Fighting Games Friday: Kill la Kill and Other News

Kill la Kill The Game: If’s promotional cycle has been full of divisive reactions. The potential for it to be a worthwhile game was high when it was announced by Arc System Works a little over a year ago. But that was until it was discovered to be developed by APlus Games, whose Little Witch Academia game adaptation was middling in quality. Also like that game, it looked fantastic in screenshots, but considerably less so in motion thanks to some jerky animation and its low framerate.

The skepticism is at least partly why a demo was released, to clear up lingering concerns about its quality — along with giving everyone a chance to see if they like it. The results are actually better than expected.

The demo provides let’s players go hands on with Satsuki Kiryuin (the protagonist of this game), Ryuko Matoi (the protagonist of the anime series), Ira Gamagoori, and Uzu Sanageyama. It also contains a sampling of the story mode, the scenario of which will initially be identical to the anime’s storyline but will branch into “What If?” territory after the anime’s eight episode, with the focus being on Satsuki. The short scenario ends with a tutorial battle against Ryuko, making this good to experience before jumping into the versus mode.

My first surprise upon controlling Satsuki was how polished and responsive the game felt, a switch from how sluggish it looked from mid-development videos. There’s a reason why this game took a little longer than expected to release. Characters can use melee attacks, projectiles, and a special attack that either launches characters into the air or breaks their guard depending on how long the button is held. The attacks and their speed depend on which characters are being played. Satsuki and Ryuko are well-rounded main characters, but Ira and Uzu are bulky and slow characters with powerful attacks and combos. It’s easy to pick up and play, but there’s depth to it given some of the combo possibilities — which even include air juggles.

It also looks good in motion, with a cel-shaded style that takes cues from Arc System Works-developed titles like the Guilty Gear Xrd series and Dragon Ball FighterZ. The visuals are even better with the polished framerate.

Not to say this is a flawless experience. One significant problem is how the camera doesn’t follow behind the characters at all times, despite this being an arena fighter. This means it’s easy for the player’s character to get lost behind the opponent when the latter runs into the camera’s perspective, especially if they’re big and bulky like Ira and Uzu, which makes it difficult to see several moves coming. This problem is reminiscent of Castlevania Judgment, a title you do not want your game compared to. This could be tolerable when playing the AI or friends, but it will be rough for competitive purposes.

The game should be fun for its fanbase, especially if the story is up to par, but we’ll see how tolerable the camera issue will be for anyone playing this seriously. The Switch demo will release on July 22nd, four days ahead of the full game’s release on PS4, Switch, and Steam on July 26th — two weeks from today.

7 deadly Sindels #MortalKombat11 pic.twitter.com/d1isuSbwxH

— Ed Boon (@noobde) July 8, 2019

The next DLC character for Mortal Kombat 11 will be Sindel, a common face in the Mortal Kombat franchise since Mortal Kombat 3. Unfortunately, Ed Boon didn’t provide more than a tease (something he’s extremely known for) on his Twitter account, so he’s keeping everyone waiting for the full reveal and release date. The image shows how her revenant form will be her default appearance, which means it could be “fun” to unlock her human palette. Her outfit here looks different compared to her old school-style scantily clad one from (mild spoilers) one of the game’s endings, though whether that will be an in-game option remains to be seen.

If the quick gap between Shang Tsung’s reveal and release was any indication, Sindel should join MK11 soon. I’m just hoping she says that line when she encounters Kitana.

In case you missed them: Bandai Namco made some fighting game-related announcements during their Anime Expo panel. More characters were announced for One-Punch Man: A Hero Nobody Knows including Vaccine Man, Mosquito Girl, Carnage Kabuto, and Deep Sea King. The game will release “soon,” in their words, but likely won’t arrive until 2020.

Additionally, Katsuki Bakugo from My Hero Academia was revealed for Jump Force, and will arrive alongside Dragon Ball’s Majin Buu later this summer. The characters are coming in packs of three, so they’ll be joined by one more character. The other remaining additions are Toushirou Hitsugaya and Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez from Bleach, Madara Uchiha from Naruto, and Trafalgar Law from One Piece. Of them, my money is on one of those Bleach characters, but I won’t guess who.

Fighting game news has been slow as we approach Evo 2019 in three weeks, to no surprise, which is why I gave the feature a break last week. But the season hasn’t been completely dead. Still, if there’s no news in the next few weeks, I’ll have some features ready.