Arcana Heart - New 2D Fighting game on Arcades!
 

Well, i dont know if too much people are interesting in Arcade games on Gamingforce (never saw too much interest to be honest, sorry if im wrong) but i guess that mostly 2D fans will take a look at this:

Yuki Enterprise, the same guys who creates the latest Samurai Shodown title (Tenkaichi, released on Atomiswave and PS2 in Japan) are now working on his own project, the game is called Arcana Heart and a location test was released yesterday, you can see some images on this blog.

Its a 2D fighting game! and, even if there are not too much screenshots the quality of the sprites seems pretty good, the resolution seems to be like Guilty Gear.

The concept of the game is: A loli-fighting title, yes... another if you can count Melty Blood Act-Cadenza and, you know, TONS of doujin fighting games on PC, but this time is commercial and in Arcades! there are 10 girls for now (remember that this game is still in Beta) and it has some of the most beautiful -still not too much original- desings i ever seen in a loli-esque fighting game... hope that Yuki makes a good work with this.

Some images:

http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/3...3052724wg5.jpg

http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/712...3052742tb0.jpg

and my favorites characters for now:

http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/304...3052658ak5.jpg http://img147.imageshack.us/img147/6...3053520wh8.jpg

A Motoko-clone and your average but really cute gothic-loli!

Yuki screw-up SS Zero and Tenkaichi... so i dont think that Arcana Heart be better one...

I barely played the SS Zero and Tenkaichi games at an arcade in Santa Cruz. I wasn't terribly impressed, so I'm not sure what to expect from this.

I'll wait to see some videos of it and if it's taken in by the fighting game world before I get really interested.

Hi guys,

I recently wrote my impressions of this game including several high-res videos. Unfortunately this stupid board won't let me post a link because I need a higher postcount or some shit.

Anyway, someone with enough postcount should check the frontpage of the website insomnia.ac and post the link to the article here for everyone to see.

icycalm's Arcana Heart entry

There ya go, man. I'm currently downloading a few of the videos. Nice article by the way.

Thanks.

It's a damn fine game, you know. I've been going round various message boards to gauge opinion, and it saddens me to see some people bash it just by a screenshot or a crappy youtube video. At least those who watch a few of my videos will have something to base their views on.

I heard about this a little while ago. It's nice to see that there are still some original 2D fighters coming out. And it has loli-style character designs. Cute (though not too original)!

After watching the videos on icycalm's page (nice article!), I'm a little skeptical about it. The animation doesn't look that great. Both KOFXI and Melty Blood have excellent animation by comparison; with a little more work, I'm sure Yuki could've fleshed the girls out a bit more. Arcana's characters did look cleaner than KOFXI's and Melty Blood's, though (from the videos at least).

I can't comment much on the fighting system, only that it didn't look too differetnt from what's already out there. Granted, it's difficult to come up with a fighting game innovation that will be embraced by the fighting game community, if successful, or won't cause the company to lose too much money if it fails. Still, outside of its loli lineup, it needs something creative and deep to help it succeed. icycalm mentioned a customization system, but I can't find any info on that. The official site has nothing useful.

I'd like to play it sometime soon in order to give an informed opinion. Until then, though, I'm sort fence sitting. I'm looking forward to it somewhat (again, cute cast), but I don't expect much right now.

Yeah, after watching the videos I'm a tad bit skeptical as well. The animation definitely needs some work -- some more flash and even exaggeration? As it stands the fighter comes off as pretty boring and uninspired purely on it's gameplay system. Should Yuki further develop the game before it's final arcade release, it might be something I'll get into via a PS2 import (if one ever gets released).

For now, I guess I'll stick with Melty Blood and Guilty Gear.