Reviews VideoGame / Skull Girls

One of the most accessible fighters

Skullgirls is my favorite fighting game. It is my favorite for every reason except gameplay, which goes to Street Fighter: 3rd Strike, even though I'm terrible at it.

First, let's talk about fighting games and you. Chances are "you," the people reading this review, aren't major fighting game players. But! Skullgirls is designed to be as accessible as possible while still providing a full range of options, even if lead dev Mike Z has... some of his own opinions on what this means.

The game provides a comprehensive tutorial system, although it's still missing a couple things, notably advanced defensive options which aren't applicable to other fighting games. Additionally, other modern fighters have reached similar conclusions: they need tutorials. This reduces it as a reason to choose Skullgirls over modern fighters, but it is still very important. I'd say it's the best fundamental tutorial in fighters.

Skullgirls is very heavily inspired by Marvel vs Capcom. Even if it's not my particular style of fighter gameplay, I respect the style nonetheless and I think Skullgirls is better at it than Mv C ever was. Mv C games are jank. U Mv C 3 is also ridiculously complex. Skullgirls has toned down those parts without losing meaningful depth.

Okay! Now what makes this game my favorite!

Everything feels full of life. Everything is well-drawn, well-animated, the action is fast, the characters shout things all the time! I could go on all day about all the awesome aesthetics of this game. Each character is distinct, each stage is vibrant.

And it really adds to how it feels to play the game. Not only the personality of the characters, but the feedback on every action is perfect. The hitstop (frames paused on hit), audio effects and visual effects are perfect.

Plus, it has easily the best characters in fighting games. Arc System Works games have nothing on this. I can count the number of Guilty Gear characters I like on one hand (personality-wise, design-wise they're distinct).

Storywise, the story is incomplete and looks to be staying that way for years, if not forever... neither the IP nor Lab Zero are dead, thanks to the announcements of Indivisible and Skullgirls Mobile, not to mention that Mike Z is still manically working on the game, but there haven't been any announcements related to the main Skullgirls storyline. What already exists varies in quality. The original 8 stories were made to sell each character, and they do! They also have nonsensical progression and lack significant chunks of background information. Nonetheless, they still add plenty to the lore and leave you wanting more. The DLC stories deliver even better. Squigly's story alone was a notable quality increase, and by the time of Eliza? Fantastic!