and graceful. Peacock, a girl obsessed with cartoons, has a very 1920’s way of speech. Cerebella, a circus performer working for a mafia, throws off circus sayings and lines showing loyalty to the mob boss, Vitali. You can also hear them speak during fights, which is a relief from the usual collection of grunts and groans a good lot of fighting games have. While many games don’t pay much attention to dialogue, saving it for cutscenes, Skullgirls certainly put a bit of work into it.
   
   However, a problem is that it’s a bit fanservicey. That might be kind of alienating for female customers, and some males, and that’s totally fine. If you don’t want to play a game because it’s content makes you feel uncomfortable in any way, even if the entire gaming community says it’s the bee’s knees, you don’t have to. But if you like the fanservice, then that’s fine too.
   
   Changing the topic, it is rather easy to get used to if you’re a long-time fan of fighting games. With its 6-button layout, similar to that of Marvel vs Capcom, allows more die-hard players to get into the game almost right away, without much of a hassle.
   
   But what truly makes Skullgirls stand out is its animation. Literally every frame is individually hand-drawn. The characters all move very smoothly, and it’s beautiful. Just beautiful. Heck, it even got into the Guinness World Records for most frames per character.
   
   Whereas most fighting games don’t pay much to story, Skullgirls doesn’t either, but got the most bang for its buck. You can clearly see the relationships between characters in the different storylines, and the backstories for all of the characters are all tragic, save for that of Double, who’s background is more unknown. But the genius of the backstories is that they aren’t revealed straight away. After you’ve played the character for a bit, and got attached to them because of their actual character, then you get the sad, tear-jerking backstory. If we got the backstories immediately then we wouldn’t care because we don’t like them yet. That is talked about in this video, albeit on a different subject.
   
   But one of the problems I have with the game is it’s odd difficulty curve. When you play on story mode, it goes quite smoothly, but then you get to the final boss and WOAH. Suddenly it’s Dark Souls: Fighting Game Edition. I actua… Expand

   • 0 of 2 users found this helpful
2. Fantasy55

   Feb 28, 2014

   10

   The art and game-play are both amazing. Great touch of having the beta to be accessed, and the game is kept up-to-date in steam. I totallyThe art and game-play are both amazing. Great touch of having the beta to be accessed, and the game is kept up-to-date in steam. I totally recommend this game to both new and old fighters.… Expand

   • 1 of 3 users found this helpful
4. eternalsnows

   Aug 29, 2013

   10

   I'll cut to the chase: go buy Skullgirls right now. It's incredibly fun and you'd be hard pressed to find a better value for your gamingI'll cut to the chase: go buy Skullgirls right now. It's incredibly fun and you'd be hard pressed to find a better value for your gaming dollar. The sheer amount stylishness, polished gameplay, and raw originality on display here is truly remarkable.
   
   I've always enjoyed fighting games, but I'm not an expert by any means. I like to learn as many special moves and combos as I can, but my actual "strategy" usually ends up being semi-coherent button mashing. I own Street Fighter IV and Mortal Kombat and have had a lot of fun with both. Skullgirls is similar in many ways to its big-budget cousins, but it's also very much its own game. The neo-Art Deco art style is very well done and the characters are designed and animated to perfection. It's an absolute joy to watch classic Warner Bros.-style cartoon chaos unfold as cars race across the screen, heads roll, and giant balls of twine wreak havoc on your character. The voice acting is limited, but suits the mood of the game to a T, as does the 1920s-era jazz soundtrack.
   
   I do have a few tiny nitpicks. I would like to see a few more characters, a little bit more voice work, more graphics options, and maybe some polishing done on a few of the stage backgrounds. Honestly though, I get why there are a couple of minor weaknesses like this. Clearly the developers spent a huge amount of time and money perfecting the core gameplay, and as a result they've come up with something really special. If a few secondary things fell through cracks or got pushed back then that's totally reasonable. It just makes me look forward all the more to future patches/DLC and (hopefully) Skullgirls 2!… Expand

   • 7 of 13 users found this helpful
5. SirKirbyThe4th

   Jun 18, 2015

   9

   Know what Marvel vs. Capcom 2 is? That's pretty much this game. BUT... its as close to that game as Minecraft is to Lego Worlds (look it up).Know what Marvel vs. Capcom 2 is? That's pretty much this game. BUT... its as close to that game as Minecraft is to Lego Worlds (look it up). You can choose from 1-3 characters, less characters means more power. It has really great looking hand-drawn sprites. Glorious music. & of course, an amazing battle system. & less than 7.2 million characters to choose from like MvC2. There's like, 10.… Expand

   • 0 of 0 users found this helpful
6. smilzoboboz

   Mar 19, 2015

   8

   Skullgirls is an hand-drawn HD frantic fighting game that excels both on mechanics and graphics.
   
   While this game is undoubtedly well made ISkullgirls is an hand-drawn HD frantic fighting game that excels both on mechanics and graphics.
   
   While this game is undoubtedly well made I didn't like it for mostly 2 reasons: the game is screen invasive and the combat system (on medium-to-high level games) focuses on mind-play only, leaving to reflexes just a marginal part.
   What do I mean by screen invasive? Often the screen is filled with things (from projectiles to actual non-damaging screen effects) that are not "the other character". I like things to be clean and linear like on street fighter series (I don't mind guilty gear series too, but for example BlazBlue crosses the line).
   On the mind-play vs reflexes part here's the thing: sadly with games now played more and more often online Skullgirls developers decided (and they are totally right on this point on a marketing perspective) to leave to reflexes a marginal part since online you cannot actually do lightning-reflex play and their game 99% of the times was going to be played online.
   
   So, if you're like me probably you don't want this game but any other fighting game fan should have this game and all the DLC.… Expand

   • 1 of 1 users found this helpful
7. sinadoom

   Nov 15, 2013

   5

   Firstly I'd like to state my experience with fighting games. I only play SF4 and done all trials on SSF4 so I know the game mechanics of thatFirstly I'd like to state my experience with fighting games. I only play SF4 and done all trials on SSF4 so I know the game mechanics of that game very well. Coming to Skullgirls, it was a pleasant change to see a fighting game have an extensive tutorial. Everything from movement, blocking, blockstun and recovery concepts, high and low attacks, combo chains, air combos, the different attacks, throws and techs, infinite breaker etc. Every aspect of the game is perfectly taught in the tutorial. Each character also has their own specific tutorial explaining their moves and how they should be played. So very impressive stuff. However, there are no combo trials like in Street Fighter, the final boss in story mode is really cheap and there are no animated cutscenes or voices so story is literally just text. But what really puts me off this game is not these things, but the characters. The game mechanics are excellent and don't have things tacked on for the sake of it like Street Fighter x Tekken, but the characters don't really suit the game. I don't mind that there are only 8 characters and they are all REALLY DIFFERENT from each other, but none of them seem to play how you'd expect them. They have crazy moves which seem like gimmicks and these playstyles are very unconventional compared to other fighting games. However, I do like that you can choose to play as up to three characters, with the trade-off of choosing less being more health. But I dislike all the characters and their moves lists and their jumping range and everything else. It's hard to tell what's going on because of all these gimmicks and flash on screen. Comboing is pretty much like Marvel vs Capcom 3 where there is no timing involved it's literally do each attack straight after the other no timing to master like Street Fighter. My recommendation is that if you want a fighting game which is less about grounded fundamentals and more about craziness like MvC3 then get this. If you like Street Fighter it's probably not for you.… Expand

   • 5 of 7 users found this helpful
8. Criticaldrop

   Jun 5, 2020

   0

   This game is wonderful, the gameplay, the characters, the style. You should buy it if you are a casual gamer or pro player alike, but ...This game is wonderful, the gameplay, the characters, the style. You should buy it if you are a casual gamer or pro player alike, but ... SonicFox XD._.… Expand

   • 0 of 2 users found this helpful

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