Overview:

The game consists of these modes:

• Arcade - A mode where you have to beat all 9 stages, just like in the arcade version.
• Story - You can experience each character's story.
• Vs 2P - You can fight against a second player.
• Vs CPU - You can fight against the CPU.
• Survival - A mode where you can see how many people you can beat in succession.
• Practice - You can adjust game parameters to practice.
• Time Attack - See how fast you can clear all 13 stages.
• Gallery - You can view the opening movie or illustrations you've unlocked.
• Online - You can compete in online battles and view your online ranking.
• Options - You can change the settings for the game.

Life in this game is based on HP, so every character will have a different amount. You have a power bar on the bottom that fills up to different levels. When it's full you can pull of 'Super Special Moves'.

Graphics:

The art style is kind of like a graphics novel. Animations are awesome. For in game graphics they are polygon based, but shaded to have rich and detailed anime style graphics. If you've played Princess Crown for Sega Saturn, it kind of has that feel. The characters' emotions as they fight are very Japanese. I find it to be comical and entertaining.

Controls:

Each button can be assigned to any button you want on your controller.

As we all know the 360's controller is not the best suited for fighting games. The controls are OK if you go that route, but to me it still feels awkward due to the d-pad only having 4 real points. I tried out my Soul Calibur arcade stick and it works very well.

The moves are pretty much of the Street Fighter fare. The Hori sticks are pretty well designed for these type of games. The uppercut type of moves are always on point, due to the square nature of the the joystick's points and the clicks. It makes it very easy to tell exactly where you are in your rotations.

The battle system is pretty simple compared to other fighting games out there like Soul Calibur. It's not very combo intensive. So it should be easy for Casual players to jump right in. The pace of the game is kind of slower too.

Here is my favorite move in the game. It deals only 1 HP of damage, but that doesn't matter.

Sound:

The game voices are in Japanese, which I prefer, with subtitles. The only English spoken in this game is by the Announcer. His voice and the way he announces reminds me of Powerstone. Background music is very upbeat. It makes you feel like you are playing a Fairy Tale.

Conclusion:

I have yet to experience an online match. Couldn't find anyone online to play with, I doubt this game sold well.

If you like Street Fighter type of games based in a fantasy world with a Japanese influence, this game is for you. I know that I will have lots of fun playing this game, because it feels like your playing a Fighting game with RPG characters. This is something that I can just pick up after work and have quick and painless fun with.

8/10

Did this game come out already? If not, how did you manage to play it already?

It's out, got my copy from Amazon in the mail today. I don't think any of the big retail stores like Best Buy and such carry it though. I've only seen them on Amazon and EB's websites.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001CXGC60

http://www.ebgames.com/Catalog/ProductDetails.aspx?product_id=72388

I read that most Gamestops/EBS only got 2-3 copies in each store, some stores only got one copy aka a reserve.

My Wal-Mart didn't receive ANY copies and I saw none at Best Buy. I didn't check Circuit City.

This game is going to sell just as well as Operation Darkness at this rate, and for once it won't be the buyers fault considering the low amount of copies out there.

I read the review on IGN. Surprisingly its not a bad fighting game. IGN bashed it because it was simply out of the leagues of premier fighters like Virtua Fighter, Tekken, Dead or Alive and several others. So they gave it a underrated score.

It has everything a fighting game should have. It's a average fighting game that is worth $20 or $30. If your a Japanese junkie, then its worth owning. I will buy it, because I believe all games are equal, no game is better than the other.

Nice review by the way pbroy! :)

Haha, we don't even carry it. We don't even carry Disgaea 3 and Tales of Vesperia.

My friend bought the JP version for his PS3, I like the way it plays, but it is a little upsetting, if this game came out before SF4 then that means Capcom basically took the mechanical concept of this game to make SF4, however it's only a little upseting as I've only seen trailers of SF4, they have it at the arcades in Manhattan but I only go into that section of town on business.

Yeah, I've been noticing that lately. Lots of stores have been ordering small quantities of Japanese translated games lately or not even carry them. It's kind of sad, because there are people out there that would like these games.

Amazon only has 3 copies left of this game:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001CXGC60

@ejcurb

Thanks, I like weird games. People need to know about them too.

If anyone is wondering about how much substance this game has. The Story mode is VERY story intensive. It involves long conversations between characters, which is very funny. Each character has more than one story. There is a percentage counter that comes up on each character's picture when you highlight them. That will tell you if you've played through their complete story.

I found Marco's story to be very funny. He likes to play Power Ranger.

End Boss: Wow, I had a really hard time with this one. But after thinking about it for a while, it was something really easy you have to do to beat him. Here's how:
You need to go into 'Heat Up' mode. You do this buy pressing LT when  your power gauge is full. Your attacks will do massive damage and make it easy to knock down his MASSIVE HP level.

Also by default, Automatic Save is turned off. You might want to turn it on before you start playing. Just in case you forgot to save when you turn your console off.

I've had this game on PS3 for a few months now, it's actually quite fun. Aparrently played at a high level it is pretty broken with infinites and stuff. That's one of the reasons it didn't do so well in Japan. Not very many people online for the PS3 version either, some Japanese still play it here and there when I hop on, but other than that it's just people on my friends list.

Maybe it will get more life on 360, but I wouldn't get my hopes up. If anyone is a fan of 2D style fighters though, I would definitely recommend picking it up.