Battle Fantasia is a 2.5d fighting game released by Aksys games in April of 2007. This game features 12 pretty unique characters starting from Marco, a little kid who wants to one day go on adventures and be like his father, all Deathbringer, the man slaughtering giant. This game has some pretty unique features as well and some old favorites such as parry (Gachi).
Battle Fantasia is a 5 button fighting game (6 if you hotkey heat mode), that uses the following layout. It takes time getting used to, but if you play any of the king of fighters games, you'll fit right in.
(LP) (HP) (GA)
(LK) (HK)
In this game, parry is known as Gachi. There are 3 types of Gachi
- Normal Gachi: This gachi parry's a hit and leaves your opponent vulnerable to an attack for a brief period of time. Using gachi instead of guarding will result you taking 0 damage and put you in state where you are in a position advantage, allowing you to attack immediately while the opponent is still in a recovery state.
- Blue Gachi: This gachi is performed by pressing forward + gachi button. This gachi works like the normal gachi. The only difference is that after performing the parry, your character will attack the other character and bounce the opponent off the wall, into the air, and place them in a juggle state. As long as the opponent remains blue, you can keep juggling your opponent. In my opinion this is the most devastating of the 3 gachis. The problem with this gachi however is the timing of the gachi. Unlike the 1st gachi, this gachi isn't safe. Depending on your opponents move, this gachi can be countered. Lets say 1 atack had 2 hits. If you used Blue Gachi, you would get hit by the 2nd hit of that attack because Blue Gachi is too slow. Blue gachi takes time to get used to, but once you master this, you'll be well on your way to doing high damage output combos.
- Red Gachi. This is performed by holding down-foward + gachi button. This gachi counters a low attack and retaliates with an attack. This gachi will knock your opponent to the wall and put him/her in a spinning dizzy state. Characters with great ground combos can capitalize on this. If your character is a juggle character, try and find a way to get the opponent airborne from the ground to make use of this
There's also another unique feature to this game that's yet to be talked about. This feature is known as HEAT MODE. In heat mode, characters are granted special enhancements. For some characters, you get noticeable heats such as Marcos Dragon. Others are suddle but give nice rewards. Heat uses 1 meter and last about 5-10 seconds depending on the character. If you receive a significant amount of damage in heat mode, you will be put back into a regular state.
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With the key features explained, lets get back to the game. Battle Fantasia is Aksys gaming's attempt to create a unique balanced fighting game. Unlike earlier titles such as Guilty Gear, Battle Fantasia takes the classic fighting game approach such as Street Fighter 2 Turbo. Each player has a certain amount of HP. What's fascinating about this game is the exact amount of health is listed on each players side as though it were an RPG.
Unlike previous games, this game is very "zone" heavy.
Zoning: Controlling a set amount of space with normal moves and special moves.
It has elements of Street Fighter III: Third Strike, but the pace of the game is different. It's not slow by any means but it's not as fast as compared to 3rd strike. After about an hour or so of playing the game, you should transition a little better. This game also relies on the parry function a bit too. Since it's such a heavy mechanic in the game, it's good to start learning and recognizing patterns early on so that you can parry and capitalize on your enemies mistakes
This game appeals to the simple straightforward fighting game enthusiast. Even at the lowest levels of play, you have a blast, but when you're at higher levels of play, you can do things like this.
(No, this isn't me playing the game, lol)
Now, lets talk about the cast of the game for a second. Like with all Aksys fighting games, they use a brand of truly unique characters
Marco
Marco is in essence one of the main characters of the game (if not the main character). His playstyle is simple and has a lot of past fighters type of move sets. If you're new to this game, you'll probably find comfort in playing with Marco since his move set will be similar to that of Ryu of Street Fighter. He has a fireball command (each version has a different property) and a shoryuken command (Uses his sword instead of his fist).
He also has a few moves of his own that sets him apart like his Fanged Snake Crash (Jumping sword slash) and his Hell Slash (Fierce giant swing).
Accompanying Marco is his pet dragon, Char Siu
Char Siu takes importance in Marcos fighting style because Marco's heat mode transforms Char Siu into a fierce dragon ready for battle. Char Siu works like an assist character from the Marvel VS Capcom series games.
Urs
Urs, Marco's older brother was trained by his father to serve the queen and her army. Unlike Marco, he doesn't play like any other character. He uses a Chainsaw blade to take down his foes. The only move reminiscent of a previous fighter is Urs shoryuken like move. It's more like Kens than Ryu's since he does multiple hits with a flame sword.
Urs is a rush down character with a lot of mobility. Using him will get allow you to get to your opponent quickly and efficiently. He does medium damage like Marco but Marco is overall stronger than Urs. But that is debatable since Marco lacks the speed that Urs has. Marco is power, Urs is Speed.
Cedric
Cedric, is scholar of a science facility. He uses his calculative brain and smarts to get the edge on his opponents. His weapon of choice? A spiked ball and chain of course. He is also a magic user and is one of the charge type characters of the game. He has an essence of Guild because he has a flash kick (Holy Devotion) and sonic boom (Evangelical Light). Although they're similar, they don't play the same way at all. Cedric has zoning moves but he can also be played very aggressively.
Cedric can combo right out of his throw and he has a lot of juggle mix ups. He is a balance between a mix up and zoning character
Ashley
Ashley is a pretty crazy character. He has low damage output, but he's arguably the fastest character in the game. His a pure mix up character that capitalizes on tick-throws, and juggle opportunities. His heat mode makes him even faster as well as makes his damage out put higher and enhances properties to existing moves. This is the type of character that can only be played well at high levels of play because he's quite the complex character.
He uses his agile move set to move around the plain fast and hit fast. His damage output isn't that great, but if you can confuse your opponent, you'll rack up the damage in no time.
Olivia
Princess Olivia, another unique character of the game is pretty fun to play. She's also one of those characters that requires at least a intermediate level of understanding, but she also is pretty unique. She's a balance between zoning and rush down. She uses the flag of her mainland in order to defeat her foes. Attached to the tip of the flag is a spear head.
She has a lot of safe options that are available to her, which makes her kind of a threat. She can sit there all day, hitting you and retreating back to safepoints. She can also go head to head with you if you're in her space. She can score knock downs and start the mix ups
Beware of her Empress Lily. With it, she can juggle you into the air and go in for a super with little room for error.
Watson
God I love this little bunny. Watson is a master mage rabbit that with proper knowledge, can defeat any foe. Watson uses his mastery of magic to lay down the law. He can lay down magical traps to activate at a later time, as well as zone the crap out of you with his heat seeking fireballs.
Watson is zone heavy character. He can be used aggressively but he works best as a zoning character. He has great juggling capabilities and mix ups. If you like long, flashy combos, with a high execution barrier, then Watson is the little bunny for you.
Don't underestimate his magic, or you'll be taking 1300 damage in a single combo!
Freed
Freed is my favorite of all the existing characters. He is a rushdown character that has the essence of Balrog from street fighter. He has great mix ups and does a little over medium damage. His heat is my favorite amongst the rest of the cast as well, and one of the reason I picked him up. He creates a clone of himself that repeats his attack based on the level of strength of the move that you did. This only applies to special moves of course. He won't repeat a super or any normal attack. By using heat mode, you can create a load of frame traps that will in the end deal a lot of damage even if your opponent manages to guard.
Donvalve
The grappling giant, Donvalve is quite the damaging character. He has a strong damage output with very few combos. He has no dash but if you use his heat mode, he gains super armor, fast walk speed, and extra damage. By no means is not having a dash bad thing. He can always use his jet pack attack to get around the stage as well as throw you into a wall. He uses 360 motions for his grabs but the grabs themselves have a very short range. Donvalve also has some pretty solid pokes, so you can fight off those pesky jumpers
Coyori
Coyori is the agile waitress who loves a good battle. With her unique move set, she can dish out the damage. She has a rather simple move set, but she has great footsies. She can use her speed to get around opponents and use her juggle potential to do 2 supers in a single combo. She's one of the few characters who has a target combo but because of that, she can create high damage opportunities off of the easy hit confirm.
Face
If you've been around in the guilty gear series, your immediate thought is, omg it's faust with guns. Lol! Face uses his guns to attack his opponents at a distance. While his normal shots have short range, his special shots have pretty high range. Combine that with heat mode and you're good to go. His heat mode makes all of his bullet shots unblockable, so you better have your parry skills ready!
Odile & Dokurod
Dhalsim, Dhalsim, Dhalsim! Odile plays almost like Dhalsim from the street fighter series. She has long ranged attacks and she has the infamous spinning divekick. She is surprisingly a combo heavy character. She's often confused as Olivia because they look exactly the same. So much so, that the writers of the game made her a twist in the plot of the story of the game. She's a bit faster than dhalsim, but she lacks his teleport.
Deathbringer
The final boss of the game. Deathbringer well, brings death! Lol. He's a very strong damage output character but lacks mobility. Very predictable, but if he manages to land a hit, can be very devastating. Has combo options but the chances of getting this combos are very slim because it requires blue parrying.
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Outside of the characters and their movesets lies the story of the game. Aksys really did a good job in supplying the stories to their games. The game has a pretty rich story, and has a story mode for each of their characters. If you complete their stories, you unlock extra content such as alternate costumes for the characters. Freed turns into sol bad guy basically!
With all this said and done, and after all the time I put into playing this game and writing the review, I give Battle Fantasia a
8/10
I think it's a really good game and it deserves some love. Finding copies of this game will be rather difficult in a retail store, but you can find it online for about 10 bucks. 15 bucks if you include shipping. Get it while there are still copies available! That's it for the spotlight this week! Check out my blog next week where we'll talk about another one of my all time favorite games, Sonic Adventure 2 Battle! See you guys next time :P
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