Dengeki Bunko Fighting Climax Review (PS3)

I’ve been waiting for this game for a long, long time and now it’s finally here due to SEGA taking a much appreciated risk, and I’m so happy that it was worth the wait!

 

Dengeki Bunko is a Japanese publishing company that’s licensed popular and fantastic works including Golden Time, Toradora!, Sword Art Online, Accel World, The Pet Girl of Sakurasou… the list goes on and many of the main characters from these series’ have all joined together in a cross-over battle to save not only their worlds, but everyone’s worlds. The story might not go much further than defeating new villain Zetsumu and prevent him from consuming all the worlds, but the character interactions are top fun and the story and characters’ hopes gives you more than enough reason to keep on fighting, and it comes with a strong message to follow your dreams – yeah, this is definitely an anime-inspired (well, mostly light novel inspired) affair but that’s why I love it so much.

 

Although most of the characters you’ll likely already be familiar with, there’re new faces in the form of Goddess-like Denshin, who summons you to defend the worlds, and Zetmusu who’s a shadow-like monster who’s trying to consume you along with everyone else. With so many series’ to pick from, it’s easy to be upset when one of you favourites doesn’t make it in but I’m happy to see the likes of Kuroyukihime, Kirito, Asuna, Taiga, Mikoto Misaka and Shizuo make the cut with other lesser known series’ characters such as Koko Kaga and Mashiro Shiina making it in as assist characters alongside others such as Leafa and Celty – it’s a Dengeki Bunko fans dream come to life!

 

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If you’ve played the Persona 4 Arena games or maybe Under Night In-Birth, then you’ll easily adjust to Dengeki Bunko’s way of playing. It features a similar auto-combo system where you can mash square and the barrage of attacks will culminate in a special attack, but of course you can activate them whenever given that you have enough burst energy to do so. It’s easily accessible with ultimate attacks being exclusive to half circles backwards or forwards (each character has two ultimate moves), and standard special attacks being quarter circles and so there’s nothing straining such as 2 full circles or other more complicated inputs.

 

You can take one assist character into battle with you who will perform an attack if you hit the X button, and they have two different moves where one is usually close range and one will be long range. They’re great to incorporate into combos and can get you out of a pinch but if you’re hit whilst they’re preparing for attack, then they’ll run away and you’ll have to wait for them to recharge before calling for their help again. SEGA have done a great job in making the game both accessible but deep enough for fighting veterans to be able to play competitively and, as I found out when playing online, you won’t be a master after having played story mode a few times! For those wondering, in the ranked and player matches I played, I experienced a stable netcode and was very impressed by it although it doesn’t seem like you can play with Japanese players.

 

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SEGA and developers Ecole Software and French Bread have had a hard job in bringing so many characters together with differing art styles but they’ve managed to retain their source appearance without anybody looking as if they don’t belong there. The 2D sprites are a great fit and move fluidly, re-creating moves unique to each character and obviously ones you’ll recognise from the source material, and SEGA have clearly taken the time to bring them accurately to life. There’re up to 12 colour palletes per character too, some of which reference other characters or iconic outfits.

 

My main issue is the stages. There’re enough stages but I wish they brought some in from the character’s worlds other than console-exclusive character Selvaria Bles, from Valkyria Chronicles, who has two stages dedicated to her series whereas the other characters get none. Most of the stages are throwbacks to SEGA franchises including Sonic the Hedgehog and Nights which is cool, or stages made for the game, but it seems like a waste to not have included any stages from so many series’, especially as there’re endless ideas for them.

 

There’s no English Dub which shouldn’t come across as a surprise as there isn’t a hue amount of dialogue and some series’ have never been dubbed in the first place, but they managed to get the original Japanese voice talent to reprise their roles. As with stages, it’s sad to see no familiar tracks make it across although I really enjoy the original OST with it’s J-Rock and upbeat battle tracks which manage to reflect all of the series’ in some way – everything about it screams crossover.

 

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There’s plenty of extra content in the form of character information and an archive of novels that they all came from, although whereas the first few pages of each novel was included in Japan, they weren’t translated or included in the English version, sadly. There’s a few more modes such as Survival, Time Attack and Dream Duel (which, as you might’ve guessed, sets up fights you could only previously have dreamed of) and plenty of trophies to earn. You also need to unlock Selvaria Bles and Alicia (who’s an assist character) from Valkyria Chronicles if you wish to play them along with Akira Yuki and Pai (also an assist character) from Virtua Fighter.

 

I’m very happy to see SEGA taking the risk to release Dengeki Bunko: Fighting Climax on PS3 and Vita overseas, although the price point is a little steep (£32.99 on PS3 and £24.99 on Vita) considering there’s an updated version releasing in Japan next month and that presumably may make its way over eventually too. Diehard fans of the series’ will find plenty to enjoy here though and I fully recommend it, although it’s up to you if you want to play the waiting game for the updated version or not but unless you import it, I can’t imagine it making its way over too soon, especially if this one doesn’t sell well.

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