PS3 Fanboy hands-on: Battle Fantasia
Battle Fantasia is an upcoming fighting game from Arc System Works -- a name fighting fans will recognize from the Guilty Gear series. The game will be released soon in Japan, hence why there's currently a playable demo up on the Japanese PSN. If you've got a Japanese account go check it out, if not, then read our impressions right here.
On the demo there are two modes you can play: versus CPU and story mode. We headed towards versus CPU first to get a feel for the controls. Sure enough, we engaged in battle, played around with the commands, and ultimately felt that the experience was most akin to Street Fighter Alpha. Everything from combo inputs to that specials bar at the bottom of the screen all mimic the classic set up. The artistic style is unique, though; it's like Guilty Gear meets Disney's version of medieval times.
Going into the story mode, we only got to choose one character: Marco, a little guy with a big sword. As opposed to versus CPU, we had the choice of either Marco or Urs -- a dude who fights with a chainsaw lightsaber. The story mode's plot-continuing conversations are all fully-voiced; however, they play out on static backgrounds with text boxes -- exactly the same as what you would find in old school J-RPGs. That's a bit boring. Well, in fairness we couldn't understand the narrative anyway, so it's possible the dialogue may have been mightily entertaining. Anyway, story mode takes your character of choice from location to location fighting challengers. The demo only had up to three challengers to go through before cutting us short.
The Battle Fantasia demo was an alright experience, but it leaves very little to desire over. There are so many other upcoming fighting games that offer something more than a rehashed combat system. Well, at least they rehash and then add something new. There's nothing noticeably new with Battle Fantasia. So far, we wouldn't recommend this game.
