Video Game / Fight League

Be the Best Together

Fight League was a turn-based battle game developed by XFLAG (better known for Monster Strike) for iOS and Android. Billed as an "all-out tag-team board game", it released in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao, and Canada in June 2017. The English servers were closed down in June 2019, while the original Japanese version ended service after March 2020. The game was played on a 3x4 board and emphasized unit placement in order to create chain and combination attacks; the goal of the game was to reduce the leader character's health to zero.

An anime adaptation produced by Bandai Namco Pictures, Fight League: Gear Gadget Generators, released on YouTube between February and August 2019. Consisting of 26 ten-minute episodes, the anime focuses on the GGG, one of Fight League's five "brands" of fighters. Though the original uploads are region-locked, Crunchyroll picked up the distribution rights to the series, where it is available with English subtitles.

Not to be confused with Fight Club (or its source novel).

Tropes related to the original game:

• Allegedly Free Game: The game was a standard "gacha"-type mobile game that presented itself as free but heavily-incentivized spending real money.
• Announcer Chatter: Both the game and the anime feature commentary on pretty much every single development in battle.
• Canon Immigrant:
  • The Japanese version of the game added a variation of G-Wrench specifically based on her anime adaptation, complete with Megumi Han providing the voice instead of G-Wrench's original voice actress Yumika Yano. There were also several "Anime Side Story" missions that were added as episodes were aired.
  • Played with regarding Mona Chrome, the Fixx twins, and UltraMax G-Wrench, which were added to the game at the exact same time that the episodes that first feature them were released. UltraMax G-Wrench was also voiced by Megumi Han instead of Yumika Yano
• Combination Attack: A central gimmick of the game. A character attacks using "Fight Arts", arrows that travel to some of the eight spaces surrounding the character. An enemy hit by an arrow takes damage, but an ally hit by an arrow is powered up and performs their own "Art Chain". This leads to situations where you could surround the enemy and strike them multiple times by chaining allied attacks together.
• Competitive Balance: Short-range arts only had a range of one space per direction, while long-range arts moved across an entire line. To compensate, short-range fighters typically hit in more directions at once and/or did more damage.
• Crippling Overspecialization: Downplayed with the Athlete Creatures brand, centered around Beast Men who serve as athletes, in the original game; they had strong attack power, but their Fight Chain abilies were lacking.
• Critical Hit: Critical Hits added 100 damage to the attacker's Fight Art. The chances of a fighter performing criticals increased with each duplicate copy of the fighter that was obtained.
• Crossover: The Japanese version of the game added a sixth brand based on Monster Strike.
• Desperation Attack: Leaders have an ability called "Fight Burst" which becomes available once their health drops below a certain level.
• Dub Name Change: The game made numerous changes to the character names, generally to make them more Punny or smooth over some Engrish. The practice carries over into Gear Gadget Generators, which was not dubbed into English. G-Wrench (Adjust Wrench in Japanese) and Mona Chrome (Chrome Monocrome) are less conspicuous, but Zero (Ryuzu) and Chip (Vibra) stick out like sore thumbs when comparing the dialogue to the subtitles.
• Fight Like a Card Player: The game was styled after a board game, the characters' stats and abilities read like a card game, the player's ten-character roster was flat out referred to as a "deck", and there was very little RPG-like stat growth, which made it a straighter example than the average gacha mobile game.
• Glass Cannon: The Toys of the Dead brand, centered around a creepy mix of horror and toys, could easily deal a ton of damage but had low health in the game.
• Jack of All Stats: The 18th Avenue brand, an Anachronism Stew of traditional and more modern Japanese culture, generally took up this role in the game.
• Long-Range Fighter: The GGG brand, centered around mechanical parts and robots, generally utilized long range options and support skills in the game.
• Mechanical Lifeform: GGG features sentient robots of various shapes and sizes, from talking radios to human-sized Mecha.
• Punny Name: Several examples, with the English version further tweaking the names to create even more. The most notable example among Boltechs is Mona Chrome, a play on "monochrome".
• Series Mascot:
  • Korobi, a cute, pudgy feline...thing affiliated with 18th Avenue, fills the cute mascot quota.
  • 18th Avenue Boy Yaji and his Style Change represented the game for much of its later life, with Torque Twister G-Wrench becoming more prominent once the anime started airing.
• Stone Wall: The Justice Professionals brand, centered around professional Superheroes and Supervillains, had high health and an emphasis on chain arts rather than direct damage in the game.
• Too Long; Didn't Dub: When the game's English servers closed down, the Japanese version was updated to incorporate the already-translated content but seemingly did not bother to translate any content beyond that. This meant that you had fully-translated fighters coexisting with completely-untranslated fighters.
• We Cannot Go On Without You: A battle ends when the leader character is taken out, regardless of how many allies are left.

Tropes specific to Fight League: Gear Gadget Generators:

• 2D Visuals, 3D Effects: The anime lies somewhere between heavy usage of this trope and full-on Medium Blending; the battlefield and anyone actively participating in combat are rendered in 3D while everything else is rendered in 2D. This also leads to scenes such as Professor Pi, drawn in 2D, reflecting a 3D rendering of her hand and Mona Chrome off of her glasses.
• And the Adventure Continues: G-Wrench turns down an invitation to be fast-tracked to the Fight League, stating that she would rather qualify the same way as everyone else. Spanner is still at large, with Wrench's grandfather leaving home to track her down.
• The Anime of the Game: As mentioned at the top of the page.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Mona Chrome gets this twice. The first simply involves destroying a small device that Spanner was using to control her, while the second is more thorough and involves wearing her down and an "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight.
• Cooldown Hug: Wrench brings Mona back from her second Brainwashed and Crazy state by hugging Mona and returning her hair ribbon.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Venonymous and Boltechs trade these in the first two episodes: Viper and Ivy flatten Boltechs in less than three minutes in the first episdoe, while Venonymous has no answer for Mona Chrome in the rematch.
• A Day in the Limelight: As the title implies, Gear Gadget Generators is focused on the GGG brand. More specifically, the Boltechs team headed by Torque Twister G-Wrench are the main protagonists.
• Demoted to Extra: G-Wrench's pet Pinpoint was a full-fledged fighter in the game, but spends all of his time hanging around G-Wrench's home in the anime.
• Disney Death: Chip is seemingly offed by the GSF, including Vice referring to Chip as if he's dead, but he appears in the last episode to prevent the heroes from having their gadgets hijacked.
• 11th-Hour Superpower: Wrench uses a Style Change Burst to become UltraMax G-Wrench for the last three standard battles of the anime.
• Enemy Mine: Teams Boltechs, Q.E.D., Clockwork Paradox, and Venonymous decide to team up to keep Mona and Amy out of the hands of the GSF and Spanner.
• Expy: The titular mecha of Mobile Armor Gunbar looks like it stepped right out of the Brave Series, down to striking the famous "Obari pose" at one point.
• Fangirl: G-Wrench is a massive fan of Mobile Armor Gunbar, with "Gun-gun-[word]" being a regular part of her vocabulary. One of the first things she does with Mona Chrome is introduce her to the series. This obsession leads to a critical plot point, as Mona's solution for fighting the Guardian Proto and its Power Nullifier is to build Gunbar via scrap parts.
• Fanservice: Shots of varying levels of subtlety focus on Wrench's chest, "helped" by her form-fitting, midriff-baring top.
• Genre Shift: The last episode of the anime goes from a battle action series to a Super Robot anime, of all things.
• Heel–Face Turn: Amy, after having been repaired by G-Bolt. It helps that she was built by G-Bolt to begin with.
• Improbably Female Cast: While there are male characters, the cast of the anime is disproportionately female.
• Lost Technology: The appropriately-named "Lost Gear", speculated to have been an ancient weapon. Amy and Mona were made based on this technology.
• Mid-Season Upgrade: This is how "Style Changes" are presented in the anime. Interestingly, while Wrench unlocks G-Wrench Maximum G halfway into the series, Cleanette unlocks a Style Change a mere seven episodes into the series.
• Mythology Gag: The arrows used to represent attacks in the game show up all over the place in the anime, in both serious and comedic situations.
• Pragmatic Adaptation: The game let you carry ten fighters into a battle. The anime reduces it to 5-6 per team, and even then some fighters (most notably Keyla and Multieye) only get one battle scene.
• The Stinger: The last scene of the anime teases a story based on the 18th Avenue brand. The state of the franchise makes it unlikely that said sequel will ever happen.
• Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: The individual teams of GGG come up with a plan to stop Mona Chrome from carrying out an assassination and bring them back to their senses. They successfully trap Mona in a battlefield, letting the assassination target get away, and an combination attack by Piers and Wrench knocks Mona unconscious. However, right as Wrench runs to catch them, they wake up and fly out of the hole that Piers's drill attack created in the battlefield barrier.