Battle Fantasia
 

Battle Fantasia is a fairly niche 2D fighter, created by those who did the Guilty Gear series, Aksys Games. Although there aren't any particularly new conventions in it and the fighting system may feel rather clunky to some people, the main draw here is the fantastic 3D graphics. Each character and stage is in high-quality 3D, although the fighting is still confined to the horizontal plane we've all come to know and love. A word of warning though, the character designs are quite ridiculous which may turn some people off, ranging from a tiny rabbit magician, to a metrosexual ex-knight.

In addition, the story mode has completely voiced dialogue with two main paths for each character and several variations to the skits depending on what you do in battle (eg. use a certain move X times). The whole world is set up to have an RPG feel as the characters display HP under their health bars as an alternate indicator as to their current survivability. However, fortunately or not, there are no real RPG elements other than the branching, interconnected storylines.

Gameplay mechanics are fairly standard, combos require skill over button mashing for the most part. The Heat Up mechanic allows for powerful tactics like additional attacks and enhancements to existing moves. The parrying system includes the option to wall bounce your opponent and perform long and damaging combos off the bounce, as punishment to those who become too predictable and a reward for those who can come up with creative combos.

As for bonuses, the unlockable colors and costumes are quite nifty, outfitting your characters with mecha colours and superhero garb to name a couple. Win poses are fairly in-depth as well, each character having a fairly humorous way of interacting with the fallen opponent. Of course, there's always those achievements for those of us that take the time to get silly amounts of hits in combos and fully complete the story mode and all that. Online play is also available of course.





I'm curious as to whether there are any people here on GFF that play it as the online community seems to be almost non-existent for the most part given the limited exposure this title seems to have received. The game came out Q4 last year, but without much fanfare or publicity, and unfortunately only the X360 version at that. Regardless, it's still worth a look if you love 2D fighters and crazy character designs.

I've thought about buying this, mostly because I like the art style. I'm not that crazy about fighting games, though, and based on the reviews I read, I decided to wait until it ended up in the bargain bin (like WarTech). Maybe if it came down to $20 or $30 I'd pick it up, but I can't justify the purchase at full price.

I enjoy a good fighting game and alot of the videos I've seen looked pretty good but I've been broke and I don't have the internet to do online fighting. Should any of those change, I'd be more than interested in getting it.

I liked the one girl with a flag that looked like she danced with her opponent for one of her moves which looked like a throw. I also loved the one girl that holds a platter which looks like a nod to Jam from Guilty Gear.

There aren't many 360 titles that truly interest me but I am a fan of fighting games, particularly 2-D ones. I sincerely doubt I'll pick this up immediately, as money is tight. However, this does seem like the sort of title one could easily find used because someone else made an impulse purchase and wasn't patient enough to learn the game. Now that there's a 360 in the house, perhaps I can convince my brother to let me use it while he's at work and/or school. It's not like he isn't borrowing a bunch of my PS2 games at the moment.

I don't think I can resist playing as a magical squirrel. The quirk value alone has me intrigued.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't this have a minimum print run? (Not that this implies immediate rarity, see Senko no Ronde)

I think it's far more likely you'll find it new and heavily discounted than floating in the local GS's used garbage recycling plant bin.

You're probably right. I've been looking in stores, keeping an eye on prices, and it's becoming more and more rare. Still, I think chances are good that GS will drop it another $10 before it disappears.

This hasn't even hit over here in the UK yet, but it's out soonish (if memory serves) and has me a little intrigued (especially since I'm getting back into my fighters). But yeah, it'd probably have to be going at least a little cheap to really tempt me into properly thinking about grabbing it.

I've been looking for some new fighter to play for a while. I've looked at this a couple times wondering if it was good or not. A Gamestop near me has it used, so I'll be keeping an eye out for it until the price drops.

I have the game, but the online play is terrible. Specifically, Kago and I tried to mess around with it when I told him I had it. It ended up being that a guy in Northern Virginia and a guy in North Carolina could not connect to a match, but the game allowed one of them to play a 300 ping lag-fest with a Japanese player.

If any of you decide to get it, either hope to break it out during visits from friends (then switch back to Brawl) or brace yourself for some spotty online matches. I didn't pay full price, so make sure you aren't either if you're gonna drop coin on this title.

You're just trying to justify spending all that money on an arcade stick...

That said this looks a bit different, if there's a demo I'll certainly take a look.

You seem to be implying Street Fighter IV (and the stick itself) isn't worth the money alone. Your implication would be wrong sir. :p

Too bad, I see at least one copy in every EB and Gamespot here as well as other places, left unpurchased. :/ That said, I also wouldn't recommend getting this at full price unless you really love nonsensical character designs, and their resulting nonsensical moves. $59.99 is too much if you're going to just play this once in a while as a fighter on the side and not appreciate the story mode paths and such.

Concerning lag, I'm usually not too concerned as the experience is different for everyone across any game. As long as the lag isn't like the crippling SCIV on PS3 kind I've experienced. This game is already pretty humorous as is.

For you Sorny bad dudes in America, 505's publishing the PS3 version.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...CLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

Region free vidya gamin' etc.

It seems that the 360 version brand new sealed copies are going for 39.99. Still probably a little too pricey but much better than paying 60 bucks for it. The sexy artwork makes it hard to resist and the character designs are pretty cool.

The game is also listed on the ESRB website as a PSN title so it might be hitting that soon as a downloadable game on the US PSN.

People like Qwarky would be happy to hear that the US version only has the Japanese voiceovers so they can jerk off to that and pretend they understand spoken Japanese. So I'm guessing it will be the same when the PAL PS3 version comes out.

game is nice i have to admit
but the online match service for it sucks
had to look for a match for a hour...that's just horrible in my book for a fighting game.

Thread necromancy.

It's kinda to be expected for a niche fighting game like this, though. Even a long while back if you wanted to find a match for Senko no Ronde you were lucky to see two or three Japanese people on since there are only two people in North America who own the game.

If you're playing Battle Fantasia these days, then I wouldn't mind having some matches with you. I've never tried the online and haven't played for months since I got all the achievements that are feasible for me. However, I still wouldn't mind throwing a few drills and meteor storms here and there.