Completionist 2014: Skullgirls

Yes! Another game down. After surviving the hurricane, Weir and I decided to try out some of these fighting games we picked up on steam. I have seen things around about Skullgirls before, and it looked kinda... Interesting... I like the art, but it does seem a little fan-service-y. The sprites are fantastically drawn. They've added lots of details to both the characters and the backgrounds.

The plot varies from character to character. Unlike Vanguard Princess, I was compelled to complete the game with every character. This includes the two unlockable characters, Valentine and Double, as well as the hidden Fukua character. Basic premise is there is a thing called a Skullgirl, and that person is generally giving the world a bad time. And its up to the characters to get to the Skullgirl for one reason or another. Many of the stories tend to be on the darker side. I find the various plots to kinda fall in line with most fighting games. Not a lot of exposition, and lots of common themes. I'd have to say the general feel reminded me a lot of Guilty Gear.

The game mechanics is what really kept me interested and hopeful to beat the game with all the characters. Unlike Vanguard Princess, the game mechanics felt very... In frame. For lack of better words. When I was trying to perform moves, even though I was button mashing most of the time, I felt like I was in control. I could tell when and where I could attack and hit boxes were easily defined.

Playing against Weir was really fun. We setup the matches with him hosting the games and I connect to him. Skullgirls has a fantastic system for dealing with latency and I never felt like my network ever got in the way of our matches. Even during a goddamn hurricane. Whoever figured out the netcode for Skullgirls really did a good job. Whoever you are, go buy yourself a beer/soda/beverage of choice.  You've earned it.

My previous experience hearing about Skullgirls was always something on the negative side. I remember reading articles about how their publisher dropped them and they had to re-release under a self published indie sorta title. I mean, that had nothing to do with how the game played, but it did sorta make me think twice about purchasing the game. Which is unfortunate, because this is really a great game. I will chalk this up to "play it for the game, not the news around it." Really glad I played it.

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>SCORE = -61;