Developer: Sirlin Games
Publisher: Sirlin Games
Platforms: PC
Tested on: PC
Fantasy Strike – Preview
Fantasy Strike as a title makes players think that the game is one set in the Square Enix universe with fighters from all of the Final Fantasy games. This isn’t the case however, as Fantasy Strike has nothing to do with the franchise. Playing a beta can be interesting, playing an alpha can be frustrating if it’s unstable, and playing this pre-alpha is more of the former and less of the latter. Seeing as it’s still in the very early parts of development, there currently is no release date yet.
Fantasy Strike is a tactical fighting game. It’s in the vein of Street Fighter games in the sense that every character has a ‘check’ if you will. Currently eight of the ten characters are playable.
There are four classes. There’s the ‘Zoner’, the Rushdown, the Grappler and finally the Wildcard. Every class has its strong suit and a weakness. A ‘Zoner’ plays in such a manner that you keep your enemy at bay. The Rushdowns are all about getting up in the enemies’ faces and merge their fists with their jawbones. ‘Grapplers’ are all about getting close enough to grapple with the opponent and slamming them into the ground. Wildcards can be played in a number of ways and can be counters to any of the categories.
When it comes to the fighting, every character has a set amount of damage. Every hit you take or give, takes away a section of the lifebar, so the game comes down to exchanging blows and a fight can be over in five blows with certain characters. This makes winning feels less epic if the lifebar is still 20% filled instead of a smidgen.
Graphically the game kills it with the aesthetics. The stages are all different and the characters are 3D with a cell-shaded finish. The attacks are fluid and the special attacks are flashy. There is however a slight graphical problem when it comes to attacks connecting. You’d think that certain attacks cancel others out, but for some reason you can’t cancel a special attack even when your attack hits them before the animation ends and the attack starts. This is probably a slight balancing issue which can be forgiven due to the game still being pre-alpha.
When talking about the music in Fantasy Strike, it’s hard to believe that this game is just a pre-alpha. Every stage has a unique theme song and all of them sound really finished. The only small annoyance that comes forth from the sound department, is that the game has a slightly too long selection tune. The tune takes up about 5 seconds, if the developers halve the time, then the flow between the selection and the fight is more natural.
The pre-alpha has controller support and if you can’t get in on a match from some other player somewhere across the world, then you can try your hand at the arcade mode, and if you don’t like getting your ass handed to you, you can link up to two controllers to your computer and play with someone on the couch. That is where you’ll currently have most of the matches, as players are few and the connections are kind of shaky, making fights more of a gamble than an actual show of fighting prowess. The tutorial is a bit restrictive in the manner that you can’t really change the behavior of the sparring partner.
Conclusion
If you are looking for a fighting game that harkens back to the days where you had to actually think about choosing which character you would play as, and know your character’s moves down to a T, then Fantasy Strike is a game that should grace your Steam Library. As it is now, you’ll get to play the game and watch how it evolves as the developers make constant updates to the game. If you are looking for a simple fighter where button bashing gets you through most of the game then you won’t get any satisfaction out of Fantasy Strike.
Fantasy Strike - Preview,
No Comments